Time to block my first Lemmy instance, but it won't be the last.
(Stop freaking out, it's some shitty Trump cult thing.)
"But if you silence all the Trumpers, how will we 'engage' with them?"
I dunno, man, maybe go to Twitter? They rule that place.
@oliphant "My question to you would be why are you so eager to engage with Nazis but I need to advise you that having had to ask the question, I don't think there's any way you can try to answer it without me losing respect for you..."
@AnarchoNinaWrites The biggest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing people they need to willingly allow nazis to spread their hate in the name of "free speech."
@oliphant @AnarchoNinaWrites Strongly disagree. They are free to spread their hate amongst themselves just as we are free to mock and ignore and challenge their hateful views. Attempting to stifle that freedom just drives them underground, making them harder to track and refute, and opens the door to them taking power and using those same restrictions against pro-freedom speech, deepening the spiral into fascism.
Free speech protects us from the Nazis far more than it enables them.
@LouisIngenthron @oliphant @AnarchoNinaWrites So you wouldn’t seek to shut down someone shouting racial abuse in the street? Should we all just leave the street or the town or ignore and laugh at them? It’s rhetorical - I don’t need an answer.
@seb321 @oliphant @AnarchoNinaWrites Ignoring them is certainly an option. Millions of people are already used to doing that to the homeless.
But refuting them or shouting over them is also an option since free speech applies to everyone equally. Another option is filming them for public shaming (aka "cancel culture").
Tell me, would you be in favor of government being able to shut down someone shouting in the street about ending racial prejudice in policing? Because it's the very same freedom protecting both parties.
@oliphant @AnarchoNinaWrites @LouisIngenthron That false equivalence is exactly why we are where we are with hatemongers being granted air time for “debate” over issues which common decency tells you should never be debated. Free speech is a fantasy used by the privileged to justify not standing up to fascists and racists and stopping them from peddling their bile which is how they gain power again and again within democracies.
@seb321 @oliphant @AnarchoNinaWrites Nothing about free speech means that anyone must be "granted air time". In fact, denying someone air time is itself an exercise of free speech.
The principles of free speech state only that you cannot force someone into silence, not that they deserve a platform.
Describing free speech as being for the privileged is backwards. It's a tool used by the oppressed to bring light to their suffering. Without it, the content of our speech is subject to the whims of whomever currently has power.
