Why should anyone remain politically neutral no matter what? What if the Nazi party came into power?
Impartiality can impart political bias if the facts happen to lean one way or the other, as they will from time to time.
Impartiality can impart political bias if the facts happen to lean one way or the other, as they will from time to time.
What people tend to forget is that all totalitarian systems that came to power, have their origins form reactive movements acting to ineffectiveness or oppressiveness of existing systems. NSDAP was formed in response to worsening national situation. Reds and Whites were formed in response to worsening national situation. Italian fascism was response to political turmoil in post-war Italy. Quite a few European countries romanced with authoritarian rule (or went borderline fascist) in inter-war period.
Let me turn this question around: what if anti-nazi party came into power, and then to assure that no nazi party would ever come into power, it would implement its own authoritarian system? After all a lot of those governments enjoyed popular support during their rise to power, with people willing to give up their freedoms for sake of perceived security.
Back in McCarthyism it was better "dead than red". What if "its good to throw the nazi off the copter" is just a sign of our societies marching to new era of scare?
I would hope that describes virtually every post war western government.
And many of them have implemented various levels of 'authoritarian' systems to prevent the (re)rise of Nazis. Ranging from the banning of books in Germany to more mundane things like the British police spending a lot of time and money infiltrating neo-nazi groups and banning them. In the latter case exactly the kind of thing you are worried about happened - the powers granted to the police were also used to target other non-nazi groups like environmental protestors. Despite being very critical of police tactics in the latter cases, I still have no problem with the police targeting Nazis.
Anyway, western governments don't need to raise the spectre of Nazis to gain support for increased police and surveillance powers. They have plenty of more recent things to talk about (from Irish terrorists to ETA to Islamic terrorists). This comment thread is evidence enough for that - there wouldn't have been nearly the same emotional reaction to somebody talking about bombing ISIS.
So what you are saying is, that all the police have to do is label someone a Nazi, and you'll give them a free pass for whatever it is that they do?
It is dangerous to believe "oh, I don't care what an oppressive government does in order to stop Nazis" because a whole lot of people are being called Nazis these days.
The same exact thing happened during the red scare. It was not JUST the revolutionary communists who were literally trying to overthrow the government that got oppressed. A whole lot of other people who definitely didn't deserve it, got oppressed to.
Human rights exist for everyone for a reason.
I do think the police should act to try and prevent violent groups from committing violence. Your position seems to be that the state should accept violence as long as the people committing it claim to be political? If anything organised political violence is the type of violence that it's the most important to prevent because it has by far the largest potential for harm.
I can talk about specific things the UK police have done when targeting 'extremist' groups and how I disprove of them if you want (undercover police assuming fake identities to the extent of having children with women in the targeted groups being one). But disapproving of specific things isn't the same as saying the police shouldn't be investigating and infiltrating organisations advocating violent ideologies.
Example:
A lot of folks are flabbergasted at /r/The_Donald, but I've always contended that that subreddit exists and developed into its current culture precisely because right-leaning opinions are treated so harshly on most of the rest of reddit. In other words, there was a feeling of suppression and censorship, which leads to the sort of high-energy, irreverent "shit-posting" that is the mainstay of /r/The_Donald.
I think the biggest problem is that it only works when the other side is willing to play by the rules of the game. If the opposition is willing to blatantly lie even in the face of direct evidence then the normal rules of debate just break down. (I know all politicians lie, but Trump's disregard for political norms is completely different from what you got from candidates like McCain, Obama, Romney or Bush).
Similarly from a UK perspective giving disproportionate coverage to UKIP and Farage just increased their popularity.
Isn't this just an example of the same phenomenon I was describing? Sure, they gave him airtime, but it was virtually never positive. There was a tremendous lack of impartiality in the media's coverage of the two candidates. This led to the idea of "fake news" and ended up boosting his supporters even more, giving them reason to band together.
I dare say the outcome of the election could have been different if the media had spent less time trying to demonize Trump and simply reported equally on the two candidates with minimal editorializing.
What's so hard about trusting viewers and readers to come to their own conclusions based on honest, simple, accurate, and exhaustive reporting of events and facts?
It's not. They're reporting on what Trump did. If that's mostly negative, then the coverage is, by necessity, going to be mostly negative. You wouldn't be upset that most of the coverage now of Harvey Weinstein or Louis C.K. is negative, would you?
"If Trump did many negative things and few positive things, then all news publications need to do is simply report on what he's doing and leave it at that."
That's what they did.
"There shouldn't be a need for major news organizations to officially endorse this or that candidate."
That's been a tradition for editorial boards for a long time. Note: That's the editorial, or opinion board. Not the newsroom.
"What's so hard about trusting viewers and readers to come to their own conclusions based on honest, simple, accurate, and exhaustive reporting of events and facts?"
Well, for one, everyone knew the same things about Trump, and yet he was elected. But you're really going to have to prove that what you're asking for didn't happen.
Open platforms for discussion are actually one of the
best ways to prevent something like the Nazi party from
coming into power.
I agree that public discussion is a powerful tool for changing people's political opinions - but if I think I'm reading a discussion between your peers when I'm actually reading a discussion between two Kremlin trolls, it puts the powerful tool in the hands of people who don't have my best interests in mind.
It's a tough problem to solve - most of the 'obvious' solutions like real name policies I think come with a lot of downsides.
[1] https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/3kvvz3/russian-fa...
Most of the atrocities around the world are justified because of a feeling of victimization.
I think both sides of the political spectrum feel victimized by each other, and that scares me.
When GP asks for impartiality, think GP would settle for reasonableness, which i think both sides have lost track of years ago.
All i say, is think inwardly, question your beliefs, and most importantly don't question other peoples motives.