[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Itse

Personally I believe that each situation is unique and so such "lines" are not something I even try to have. Rules of thumb at best.

But yes, I think if someone is clearly advocating violence against you, it's okay to punch them in the face. Not necessarily the most recommended option, but as a rule of thumb I'm okay with that.

Okay. So you've just advocated violence against, using one example, a Marxist advocating for armed rebellion. So they're allowed to punch you, too, right? See where I'm going with this?

I am completely at loss as to what you're trying to say here. Are you seriously trying to argue that ethnic cleansing and massacres of socialists (which for those who don't know is what happened in Indonesia in the 60's) is fine if the state doesn't collapse afterwards?

No, of course not. You seemed to be suggesting that Marxism produced viable states that functioned in and of themselves whereas Nazism hasn't, which for you was an important distinction as to whether we can silence people for advocating Nazism but not for Marxism. My point was that if the problem with Nazism isn't so much the socialism aspect but the genocide, well, it's not the case that genocide can't produce a viable functioning state. So I didn't think that was a good reason for distinguishing between Marxism and Nazism and saying you can shut down one political viewpoint, but not the other.

Nazism is essentially defined by three things
1) Fascism (or in other words radical authoritarian nationalism)
2) "scientific" racism
3) anti-semitism

To argue that there could be some form of Nazism without fascism and racism is simply absurd, not just historically but also if you look at the current Nazi movement.

That's fair enough, I agree, those things are incompatible with what we consider to be a free democratic society.

Whether or not a particular anarchist is fundamentally opposed to democracy really depends on what kinds of anarchist you are talking about. Anarchism by it's nature is a lot of things, and simply saying "anarchists" doesn't really mean much.

Okay, fair enough. But you'd surely concede that there are plenty of anarchists out there whose political viewpoints are opposed to functioning democracy? Hell, we don't even need anarchists. Can we beat the crap out of freemen on the land? Those guys reject the very concept of government and social organization on the basis of the rule of law.

The point is that there are plenty of other ideologies that, if they took hold, would be completely contrary to what we call a free, democratic society. I was really just asking if you're also saying we can feel justified in shutting those people up, too.

White supremacy / fascism on the other hand is a huge movement right now, with supporters in many governments.

This doesn't get anywhere with me. This was literally the basis for arguing that HUAC and McCarthyism, as just discussed above, were necessary. Soviet-style communism was gaining steam, we all agreed that it would be bad if communism became the norm, and so we needed to take extreme, illiberal measures to root communists out from our society. If you don't believe in principles rooted in a free exchange of ideas for those ideas you truly despise, if you don't support it when it's difficult, you don't support it at all.

That's not what a Hot War and a Cold War mean. A Cold War is a non-violent clash of ideologies. A hot war is when people literally start to die.

I was analogizing to simply say that the struggle between ideologies should be held in the open with everyone's cards on the table. What do you believe and why? Let the best argument prevail.

There's also the problem that as we have seen many times, the far right is in no way interested in debate. What you're suggesting is the ultimate liberal fantasy of how things should be done. If you listen to the current reactionary conservative movement, this is exactly the kind of "nonsense" they hate. As a rule of thumb, if you look at debates organized between liberals and conservatives, it's almost always the liberals who ask the conservatives to come around and be heard, and very rarely the other way around.

I agree, that's definitely been the case in my lifetime - not so much "conservatives", because I think you're continuing to mis-apply that term, but the political right wing has long been resistant to reasoned argument and evidence, and has been the political "side" best associated with anti-intellectualism. Partly that's because of its traditional and obnoxious marriage with Christian fundamentalism. I'm obviously opposed to any such incurious tendencies.

What I'm equally opposed to is the notion that because so many right-wingers are intractably irrational, that the left should cede the field of argument to them and start behaving likewise, which has been more and more the case in the past half-decade or so.

People like Milo Yannopoulos especially are not interested in debate. They are only interested in free speech to the extent that they get a platform to rant from. They are in no way interested in providing the other side a chance to respond.

Can you support this? Because I have no idea whether or not it's actually true. Has the guy said that everyone who disagrees with him should shut up, or something? I have heard him twice - once on the Rubin Report, and once on a radio call in, and both times he gave the opposite impression - basically "everyone who disagrees with me is wrong and stupid, but they're entitled to be wrong and stupid".

I think if you look at Putins Russia, you see a pretty clear blueprint of what is the conservative side. Strongly authoritarian central government, reactionary gender roles, oppression of minorities, white supremacy, militarism etc. In short, it's essentially fascism.

Right, so let's just call it what it is. Conservatism and facism are distinct things.

The liberal side IS very much hodgepodge of different ideas that are mostly connected by a common enemy (conservatives) and the fact that they generally kind of support each other. So on that side you have everything from environmentalists to ACLU to black rights to trans rights and what have you.

Which have nothing really to do with liberalism, per se. This all worked more or less fine when the people who were advancing these policy positions were doing so for liberal reasons; when all our arguments were founded on liberal principles. As that's ceased to be the case, the label no longer applies.

However, I see authoritarianism as more a symptom than a cause. I don't think the people who support Trumps authoritarian style do so because they like authoritarianism, but because they want Trump to protect their precious conservative ideals from liberals.

Oh, I agree completely. I don't think anyone embraces authoritarianism with their eyes wide open. It's always going to be out of anger, fear, or for some similar ulterior reason that in the instant moment seems so important that it's okay to compromise on some of your principles.

But it's the same for a large and growing contingent on the left, who want to protect people from having to hear views that they find odious or offensive or hurtful, and who want to suppress ideas that they see as counter-productive to the ultimately Marxist goal of equal outcomes for all identifiable subgroups or minorities. For those goals, they too are perfectly happy to compromise basic principles like freedom of speech or the open pursuit of scientific discovery.

I also support the monopoly of violence, and I don't think punching a nazi threatens our democracy or legal system. If I felt like punching a Nazi I would personally rather stand trial to make it clear that I accept the punishment, in the tradition of civil disobedience.

I get where you're coming from but I just have to draw the line at hurting people for your beliefs. That's essentially terrorism. If assault is justifiable as civil disobedience, there's nowhere really to stand to criticize, say, protestors who want to attack Kinder Morgan execs, as those protesters may honestly and fully believe that fossil fuel production represents the greatest threat to human existence, far in excess of Nazism.

There is just so much wrong in this that there's really no point in even responding to this. Let's just say that I consider this "third group" to be mostly intellectually too lazy to understand the issues, and are mostly people who are not threatened by things like poverty, imprisonment, violence or removal of civil rights.

Well, now you've followed up a request to not call people who disagree "children" with a post wherein you call people you disagree with "intellectually lazy". If you cant concede that someone can in fact acknowledge the problems of "poverty, imprisonment, violence or removal of civil rights" while failing to adopt your solutions to them, you're just end up... well, apparently, in a fistfight with your interlocutors.