I'm not saying that your quote doesn't have power - it does. But the important aspect of it is that the targets were people the subject knows were being unfairly treated. So yes, if they start locking up homosexuals or Muslims or jews I'll refer to that parable and think "shit - I'd best do something".
As things stand I'm not getting out of bed to help a nazi.
Let's not kid ourselves. If these guys took over, they'd kill people, and they're not shy about admitting it.
It's really a bad slippery slope to start finding new exceptions where censorship is ok. It just shows that you don't understand how free speech works. Until crimes are committed, I don't care if your ideology is universal destruction. You should be left alone.
Second, the slippery slope is a fallacy. Literally. The "slippery slope fallacy" is a textbook fallacy. In this instance, many countries make it illegal to espouse Nazi ideology today, yet Germany and France haven't become dystopian dictatorships.
"If we outlaw gun ownership for the mentally ill, that's a slippery slope to outlawing all firearms."
"If we outlaw same sex marriage, that's a slippery slope to outlawing all marriage."
"If we outlaw cocaine, that's a slippery slope to outlawing beer."
All of those make just as much sense as a slippery slope of outlawing Nazis.
Now we have factions of the public literally asking for censorship. What a field day and marketed success for Government Relations. Is it really 'thought censorship' if the public is asking for the Government's mighty purifying hand of social ideology? Is the government banning Mein Kampf? Is it banning Hitler's transcripts? Is it just flexing its muscles to see if censoring the living, breathing electorate can be made acceptable by the public?
Furthermore, there is nothing in our legal system that bans Nazis. Fuck Nazis, and fuck their ideology, but free speech is more important. The US legal system bans crimes, not thought systems. If you don't like that, then push for constitutional amendments, but as it stands now, they are exercising free speech.
Yes it is. There are lots of things it's already illegal to say.
In fact, banning some forms of speech can increase the freedom of speech on the whole, such as when you suppress the speech of groups threatening violence on minorities, thus keeping them silent and cowed.
And don't forget we are talking about censorship here. We don't have a two-step legal system, i.e. let's censor people who have abstract ideas of murder, then arrest them once they start to carry them out. Either they are planning to murder someone specific or they are not. And until we have evidence that they have murder targets and execution plans, then no action should be taken.
There are a lot of groups that espouse murderous beliefs that are not Nazis. What should we do about them? Plenty of non-Nazis have said online that all muslims should be killed. Should they be censored and/or arrested? If you think that there is something special about Nazism, then you should amend your argument to include the historical significance of Nazism as a reason you think they should be censored, rather than any reductive argument, because there will always be counterexamples in the latter.
where is the line between freedom of speech and let's say, emotional abuse? Should my statement "all jews are pieces of shit and deserve to die" protected by society? If it should be protected by first amendment, when it should stop protecting? When I would yell same statement to jewish kids in on a daily basis? Would it change when I would say "all jews should be exiled to desert" (now it becomes call to action) ? Would it change when same thing would be repeated by 10000 people community?
right now I keep an eye on one local nacionalist community page in facebook, and they are racists and even don't hide it. I find it troubling because the more vocal they will be, the braver members will become and they will normalize that "opinion" and soon it can become actions. I think it's naive to think that extremist groups will only talk about it without any action towards their goals.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...
Wait, we're talking about Germans from the 30s and 40s? People that conducted the Holocaust, that invaded most of Europe and some of Russia and many other places?
Maybe we aren't actually talking about literal Nazis. Words matter.
Thought crimes can involve participating in, or contributing to, crimes committed by other people (as you just elaborated).
That's why as a society we ban consumption of child pornography and other types of thought crimes - because they involve harming others.
Nazis aren't about a specific set of "enemies", with Nazism becoming peaceful as soon as those are exterminated, it's more about constantly inventing enemies and sub-distinctions. It's flight from self, nihilism made movement. And even if everybody makes the Hitler salute, you can always rank them by enthusiasm and kill the least enthusiastic 5%. A boot (not a human foot) on a human face, forever, an endlessly restricting noose of hatred, and endless rush of power that doesn't fulfill or give happiness but does destroy and cause anguish. That's (one way to describe) Nazism. That's why you treat even one grain of it very seriously.
And while there is abuse of the word "Nazi" or even "Neo-Nazi", and we could argue a lot about what should be called what, just look at all the possible meanings of common words like "get", and notice how we don't get confused about that most of the time. Worrying more about what something is called than what something is much more constructive.
Though I'm not saying this as an argument to censor anyone.. not because I'm necessarily against it in all cases, but because I don't like the framing of that. When societies breed alienation and isolation, where so many kids are left to their own devices (I didn't aim for that pun but I'll keep it) in an onslaught of vapid or even cynical pandering and product shoveling, Neo-Nazis are just one of the predictable results of that, it's one of the ways a human can break.
It's like Mikado sticks (fasces?), when you let go of a bundle, I can't tell you which one will fall to the top right, but I can pretty much assume some will fall there. And the discussion is kind of futile when it starts history with the still image of a distribution of sticks, and kind of nauseating when it comes with too much self-righteousness. Are we to be applauded for not being Neo-Nazis, or should we be grateful we didn't have such a bad childhood or other reasons to be susceptible to it?
We tend to leave people by the wayside until they're old enough to run amok or join a cult or whatever. By that time it's kind of too late for good results, at that point it's like war with no winners. Of course, that's out of scope for "do I host this or don't I?", but I have to get it off my chest (every time this subject comes up).
While I'm rambling, how about freaky third answers, like host it under the condition they have to have an externally hosted comment system for every article, moderated by the UN? Don't shut them up, but don't allow them to shut up discussion about their "ideas" either. I'm not sure about actual Nazis, but for all sorts of grey areas, that's at least a thought?
Now when it comes to political ideologies, the difference between thought crimes and real-world actions is not so clear. Someone might believe in nazi ideology, vote accordingly, discriminate in their personal or professional lives based on that, but not be any sort of public activist - that's what I'd call a 'thought crime.' It's their right to hold such a position no matter how repulsive I find it.
There is a qualitative difference when someone steps into actively promoting such ideologies (eg waving nazi flags or participating in marches). The thing about nazi ideology is that it's explicitly grounded in the elimination of some people and the subjugation of the rest, and rejection of the democratic principle in favor of leadership from above.
When you get to people who express support for specific policies like genocide, ethnic cleansing, etc. and who organize in pursuit of that objective, it seems to me that they've passed out of the realms of 'thought crime' and into actively threatening demographic groups and their members.
Or in other words, for every man there is a paragraph (in criminal law). If not, one will be invented.