Believing that black people do not deserve equal protection, freedom, and happiness might be an opinion, but it's a godawful one with horrible ramifications to millions of people. Moderate liberal handwringing over the "right to have an opinion" directly enables white nationalists and other bigots, by encouraging their voices to be broadcast unchallenged.
Ms. Galaxy is correct. It's futile to debate with people who want to oppress, deport, or massacre tens of millions of people for being the wrong race. Defending Richard Spencer against the mean ol' leftist who punched him plays right into the white nationalist victim complex and suggests that literal Nazis should feel free to express their views.
Many civilized countries have allowed and sanctioned neo-nazi groups to host their own rallies, make public radio and allow them to congregate and recruit for decades and decades because it has been a testament to the foundation of democracy; that you can have a free system that is tolerant against intolerance itself. By walking the walk and talking the talk, allowing fascist groups to use their free speech that they themselves would infringe had the roles been reversed, has been an amazing counter to pacifying a belief system that otherwise might have faced more radicalization, extremism and victim complex in the face of martyrdom and oppression.
I disagree that advocating violence is the way forward because the argument "they started it" is a terrible defense against being deplorable yourself. I will never support stooping to the level of your enemies citing their baggage. Be above it and find other solutions instead of going straight for violence and oppression.
Democracy itself is the idea that it can house idiotic terrible opinions. The failsafe traditionally is that a healthy populace will stop the crazies from taking power. Too much common sense will protect the infrastructure from radicals from both the left and the right to take power.
With Trump and Brexit that idea is beginning to crumble.
Democracy is not a all-you-can-eat-buffet where we all share ideas about who should be punched and silenced. Today it's neonazis, tomorrow it will be the next in line of deplorables. There is a long list of names of groups and people across the religious and political divide who sees various other groups as enemies of their creed or groups and as sub human or a threat to their beliefs.
It seems easy to see the exercising of other deplorables. There are millions of religious nut cases whose opinions are that they see another group as sub-human. Surely punching and kicking and ostrizing should be engaged on them. If you support stoning women or bombing people in abortion clinics, surely you'd fit in OPs bill of people who we should engage violence on.
I've lived around anarchists and far-left radical and the dogwhistle in this thread rings many memories resurfacing: violence against our political opponents is okay because they are truly awful and a threat to us. Wrapping it into a little punchy punchy here and a little suppression there. It's a terrible precedent to set. I've been to a couple of anti-nazi rallies- one that ended in violence and brick throwing. Let me tell you; this doesn't solve anything. Being right on the issue doesn't leave you open to to be vengeful arbitor of hurting others even if they are deplorable.
What always happens no matter what situation you are talking is that both sides who end up being physical- regardless of who started it, regardless of who has the morale high ground, both will be ostrizied. there are so many disuptes, civil wars and conflicts where this has played itself out. One side is oppression, and the other side goes down to that level.
What I fear is that the more attention the left gives, the more it feeds the trolls, the more it sticks around reading trumps tweets and follows up on what they do, the more they become slaves and sucked into war, division and polarization. banning and ostracizing like was done with Milo, is the PR they want. thats the victim complex they want. It is what is will give them the ammo to run away with new purpose.
I've never seen or heard of a country achieve high levels of equality and fairness for all its people by going into this extreme political war. The only way I've seen it work in other countries is through pacification of it, and through making them give up from underneath. The problem is not that deplorable have a platform where they can speak freely because they have always had that in a free society. The problem is when the propaganda machine- the media is ruining society. Fox News as the leading media source has clearly made a lot of people completely insane. the last decades the chickens are coming home to roast, and now wealthy business men are able to take advantage of the confusion.
Things are bad- But the root cause of the things being bad is not white supremacy. It's not Donald Trump or Gamergate or Milo or what not. These things are symptoms of a sick society that is being brainwashed by a far-right propaganda based media and a political system that is completely beholden conspicuous and dangerous interests who increasingly own the political process. White supremacy has always been there. The US is a racist nation, laid on a burial ground of a slaughtered people whos it still oppresses today. Donald Trump happens because the rest of society has gotten sicker. More miserable people, more fear, more apathy, more anger, less hope. People who join neo nazi groups, who join skinheads, who become football hooligans- these are misguided fools. Similar to those who join other criminal groups and terrible cults. It is extreme to wish violence on these people.
