[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.