110
Boy, 15, given official warning after saluting as neo-Nazis marched through Ballarat
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2023
110 points (94.4% liked)
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If we dont let our enemies have freedom of expression why should we have it. If he was explicitly calling for violence arrest him but an offensive hand guesture is just hurt feelings.
Oh woe is me, society is ruined when racists can’t freely spread hate.
Fuck off wanker.
First they came for the xyz, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a xyz.
And yes i get the historical context behind that funny how u can apply it to everyone.
A tolerant society cannot tolerate intolerance.
"I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise." - Karl Popper
Banning certain kinds of speech doesn't prevent the thought behind it. The speech will continue, it just won't be where you can police it.
And those things are very much not happening. Neo Nazis incidents are increasing in this country, so they’re not being kept in check and rational argument is irrelevant when racism is irrational.
Also let’s add the rest of your quote in
Which is nolonger words and as im sure u would agree with that.
That doesnt sound like use it to me that sounds like well let em have their speach but retain the right to supress them via bigger stick deplomacy. What does he mean by supress them? supress the ideology? people are gonna go speach regardless of if the speach is illegal. Or does he mean arrest anyone explicitly calling for violence (thats where i draw the line)? Or does he mean put em all in a train to poland?
Countering fascism by rational argument and keeping it in check by public opinion has been tried. It hasn't worked.
Wait a minute, do you mean to tell me that the guy everyone is always smugly quoting in support of broad censorship might have had more nuanced views? Thanks a lot, you just made the world more complicated and pretty much ruined my entire week.
But you obviously don't get the historical context - because most of the people the Nazis came for never came back alive.
They weren't handing out slaps on the wrists. When they knocked, they were there to take lives.
Why on earth you think that we ought to give such people a voice in society is bewildering.
I beleive very strongly in equality, even for evil fuckers. I also believe its our juty to ignore them and encorage others to do the same.
The problem with engaging Nazis and other hate groups like this is that they never plan on stopping at merely voicing their opinion. Violence against someone else, their target demographic, is their endgame.
They aren't like you and me, who want what's best for society but are guided by different philosophies. If they want power, it is only to abuse against their target group. Otherwise they are far more interested in recruiting people willing to do violence against their target groups.
We can encourage people to move on all we like, but hate groups are actually quite devious in how they operate. They actually pull a page or two from the cult playbook. One of the first things they train/manipulate their recruits to do is ignore external opinions. That makes pulling them out of the hate group BS almost impossible with words alone.
Hate groups aren't honest actors, and shouldn't be engaged with as though they are.
Imo nobody wants whats best for society people only want whats best for themselves thats just natural selection, cooperation comes about as a product of mutual benefit hence we live in a reletivly safe and reasonable society. The more society aligns with interests of the individual the heigher the incentive for the individual to want the beat for society. Thats why democracy is such a good system.
I know they don't plan to stop at voicing opinions but the second they step over the line and enact violence ship em off to prison or ideally rehabilitation.
The problem there is that by the time violence started actually happening in Nazi Germany, there was no one willing or able to do anything about it.
If you let a hate movement get big, they're going to have thousands of people willing to commit these crimes, and they'll happen every other day.
Even if you take the extremes of Naziism out of the equation, that's a family home firebombed, a school shot up or a church massacred before you do anything about one individual.
If you're only taking direct action against individuals who directly cause violence after the fact, you put the targeted group in a very desperate position. You're letting the people who are recruiting often people with mental health issues or challenges to do their violence go scott free to continue recruiting more people to do violence.
That's going to add up to a lot of firebombed homes and massacred churches, and a targeted group that frankly does not feel safe in that community. Infact they may turn desperate and in turn towards violence. That's how, taking an extreme example, groups like Hamas come to be.
We live in a democracy do u have so little faith in the people of society that u think a majority will support such violence? A government is defined as the power holding a monoply on violence within a region. Either the government will stop the violence since they hold the monoply. Or the government is committing the violence in which case it would be a democratic decision and we fall back to the do u have such little faith in ur fellow human that such a government would be ellected.
How does banning speach and symbols prevent houses being firebombes schools being shot up churches masacred its not like the people who do such things respect the law about not saying shit, they gonna say it anyways even if it is illegal.
The USA has plenty of fucked people who go around saying that sort of shit proudly. They dont have the sort of violence u speak of. They got a gun problem not a nazi problem us aussies pretty much solved the gun problem years ago.
Yes. Have you not paid attention to the last few years? How easily swayed people were by lies? To the point of committing violence and treason?
We as a populace are not immune to the tactics of the likes of Hitler. It is complacency to think otherwise. Especially when recent years have overwhelmingly demonstrated similar tactics to work incredibly effectively on the American people
What happens when they are the government? The government is made of people, either hired by, or voted for by, other people. People who are every bit as susceptible to misinformation and other tricks as other people.
It allows police to go up the chain, deal with not only the pawns, but the ones getting people to commit these acts. The recruiters being dealt with would absolutely prevent violence.
Oh no?
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65540412
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unite_the_Right_rally
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charleston_church_shooting
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/deadly-jacksonville-shooting-is-latest-racist-attack-amid-rise-in-hate-crimes
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Buffalo_shooting
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_synagogue_shooting
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Atlanta_spa_shootings
Just add a link to the Capitol invasion while you're at it.
The second that happens, it's too late.
How do I know? Because that second has already passed.
Ask Europe how well ignoring the Nazis in 1939 worked out for them. If we just leave them alone I'm sure it'll all work out.
?????????
Jesus fucking Christ, this is like the joke about the people voting for the Lepoards eating People's Faces party, except they're actually lining up to have their faces eaten.
These are the motherfuckers who want to take X/Y/Z away and we are speaking out against them. Jesus, man.
The Third Reich started with exactly that 'offensive hand gesture'.
It culminated in war and mass murder. Learn your fucking history.
So i draw the line before war, mass murder, and violance u obviously draw it before free expression.
By the time things get to "war, mass murder, and violance", it is far too late to draw lines. Nobody is in a position to stop them at that point.
"war, mass murder, and violance" is the end goal of the Nazis and other hate groups. They are not content with merely voicing their opinion. They are not up for debating societal ideals. The only reason they might be handing out flyers on a street corner is so they can recruit people willing to Molotov synagogues or other gathering places of their targets.
They are not honest participants in political debate or have any real interest in politics besides gaining and retaining power they can abuse for their own ends.
They are not just voicing an opinion. They are always gearing up for violence.
Since you're so eager to grant free expression to fascists, you probably don't realise that if they get into power, the first thing they will take a way from you is free expression. And they won't stop there.
Go figure.
The ideology of neo-liberalism is so fucking cursed. You don’t even understand how your own ideology functions and how you shut down leftists and allow fascism to grow.
Because there are limits to freedom of expression when it infringes on other people's rights.
For example, if I walk up to someone and tell them I'll kill them if they don't give me all their money, that's outside the limits of free expression - it's a threat of violence, and hence that makes it a robbery. That is a reasonable limit of freedom of expression in a democratic society.
The same applies if, given mutually shared background and context, the threat is only implied. For example, if I walked into a bank and gave the teller a bag and a note saying "You'd better put all the money into the bag right now!", that is still robbery even though the there is no explicitly written threat, because it is implied from the context. The message sender (me in that example) and receiver (the teller) know how it will be interpreted even though the threat is left unsaid. Even if that particular bank robber has never hurt anyone, they rely on actual force used by past bank robbers to reinforce their message. Criminalising such robberies that rely on implicit threats is still a reasonable limit of freedom of expression in a democratic society.
Sometimes, no words are required at all; there are situations where a combination of clothing and actions / gestures also send a threatening message that both the message sender and the message receiver know are threatening. Dressing up in neo-nazi garb and throwing Nazi salutes is equivalent to shouting "If you aren't white, this place is not safe for you now". The people sending that message know that is the message - that is, in fact, why they choose to do it. The people receiving the message also know that. And the message is reinforced by occasional actual violence by neo-Nazis (even if not everyone sending the message actually has been violent). The only real difference from the bank robber making the implicit threat is that the threat is implied by actions instead of words. Criminalising symbols and gestures that send an implicit threat to people is a reasonable limit of freedom of expression in a democratic society (less so if the gesture is only used ironically to call someone a Nazi, but given the rise of actual neo-Nazis I think the law is reasonable, and there are plenty of other ways to criticise authoritarian politicians that should not be illegalised).
Did u read my second sentence?
I'm not deffending explicit threats in any way.
A threat is only as strong as u are to back it up. Hence ur bank example is either irrellevent i.e. no credibble backing or if they have a weapon (credible enforcement) then thats the crime not not the speach.
The issue of implicit threats is its completely subjective hence literature is classifed as an art not a science. Whos the judge of how words and context get interpreted sounds very authoritarian to me.
If u think of it in a more abstract way whats the difference between the government restricting how im physicly allowed to move my own limbs and the government telling somone they can't get an abortion? How can u possibly justify restricting my fucking body?
Heres the hot take u can get mad at: What sort of a weak motherfucker do u have to be to feel threatened by a hand gesture? Go live on the ukrainian russian border or try being a muslim in china. There are fatter far eviler fish to fry than some insecure neo nazi ahirbag making a hand geature. Lets stop the current genocides before we start arresting people for thought crime cos they might potentialy one day start a genicide of their own.