Comment by aaron-lebo
9 years ago
Get out of here with the crying wolf.
Sorry, hate to break it to you, but these illiberal forces are a clear and present danger to this comfortable society you call home.
No, it's the last gasps of a dying breed of racists, empowered by the Internet and that look a lot more popular than they are due to media focus. Nazis are lame, but you leave them alone and there's nothing to fuel the fire. You send out counterprotesters, get in fights with them, act like these people are on the verge of starting a civil war and in their minds you've proved them right (delusional though they may be), and they get energized and then you have a real problem.
Kicking nazis off the Internet is one thing, but yours (and the grandparent) is the language that causes the slippery slope arguments. That people can't even discuss the issue of free speech without being assumed to be nazi sympathizers or "cryptofascists" or whatever we want to label people we don't agree with isn't ok.
Someone having a debate about the right of nazis to use modern services is not by extension a nazi.
"No, it's the last gasps of a dying breed of racists, empowered by the Internet and that look a lot more popular than they are due to media focus."
Really? Because yesterday the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES defended white nationalists and neo-nazis on national TV.
This discussion also shouldn't have much to do with free speech. If private companies do not want to allow pro-nazi websites to use their servers, they should be allowed to refuse them.
The only slippery slope here is the idea that Nazis are dying and there is no need to take them seriously. People in Germany did not take them seriously when Hitler started his rise to power, then the country fell into disarray and Hitler had simple answers to hard questions. After everything that has happened over the past year, it is time to stop thinking that something like Hitler's rise to power could never happen again. We are in uncharted waters.
> Because yesterday the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES defended white nationalists and neo-nazis on national TV
No, he reiterated his condemnation of them multiple times
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s5Mp2Ge3Wg&feature=youtu.be...
It took him a while didn't it.
His first response is the most significant.
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There are more dangerous things in life than nazis, like bad drivers, and well-meaning but ignorant people with power. You are more likely to have been killed by Islamic terrorism than nazism in the US over the last couple decades (going back to OKC at least).
Trump is unscrupulous, he'd defend anyone who would be his friend (and there aren't many of those these days, so he's left with the dregs). He's not a slick political maneuverer who is going to overturn the federal government. He'll be gone in a few years. The displays like this last weekend are hundreds or a couple thousand people. They aren't parades of uniformed militia (like Hitler's rise saw).
These people want attention. They're getting it especially when we exaggerate the threat they pose, which only fuels their grandiosity and recruitment.
From what I understood Trump is rather refusing to pick side, which is a bit different. And less shocking than outright supporting neo-nazis. And I tend to agree personally. If a bunch of far-right thugs gets to fight with a bunch of far-left thugs, why should I have to pick a side? I support neither.
So in the end what you are proposing is some kind of media ban? Some kind of censorship? Not to have someone report on these things?
I try to understand your strategy. Because this does not seem to be a valid workable way imho.