| It's easy. The reasoning goes like this (I don't agree with this reasoning, I'm just spelling it out). It starts with a perceived axiom, or an intuition if you like: People are very different inside. Although the difference between the best people and worst people is very large, anyone can improve themselves through reflection and thought and listening to the ideas of people better than themselves. But logically, not everyone does so. Some people are much smarter than others. And some are much more moral than others. Also, if listening to good people can make someone better, then listening to bad people can make someone worse. This makes certain kinds of people very dangerous. Smart but immoral people can easily influence less smart people and convert them into immoral people too. In fact this is almost sure to happen if smart+immoral people speak and are listened to, because the vast majority of the population is pliable and easily persuaded. They decide how to vote by reading newspapers and even tweets. If bad people have access to a platform like Twitter, then their badness will spread like a virus. But we don't want people to become bad. We want them to become good. That means it's important to ensure that only good people have platforms on which they can speak and be heard. If we don't deny bad people platforms, then that is itself a form of immoral behaviour, no better than not washing our hands and spreading germs that way. We wouldn't spread physical illness so we shouldn't spread the mental illness of immorality either. What is immorality? Well, a strong sign someone is a bad person is that they argue against obvious and simple solutions to important problems. They dissemble and prevaricate and may even try to block implementation of solutions. Republicans seem to often deny and fight against solutions to important problems like healthcare, or the plight of refugees from the third world. Whilst they have justifications, they often seem indirect and slippery, like "this change will make things worse rather than better because government is incompetent", although that's hard to believe because smart and moral people are often attracted to public service (smart and immoral people are in contrast attracted to profit-seeking endeavours). Therefore Republicans seem immoral, but they keep winning elections so they must also be smart. Smart + immoral = dangerous. If they can speak, they might brainwash good people like my friends into becoming Republican too, and that would be terrible, because how will we cure cancer and solve hunger with Republicans in charge? So - the only good and moral thing left to do is find ways to suppress their speech. It's for the greater good. |