This is true, but it depends on the topic. If I have a very strong opinion about the ineffectiveness of the Laffer curve when setting tax policy, I can probably be pretty good friends with somebody who believes the opposite. But I think it probably is important that we don't remain friends with people who deny other people's essential humanity, or who support political policies that have no effect other than to hurt people, and so on. Just because an opinion can be described as political doesn't mean that it's automatically coequal with others, and we don't have an obligation of deference.

Daryl Davis has converted a lot of KKK members away from racism by risking his life to befriend them.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daryl_Davis

How many people have you seen converted from dangerous beliefs by isolating them away from dissimilar thinkers?

Davis is a brilliant man that understands something about humans that far too many people don’t. He came to that understanding by engaging and asking questions.

This strategy single handedly abolished more KKK members than anything else. Contrast to the extremists of today like BLM who are having the opposite effect and pushing more people to racism. We’re going backwards. Then again, it’s not like BLM is actually motivated by their clever branding, so this is unsurprising.

> This strategy single handedly abolished more KKK members than anything else.

Obviously this is not true.

OP's claim is quite bold and they did not offer evidence. I would describe it as 'unsubstantiated'.

To correctly say it is untrue, you must show another strategy actually converted at least hundreds of KKK members (perhaps more, as it's possible people beyond just Daryl got results from this strategy).

That's a nice story and I'm sure he's a great guy but it's not an effective policy at the macro scale and that's what matters.

You seem pretty confident, why do you think it would not work at macro scale? If you are saying that empathy doesn’t scale, that’s a pretty dark view that requires some evidence.

Are people born racist? Does education an outreach not work? I really don’t see why you’d be so certain.

Daryl's approach works, at least for him. I suspect others can learn to do it, too.

I have seen no evidence whatsoever that refusing to interact with people deradicalizes them. The filter bubble phenomenon suggests the opposite.

I'll take a strategy that's known to work with unclear scalability over a scalable one with no evidence it works, every time.

I don't really care so much about the individual voter, I care about how far their voice reaches on the Internet, I care about the people they influence, I care about their children, I care about higher-level things.

I don't understand how that relates to what I said.

Would you mind explaining further?

What do you think is a more effective way to deradicalize white nationalists as measured on a societal level: engaging them on the merits of their arguments and having a good-faith debate, or deplatforming them?

I missed your response days ago, but happened to see it just now scrolling through my comment history.

It seems obvious to me that deplatforming them will further radicalize them. It fits perfectly into their narrative as I understand it.

Engaging them as (deeply flawed, very wrong) humans and having a good-faith debate seems to have worked shockingly well for Daryl. I suspect it could for others, too (though Daryl is obviously a rare breed).

building personal relationships with individuals in order to deradicalize them one by one is not a viable strategy at the macro level. It's efficacy is irrelevant to me.

How is it not viable? If every person who went to a BLM protest also made friends with one police officer, don't you think that might be extremely effective?

Haha, obviously not?

Begging the question is not going to convince people you're right.

I'm not really begging the question, because I'm not trying to convince anyone that a general policy of individual empathetic outreach isn't effective at a macro scale. For one thing, it's self-evident, and I'm not really interested in "debating" anyone who would challenge that. For another thing, it's a tangent from the main point of the thread.

When has it ever been tried at the macro scale?

Republicans and moderates are not denying anyone’s humanity, nor do they support political policies that have no other effect than to hurt people. Nobody does. Arriving at that conclusion should tell you loud and clear that your model is incomplete and you don’t understand your opponent.

Republicans in 2020 are absolutely and inarguably doing those things.

Every vote for that party in our zeitgeist is motivated in no small part by active malignancy. It's the defining characteristic of their leader, unavoidable and undeniable, and as of the convention the party literally has no platform except to serve and support his whims. So there is absolutely a right and a wrong side to things right now.

Absolutely and inarguably? A vote for a Republican is a vote for "active malignancy"? How could anyone even approach a conversation with you about this? Isn't this the exact opposite of RBG and Scalia's friendship, which is the actual topic of this comment thread?

That's the whole point: I'm not interested in a "conversation" on the topic because there isn't one to be had.

Friendship is an even stronger signal of tacit endorsement and there are situations, positions where it's inappropriate, even morally unjustifiable, to deploy. Scalia would certainly qualify for me.

Are you talking about the party that spent decades motivating turnout by making their base hate gay people? They denied the humanity of gay people, fought to deny them basic human rights and all for what? Just to cynically win elections?

If you didn’t know this or chose to ignore it, your model is incomplete and you don’t understand one side.

Remind me who voted for DOMA? You need to study a little history.

You're not acting in good faith here, and it's both obvious and hilarious. You respond to someone summarizing decades of malignant propagandizing with, literally, a Whataboutism dredging up a single minor procedural issue, out of context, from like 23 years ago, and pretend that single disingenuous statement disarms the thing it's responding to. This is -- you are -- exactly what I'm talking about.

"Democrats aren't people anymore as far as I'm concerned"

"It's time to stop arresting these filth only to have them released the next day and start just putting them down"

--seen literally yesterday in a popular politics IRC chatroom, to general agreement. I think many people don't entirely realize how bad it's gotten.

Republicans are absolutely working to roll back legal protections for the LGBT community and have been engaged in a decades-long fight to reduce women's access to health care.

They're also fully in support of the immigration policies that have led to things like the very well-documented child separation.

In what ways are those not denying someone's humanity?

First, those are lies. Second, in no way is that denying humanity.