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> Either a country accepts this within its legal framework and has e.g hate speech laws (e.g Germany) or it doesn't (e.g US), but in the latter case as being "outside" the law - and it must be met with force outside the law.

Or it could, you know, not be met with force outside the law, because we live in a civil society where people are free to think independently and express themselves, and we have laws against assaulting people.

Call me crazy.

I don't know when in my lifetime liberals pulled this 180 on freedom of speech, but seriously, it's causing me to do the hardest 180 of MY life right the fuck into being a conservative after spending the first 30 years of my life as a liberal.

What you just wrote is one of the craziest things I've ever read. You're directly calling for and praising violence against people based on their ideas and beliefs and how they choose to non-violently express them. Just 10 years ago you'd be booed by every liberal in the nation and rightfully regarded as an anti-intellectual, a book burner, or a fascist.

My whole life, liberals were so proud to declare that they defend their opposition's right to speech even though they don't agree with it. When did this change?

"When did this change?"

When we grew up and realized that no, people really shouldn't be marching the street calling for genocide or calling for other groups to be treated as animals. When we realized it is bad to harass others, by surrounding them with torches and yelling racist slurs or by burning freaking crosses in someone else's yard.

When we realized that we don't actually want to spread hate and convince others to think the same.

This won't stop folks from thinking this or spreading it to some extent, but there isn't a reason we have to give them space in the public sphere, with marches on public roads obviously meant for everybody, regardless of background. Nor does an employer have any need to respect the right of their employee to spread hate, a web hosting service to host the websites, and other such things.

Another thing we've realized as we've grown up is that one cannot both protect freedom of speech like this and have any true means of actually overcoming it. This puts actual goals like equality and a more fair society at risk.

And above all, it changed when folks re-thought "Fuck Nazis and Fight them".

Of course, this is all just speaking from the top of my head and nothing in here is known fact without someone factchecking it, as I have not.

You fight bad ideas with reason and persuasion. Period. If someone does something illegal, you get the authorities involved. Speech is protected, even "offensive" speech. Civics 101.

How far has that gotten? Seriously.

Trying to compromise with a nazi is like agreeing to putting a kitten in the blender at half speed instead of full speed. These aren't folks that reason and persuasion is working for, as they think they are reasonable.

Have you considered the fact that most of our great-grandparents who defeated the nazis also hold positions on foreign policy and social issues that would likely cause them to fall under your definition of "nazi"?

The "Nazis" in the Charlotteville incident were literally waving Nazi flags, throwing Hitler salutes, and shouting "Heil Trump". I don't think your definition needs to be overbroad to include that.

So? You do realize that WWII was quite some time ago and society has changed since then. We also had African-Americans fighting, who went back to a segregated society. Women weren't their own person - heck, in the 70's women generally couldn't get a credit card without male approval. Oddly enough, the US also turned away Jewish refugees before we got involved in the war. I think these things were as wrong then as they are now, we've just updated the laws and society to show this. So yes, of course some of the views from the 40's are going to be evil, crass views today. And yes, if someone hasn't updated their social views from the 40's or 50's, I'm gonna keep my distance. It isn't like we'd ever get along anyway - I'm a boyish bisexual woman, an immigrant (In norway, from the US), someone that dates outside of her "race" and can easily be called a "sand nigger" if I have too much of a tan.

But overall, they were fighting a greater evil compared to the times. It doesn't matter if their views are now considered outdated, they were doing the right thing for the time.

How far do you need to go? Mind control until everyone thinks exactly as you do?

You can't change peoples minds by restricting their speech. Those people will always exist, some will change over time. In the mean time let them out themselves.

Their speech is protected as legal (in the US, might vary elsewhere).

What I was getting at is that their platform is not guaranteed. They must be shut down, their speech drowned. Non-violent protest as long as possible, violent only as a last resort. But you don't let nazis speak and shrug and say "it's their right, let's hear them, try to convince them they are wrong".

We live in a country where people will label you a nazi for thinking voters should have to provide ID, or that we should enforce border laws or have a border at all, or that capitalism is preferable to socialism.

This is precisely WHY we have freedom of speech as an absolute in this country. Because once you empower people to attack hate speech, the definition of "hate speech" will invariably be expanded and abused in ways that are totalitarian and fascistic, which is EXACTLY what we're seeing from the left today.

It's why every time I respond to people like you, they post openly and I'm forced to use a throwaway. It's reverse McCarthyism. You probably think that's progress too, but you didn't convert me or anybody else, you just made us go into hiding. But we can still vote while we're hiding.

I didn't vote for Trump, but I will vote for a thousand Trumps before I give up freedom of speech in America. If we don't have that in America then it's all for nothing. As long I keep reading this garbage from people on the left, I'll happily be a single-issue voter.

Unless they are literally calling for imminent violence against other human beings, it is their right to protest. It's your right to counter-protest all the same. But it's not your right to get violent. Ever. Only in self-defense. What the hell happened to "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me"?

I never said it was counterprotester's "right" to intervene physically. I do argue it's in rare cases the right "right" to do.

My point is that if left unrestricted, free speech kills itself. Those who speak against it can end it without ever doing anything violent.

You can't wait for something illegal to intervene.

I'm not saying it's somehow "wrong" to have a 1st amendment style law as in the US - I'm saying it doesn't matter. When people speak against the open society and people's equal value, society will try to stop them. If it's in the law as in Germany then those that intervene have police uniform. When it's not law, those who intervene don't have police uniforms, and do formal "right" to do it.

Third option where nazis speak freely and people listen and then meet their opinions with their own? Not happening, anywhere.

> Or it could, you know, not be met with force outside the law, because we live in a civil society where people are free to think independently and express themselves, and we have laws against assaulting people.

This is of course the ideal, and works in most situations. That doesn't work though. You can't reason with intolerance.

This is the age old paradox of tolerance: how can you be tolerant and not tolerate intolerance?

The answer is you cannot and must not. You must resist intolerance and those that seek to end the open society

Violence must as always be a last resort of course.

Violence is never a resort in a discussion.

Discussion is rarely an alternative against intolerance either. That's the paradox of intolerance.

(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance)

The notion that all speech is protected and all opinions can be listened to and met with other opinions is cute but unfortunately naive. I prefer non violent protest of course, but these are often violent people and if you deny them their platform there will undoubtedly be violence. It's an acceptable side effect, not a goal in itself.

As noted in the link you posted, the "paradox of tolerance" is controversial and not a fact. intolerance of intolerance is unjust.

Of course it's not a fact, it's a philosophical idea (originally by Popper?). And of course it's controversial, especially in the US where 100% freedom of speech is protected by the constitution. But it's not that far fetched to think that the options are nearly free speech forever, versus completely free speech for a while.

It does hinge on the premise that speech is such a powerful tool that it can be used to remove fundamental freedoms. That's also just a hypothesis.

>My whole life, liberals were so proud to declare that they defend their opposition's right to speech even though they don't agree with it. When did this change?

Most likely at some point the perception went from the danger being 'offense' or maybe delays in bettering society ("if we keep explaining how gay marriage hurts nobody and helps parts of society, people will eventually come around, just gotta keep arguing!") to the danger being literally people dying ("They killed 1 counter protester, injured 19 and marched past a synagogue, hurling anti-semitic slurs... What are they going to do next?")

I disagree, there are some huge practical differences actually. When government gets to decide what political views are not acceptable it results in:

* Potential abuse of this power by (elements of) the government to silence the opposition or hides mistakes;

* Police, army and secret services in time get very close ties with extremists, like it happened in Germany and many other European countries;

* Censorship is done by bureaucracy, and bureaucracy always tends to blindly apply the rules. There are many examples of how this is bad and dysfunctional (e.g. when Uncle Tom's Cabin book was banned for racism);

* These bans are really easy to circumvent, as can be seen all across Europe;

* By forcing extremists to hide their most notorious symbols, you actually make them less horrible and more acceptable to the general public, and it actually helps them to move into a mainstream and spread their ideas. Alt-right is much more dangerous than bat-shit crazy right, because (as we've seen in US recently) it will get traction much easier.

* You can ban nazi symbols, but it will not change a single idea in anyones head, these people will still believe in the same things as they do now.

* equally important: you create a bubble where bad things are boiling in the underground, but general public is not aware of this. Having nazis or KKK freely marching around is a reminder to the rest of people that this threat exists and that things are far from ideal for minorities. If it's the government's job to take care of this then people will leave it to the government, they'll not feel it's up to them to take active part in it.

* and the last, but also important: these people are citizens, with the same rights as anyone else. And with the need to be heard as anyone else. By silencing them you will push some of them into even more crazy extremism and you will give the whole movement the aura of the forbidden fruit, mystery and secrecy and that will make it more attractive to many, especially to teenagers. On the other hand, by letting them march around from time to time you channel that negative energy, they can't complain about being mistreated, and you keep them at bay and their influence marginal.

All very good points, thank you.

The thought that words or ideas should be met with violence concerns me. You're not going to end hate speech by attacking people, however wrong they may be. Google and Apple don't even need to adhere to the first amendment so I'm not sure why you conflated this with "hate speech should be met with violence", which would only cause more fighting and more violence (I doubt a Nazi would take a punch to the face without trying to throw his own punches, resulting in straight out combat between people with very strong notions of 'us' and 'them')

What I meant was that everyone who values tolerance should defend it with the means they have available. A web host should deny hosting, an employer denies employment and a citizen denies use of public space for speaking hate and intolerance. What is necessary to deny this (whether it's enough to bring a vuvuzela) will vary.

Punching nazis won't convert them, so it's probably counter productive - but disturb their rally and there is a risk you'll be attacked. No need to throw the first punch, ever.

Who judges the intolerant?

What intolerance gets you lumped into those you profess to want to starve to death by denying employment or means to a wage?

Easy to put supremacists in, but then if a person makes a comment at Evergreen, they are now in the racist group and can now be destroyed.

> Who judges the intolerant?

You mean who decides what is intolerant enough, and what isn't?

That's a judgment everyone must make. A difficult one. One with lots of room for mistakes and arbitrary decisions. Yet the lesser evil.

I 100% agree with you in principle, but I honestly never thought we'd be having this debate in 2017 about people carrying swastika flags and calling themselves Nazis. Frankly, that changes the entire equation for me.

We cannot, cannot, cannot allow this to take root and grow. Everything thinks "it can't happen here", but it doesn't not-happen on its own. I don't want my grandkids asking "how did you try to stop them?", and having to answer "well, I very adamantly told them they were wrong but they didn't listen."

I am incredibly tolerant of diverse idea. I grew up in the buckle of the Bible Belt, and now I live in the bluest of blue places. I have wonderful lifelong friends in both places (and lots of others) who I love as people but whose opinions infuriate me. That's OK! We talk about stuff and occasionally ruffle each other's feathers, but we get along just fine. I can argue both sides of gun control, abortion, and anarchism with clever friends for the fun of it. But what I can't tolerate is people in my America wearing, carrying, and acting out Nazi symbols in my backyard. That cannot be allowed to find fertile soil.

I've said this before but I want to be perfectly clear: I have an exceedingly tight definition of that term. I have never called someone that word because I disagree with them, no matter how important the matter to me or how ferociously I oppose their opinion. I'm referring specifically to people who show up at white power protests wearing the uniforms, carrying the flags, and throwing the salutes of the group my family fought to stop within my mom's lifetime.

That's not a slippery slope. It's perfectly possible - and reasonable, and good - to say "we'll allow people to speak abhorrent opinions" and still draw the line at literal Nazis.

You don't put out a fire with gasoline. The way to diminish something is not to make it illegal or prohibited -- that didn't work for prohibition and it won't work for nazism in America (which has been around for as long as nazis have existed.)

You're making an ends justify the means argument. While I agree that less Nazism in America is better, using a bad means (intolerance, violence) to get to that end is unjustifiable. Even if it were justifiable, it is ineffective and actually strengthens their cause.

Why do you you think the fascists try to speak at Berkeley and other leftist institutions? To incite "de-platformers" to violence which reafffirms their message of victim hood and "opression," which emboldens their supporters and furthers their cause.

See the stances of ACLU and SPLC for smarter people than I making similar arguments.

A violent reaction to speech you hate is unnecessary and corrupting. Only countering with persuasion based on reason and facts will stop the abyss from staring back into you.

The "paradox of tolerance": solution draw a limit for what is met with reason and what isn't.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

Due in large part to identity politics and multiculturalism, there's no social consensus on what that limit is.