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by hsod 3211 days ago
> 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

1 comments

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.