5 ms·

This - "Further, we point out the inevitable effect of making martyrs by persecution. Persecute the Nazis, drive them underground, imitate their methods in Ger

This - "Further, we point out the inevitable effect of making martyrs by persecution. Persecute the Nazis, drive them underground, imitate their methods in Germany - and attract to them hundreds of sympathizers with the persecuted who would otherwise be indifferent." Most of the people & corporations screaming for suppression on all kinds of speeches across spectrum of opinions do not get this. The best way increase toxicity of any discourse is to try and suppress it, this is is evident from recent examples of Google, Cloudfare, FB, Charlotesville, University of Berkeley and many more. While I have no hopes from corporations, I hope that people realize that dialogue & free speech are perhaps the most non-violent & non-toxic ways of resolving any issues. Suppressing opinions be of any side just widens the chasm between groups and benefits narrow political agendas.

golemotron 9y ago
It's tragic that, apparently, this observation of history is not taught in schools anymore.
matt4077 9y ago
This mechanism of any form of blowback against extremists only making them stronger keeps being repeated, but there is absolutely no data supporting it. There is, however, plenty of data supporting the opposite: almost all other democracies have strikter limits on hate speech, and none of them have devolved into dictatorships. Indeed, one could argue that the US ran a pretty successful campaign to suppress Nazi hate speech almost immediately after it was invented.
- nocoder 9y ago
  >There is, however, plenty of data supporting the opposite: almost all other democracies have strikter limits on hate speech, and none of them have devolved into dictatorships. does that mean all "hate speech" is eliminated? Please share the data. The other problem is who decides which free speech to suppress? Who has that moral right?
  - matt4077 9y ago
    Of course it's difficult to name the exact test that draws a bright line between legal and illegal speech, because speech exists along a continuous spectrum. But the law has literally hundreds of years of experience with such problems. The line between marketing and fraud, or porn and art is just as hard to define. So, for example, bringing Swastikas to a protest in Germany would get you thrown in jail, and so would guns, or slogans such as "gas the jews". It's been like that for 70 years, and you're still free to say really nasty things about Merkel without any fear of prosecution.
- ckastner 9y ago
  The quote is not about making extremists stronger, but to "attract to them hundreds of sympathizers with the persecuted who would otherwise be indifferent". I do believe that this polarization was a factor in the last US election, for example.
- keyser2038975 9y ago
  How about this: In principle I am quite sympathetic with the goals of the left but do not consider myself part of it. My preference ranking puts sustainability higher than equality of opportunity and far higher than equality of outcome. My observation is that society in practice does not value equality that much anyway see capitalism and IQ. Trying to force the issue might be a misallocation of resources. Plus as a white male living on mostly white neighborhoods struggles with inequality seem distant and abstract to me, far outside my monkeysphere. Other policy issues will have an easier time appealing to me directly. And that brings us to the "expense of other things". Open discourse, rationalism, free speech are also part of humanism, not just treating people as individuals. If "deplatforming", online lynch mobs and other authoritarian instruments become part of the left's arsenal then my sympathy for the left shrinks and my tolerance of the right grows simply on balance. If some well-organized nazi came around and offered me a party program with infrastructure projects that aim for sustainability as long as I turn a blind eye to some stricter immigration policy or undoing protections for certain classes which are a minority of the population anyway then on balance I might be a little more tempted to vote for them than before. Or maybe just not vote against them. Because on balance the left is just declared it is willing to suppress people on the other end of the overton window. So why not? This is not likely to happen in the US anyway, so take it more more of a thought experiment to illustrate my point, but I am trying to show that not everyone has the same value-system. Whenever I vote I have to choose between a set of value-systems where none of them are perfectly aligned with my own. So if progressives make a "small sacrifice" in values to promote a greater goal for themselves then this may have a radically different effect on their position in the energy-potential landscape as computed from my perspective. What to them might be an insignificant alteration to a very steep slope can be a significant flattening of the landscape which makes it a lot easier to just roll rightwards. Or just not roll to the left.
- tomq 9y ago
  There are many good examples in history of oppression making a movement stronger. Think of the Boston massacre, Rosa Parks, or British treatment of Ghandi. That said, the plural of anecdote is not evidence. In the similar domain of terrorism, the following highly cited study finds that military occupation is the leading cause of suicide bombing: http://www.ir.rochelleterman.com/sites/default/files/pape%202003.pdf http://www.ir.rochelleterman.com/sites/default/files/pape%20... So that's good evidence for a blowback effect. That said, the above arguments are against government oppression of a movement. Actions by localities to remove statues or by private companies to not provide a platform for hate speech are a different ballgame. It's not obvious they lead to blowback.
- makomk 9y ago
  As I understand it, Germany in the 1920s and 1930s was one of those democracies with stricter limits on hate speech, including crackdowns on the Nazis. We all know how that turned out.
reader5000 9y ago
I feel that "free speech" isn't a right as much as censoring speech is an active crime; you are forcefully prohibiting the processing of information. It's like forcing lobotomies on people.
colechristensen 9y ago
What do you think about the German suppression of Nazis and it's success then? If your mind is so open to ideas that you think public advocacy of genocide is a freedom that needs defending then your mind is so open that your brains have fallen out. It must be done with great care and restraint, but there should be no doubt that certain speech is basically incompatible with a free society and must be silenced. Your society has a great sickness if you ever must use that power of suppression, but that sickness can, has, and does exist. Ignoring it and letting it happen in the past had tragic results. If the increasingly bold radical right in America isn't controlled quickly, there is going to be widespread civil disorder bordering on war. It will be a great opportunity for a few people in power to abuse the population for their own goals, and it wouldn't be at all surprising if that was the whole idea.
- ryanwaggoner 9y ago
  You're not offering any arguments, just various restatements of your premise: "very bad speech must be silenced, or very bad things happen". Edit: I also think arguments should be viewed with extra skepticism when accompanied by phrases like "your brains have fallen out" or "there should be no doubt that". It's a lazy way to try and add force to your argument without putting in the logical work of doing so.
  - IBM 9y ago
    His argument is in his first sentence. How do you account for Germany suppressing Nazism while being an open democracy? And as far as I know, they've been successful at it. The premise of the OP is that it just creates more support for it, that doesn't seem to be the case in Germany.
    - keyser2038975 9y ago
      And yet poland, which was heavily affected by the nazis and WW2 has a nationalist conservative government and austria almost elected a similar president. I'm not sure if europeans are really that much more successful. The US is simply more polarized due to the two party system and the divide between the coasts and flyover states.
ckastner 9y ago
I feel the sentence following the one you quoted is just as thoughtworthy: > "The best way to combat their propaganda is in the open where it can be fought by counter-propaganda, protest demonstrations, picketing--and all the devices of attack which do not involve denying their rights to meet and speak."
opencl 9y ago
This ACLU document is talking about the government banning Nazi meetings, which is not remotely the same as the current situation. The modern Nazi 'martyrs' are people being banned from Twitter and fired from their jobs. They are definitely all being allowed their first amendment-protected free speech, nobody is trying to throw them in jail. Companies are exercising their free speech rights to refuse to associate with Nazis. The Nazis can feel free to start their own companies and refuse to associate with Communists or whatever other ideological groups they don't like.
- adrianN 9y ago
  "The Jews can just start their own companies" was an argument for firing them. It was wrong then and is still wrong when applied to othes groups.
  - davidcbc 9y ago
    Nazis aren't (and shouldn't be) a protected class in the United States.
    - adrianN 9y ago
      My morals are fairly independent of the laws of the US. I don't think peoples lives should be ruined because of their beliefs, however stupid I find them.
      - richmarr 9y ago
        As a non-American it strikes me as somewhat imbalanced that travellers to the US have to deny any affiliation with Nazi Germany (a conflict that ended nearly 80 years ago) every time we sign a US visa waiver form, and yet these people seem to be allowed to preach what they do without much consequence. In Europe it's far more accepted that Nazism is more dangerous than simple 'beliefs' and that there are boundaries where speech ceases to become acceptable in society. See Karl Popper's Paradox of Tolerance. Try waving a Nazi flag in Germany and your feet won't touch the floor.

golemotron 9y ago

It's tragic that, apparently, this observation of history is not taught in schools anymore.

matt4077 9y ago

This mechanism of any form of blowback against extremists only making them stronger keeps being repeated, but there is absolutely no data supporting it. There is, however, plenty of data supporting the opposite: almost all other democracies have strikter limits on hate speech, and none of them have devolved into dictatorships. Indeed, one could argue that the US ran a pretty successful campaign to suppress Nazi hate speech almost immediately after it was invented.

nocoder 9y ago
>There is, however, plenty of data supporting the opposite: almost all other democracies have strikter limits on hate speech, and none of them have devolved into dictatorships. does that mean all "hate speech" is eliminated? Please share the data. The other problem is who decides which free speech to suppress? Who has that moral right?
- matt4077 9y ago
  Of course it's difficult to name the exact test that draws a bright line between legal and illegal speech, because speech exists along a continuous spectrum. But the law has literally hundreds of years of experience with such problems. The line between marketing and fraud, or porn and art is just as hard to define. So, for example, bringing Swastikas to a protest in Germany would get you thrown in jail, and so would guns, or slogans such as "gas the jews". It's been like that for 70 years, and you're still free to say really nasty things about Merkel without any fear of prosecution.
ckastner 9y ago
The quote is not about making extremists stronger, but to "attract to them hundreds of sympathizers with the persecuted who would otherwise be indifferent". I do believe that this polarization was a factor in the last US election, for example.
keyser2038975 9y ago
How about this: In principle I am quite sympathetic with the goals of the left but do not consider myself part of it. My preference ranking puts sustainability higher than equality of opportunity and far higher than equality of outcome. My observation is that society in practice does not value equality that much anyway see capitalism and IQ. Trying to force the issue might be a misallocation of resources. Plus as a white male living on mostly white neighborhoods struggles with inequality seem distant and abstract to me, far outside my monkeysphere. Other policy issues will have an easier time appealing to me directly. And that brings us to the "expense of other things". Open discourse, rationalism, free speech are also part of humanism, not just treating people as individuals. If "deplatforming", online lynch mobs and other authoritarian instruments become part of the left's arsenal then my sympathy for the left shrinks and my tolerance of the right grows simply on balance. If some well-organized nazi came around and offered me a party program with infrastructure projects that aim for sustainability as long as I turn a blind eye to some stricter immigration policy or undoing protections for certain classes which are a minority of the population anyway then on balance I might be a little more tempted to vote for them than before. Or maybe just not vote against them. Because on balance the left is just declared it is willing to suppress people on the other end of the overton window. So why not? This is not likely to happen in the US anyway, so take it more more of a thought experiment to illustrate my point, but I am trying to show that not everyone has the same value-system. Whenever I vote I have to choose between a set of value-systems where none of them are perfectly aligned with my own. So if progressives make a "small sacrifice" in values to promote a greater goal for themselves then this may have a radically different effect on their position in the energy-potential landscape as computed from my perspective. What to them might be an insignificant alteration to a very steep slope can be a significant flattening of the landscape which makes it a lot easier to just roll rightwards. Or just not roll to the left.
tomq 9y ago
There are many good examples in history of oppression making a movement stronger. Think of the Boston massacre, Rosa Parks, or British treatment of Ghandi. That said, the plural of anecdote is not evidence. In the similar domain of terrorism, the following highly cited study finds that military occupation is the leading cause of suicide bombing: http://www.ir.rochelleterman.com/sites/default/files/pape%202003.pdf http://www.ir.rochelleterman.com/sites/default/files/pape%20... So that's good evidence for a blowback effect. That said, the above arguments are against government oppression of a movement. Actions by localities to remove statues or by private companies to not provide a platform for hate speech are a different ballgame. It's not obvious they lead to blowback.
makomk 9y ago
As I understand it, Germany in the 1920s and 1930s was one of those democracies with stricter limits on hate speech, including crackdowns on the Nazis. We all know how that turned out.

reader5000 9y ago

I feel that "free speech" isn't a right as much as censoring speech is an active crime; you are forcefully prohibiting the processing of information. It's like forcing lobotomies on people.

colechristensen 9y ago

What do you think about the German suppression of Nazis and it's success then? If your mind is so open to ideas that you think public advocacy of genocide is a freedom that needs defending then your mind is so open that your brains have fallen out. It must be done with great care and restraint, but there should be no doubt that certain speech is basically incompatible with a free society and must be silenced. Your society has a great sickness if you ever must use that power of suppression, but that sickness can, has, and does exist. Ignoring it and letting it happen in the past had tragic results. If the increasingly bold radical right in America isn't controlled quickly, there is going to be widespread civil disorder bordering on war. It will be a great opportunity for a few people in power to abuse the population for their own goals, and it wouldn't be at all surprising if that was the whole idea.

ryanwaggoner 9y ago
You're not offering any arguments, just various restatements of your premise: "very bad speech must be silenced, or very bad things happen". Edit: I also think arguments should be viewed with extra skepticism when accompanied by phrases like "your brains have fallen out" or "there should be no doubt that". It's a lazy way to try and add force to your argument without putting in the logical work of doing so.
- IBM 9y ago
  His argument is in his first sentence. How do you account for Germany suppressing Nazism while being an open democracy? And as far as I know, they've been successful at it. The premise of the OP is that it just creates more support for it, that doesn't seem to be the case in Germany.
  - keyser2038975 9y ago
    And yet poland, which was heavily affected by the nazis and WW2 has a nationalist conservative government and austria almost elected a similar president. I'm not sure if europeans are really that much more successful. The US is simply more polarized due to the two party system and the divide between the coasts and flyover states.

ckastner 9y ago

I feel the sentence following the one you quoted is just as thoughtworthy: > "The best way to combat their propaganda is in the open where it can be fought by counter-propaganda, protest demonstrations, picketing--and all the devices of attack which do not involve denying their rights to meet and speak."

opencl 9y ago

This ACLU document is talking about the government banning Nazi meetings, which is not remotely the same as the current situation. The modern Nazi 'martyrs' are people being banned from Twitter and fired from their jobs. They are definitely all being allowed their first amendment-protected free speech, nobody is trying to throw them in jail. Companies are exercising their free speech rights to refuse to associate with Nazis. The Nazis can feel free to start their own companies and refuse to associate with Communists or whatever other ideological groups they don't like.

adrianN 9y ago
"The Jews can just start their own companies" was an argument for firing them. It was wrong then and is still wrong when applied to othes groups.
- davidcbc 9y ago
  Nazis aren't (and shouldn't be) a protected class in the United States.
  - adrianN 9y ago
    My morals are fairly independent of the laws of the US. I don't think peoples lives should be ruined because of their beliefs, however stupid I find them.
    - richmarr 9y ago
      As a non-American it strikes me as somewhat imbalanced that travellers to the US have to deny any affiliation with Nazi Germany (a conflict that ended nearly 80 years ago) every time we sign a US visa waiver form, and yet these people seem to be allowed to preach what they do without much consequence. In Europe it's far more accepted that Nazism is more dangerous than simple 'beliefs' and that there are boundaries where speech ceases to become acceptable in society. See Karl Popper's Paradox of Tolerance. Try waving a Nazi flag in Germany and your feet won't touch the floor.