YSK: That nazis Don't Actually Believe in Free Speech
Obvious as it may sound, people with authoritarian beliefs hiding behind free speech actually consider it as a weakness akin empathy. It allows losers like them to amplify their reach despite not being in power. They abandon their "free speech absolutist" postures the moment they think they are in power.
It's not just nazis but fascists more generally.
Just look at what the zios are doing to anti-genocide resisters.
"First they fascinate the fools, then they muzzle the intelligent" Bertrand Russell.
Anyone who thinks that Nazis believe in free speech is an idiot.
Right, like, when have they ever believed that?
Well, only their free speech.
Your blasphemous thoughts should be banned, obviously.
Barely anyone truly believes in it. They only care when they need it.
I've been a free speech advocate and activist for years and I helped people that literally wanted me banned 2 months prior for the most nonsense reasons. They didnt care sbout free speech until they stepped over a line - then, free speech was the most important thing in the world.
That's universal for all political alignments btw. It's both fascist clowns or wannabe antifa super soldiers. Both only care about it when it's needed.
It’s both fascist clowns or wannabe antifa super soldiers.
Only one of these actually exists tho.
Yes.
Fascist ideologies, like Nazism, are explicitly anti-liberalist. They don't believe in the very concept of liberties. They explicitly write down on paper why they believe democracy and freedom is a failure. So, when you see one pulling the free speech card, they're simply trying to appeal to your beliefs, or society's beliefs, to give themselves a platform. It's inherently insincere, they're mocking you.
Nazis have to act like this. History has shown us, without doubt, how repulsive their plans are both in theory and in practice, so until they have power, they cannot show their true colors. They can't just be honest and play "might is right" yet because communities would just do the right thing and violently extinguish their movement (including, but not limited to, punching them on sight). So they must hide behind society's privileges, the rights and freedoms of liberalism. They can enjoy police protection at protests to save them from the people they work to have killed, they can sue people for collecting intelligence on them and getting them fired, they can just point out liberalist hypocracy if their freedoms are violated, but listen to leaks and how they organize behind closed doors to know that's simply opportunistic cowardice.
They believe in ¨I speak¨
First thing Free Speech Absolutionist Elon did when taking over Twitter was making it so that cisgender is a slur, but the n-word is not
I am a free speech absolutist. Evil people should say what they want to do...so that I can tell them what will happen if they try to ICE my neighbors. 🔫 🩸
The thing about modern discourse on social media platforms like Reddit, is that bigots get to threaten people all they like. If a good person mentions Luigi or what should happen to Musk, they get banned. THIS is the real threat to democracy.
It is best if the bad guys don't work in secret. They should expose themselves to be monsters early and often, with decent folk making it clear that evil positions deserve equally merciless responses. I think part of why the Republicans have been so successful, is because they feel like "winners" to people who value assertiveness. Democrats almost always holds true to decorum and norms - which gives them the impression of being "weak" losers.
Some people vote for the strong, because by extension, it makes themselves feel strong. I think this explains why some people simply never listen to any amount of reason or evidence - they perceive the world through feelings, not thought. This is why "rough" speaking democrats might hold value in our society, because they can speak the same language, while still holding the values of goodness close to their heart.
To put it simply, a lot of Republicans might cease supporting Trump, if the following entered their mind: "They are stronger than me. I don't want to get punched! Let's stay home."
...it isn't terrific, but I think some people are simply biased towards authority. Be it good or evil.
I agree with your point in general but free speech is a right that is only a protection from consequences from the government and does not include private coorporations or citizens. If someone start spewing racist remarks in my house, i'll ask them to leave. The same applies for reddit and other platforms. We can freely move to a place where our speech is allowed. We can't just force every single platform or every gathering allowing all speech at all times.
I disagree about private corporations. Money is no different from that of religion, violence, or any other form of power. So long as you have a large monopoly on these things, you can greatly influence people to speak...or silence them. Reddit traditionally served as a public square, but now we see selective speech being forced upon everybody: Musk good, Luigi bad.
It is one thing to control speech within your personal dwelling, but it is quite another when you are in charge of a service. Should you be allowed to ban gay folk from buying cake? Or prevent a black man dating a white girl from dining at a classy restaurant?
Violence has many permutations, and forcing everyday norms is by far the most corrosive to personal identity and the social fabric.
Their version of free speech is to prevent you from contradicting the lies they continuously spew and then paint your rebuttal as an attack on their rights to spew them. They’re the victim of leftist propaganda.
Here is what free speech is:
Fuck the USA, Fuck Russia, Fuck China, Fuck France, Fuck the UK.
Here is what free speech is NOT: [Racial Slurs]
Honestly, the latter is absolutely free speech. They are 100% free to say that shit if they want. They are not free however from consequences, i.e. getting hit in the mouth, fired from their job, etc.
It depends on the source of the consequences.
Social consequences? Completely fine, even desirable.
Legal consequences? This is where trouble starts and freedom of speech is no longer given.
They are not free however from consequences, i.e. getting hit in the mouth,
I would say that this is wrong. If you get hit in the mouth for something you say, than it's not freedom of speech. It's the law of the strongest.
Example: You wouldn't hit a UFC fighter for something he said to you on a 1 to 1, however you would beat him if you are 10 against him. This is the law of the strongest.
I don't believe in absolut free speech. I think that it needs to have limits in it (very well defined limits), and there should be consequences for certain things. And the consequences need to be enforced in a way to counter them, like for example if you say hate crap then you should be forced to contribute to anti-hate orgs.
100% this. The freedom to say anything also does not entail the right to be listened to. Nobody is required to platform "undesirable" speech. Getting banned from a platform is a perfectly acceptable consequence.
It's insane to me that somehow free speech has been successfully twisted into a dog whistle to basically just spread disinformation, actively call for extermination of minority groups and openly attack and threaten other people. That shit is not free speech those are malicious actions - and they should absolutely not be tolerated under some vague guise of free speech.
Precisely. That's why the most important mantra we can recite is "this is not normal". No matter how normalized it gets, fascism is not normal.
the conflation of 'normal' with 'okay' is sickening to me. unfortunately, this is normal now.
and that should set off fucking air raid sirens in every single person's head.
If you pay attention to the reactionaries, they always steal ideas from the left. Fake news, media bias? That's Noam Chomsky. Incels stole the idea of critical examination of gender from feminists. Racists are banning books on the theory that they target people based on their race.
That's why they're called reactionaries. They cannot organize and ideology or a movement except as an opposition to the left dragging society forward. And like anyone motivated by spite and envy, they study us closely.
It is always a little sad and funny to me when they essentially put on a suit made of the hollowed-out skin of a leftist concept. They heard people say "we want to see more women in electoral politics" and so they started running the Sarah Palins and Marjorie Taylor Greenes of the world. The point of the ask isn't just to have women - it's to have people who will use their experiences of marginalization to empathize with voters and with other marginalized people, to build coalitions. Not because we wanna see tits on CSPAN.
Which is intensely frustrating for people who actually care about free speech. Can't talk about it without setting off everyone's "that guy is probably a nazi" alarms.
It's absolutely an intentional trap to attempt to get people to support moves against free speech by tainting the concept through negative association.
We shouldn't tolerate hate speech. But I'm concerned about where we end up in a few decades if the concept of free speech keeps the current connotations.
And people might consider even this comment as sealioning or something.
Meanwhile we have people unironically using phrases like unalive and censoring swear words in screenshots so they don't trip the automated content filters on mainstream social media. That should be more concerning than people seem to take it. People joke about "literally 1984", but unalive is blatant newspeak.
This is what the fascists do: hijacking legitimate terms of discourse and abusing them so they become meaningless. It's a deliberate strategy to subvert their opponents' ability to talk about the issue by poisoning the terminology. See also what they've done with "fake news", "critical race theory" and "DEI".
yeah, I can't say 'libertarian communist' or people will be like 'do you mean ephebophile communist? how does that even work?'.
they have to steal our names for shit, because they always do horrible shit under their own.
When our opponents say: "Yes, we used to grant you freedom of opinion", yes. You did, that is no reason why we should do the same to you! Your stupidity need not be contagious to us! [Laughter.] That you have given this to us - that is proof of how stupid you are! [Laughter.]
Remember that smile gave Moscow Mitch gave when they confirmed Trump’s lame duck Supreme Court nominee, despite rejecting Obama’s?
Fascism is incompatible with any kind of freedom. Free speech is co-opted by conservatives and fascists so that they can promote bigotry without consequence. There is no reason that members of the KKK should be legally allowed to recruit people. That should be against the law. It should be against the law to promote xenophobia, racism, misogyny, and queerphobia. The only people who benefit from a system where you can espouse those beliefs without legal consequence are bigots and fascists.
laws will never protect the people who need it. every community should be on the lookout for this shit. everything should turn against you when you do a fascism. if you want to spread fear of everything as an excuse to murder the weak to make you feel good, there should be no inch of the world where you are safe.
like, a lot of the nazi shit here in the united states WAS against the law. that didn't help. just a bunch of wrist slaps.
Communal action > government "protections"
Every time.
The only free speech they like is their own -- unopposed and the only thing heard.
They abandon their “free speech absolutist” postures the moment
they think they are in power.you ask them why they support malicious advertising, impersonation and pedophilia
Fix'd. Because those things would be protected under "absolute" freeze peach.
The far right are well-practiced at co-opting and twisting concepts. It's classic doublespeak.
It's why you have "Christians" who are staunchly opposed to feeding the hungry, or treating the sick. (See: school lunches.)
It's why "capitalism" now represents the complete lack of meaningful competition, when that competition is the only thing that ever made capitalism worthwhile in the first place. (See: Microsoft getting away scot-free after being found guilty of illegal, anticompetitive business practices all throughout the 90s.)
It's why "free speech" proponents are laser-focused on creating new and terrifying mechanisms for censorship. (See: gestures widely)
I could go on.
It's sad how little resistance has been made against this corruption. How easily our natural allies have been turned into our greatest enemies.
christianity, since the roman empire adopted it at the very least, has been mostly a tool of appropriating warm fuzzy feelings and directing them towards a king.
capitalism was always been into lack of competition. it's not about markets, that's a more modern bullshit invention. it's about valuing ownership over labor. caring about the nobility rather than the peasants' labor, but with more contrivance.
mood on the free speech.
Does anyone?
The closest I can think of to “real free speech absolutists” is the old-school doctrinal libertarians. Even they have limits on what they believe should be allowed and specifically state that contracts should be legally enforceable.
There are no absolutists, my friend. Everyone has limits.
You don't need to be an "absolutist" to believe in free speech. Open exchange of ideas is valuable. Not needing to be suspicious of everyone hiding what they really think out of fear is valuable. Censorship powers are very tempting to abuse and the consequences of their abuse are terrible, therefore they should be strictly limited. Believing in free speech can just be understanding this stuff and having a bias against shutting people up as a go-to solution.
Does anyone?
Yes, old-school liberals, the ACLU, etc.
It's bizarre & disappointing that newer generations seem to associate freedom of speech with right-wing authoritarians when freedom of speech has been a firmly liberal value advanced through the enlightenment & civil rights movement. Everyone ought to defend it.
yeah it's a philosophical question the answer to which changes with the times (like, does free speech/expression even mean the same thing in the 1700s as in the present era where "speech" is delivered and amplified by machines without even the necessity of direct human involvement).
They only like free speech because it lets them claim to be censored.
Jean Paul Sarte articulates my feelings on this better than I ever could.
Interesting read.
They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The antisemites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert.
This is what we see these days. Trump and his followers lying is normalized, i.e., they are not "obliged to use words responsibly", whereas anybody argues against trumpists is.
They fear only to appear ridiculous or to prejudice by their embarrassment their hope of winning over some third person to their side.
This is what changed since then. They no longer fear being seen as ridiculous or stupid. They embrace it.
I was looking to jot down that quote. It perfectly encapsulates the shitbags who denies vaccinations or the damage that DOGE is doing to humanity.
The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.
They like free speech that doesn't get them immediately banned, not free speech for everyone else's ideas
Free speech for me, but not for thee!
Which is why liberalism in a not so democratic country can do little to stop this type of decline. Too non violent, too careful, too scared
Ideally one would vote out authoritarian candidates, but what to do when it’s a taboo to criticize electronic vote counting? Vote counting on electronic platforms run by the very people the liberals oppose? Vote counting supported by a steadfast belief of state governments not being corrupted, and not being in cahoots with the wealthy families running said platforms?
“There are safeguards”, ”I trust in the process”
Then when voting fails what to do but use free speech to oppose what is happening?
“Surely they will allow my voice to rise and be heard and I can use reason”
Yes people will hear you but it won’t do much.
Is this a "we need to censor them because they don't believe in free speech" kind of a thing?
no. it's a "don't believe them because they are lying" thing.
I see, so we need to stop them from imposing censorship. How are they going to do it though?
Jewish attorneys actually advocated for Nazis to be able to have marches. The phone you use has technology aided by Nazis... Anyone hear of Operation Paperclip? Wernher von Braun?
People dressed in Swastikas, speaking or marching are not violent acts themselves, those people may never become violent & may have no intention of being violent.
Most of them don't even believe Hitler murdered a bunch of Jews and that history was written by powerful Jews. It doesn't exactly help when Republicans & Democrats are loyal to Israel over America.
All & all, free speech laws in America are not rights to commit crime. Threats & violence are still criminal, and that goes both ways. Don't punch someone just cause they are wearing a Nazi outfit and think it is legal to do so... You may end up paying their medical bills & restitution.
America has litigated this multiple times & you had strong arguments from both sides, but in the end free speech won & I believe it was the right choice. I'd suggest you actually study history & those trials a bit more.
If you don't like it then file a lawsuit to change the law & make your case like normal productive people do instead of whining on the Internet about how you don't like things. If you don't like it then share the docket number of the lawsuit you've already filed to show you've done the work like countless people before you did to get the free speech we have today.
I see posts like this all the time, especially now that Trump & Republicans are trying to claim protesting Israel or their actions is antisemitic & should result in deportation. Nazism has went from being about being against Jews to being a Republican who loves Israel. Weird the people making a big deal about Nazis don't realize the irony.
Don’t punch someone just cause they are wearing a Nazi outfit and think it is legal to do so… You may end up paying their medical bills & restitution.
It's not legal, and I don't know which judges are more lenient about this kind of thing. But if one can do it without being caught or attacked, like the two people who punched Richard Spenser, then it is an effective way to counter the rise of Nazism. Legality only matters if it's enforceable.
But if one can do it without being caught or attacked, like the two people who punched Richard Spenser, then it is an effective way to counter the rise of Nazism.
All this does is bolster fascism. Punching people for being non-violent fuels their world views, not help them trust yours. Maybe engage in some peaceful discourse. You're actually the one instigating violence here. You have the same attitude of cops shooting unarmed people.
America has litigated this multiple times & you had strong arguments from both sides, but in the end free speech won & I believe it was the right choice. I’d suggest you actually study history & those trials a bit more.
You are assuming ignorance from others while projecting ideas from other discussions you've had in the past onto my original post. I purposely avoided making any statements on how to approach or resolve the tolerance paradox because it's complicated. Nazis lying about their affinity for free speech isn't.
What else I find weird is that almost the comments like yours appear to be a script where the first thing you do is mention paradox of tolerance. I really find it statistically baffling how many times that is the first response. I guess wrapping counterarguments up into sophisticated sounding titles works for you until you actually have to explain things.
Nazism has went from being about being against Jews to being a Republican who loves Israel.
It sounds ironic, but that's only if you adhere to an almost caricature-like (or surface-level) view of what a Nazi is.
Of course, it's better to refer to them as Fascists -- that's the more accurate term that fully refers to both of those groups. It's just that "Nazi" is the more recognizable term to the layperson.
Of course, it’s better to refer to them as Fascists – that’s the more accurate term that fully refers to both of those groups
Yes, you're right, although on the other hand Nazism and classical fascism are also pretty different despite some surface level similarities. Even the fascist movements at the time struggled to figure out a unified position on racism/anti-semitism, corporatism and state structure.
If you want a few kicks, read what ᴉuᴉʅossnW thought of Hitler before he was pressured into saying nice things closer to WWII. My favorites are "silly little monkey" and "A mad little clown". He was surely regretting their alliance long before he was hanged.
Fascism is slightly more diverse and thus adds more opportunities for apologists to relativize. Hence the specific choice.