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Checked what else she has written, the next article along was seriously "How far should we be willing to go to silence Nazis?"
She's worried that if Nazi's can't have their free speech then they'll come for the white supremacists who don't identify as Nazis next...and that apparently sets a very dangerous precedent!!
First they came for the Nazis, and I didn't speak up, for I wasn't a Nazi.
Then they came for the white nationalists, and I didn't speak up for I wasn't a white nationalist.
Then they came for the fascist insurrectionists, and I didn't speak up for I wasn't a fascist insurrectionist.
Then noone came for me because I wasn't a fucking monster, and by that time, there was no monsters left to whine about culture war bullshit.
Then the country was pretty damn great, actually, and we enjoyed our new found freedom and age of equality and prosperity.
When we start rounding up nazi's and white supremacists, I will absolutely speak up! I will be waving flags and walking the street. I will be shouting and going to gatherings where people will be shouting. And the shouting will sound something like "woohoo!"
The "slippery slope" logical fallacy. A classic tool in the braindead conservative debate kit.
I kinda of get where the concern comes from and I am very much not a conservative.
My concern with censorship is that if we instrument a legal way for the government to force media (social or otherwise) to suppress a point of view, that it will be later used against us.
It's great if we want to silence Nazis, but I feel that the US is dangerously close to being taken over by Nazis! I think Trump has a legit chance of winning (hopefully he is not allowed to run based on the insurrection clause) and I can definitely see GOP getting legislative majority too. I don't like to think about a MAGA controlled government having the ability to control the discourse of the people..
But obviously, things would be better without all the hate and disinformation being spread like it currently is. MAGA and qanon and all that authoritarian bullshit really is like a mind virus....
I dont have a solution, but I don't think censorship is worth the risk. I guess all we can do is continue to socially stigmatize hateful speech and disinformation.
My concern with censorship is that if we instrument a legal way for the government to force media (social or otherwise) to suppress a point of view, that it will be later used against us.
It absolutely will. Any mechanism of authority will be abused later for things unrelated to its original purpose. We need to undo authoritarian control and spend all that money on education then stand back let society decide on its own without coercion. Think of this.
At one time the government felt the need to do something about actual snake oil salesmen. And conservatives at the time were like “It’s crazy to let the government tell you what to eat drink.” But progressives were like “No we gotta put people in jail.” Fast forward less than 100 years and large segments of the population become disenfranchised for smoking a dry plant in private on their own land.
Everything the FDA does should be about providing information, education, recommendation, grading purity and so on. “This soda contains 5 mg of cocaine as certified by the FDA inspection.” And starting in fifth grade every kid gets fact-based info on what drugs do.
The solution to absolute free speech is mandatory and repeated education on critical thinking, logical fallacies, propaganda techniques and cognitive biases. I recall propaganda techniques being discussed in fifth grade in the mid 70s.
No, it's not inherently a fallacy. Case in point, the Patriot Act and everything that followed.
Yes, it can be used to support idiotic arguments like that legalizing gay marriage will lead to beastiality, or anything that Megan McArdle will use it to support, but it shouldn't be automatically dismissed as an invalid concern.
This is a weird topic, because on the one hand, they have every right to speak and assemble, no matter how much we like it. Even the ACLU took on a case defending the American Nazi Party and their right to assemble and march. It truly is a right which the government cannot have any say in who it applies to. I won't go into any bullshit argument that they'll go after other people next, but it's a right that needs to apply to everyone.
However, that only applies to the government. Everyone else can and should tell them to go fuck themselves and corporations can ban their asses from every service online. They don't have any right to having their voices amplified online or any other service.
If you support rights you end up spending your entire life defending the worse example of those rights put to use.
Has anyone stopped to consider that maybe she's just a ragebait shill? and everyone angry about her and talking about her are doing exactly as she intended. Occupying your brain space and wasting your time, distracting you from a million more important things you could be doing.
Even if that's true, she should be posting on 4chan not Washington Post.
Exactly. That's why I say she's a shill. Shills earn good money from some invisible upper authority to write this shit. For example David Icke is another shill of a different flavor.
You know, if AT&T starts shutting off phone service to people who repeatedly talk about how Hitler made good points, I won't lose any sleep over it. If I know better than to talk about how burning down billboards is based via SMS, then nazis should know better than to talk about how cool Hitler was.
I also love how she says that "conservative Christians" are being targeted too, and the two links she provides are about a church that "offers help to people who want to move away from same-sex attraction or behaviours," aka conversion therapy, aka a practice that's been proven ineffective and harmful, and a story about Vanco dropping the Ruth Institute for "promoting hate." But they don't promote hate! All they do (literally all they do) is try to destroy the rights of LGBT folks! You name something the LGBT community likes, the Ruth Institute has probably spent time and energy fighting against it.
If conservative Christians are all like the Ruth Institute and Core Issues Trust, then I say cancel em all.
Well they sound like a fun group.
"you are bad and should not exist and should not love who you want or have a family" ... "It just so happens we are able to cure you by changing you into something else, thus redeeming you in our eyes!"
I know this is basically religion 101, but screw them just the same.