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Tolerance is a social contract.
Those who dont abide by it, try to use it as a weapon against those who do, to enable their intolerance to grow and spread.
Those who don't abide by the social contract are a threat to society as a whole, and should not receive its protection.
Because you end up empowering them, and weakening society against them.
Intolerance must be put down, with force. It is not hypocritical. It is not paradoxical. For the garden of tolerance to thrive, the intolerant weeds must be ripped out of the soil and disposed of in such a way that they can not spread their seeds further, because if you don't.. nothing will thrive but the weeds.
That's a very heavy responsibility though. And the abuse of it is the exact reason our founders gave us such an extreme right. Alas we were also supposed to maintain a healthy public dialogue and rewrite the Constitution every 20 years. Doing half the job doesn't end well.
For the garden of tolerance to thrive, the intolerant weeds must be ripped out of the soil and disposed of in such a way that they can not spread their seeds further,
What does this look like?
That's kinda the reason why I believe the solution to defeat intolerance is by talking directly to the intolerant and showing how they are wrong otherwise you're just showing them you are the intolerant fascist. By attacking their freedom of speech your proving that you attack free speech. In history it seems that fascism arizes when there is injustice like how when the Germans were oppressed after WW1 it was the fascists that had a solution to the injustice. Mind you a not very good solution but when you are dirt poor humiliated forced to live in a land desimated by war the Nazi party was a pretty effective way to get back at the world that destroyed your home. Had we caught onto the injustice the Germans were facing we could have prevented the rise of Nazi Germany. Granted at the time the Germans would have told anyone who listened that it was the Jews that made everything bad happen but if your smart enough one could see past the hate and see exactly why these people are hurt to the point of blaming a religion and feeling the need to puff themselves as superior any nation could have caught onto that and become the hero the Germans made the Nazis out to be. Just look at any other regime like Soviet Russia or North Korea they rose because they had a issue and only evil people were around to wear the cape of a hero.
In an ideal world this would be enough, but you can't logic someone out of a position they didn't logic themselves into. For your strategy to work, the intolerant have to be acting in good faith and listening to reason. And often, that's the antithesis of bigotry.
Yes, the left has to counter hateful rhetoric with their own rhetoric and propose viable alternatives. Making the issue about freedom of speech, like this comic does, plays right into the hands of the right wing. They know they can win that battle, because most people are in favor of free speech.
That's the part that made me uncomfortable as well. Sounds like a planty euphemism for violence. The rest I find agreeable.
I guess I should have made it more explicit then, since you think its merely a colorful euphemism and not a direct statement.
Words and feelings don't defeat authoritarians/nazis/fascism/tyrants.
Violence does.
You'd be sitting there with a swastika on your arm in a world without jews, roma, and gays, trans people, and far more.. if good men and women didnt take up violence against the ideology of hate that these people push.
They don't care about yours words. Your tolerance. They use them as toys for amusement, laughing as you exhaust yourself trying to argue against their ever increasingly absurd statements, and as tools to spread their intolerance and hatred.
You cant debate or compromise with them, because debating gives them false legitimacy and compromise does nothing but sacrifice society to advance their position and gains.
You should be uncomfortable that these people are emboldened to come out and make their speeches. to fly their flags. to hang their banners and to assault government buildings at the direct command of their masters.
They have no problem using violence to eradicate you and everything you hold dear.
and you being uncomfortable about it will do nothing but make them laugh. Because its not a matter of if they come for you, its when.
And if you insist on inaction and being the last one standing because you did not fight.. well, you'll be the final verse of a poem and no one will be left to speak for you.
Trying to paint this as hypocritical, as paradoxical, as cognitive dissonance, or anything else, is nothing but tools of soft handed approach for the intellectuals of the ideology of hate to try and carve a space of false legitimacy for themselves via compromise and exploitation of societies tolerance.
These people are a direct threat to everything we hold dear as a people, as a society, and as a species, and need to be treated as such.
Thanks for taking the time to almost radicalize me.
You do realize that these "authoritarians/nazis/fascism/tyrants" use the exact same language when talking about you, right?
Thought is not a crime; ideas are not crimes; political leanings are not a crime; being a racist, nazi, facist, communist, socialist, bigot, homophobe, transphobe or whatever else is not a crime. The moment it becomes one, we start punishing people for what they believe which is IMO and the opinions of many others objectively wrong. You don't do that. Even if you lose, you don't become a barbarian. You fight the ones that act. You fight the ones that actually hurt people. Actions, not thoughts, are what is punishable in a civilized society, so take it easy, Big Brother.
You use "these people" and "they" a lot. You do know that the people you are talking about are individuals, right? Human beings like you? Hurt in maybe a thousand more ways than you. Embracing some terrible hatred to cover whatever brokenness they have. If someone is actually convinced that fascism is the way forward, you're actually ok with enacting violence on them? If you really would be ok with hurting them for their beliefs, then you, my friend, are the one who will bring tyranny; just a tyranny of a different sort. A tyranny of your ideas, your definitions, and your "tolerance." No better than "them."
Oh look.
A tired attempt to frame nazi's as poor persecuted victims by the liberals who are the REAL fascists.. BOY THATS SURE ORIGINAL. /S
Did I mention liberals? I don't recall mentioning liberals.
I make no attempts to justify their actions. People who do hurt others deserve to be punished, no matter their beliefs or motivations. However, you were extremely dehumanizing in your comment. Don't do that. They are still humans. They are still worthy of sympathy, as all humans are.
Go be lovey dovy with your nazi beloveds in the afterlife.
You do realize that these “authoritarians/nazis/fascism/tyrants” use the exact same language when talking about you, right?
Sure, because they are not acting in good faith and have absolutely no scruple to twist words and meanings.
To quote Jean-Paul Sartre:
“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”
Or to quote Göbbels himself (from his speech on December 4th 1935):
Wenn unsere Gegner sagen: Ja, wir haben Euch doch früher die […] Freiheit der Meinung zugebilligt – –, ja, Ihr uns, das ist doch kein Beweis, daß wir das Euch auch tuen sollen! […] Daß Ihr das uns gegeben habt, – das ist ja ein Beweis dafür, wie dumm Ihr seid!
Translated by DeepL:
If our opponents say: Yes, we have granted you the [...] freedom of opinion before - -, yes, you [granted it to] us, that is no proof that we should do the same to you! [...] That you have given it to us, - that is proof of how stupid you are!
Well said
Intolerance must be put down, with force. It is not hypocritical. It is not paradoxical.
The human capacity for cognitive dissonance will never cease to amaze me.