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He Infiltrated a Notorious White Nationalist Group. Now, He’s Being Sued for Exposing Them
(www.rollingstone.com)
this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2023
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How's about the right to a fair trial? Food in prison? Right to appeal? Right to protection from cruel and unusual punishment?
Think about what you say and think, lest you wind up being just as much a threat to democracy, freedom, and equality as those you claim to oppose. Don't get me wrong; I get that it's really tempting to treat Neo-Nazis the same way they'd like to treat everyone else, but then you're just like them.
I think there's a big reason why treating them the same way they treat others is fine.
The people that Nazis target are not only usually innocent, but they often don't even have a choice in the reason for their bullying. You don't choose to be non-white, be gay, be trans, etc.
Nazis choose to be pieces of shit that hurt innocent people.
The argument that people bring up for not treating them badly is that we don't want to set a precedent in case the Nazis eventually get in control and decide being on the left is worthy of being deprived your rights.
But I think we all know that they wouldn't need a precedent to deprive you of your rights if they took control and didn't like you. They would simply do it if they had the power.
No, the idea behind human rights is that you get them if you're human, period. If we suddenly decide this particularly horrible group of humans doesn't deserve them, we are literally dehumanizing them and paving the way for someone else to later decide another group of humans doesn't deserve them either.
Your second point is the exact point that I addressed. There is no "paving the way". They will do it if they want to, regardless of what we do now.
As for your first point, that's a fair statement. Human rights are Human rights. However, im talking more about civil rights. Civil rights are taken away all the time. You lose your right in the USA to vote, to own firearms if convicted of a felony.
You lose your right to live in a certain places if convicted of sex crimes.
If you are a Nazi, you definitely still deserve the human rights. But you shouldn't have a say in how anything is decided. You shouldn't have the right to vote, because you will always vote to attack minorities for now reason. You shouldn't have the right to own a gun.
No, that's not what I was saying. The "someone else" I was referring to wasn't the Nazis or any other extremist group; it was some other person, likely later on in history, probably well-meaning and certainly part of the mainstream, using our decision to strip Nazis of their rights as precedent for stripping another group of those same rights. People like, say, rapists. Rapists are bad, right? Why do they deserve rights? Or how about just anyone who expresses a bigoted belief? People who are convicted of crimes? I hope you see the point: it's the slippery slope argument. You open the door just a crack, because you think in this particular instance it's justified, and soon someone else comes along and says, "hey, here's another instance I think is justified;" faster than you'd think, the door is wide open and our government itself has become the fascist terror organization.
Civil rights are different and not what I was objecting to in the original comment.
You're still speaking about opening a door and setting a precedent. I'm saying that if someone really is motivated to strip rights from people, they don't need a precedent. They will do it if they have the power to do it. Whoever they may be, hypothetically. That shouldn't stop us from taking action when we can against groups whose sole ideology is hatred of others.
Anybody in the future can set a new precedent. Why should that limit us from challenging the problems of today?
You don't seem to be getting the point that I'm talking about us, not them. Adhering to principles that guarantee everyone--even our most hated enemies--get basic human rights is what separates us from them. If we abandon those principles, we become no different from them.
This principle is laid out in Marvel movies. It's not hard to grasp. I don't understand why it's giving you so much trouble.
I'm pretty sure the things that separate me from Nazis include "I do not want to kill people based on racial or sexual traits".
"We shouldn't let the guy who wants to vote to kill us vote" !== "We shouldn't let the women vote"
As for the the human rights thing, I already admitted that I jumped the gun with my reply to that. I didn't read your comment closely enough. No need to be patronizing. I don't want to strip people of human rights under any circumstances.
But your idea about separating us from them reminds me of the paradox of tolerance that is often cited around left leaning Fediverse communities. What do you think about this?
Then I'm not sure what we're arguing about anymore. My objection was to denying people their basic human rights, not civil rights.
Karl Popper was simply saying that if you never stand up to intolerant people, they will eventually steamroll the tolerant and dissolve the tolerant society they grew out of. It's like a pacifist who refuses to defend themselves against physical assault. But I've seen plenty of well-meaning people on both Reddit and Lemmy misusing this concept to promote physically assaulting KKK members who are simply protesting, and therein lies the danger of what I'm talking about. Those people have now crossed the line into unjustified intolerance, and by their own logic other people should come kick their asses. And then another group should come and attack them. And so on and so forth.
Generally speaking, tolerance of ideas and speech is a good thing--even reprehensible instances. Likewise, intolerance of violence that isn't done in either self-defense or enforcement of the law is also a good thing (and even those can go too far, obviously). But when we start locking people up for simply expressing intolerant views, we create a chilling effect on the marketplace of ideas that can (and usually does) result in authoritarian ideologues taking over anyway. No one thinks intolerant extremists can come from their corner, because too many people have a poor understanding of human psychology.
There's a certain irony here as one of the early things the Nazis did was make other parties illegal so as to ensure they would remain in power despite a hypothetically democratic process. Depending on how you define "Nazi" (what is the bare minimum position or action one would have to have/take to count as a "Nazi"?), this touches awfully close to that.
Basic human rights must be guaranteed. That's what separates us from them. But beyond that? I completely agree, fuck them. Nazis should not have free speech, because Nazis sure as hell won't give you free speech.
It needs to follow a paradox of tolerance situation -- if someone would use X right to get into power so they can take away X from people on the basis of race, religion, sex, orientation, identity, ethnicity, etc then they relinquish X right.
On the surface this seems hypocritical, but it really isn't. Stripping white supremacists and Nazis of free speech is not taking away a right on the basis of race, religion, sex, orientation, identity, nor ethnicity. It's taking it away on the basis that they think a born trait makes someone inherently inferior to them. Believing in discrimination is not a born trait. Plus, there's also the order. The express purpose of limiting the right is to protect vulnerable groups from losing it.