[agentultra]

My argument is clear: some ideas carry no weight and deserve no recognition. Debate is for reasonable people with reasonable positions.

We've heard the same arguments from white supremacists in 1991 when Christopher Hitchens graciously hosted John Metzger Jr. (and Sr!) on his show. It was the same line then that these wet alt-right nationalists are using today: pride, freedom of speech, censorship. It didn't work on his show then and I'm not going to be fooled by this petty idea that we need to include every voice in the discussion. That's not the case and we need to maintain an "us versus them" attitude when it comes to defending ourselves against such abhorrent ideology.

The problem is not unapproachable. It takes time to change hundreds of years of oppression and institutionalized behaviour.

It's not a very high ground. It's more like a sunny hill. I think you protest too much.

[nql]

Who are you to determine which ideas carry weight, especially without debate? The moment you use political leverage to win intellectual battles, you are embracing corruption.

[agentultra]

> Who are you to determine which ideas carry weight, especially without debate?

I'm just an average, under-achieving person who tries really hard like most people here.

In a word, the thing that tells me which ideas are worth debating and which to ignore? Ethics.

Immigration policy is already a hot topic for many reasons. There are reasonable positions to take on various questions. Should we increase the number of allowed refugees this year in order to meet our international disaster relief commitments? A reasonable position would be, "No, the recent economic downturn has forced us to cut funding to essential services that are already operating at peak capacity; allowing more refugees in might put them into more harms way as we struggle to find out what we can do with them." What about the question, should we incarcerate and mass-deport people of X ethnic minority because they're taking our jobs and using our under-funded healthcare system? That's not even a debate worth having: the question is based in nationalist protectionism and racist ideology. It is unethical.

How about the "all lives matter" debate? Bunk. The only reason to argue against BLM is to continue stealing the spotlight from a very noble and necessary cause.

Don't even get me started on the anti-feminist rhetoric of MRAs. "Debate," there is just a trollish tactic to harass people.

There isn't a leg to stand on for these ideologies and positions. They're ethically and morally reprehensible and completely unreasonable. There's no debate to be had. The people who insist on debating in favour of them do so without a credible argument or position. They only want to continue the "debate" to keep attention away from the real arguments. It's a waste of time.

The only reason the Metzger interview was interesting to me was as a demonstration of just how weak and pathetic these people are. There's no reason for anyone to take the Metzger's of the world seriously at all. Rather we should take the proliferation of their ideas seriously and should stamp them out everywhere we find them.