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> Whether or not an arrest is warranted is another debate, but the it's important to highlight the context of the group who made the image to understand their m

by aydyn 4y ago

> Whether or not an arrest is warranted is another debate, but the it's important to highlight the context of the group who made the image to understand their motivations behind creating the image, and what it implies about people who share the image. No it's not, it's literally not relevant (or at least shouldn't be). You are saying a person's political beliefs are legally relevant to if they should be arrested or not.

arcticbull 4y ago
> No it's not, it's literally not relevant. You are saying a person's political beliefs are legally relevant to if they should be arrested or not. In other western democracies, freedom of speech isn't paramount. What you say matters and you can be held responsible for it and the harm you cause. I'm not taking one side or the other, personally, but this is an opinion question settled by the voters.
- aydyn 4y ago
  > In other western democracies, freedom of speech isn't paramount. What you say matters and you can be held responsible for it and the harm you cause. I understand, but that's not what you said in GP.
  - arcticbull 4y ago
    I'm not GP.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - aydyn 4y ago
      That's fine, my mistake. You should charitably interpret it as "your response doesn't align with the GP comment."
      - arcticbull 4y ago
        Apologies, I didn't mean it negatively or anything, just for folks following along.
- kelnos 4y ago
  That's not what OP was arguing, though. OP appeared to be suggesting it was ok to arrest someone on flimsy grounds, because they were participating in a meme promoted by an organization with harmful ideology. I'm not sure what other motive we can ascribe to that post, really.
  - epgui 4y ago
    A reasonably charitable interpretation of OP's comment suggests they were not suggesting that at all.
    - aydyn 4y ago
      Nonsense. That is what they were saying.
    - kelnos 4y ago
      I don't see that at all, and invoking "charitable interpretation" is a bit disingenuous. Why bring up the context if not to suggest that this arrest was justified because of the person's ideology?
      - epgui 4y ago
        I don't think it's ever disingenuous to invoke charitable interpretation when an uncharitable interpretation is made. The comment was giving context around why the guy's actions might be considered morally reprehensible (or more simply, "wrong"), and was not in any way suggesting that that made an arrest justified. In fact the text explicitly says that this is not the point being made. If the reader makes that leap (here despite the comment author's warning), then that's on the reader, and it's exactly why charitable interpretation is important. Without charitable interpretation, people put words in each others' mouths, talk past each other, or don't hear each other. It's essential to civil discourse in general: most of what most people write or say will be less than perfect, so productive two-way communication requires making constant active effort to forgive any perceived allusion, subtext or sleight, to the point of unreasonableness. So no, it's not disingenuous at all to bring this up. (But isn't doing this exhausting? My goodness is it ever! Yes.) Note, crucially, that a "charitable interpretation" is not necessarily the "most likely interpretation" or "the interpretation you believe is the most accurate". It is the interpretation that puts the other person in the most favourable light, while remaining mostly (yes, this often requires flexibility and some approximation) logically consistent with what was actually said or written. In this particular case, a charitable interpretation can be made by simply not putting words in the author's mouth: his text is entirely consistent with the charitable interpretation.
jahnu 4y ago
It’s relevant for me. If you tweet or retweet Nazi propaganda or holocaust denial material and live here in Austria then you may be prosecuted. I’m not a super fan of these restrictions on free speech but I do note that I live in a place where there are a few and they are important to us here. Edit: There is some amusing irony to being downvoted for this reply which only states my own personal interest in hearing some information from someone and doesn’t tell anyone else what to think ;)
- _-david-_ 4y ago
  Was this actually Nazi propaganda? I think the meme is trying to say the trans community acts like Nazis and Nazis are bad.
  - jahnu 4y ago
    I don’t really have enough info to make a fair judgment. I only wanted to provide my perspective that I personally do find the context the GP provided relevant to the story even if they don’t. Wasn’t an attack or being contrary or anything.
- Turing_Machine 4y ago
  This clearly was not "Nazi propaganda". Calling your opponent a Nazi does not imply that Nazis are good. Quite the opposite, in fact.
- Tsukiortu 4y ago
  > Edit: There is some amusing irony to being downvoted for this reply which only states my own personal interest in hearing some information from someone and doesn’t tell anyone else what to think ;) Being downvoted is not equal to government prosecution. You can be told people don't like your opinion and just say so, compared to having police knock on your door over it. I don't agree with what the guy from the article is advocating, but I do agree that he should not be prosecuted/arrested for what he did.
saghm 4y ago
> No it's not, it's literally not relevant (or at least shouldn't be). You are saying a person's political beliefs are legally relevant to if they should be arrested or not. Isn't the idea that the intent behind actions being legally relevant pretty well established? There's a difference between different degrees of murder and between murder and manslaughter based not on whether the actions themselves differed, but whether the intent to kill was there (and not even that, but how _long_ it was held, e.g. "spur of the moment" versus premeditated). It seems like in any case where intent is relevant, looking at the context of the accused would be necessary to determine the scope of the crime.
- jaywalk 4y ago
  Intent behind speech that "caused someone anxiety" should be entirely irrelevant, because nobody should ever be arrested for it. Period.
  - saghm 4y ago
    That's not what I'm referring to; that's just in the headline. The context I'm referring to is in the parent of this comment chain, which describes both the actual image being shared and some of the writings of the accused along with others who they feature on their website. I think there's room for debate about whether that context is relevant, but it's not what I'm responding to.
    - jaywalk 4y ago
      Yes, mens rea (state of mind/intent) is part of many crimes. But we're not talking about murder, we're talking about a social media post that "caused someone anxiety." Whether intent matters for other (actual) crimes is irrelevant.
- aydyn 4y ago
  Intent and beliefs are not the same thing.
groby_b 4y ago
Yes, it is relevant in that context. Europeans tend to hold the view that Nazis are deplorable and don't deserve a voice. Being a German, I tend to agree. There is such a thing as being beyond the pale.
- jahnu 4y ago
  Funnily enough the phrase beyond the pale is, perhaps apocryphally, said to originate from Ireland. The pale was an area around Dublin under the control of the English in the Middle Ages. Only “barbarian Irish” lived outside, beyond the area. I’m from the part outside ;)
  - danaris 4y ago
    While that would be a specific instance of it, my understanding is that "the pale" would refer more generally to the fence, or palisade, that encircled a town (made up of wooden stakes, or "pales"; this is also the origin of "to impale"), and "beyond the pale" simply meant "outside the protection of the town", and thus, metaphorically, outside of what's right and proper. ....In fact, Wiktionary states [0] "According to the Oxford English Dictionary, there is insufficient evidence that the term originally referred to the English Pale, the part of Ireland directly under the control of the English government in the Late Middle Ages". [0] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/beyond_the_pale https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/beyond_the_pale
mock-possum 4y ago
I could be wrong, but I think there's a specific violent threat embedded in calling trans people nazis - nazis are still the simplest shorthand terminology for "unambiguously evil oppressors whom it is acceptable to violently oppose." No one wrings their hands and bemoans the Allies' treatment of the nazis in WW2. To this very day it's hard to answer "is it okay to punch a nazi" negatively- most people would probably agree that the nazi had it coming. That kind of sentiment makes this whole "trans nazis are infiltrating and controlling the cis lesbian and gay rights movement" accusation a little scarier, in my opinion, due to context - portraying your ideological opponents as nazis as prelude to violence, and trans people are already the target of plenty of violent transphobic attacks. (I still don't think this arrest is warranted, absent some sort of other evidence that he intends to do more than call people names online... but there are very specific connotations to calling trans people nazis, that I feel like it's fair to call out aside from mere 'political beliefs')
- zumu 4y ago
  I can't speak to the UK, but in the US, the term nazi gets thrown around a lot. For example, the Left calls Right nazis and Right calls the Left nazis, etc. As such, it's hard for me, and I'd imagine a lot of HN users, to consider calling someone a nazi as a violent threat.
  - yibg 4y ago
    We used to call one of our friends a beer nazi. As in he would try to force you to drink beer.
- isitmadeofglass 4y ago
  > I could be wrong, but I think there's a specific violent threat embedded in calling trans people nazis There is not now and likely never will be a politician who has not at some point compared their adversaries to Nazis. Do we put them all behind bars, or only the ones you disagree with? What do we do with the trans activist comparing those who oppose them with Nazis?
  - 4y ago

by aydyn 4y ago

arcticbull 4y ago

> No it's not, it's literally not relevant. You are saying a person's political beliefs are legally relevant to if they should be arrested or not. In other western democracies, freedom of speech isn't paramount. What you say matters and you can be held responsible for it and the harm you cause. I'm not taking one side or the other, personally, but this is an opinion question settled by the voters.

aydyn 4y ago
> In other western democracies, freedom of speech isn't paramount. What you say matters and you can be held responsible for it and the harm you cause. I understand, but that's not what you said in GP.
- arcticbull 4y ago
  I'm not GP.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - aydyn 4y ago
    That's fine, my mistake. You should charitably interpret it as "your response doesn't align with the GP comment."
    - arcticbull 4y ago
      Apologies, I didn't mean it negatively or anything, just for folks following along.
kelnos 4y ago
That's not what OP was arguing, though. OP appeared to be suggesting it was ok to arrest someone on flimsy grounds, because they were participating in a meme promoted by an organization with harmful ideology. I'm not sure what other motive we can ascribe to that post, really.
- epgui 4y ago
  A reasonably charitable interpretation of OP's comment suggests they were not suggesting that at all.
  - aydyn 4y ago
    Nonsense. That is what they were saying.
  - kelnos 4y ago
    I don't see that at all, and invoking "charitable interpretation" is a bit disingenuous. Why bring up the context if not to suggest that this arrest was justified because of the person's ideology?
    - epgui 4y ago
      I don't think it's ever disingenuous to invoke charitable interpretation when an uncharitable interpretation is made. The comment was giving context around why the guy's actions might be considered morally reprehensible (or more simply, "wrong"), and was not in any way suggesting that that made an arrest justified. In fact the text explicitly says that this is not the point being made. If the reader makes that leap (here despite the comment author's warning), then that's on the reader, and it's exactly why charitable interpretation is important. Without charitable interpretation, people put words in each others' mouths, talk past each other, or don't hear each other. It's essential to civil discourse in general: most of what most people write or say will be less than perfect, so productive two-way communication requires making constant active effort to forgive any perceived allusion, subtext or sleight, to the point of unreasonableness. So no, it's not disingenuous at all to bring this up. (But isn't doing this exhausting? My goodness is it ever! Yes.) Note, crucially, that a "charitable interpretation" is not necessarily the "most likely interpretation" or "the interpretation you believe is the most accurate". It is the interpretation that puts the other person in the most favourable light, while remaining mostly (yes, this often requires flexibility and some approximation) logically consistent with what was actually said or written. In this particular case, a charitable interpretation can be made by simply not putting words in the author's mouth: his text is entirely consistent with the charitable interpretation.

jahnu 4y ago

It’s relevant for me. If you tweet or retweet Nazi propaganda or holocaust denial material and live here in Austria then you may be prosecuted. I’m not a super fan of these restrictions on free speech but I do note that I live in a place where there are a few and they are important to us here. Edit: There is some amusing irony to being downvoted for this reply which only states my own personal interest in hearing some information from someone and doesn’t tell anyone else what to think ;)

_-david-_ 4y ago
Was this actually Nazi propaganda? I think the meme is trying to say the trans community acts like Nazis and Nazis are bad.
- jahnu 4y ago
  I don’t really have enough info to make a fair judgment. I only wanted to provide my perspective that I personally do find the context the GP provided relevant to the story even if they don’t. Wasn’t an attack or being contrary or anything.
Turing_Machine 4y ago
This clearly was not "Nazi propaganda". Calling your opponent a Nazi does not imply that Nazis are good. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Tsukiortu 4y ago
> Edit: There is some amusing irony to being downvoted for this reply which only states my own personal interest in hearing some information from someone and doesn’t tell anyone else what to think ;) Being downvoted is not equal to government prosecution. You can be told people don't like your opinion and just say so, compared to having police knock on your door over it. I don't agree with what the guy from the article is advocating, but I do agree that he should not be prosecuted/arrested for what he did.

saghm 4y ago

> No it's not, it's literally not relevant (or at least shouldn't be). You are saying a person's political beliefs are legally relevant to if they should be arrested or not. Isn't the idea that the intent behind actions being legally relevant pretty well established? There's a difference between different degrees of murder and between murder and manslaughter based not on whether the actions themselves differed, but whether the intent to kill was there (and not even that, but how _long_ it was held, e.g. "spur of the moment" versus premeditated). It seems like in any case where intent is relevant, looking at the context of the accused would be necessary to determine the scope of the crime.

jaywalk 4y ago
Intent behind speech that "caused someone anxiety" should be entirely irrelevant, because nobody should ever be arrested for it. Period.
- saghm 4y ago
  That's not what I'm referring to; that's just in the headline. The context I'm referring to is in the parent of this comment chain, which describes both the actual image being shared and some of the writings of the accused along with others who they feature on their website. I think there's room for debate about whether that context is relevant, but it's not what I'm responding to.
  - jaywalk 4y ago
    Yes, mens rea (state of mind/intent) is part of many crimes. But we're not talking about murder, we're talking about a social media post that "caused someone anxiety." Whether intent matters for other (actual) crimes is irrelevant.
aydyn 4y ago
Intent and beliefs are not the same thing.

groby_b 4y ago

Yes, it is relevant in that context. Europeans tend to hold the view that Nazis are deplorable and don't deserve a voice. Being a German, I tend to agree. There is such a thing as being beyond the pale.

jahnu 4y ago
Funnily enough the phrase beyond the pale is, perhaps apocryphally, said to originate from Ireland. The pale was an area around Dublin under the control of the English in the Middle Ages. Only “barbarian Irish” lived outside, beyond the area. I’m from the part outside ;)
- danaris 4y ago
  While that would be a specific instance of it, my understanding is that "the pale" would refer more generally to the fence, or palisade, that encircled a town (made up of wooden stakes, or "pales"; this is also the origin of "to impale"), and "beyond the pale" simply meant "outside the protection of the town", and thus, metaphorically, outside of what's right and proper. ....In fact, Wiktionary states [0] "According to the Oxford English Dictionary, there is insufficient evidence that the term originally referred to the English Pale, the part of Ireland directly under the control of the English government in the Late Middle Ages". [0] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/beyond_the_pale https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/beyond_the_pale

mock-possum 4y ago

I could be wrong, but I think there's a specific violent threat embedded in calling trans people nazis - nazis are still the simplest shorthand terminology for "unambiguously evil oppressors whom it is acceptable to violently oppose." No one wrings their hands and bemoans the Allies' treatment of the nazis in WW2. To this very day it's hard to answer "is it okay to punch a nazi" negatively- most people would probably agree that the nazi had it coming. That kind of sentiment makes this whole "trans nazis are infiltrating and controlling the cis lesbian and gay rights movement" accusation a little scarier, in my opinion, due to context - portraying your ideological opponents as nazis as prelude to violence, and trans people are already the target of plenty of violent transphobic attacks. (I still don't think this arrest is warranted, absent some sort of other evidence that he intends to do more than call people names online... but there are very specific connotations to calling trans people nazis, that I feel like it's fair to call out aside from mere 'political beliefs')

zumu 4y ago
I can't speak to the UK, but in the US, the term nazi gets thrown around a lot. For example, the Left calls Right nazis and Right calls the Left nazis, etc. As such, it's hard for me, and I'd imagine a lot of HN users, to consider calling someone a nazi as a violent threat.
- yibg 4y ago
  We used to call one of our friends a beer nazi. As in he would try to force you to drink beer.
isitmadeofglass 4y ago
> I could be wrong, but I think there's a specific violent threat embedded in calling trans people nazis There is not now and likely never will be a politician who has not at some point compared their adversaries to Nazis. Do we put them all behind bars, or only the ones you disagree with? What do we do with the trans activist comparing those who oppose them with Nazis?
- 4y ago