Quote:
Originally Posted by CliffFletcher
Madness.
As time ticks along, we seem to be forgetting the lessons of history. We don't understand why we have the freedoms and laws we have. We fail to see the terrible peril in suppressing speech and and tolerating political violence.
Read about the ACLU defence of the Nazi march through Skokie, a Jewish neighbourhood full of holocaust survivors. This analysis of the court decision that upheld the right to march outlines why it's intolerable in a liberal democracy to prevent marches and meeting of that kind:
Too many people today fail to recognize how tolerating institutional suppression of speech they hate could (and inevitably will) be turned around to suppress their own speech. If it's okay to punch a Nazi, how about punching a Marxist? After all, they're defending an ideology responsible for the deaths of tens of millions. Their aim of mandating an even distribution of property and wealth has only ever been achieved at the end of a gun. So I guess the next time some campus Marxist opens her mouth about equality of outcome, the grandson of a Lithuanian massacred in the bloodlands of Eastern Europe should punch her in the face. That's where we're headed.
Stop being children. Read some history. The struggle of the 20th century that culminated in World War Two wasn't just a struggle between fascists and anti-fascists. It was a struggle for liberal* democracy to survive when under assault from both the far right and the far left. The left's response to fascism was as bad as the disease, and where liberal democracy was weak or failed, the war between the fascism and communism shed rivers of blood and left the victor of each struggle as a totalitarian state ruling with contempt for liberal democratic values.
Part of me wonders if subconsciously a lot of people really do want an open, violent struggle to sort out politics today. Us against Them. Left vs Right. Fight to the finish, with only one group left standing. Because that's where this type of encouragement of political violence leads us. Think polarisation and political hatred are bad today? It can get worse. Much, much worse.
* The etymological root of liberal is "freedom." Liberalism is hard. It means trading away security in exchange for freedom. It means never really getting your way. Never living in a society where everyone shares your values. It means being exposed to people and ideas and speech that you despise. It means overcoming your instincts to silence those people and figuring out a way to share a society with them. It means being strong enough to let your intellect master your emotions.
It's tremendously hard. But the alternatives are worse. We don't have speculate about that - we know what they are. If we can be bothered to remember our history. |
First of all, very well articulated, Cliff. Really well stated. From a theoretical perspective, I don’t disagree with you at all. All ideas and beliefs are free at the table of discourse. In a vacuum, this is wonderful. We should all be able to discuss issues by looking through the lens of each perspective and engage issues of the merit of the ideological position. The problem is there is no purity in ideological positions. All of them have been bastardized in some way, making it difficult to view many issues from that position. It is easy to say, “give the fascist a chance to explain his position,” but when their position is based on the pure subjugation or elimination of others, their perspective is pretty much disqualified from sitting at the big table with the adults.
Pragmatically, I don’t see fascists, especially Nazis, being any different from Islamists who are intent on creating their own Caliphate, and subjugating any other culture that dare stand in their way. If we expect Muslims to eliminate these behaviors from their culture, should we not be doing to the same? If we demand that Muslims eradicate the extremist elements in their culture, should that same expectation not extend to ours?
I don’t buy this line that everyone should have the right to say or do what they want. If that is indeed true, then pedophiles should have the right to molest children. This is the way these people are. This is the way they are wired. This is not some learned behavior, like hatred and racism is. Should we not then be accepting of the way they are and let them be? Not a god damn chance!!! Pedophiles should be removed from society and everything done to prevent them from damaging others. Nazis are the same. We should be going out of our way to eliminate this scourge from our society and never allow it raise its ugly head again. You know, just like we expect brown extremists to be eradicated in similar ways.