Obvious as it may sound, people with authoritarian beliefs hiding behind free speech actually consider it as a weakness akin empathy. It allows losers like them to amplify their reach despite not being in power. They abandon their “free speech absolutist” postures the moment they think they are in power.
Jewish attorneys actually advocated for Nazis to be able to have marches. The phone you use has technology aided by Nazis… Anyone hear of Operation Paperclip? Wernher von Braun?
People dressed in Swastikas, speaking or marching are not violent acts themselves, those people may never become violent & may have no intention of being violent.
Most of them don’t even believe Hitler murdered a bunch of Jews and that history was written by powerful Jews. It doesn’t exactly help when Republicans & Democrats are loyal to Israel over America.
All & all, free speech laws in America are not rights to commit crime. Threats & violence are still criminal, and that goes both ways. Don’t punch someone just cause they are wearing a Nazi outfit and think it is legal to do so… You may end up paying their medical bills & restitution.
America has litigated this multiple times & you had strong arguments from both sides, but in the end free speech won & I believe it was the right choice. I’d suggest you actually study history & those trials a bit more.
If you don’t like it then file a lawsuit to change the law & make your case like normal productive people do instead of whining on the Internet about how you don’t like things. If you don’t like it then share the docket number of the lawsuit you’ve already filed to show you’ve done the work like countless people before you did to get the free speech we have today.
I see posts like this all the time, especially now that Trump & Republicans are trying to claim protesting Israel or their actions is antisemitic & should result in deportation. Nazism has went from being about being against Jews to being a Republican who loves Israel. Weird the people making a big deal about Nazis don’t realize the irony.
You are assuming ignorance from others while projecting ideas from other discussions you’ve had in the past onto my original post. I purposely avoided making any statements on how to approach or resolve the tolerance paradox because it’s complicated. Nazis lying about their affinity for free speech isn’t.
What else I find weird is that almost the comments like yours appear to be a script where the first thing you do is mention paradox of tolerance. I really find it statistically baffling how many times that is the first response. I guess wrapping counterarguments up into sophisticated sounding titles works for you until you actually have to explain things.
The point of my post is that some of the loudest proponents of free speech have ulterior motives. No more, but definitely no less. I’m not here to relitigate the limits of free speech no matter how hard you want to steer the discussion in that direction.
On the other hand, if you come to discussions with this many preconceived notions and generalizations wrapped in a metric ton of condescension, then perhaps you might be the driver of your own “statistical bafflement”.
You’ve provided no supporting evidence of this. The loudest, or most successful supporters, appear to have been Jewish attorneys that advocated & won cases on free speech allowing even Nazis to gather, march, speak, etc. Are you suggesting these Jews were actually crypto-Nazis in disguise? Your title indicates you’re referring to Nazis in particular.
I know reading comprehension is harder when you’ve already made up your mind about what I think, but you’re better than this. I hope.:)
It sounds ironic, but that’s only if you adhere to an almost caricature-like (or surface-level) view of what a Nazi is.
Of course, it’s better to refer to them as Fascists – that’s the more accurate term that fully refers to both of those groups. It’s just that “Nazi” is the more recognizable term to the layperson.
Yes, you’re right, although on the other hand Nazism and classical fascism are also pretty different despite some surface level similarities. Even the fascist movements at the time struggled to figure out a unified position on racism/anti-semitism, corporatism and state structure.
If you want a few kicks, read what ᴉuᴉʅossnW thought of Hitler before he was pressured into saying nice things closer to WWII. My favorites are “silly little monkey” and “A mad little clown”. He was surely regretting their alliance long before he was hanged.
Fascism is slightly more diverse and thus adds more opportunities for apologists to relativize. Hence the specific choice.
It’s not legal, and I don’t know which judges are more lenient about this kind of thing. But if one can do it without being caught or attacked, like the two people who punched Richard Spenser, then it is an effective way to counter the rise of Nazism. Legality only matters if it’s enforceable.
All this does is bolster fascism. Punching people for being non-violent fuels their world views, not help them trust yours. Maybe engage in some peaceful discourse. You’re actually the one instigating violence here. You have the same attitude of cops shooting unarmed people.