[monkeypizza]

I was just bringing it up to get an admission that "there is a line". Everything else is about debating where that line is. The old ACLU set it really far into the "freedom" zone - recently people want to restrict it more, by for example talking about classifying relatively generic/common/vague speech as violence, when previously only direct incitement to violence was considered beyond the line.

My main point was that the GGP's concept of tolerance, as something which can have no line at all, has never been the case in the US, and doesn't seem advisable, since his argument that any resistance is invalidation of tolerance would lead it to be easily destroyed.

[schoen]

Thanks for the clarification! I still don't really see why this is so. Lots of people in lots of countries want a theocracy, and are allowed to say so, but only a tiny number of countries have ended up getting one as a result. (I even think a fair amount of the advocacy in Iran in favor of the Islamic Revolution was probably illegal under Pahlavi, in which case its success isn't even much of a prophecy of what happens if that kind of advocacy is tolerated.)

I guess I don't understand the "any resistance is invalidation of tolerance" and "would lead it to be easily destroyed" part. Is it like this classic Onion article from 2003?

https://politics.theonion.com/aclu-defends-nazis-right-to-bu...

Like if you actively make a point of never opposing people who disagree with you in any way whatsoever, eventually they can take advantage of that in a more harmful or dramatic way?

[monkeypizza]

Yeah, this debate has two instances of it from opposite sides: The original story claimed to feature people who were (voluntarily) not accepting speech from someone they suggested was subtly intolerant. Then someone said "we shouldn't restrict people like that, and we should restrict (or resist) people who try it".

It's hard to make self-modifying systems stable! I simultaneously want to preserve open debate, but also do want to reduce prevalence of views proposing easier rules to shut down debate (by defeating them in debate, not by law).

[schoen]

Thanks for sticking with your point -- now I understand it a lot better.