5 ms·

I am not a liberal. Many people are not. The paradox of tolerance is the easy counterarguement to this. If you choose to never do anything in response to the t

I am not a liberal. Many people are not. The paradox of tolerance is the easy counterarguement to this. If you choose to never do anything in response to the things people say that's your perogative, I on the other hand can listen just fine to other people and my response to the things they say might be to tell them to stop saying it. "I don't believe you should be allowed to say this without consequence" is also a thing one can say.

kneebonian 4y ago
Ah yes the paradox of tolerance. The "our enemies will stop us so we must stop them first" argument. Never found it convincing for some reason.
- Swenrekcah 4y ago
  Well it actually is something that people have to be aware of. There’s a reason for the “ah you see, the cops have to follow the rules taps forehead” trope. It’s genuinely hard to maintain a truly tolerant liberal democracy in the face of determined adversaries that can skillfully use the system against itself. Now, that is no reason to take sloppy shortcuts like saying this or that opinion should be banned, but it is absolutely worth keeping in mind.
- flangola7 4y ago
  When you see someone walking towards you with a knife and he says "I am going to stab you", you don't wait for him for to make physical contact before you decide to draw your gun. The Nazi party was in power for over a decade before the first gas chamber was built. If they had been stopped at the broadcasting hate propaganda stage millions of lives would have been saved, and a war requiring the collective military capacity of the rest of the hemisphere wouldn't have been necessary. Perhaps the most important lesson of the 20th century is that the broadcasting of the right words for long enough and to enough people can cause destruction and death orders of magnitude greater than any single weapon of war.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

kneebonian 4y ago

Ah yes the paradox of tolerance. The "our enemies will stop us so we must stop them first" argument. Never found it convincing for some reason.

Swenrekcah 4y ago
Well it actually is something that people have to be aware of. There’s a reason for the “ah you see, the cops have to follow the rules taps forehead” trope. It’s genuinely hard to maintain a truly tolerant liberal democracy in the face of determined adversaries that can skillfully use the system against itself. Now, that is no reason to take sloppy shortcuts like saying this or that opinion should be banned, but it is absolutely worth keeping in mind.
flangola7 4y ago
When you see someone walking towards you with a knife and he says "I am going to stab you", you don't wait for him for to make physical contact before you decide to draw your gun. The Nazi party was in power for over a decade before the first gas chamber was built. If they had been stopped at the broadcasting hate propaganda stage millions of lives would have been saved, and a war requiring the collective military capacity of the rest of the hemisphere wouldn't have been necessary. Perhaps the most important lesson of the 20th century is that the broadcasting of the right words for long enough and to enough people can cause destruction and death orders of magnitude greater than any single weapon of war.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]