[mejin]

How does that make sense? If a culture is tolerant and somewhat smart they can add tolerance to their constitution. By doing so they will both allow tolerance and not have to worry about anyone (tolerant people or not) taking away their "ability" to tolerate.

[BooglyWoo]

Because it's hard to unanimously and unequivocally identify those who are intolerant as such. Owing to the beguiling nature of language and rhetoric, the intolerant can thrive and propagate by arguing that they're not in fact intolerant, and appealing to "free speech". This seems to be the MO of this so-called "alt-right" stuff; legal or constitutional barriers are almost impossible to define or enforce.

[observation]

If you want to ban reactionaries then you are pushing out an entire political category of thought that historically and arguably presently includes a huge portion of the West's intelligentsia. Might as well throw in Socialism or Liberalism while you're at it.

> Because it's hard to unanimously and unequivocally identify those who are intolerant as such.

> This seems to be the MO of this so-called "alt-right" stuff; legal or constitutional barriers are almost impossible to define or enforce.

These are fairly creepy statements. Very difficult to apply a charitable explanation to what you're saying.

> Owing to the beguiling nature of language and rhetoric, the intolerant can thrive and propagate

Sounds familiar.

[BooglyWoo]

I don't want to ban anything; I was just explaining how the potential effects of Popper's intolerance paradox cannot easily be solved with legislation.

[observation]

I see, well I appear to have misinterpreted then. I'd edit my post to mention that but of course we can't.

[mejin]

My English is not so good so I hope that I understood you.

What I am trying to say is that there is no need to identify intolerant people. All that is needed is to make sure that intolerant and tolerant people do not limit free speech. Protecting free speech can be done without worrying that people will misinterpret laws. For example, a law saying that anyone wishing to publish something to their site can do so regardless if they are anarchists, Nazis, conspiracy theorist, or anyone else. No mater how much hate the intolerant write they will not be able to stop other people from writing about how much they hate the intolerant people.

[stevenwoo]

OK, there are multiple counter examples from just the last couple of months of this year in the USA, a woman laughed at Jeff Sessions during his confirmation hearing and she's on trial for this, (twice) http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/348857-woma... , and the US Justice Department subpoenaed the users of an anti-Trump website. http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a57033/ju...

So we have the intolerant people in the government trying to suppress dissent from the tolerant. This is described in the first paragraph from the wiki link.

[mejin]

So wouldn't the best thing be to make sure that no one can restrict others speech? If the law is as simple and broad as possible then we don't have to worry about the "wrong" people gaining control of the government. For example, the right to bear arms is a very simple constitutional right. There are many people who oppose it but since it is simple, so deeply embedded into the laws and a large group of people support it, it has been really hard to restrict.

If there was a law to be created today making a list of speeches that should be suppressed, what topics do you think would be on there? With the current government, probably things like making it illegal to claim that climate change is happening.

If the left really wants to protect themselves during the upcoming 3 years, I would expect them to try to make free speech as protected as possible before it is too late.

[stevenwoo]

The examples I gave show that it doesn't matter what the law is - we probably have the most extreme free speech encoded in the US Constitution as interpreted by the Supreme Court and it still requires vigilance on the part of those who are not in power, plus a little bit of cooperation of one of the three branches of government - if the judiciary sided with the executive branch interpretation of these laws, it doesn't matter what the US Constitution says, it's whatever the party in power decides.

[likeslogic]

Let's say in a 100% tolerant society a group that is intolerant of every other group comes into existence. They just operate by the credo - you're either with us, or the enemy, and all enemies must be destroyed. No further logic can be applied (they may even declare all logic as one of the enemies).

Now if as a society you tolerate them without the use of force, they will try to destroy everyone else who is not part of the their group. Effectively, all tolerance will be eliminated.

The only way you could prevent this from happening is if you are prepared to contain such a group one way or the other. Or allow other people to not tolerate them by using force too. Either way you void your tolerance tenet.

Have to admit - it is indeed a paradox.

[wallace_f]

This would only work assuming such a group could gain enough power to overthrow local PD and eventually the US military, etc., which is kind of unrealistic for an group that is not supported by a majority of the population.

The wikipedia page on this notes people dispute this idea, sourcing John Rawls as a notable example.

[likeslogic]

Not really. A little further is this - "However, Rawls also insists, like Popper, that society has a reasonable right of self-preservation that supersedes the principle of tolerance: "While an intolerant sect does not itself have title to complain of intolerance, its freedom should be restricted only when the tolerant sincerely and with reason believe that their own security and that of the institutions of liberty are in danger."[2][3]"

[wallace_f]

I looked and Rawls explicitly says he disagrees with it.

What you have quoted here is saying physical safety is sincerely in danger. To me this is like him saying it's ok to eliminate terrorist groups, if that is what they truly are.

[int_19h]

The problem with this paradox is that it's applied to situations that are actually different from what's describe here.

Suppose even we have this group that's intolerant of everyone else. But their intolerance is expressed in speech, not actions. In other words, they're saying, "you're all our enemies, and should be destroyed", but they aren't doing anything about it. Or maybe they are, but it consists of running a political party on that platform, encouraging people to vote them in.

As a society, you can absolutely tolerate them without the use of force, at least until the point where they actually get the majority of votes (but at that point, they are the society, and you're an outgroup in that society).

[likeslogic]

What about constant verbal abuse? Or - as in this particular case - the right to bombard (or drown) any useful discussion? Should that be tolerated? I don't know.

For some people this kind of online attacking and lack of freedom to communicate (through effective trolling) may be worse than physical abuse. In the end its the brain interpreting signals and outputting pain.

[pixelmonkey]

Your comment is precisely the paradox, though. "You can absolutely tolerant them until they get the majority of votes." First of all, it's not every society where a "majority of votes" grants political power. In Greece, the White Supremacist group (Golden Dawn) holds parliament seats even though they are a small (but vocal and politically active) minority. White supremacists now influence policy in Greece despite being a minority.

In the Middle East, this kind of outsize influence might be even worse. I am no expert on Middle East politics, but I think it's fair to say that the most intolerant factions have striven to gain the most political power, in spite of the political leanings of the mass populations over which they rule.

One issue with intolerant groups is that they tend toward violence and oppression of opposing speech. The tolerant and pacifist among us can allow them to gain enough minority power to effect a political coup, which can result in a societal coup, since having political control can grant you some degree of societal control.

In such a society, espousing tolerance might carry with it the risk of violent retribution (since tolerance is viewed by the "in" group as heresy/dissent). This will cause the intolerance to spread, even if seemingly against the will of more tolerant citizens. In this way, certain ideologies can have a "toxic" societal effect. You don't need to look far in modern history to find examples. And, that's the paradox.

[hsod]

> Or maybe they are, but it consists of running a political party on that platform, encouraging people to vote them in.

> As a society, you can absolutely tolerate them without the use of force, at least until the point where they actually get the majority of votes (but at that point, they are the society, and you're an outgroup in that society).

You just answered your own question

[int_19h]

Did I? You seem to be assuming a causal link between suppressing their speech, and them being able to get the majority of votes. I don't see any evidence to this effect - I mean, even just comparing the size of neo-Nazi rallies in Germany (strong hate speech laws) versus US (no hate speech laws), if anything, one would come to the conclusion that the best way to not allow Nazis to come to power through democratic means is to let them freely express their opinions. When you don't, you get the same people running on "anti-immigration" platform and use other dog whistles, which only broadens their base of support.

My opinion is that if there's a real threat of extreme political forces coming to power through democratic means in your society, then that society is already broken, and restricting hate speech is basically just sweeping the shards under the rug and pretending that nothing's wrong.

[mszcz]

I have a feeling that that kind of speech, given enough time and tolerance, eventually might escalate to action.

[int_19h]

Hate speech is a symptom of a problem, not a cause. Trying to treat a disease by suppressing symptoms is a waste of time at best, and actively harmful at first (because it conceals the progression of that disease, until one day you're violently sick).

[otakucode]

It's not a paradox at all. You made a completely unjustified leap. You presumed that the 'enemies must be destroyed' portion would somehow be carried out without resistance. That's nonsensical.

[stevenwoo]

The wiki summary is if one lets intolerant people rise to power, they use their power to implement intolerant policies, eliminating the ability of the tolerant to change things back.

One always has to worry even in a democracy, for instance here one party manipulated the voting system so even though they only got 49 percent of the votes in the election, they got 60% of the representation in the state legislature. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/06/us/politics/prominent-rep...

You can take the absolutist free speech argument that some in the US make from the first amendment (you write later down that English is not your native language) but Germany seems to be going OK banning Nazi speech/symbols.