SamuraiDrifter wrote:Valotonin, I always appreciate your input, but the claim that calling people who espouse racist views “bigots/Nazis” is somehow on par with using a racial slur is an absolutely terrible, WAY far off the mark take. No one chooses to be black, Jewish, whatever they’re being discriminated against for, whereas racists have CHOSEN their despicable views.
I will not back down from calling out racist assholes when I see them. Looking at the terror they’ve wreaked on my friends and family whose skin happens to be a different color leaves me with zero sympathy for them.
Fascism has resulted in the murder of millions and its making a resurgence. It needs to be snuffed our wherever it appears.
That's perfectly okay. I would like to ask a little more detail on what your definition of "snuffed out" is, though.
What I am really talking about here is another and more permanent way of snuffing out the issue. Lowering oneself to the level of hatred/lack of empathy or even violence towards these people only causes them to become more radicalized. They genuinely feel that the more their views are suppressed, the more credence they hold. That the more they are punished for expressing an opinion, the truer it is. When one loses their livelihood etc based on words they have uttered rather than actions, it martyrs them to a certain extent and helps to create more division and radicalization. Unless, and I am guessing not, you are talking about permanent imprisonment or death for anyone that expresses those views, but that in itself would be fascism.
The person who loses their job, their relationships and the life that they have built for themselves for expressing certain potentially hateful opinions, they don't disappear. They tend to become evermore radicalized and dangerous. It could transform someone from a relatively harmless, but obviously offensive, internet racist into a mass shooter who feels they have nothing left to loose.
I heard a lot of the same kind of thing about fundamentalist Muslims in the years following 9/11. That their ideology had caused so much death etc so why should "we" have any empathy for them? Taking advantage of that mindset, the current chapter of wars in the middle east began. They were all "Jihadis just like the ones who blew up the world trade center" - The government could point their fingers and claim that who they were pointing at was loosely associated with Al Qaeda and boom, loss of human rights at the least, but most of the time death. What was the result? More radicalization. It was a hopeless war from the american perspective because with each individual that was slain, a small group of people were radicalized by that death through witnessing the demise of their fellow countryman at the hands of the US.
Each individual should be judged on the merits of their own actions, judging them as a group based on people with potentially similar views always leads to tribalism and extremely negative outcomes. Convert these people into potential allies through empathy rather than solidifying their position as your enemy.