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Comment by ajross | Hacker News Reader

That's the paradox of tolerance in a nutshell, yeah.

As stated, I don't think public conferences are an appropriate forum for this kind of polarized argument, but it's not wrong either. Wearing a MAGA hat is declaring your alignment with a political platform that pervasively equates mexicans with dirty criminals, muslims with terrorists, gay and trans people with the mentally ill, and anyone who isn't a white rural christian with "not a real american".

That's intolerance, straight up. And that's what you're telling me if you wear that thing. And if it's my environment your standing in I don't have to put up with it. Refusing to tolerate intolerance is the paradox, and the solution is to get out of my face with that hat.

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>a political platform that pervasively equates mexicans with dirty criminals, muslims with terrorists, gay and trans people with the mentally ill, and anyone who isn't a white rural christian with "not a real american".

Those are some extraordinary claims, I'd like to see something to back them up with.

These are hardly extraordinary claims. If you survey the daily news from dozens of media outlets for the past 3 years, what was described above is barely scratching the surface of the platform in question. The content itself, on the other hand, is certainly extraordinary in a perverse way. It's why event organizers have to take action against individuals who promote it.

>These are hardly extraordinary claims.

Then they should be easy to substantiate. I've heard about a mexican issue before, which turned out to be a statement directly addressed at the mexican cartel gang MS-13, not mexicans in general.

In a way, I envy you. You have a simple and straightforward explanation for how Trump got elected. At the same time, I pity you. You seem to have lost the ability to see good in people that disagree with you.

There are a lot of loving moms and dads that decided in 2016 that they wanted to live in a country ran by Trump. They wanted to have their kids grow up in a country shaped by him. These are people who would gladly wear a MAGA hat. Can you think they are wrong? Have at it, you might be right! But boiling down all their reasons to intolerance is a simplification I am unwilling to make.

> There are a lot of loving moms and dads that decided in 2016 that they wanted to live in a country ran by Trump. They wanted to have their kids grow up in a country shaped by him.

I don't care of someone is a "loving parent". Whoever voted for Trump despite knowing about the countless accusations of sexual misconduct (the top being the "grab them by the pussy" leak) and listening to his racist speeches is a sexist and a racist, there is no excuse for voting for someone like him.

> ... a sexist and a racist, there is no excuse for voting for someone like him.

I will concede that Trump has sad a did some awful stuff. Even with that, there are people who feel just as strongly about abortion as you do about sexism and racism. For them, the choice to vote for Trump was just as apparent to them as the choice for you to vote against.

Again, you're (deliberately?) conflating "republican voter" with "Trump troll" here. We're not talking about your grandmother, we're talking about the jerk in the hat. We tolerate her, and will even debate with her. It's the jerks that get deplatformed by the SJWs.

I've never once seen anyone in a MAGA hat who wasn't an aggressive jerk, sorry. This is not a simple statement of political opinion, it's the marker for a movement (or gang membership, if you swing that way). You knew who I was talking about, yet you insisted of substituting an image of a soft-spoken Kansan grandmother because it suits your argument. Who's simplifying now?

To wit: if you quietly admit to voting republican I'll quietly agree to disagree, or quietly debate. You get in my face wearing that hat, and I know who you are.

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