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I have a problem with “surveilling nazis”. If they’re not actively committing criminal acts, and there isn’t a warrant demonstrating with specificity that the p

by olliej 3y ago

I have a problem with “surveilling nazis”. If they’re not actively committing criminal acts, and there isn’t a warrant demonstrating with specificity that the particular facility or group is involved (e.g the same requirement for any other warrant) they should not be subject to any more surveillance than say a Christian group, or a Muslim group, or an lgbt group, or hell a group of sports team supporters. The amount of surveillance should be zero. I hate nazis with a passion, and would never be ok employing or working with someone who’s basic life belief is that a bunch of their coworkers (maybe including me?) don’t have the right to exist and are fundamentally inferior (if nothing else a cynical 100% capitalist take would be that having a Nazi anywhere in your management hierarchy will clearly open your company to plausible discrimination suits). Before anyone brings up accepting others beliefs, that’s not an issue. There is a basic social contract: you can believe whatever you want without consequences until your beliefs get to “other people don’t get to have the same rights as me”. The “paradox of tolerance” is BS used by bigots to try and allow them to attack the rights of others with impunity under the guise of accepting other’s beliefs.

doktrin 3y ago
> The “paradox of tolerance” is BS used by bigots to try and allow them to attack the rights of others with impunity The Jewish philosopher who fled the Nazis was, in fact, a bigot seeking to attack the rights of others?
- olliej 3y ago
  No. Popper was not using the "paradox of intolerance" to be a bigot attacking the rights of others. What Popper did was give a name to the behavior bigots were already demonstrating. Bigots don't say "you have to support my beliefs because of the paradox of tolerance", they say "you are not being tolerant if you don't support my intolerance" (for whatever group they're targeting). It's somewhat disingenuous to present an idea in terms of the circumstances in which it was introduced as being equivalent to that idea after people have had time to actually think about it and discuss it. It implies that no problem can be resolved in the time following its introduction. When Popper started talking about this as the "paradox of intolerance" it was "how do we resolve this issue where a maximally tolerant society must inherently become intolerant", but that was 80 odd years ago, and in that time the generally accepted answer is that tolerance is a social contract, and part of that is that tolerance is necessarily a two way street, so if your belief is that some other group[s] are not permitted to exist, or have the same rights, then no other group has to tolerate your beliefs. There is no problem of cycles of responsibility, because your intolerance was the initial trigger.
  - doktrin 3y ago
    > What Popper did was give a name to the behavior bigots were already demonstrating. Bigots don't say "you have to support my beliefs because of the paradox of tolerance", they say "you are not being tolerant if you don't support my intolerance" (for whatever group they're targeting). No, and no. He didn't "give a name to the behavior of bigots", and he didn't posit that bigots demand tolerance on rational grounds. In fact, he says something close to the opposite : "...for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols" > in that time the generally accepted answer is that tolerance is a social contract, and part of that is that tolerance is necessarily a two way street ... in that time? That description of tolerance is baked into his argument. The entire paradox, short as it is, revolved around the handling of (ultimately, violent) edge cases who don't care about meeting you anywhere. I'm not going to continue engaging in this thread, but just for general and future reference here is the footnote we've been discussing : "Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.—In this formulation, 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 most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal. " -- The Open Society & Its Enemies
- Exoristos 3y ago
  Can Jewish philosophers who flee Nazis not be bigots? What is the mechanism there?
OfficeChad 3y ago
[dead]
RamblingCTO 3y ago
It's not about belief for me. People can believe what they want. But there's a sub-group of Nazis that want to topple the government and I think they, including all of their potential networks, should be surveilled. Just like all the leftists, islamists, and other terrorists or extremists. I don't agree with surveillance because of simple beliefs or religions though.
- olliej 3y ago
  Can you define what "leftist" that should be surveilled when literally all politics is a spectrum of left to right? Certainly in the US the majority of politically motivated violence for decades has been by people explicitly on the right end of the spectrum. Based on my experience in the US the use of the specific label "leftist" is generally used on people who support policies that are common in much of the liberal world, so coalescing "leftist" with people who promote killing people is a pretty gross choice. Do you want to reconsider your phrasing? Especially given you then say you disagree with surveillance because of "simple beliefs or religions" which is directly in opposition to "surveil all the leftists".
  - RamblingCTO 3y ago
    You were quite close but then decided not to do the final proper mental step. When I put leftists in a line with nazis, what kind of leftists could I possibly mean? Also, I'm German, so I mean people like this for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_Faction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_Faction There are plenty anti-state leftists group, even in the US. And you probably very well know it, so I'm kind of annoyed at your question tbh. > Do you want to reconsider your phrasing? Absolutely not. Leftist means in support of left politics. You imply that the political left has no extreme wing this way. Same as with muslims, there's a range of beliefs, and a subset of those groups are not ok.

by olliej 3y ago

doktrin 3y ago

> The “paradox of tolerance” is BS used by bigots to try and allow them to attack the rights of others with impunity The Jewish philosopher who fled the Nazis was, in fact, a bigot seeking to attack the rights of others?

olliej 3y ago
No. Popper was not using the "paradox of intolerance" to be a bigot attacking the rights of others. What Popper did was give a name to the behavior bigots were already demonstrating. Bigots don't say "you have to support my beliefs because of the paradox of tolerance", they say "you are not being tolerant if you don't support my intolerance" (for whatever group they're targeting). It's somewhat disingenuous to present an idea in terms of the circumstances in which it was introduced as being equivalent to that idea after people have had time to actually think about it and discuss it. It implies that no problem can be resolved in the time following its introduction. When Popper started talking about this as the "paradox of intolerance" it was "how do we resolve this issue where a maximally tolerant society must inherently become intolerant", but that was 80 odd years ago, and in that time the generally accepted answer is that tolerance is a social contract, and part of that is that tolerance is necessarily a two way street, so if your belief is that some other group[s] are not permitted to exist, or have the same rights, then no other group has to tolerate your beliefs. There is no problem of cycles of responsibility, because your intolerance was the initial trigger.
- doktrin 3y ago
  > What Popper did was give a name to the behavior bigots were already demonstrating. Bigots don't say "you have to support my beliefs because of the paradox of tolerance", they say "you are not being tolerant if you don't support my intolerance" (for whatever group they're targeting). No, and no. He didn't "give a name to the behavior of bigots", and he didn't posit that bigots demand tolerance on rational grounds. In fact, he says something close to the opposite : "...for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols" > in that time the generally accepted answer is that tolerance is a social contract, and part of that is that tolerance is necessarily a two way street ... in that time? That description of tolerance is baked into his argument. The entire paradox, short as it is, revolved around the handling of (ultimately, violent) edge cases who don't care about meeting you anywhere. I'm not going to continue engaging in this thread, but just for general and future reference here is the footnote we've been discussing : "Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.—In this formulation, 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 most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal. " -- The Open Society & Its Enemies
Exoristos 3y ago
Can Jewish philosophers who flee Nazis not be bigots? What is the mechanism there?

OfficeChad 3y ago

[dead]

RamblingCTO 3y ago

It's not about belief for me. People can believe what they want. But there's a sub-group of Nazis that want to topple the government and I think they, including all of their potential networks, should be surveilled. Just like all the leftists, islamists, and other terrorists or extremists. I don't agree with surveillance because of simple beliefs or religions though.

olliej 3y ago
Can you define what "leftist" that should be surveilled when literally all politics is a spectrum of left to right? Certainly in the US the majority of politically motivated violence for decades has been by people explicitly on the right end of the spectrum. Based on my experience in the US the use of the specific label "leftist" is generally used on people who support policies that are common in much of the liberal world, so coalescing "leftist" with people who promote killing people is a pretty gross choice. Do you want to reconsider your phrasing? Especially given you then say you disagree with surveillance because of "simple beliefs or religions" which is directly in opposition to "surveil all the leftists".
- RamblingCTO 3y ago
  You were quite close but then decided not to do the final proper mental step. When I put leftists in a line with nazis, what kind of leftists could I possibly mean? Also, I'm German, so I mean people like this for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_Faction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_Faction There are plenty anti-state leftists group, even in the US. And you probably very well know it, so I'm kind of annoyed at your question tbh. > Do you want to reconsider your phrasing? Absolutely not. Leftist means in support of left politics. You imply that the political left has no extreme wing this way. Same as with muslims, there's a range of beliefs, and a subset of those groups are not ok.