[mozumder]

You're making the mistake of thinking that Alex Jones and his followers are rational and good-faith actors - a pre-requisite for debate.

The best thing to do is just silence their voices; no ifs, ands, or buts.

Remember, these people are against the idea of democracy.

[whatyoucantsay]

> The best thing to do is just silence their voices, no ifs, ands or buts.

> Remember, these people are against the idea of democracy.

Oh, the irony of following the one sentence with the other.

[rurounijones]

You cherry picked and forgot the first line which puts the rest in context.

> You're making the mistake of thinking that Alex Jones and his followers are rational and good-faith actors - a pre-requisite for debate

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

https://slate.com/technology/2018/07/the-askhistorians-subre...

[whatyoucantsay]

> You cherry picked and forgot the first line which puts the rest in context.

How uncharitable of you to write that. I didn't "forget" it. It wasn't relevant to my point. The first line was specific to this situation, but the final two I quoted represent a very universal and timeless position.

In fact, ancient Athens suffered greatly when "silence the voices of the enemies of democracy" became the dominant position in their society:

http://quillette.com/2018/01/25/free-speech-matters/

[rurounijones]

You're "point" was a snarky off the cuff one-liner.

Universal and Timeless position is a stretch. It is not black and white, it is grey and the first line in OPs comment put context to that grey.

While it would be lovely to have a democracy with an educated rational electorate resilent to hateful demagogues and other threats to the stability of that democracy, we are not there. In that situation you can let it fester or reduce the impact.

Yes it can be abused and we have to be careful. But we are in a Paradox of Tolerance situation.

Rather than state what has already been said: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17702464 is a good summary.

[whatyoucantsay]

"Ideas I disagree with are wrong and should be silenced!" is about as timeless and universal a position as any in human history.

It's not a good one, though.