I could be wrong, but I think there's a specific violent threat embedded in calling trans people nazis - nazis are still the simplest shorthand terminology for "unambiguously evil oppressors whom it is acceptable to violently oppose." No one wrings their hands and bemoans the Allies' treatment of the nazis in WW2. To this very day it's hard to answer "is it okay to punch a nazi" negatively- most people would probably agree that the nazi had it coming.

That kind of sentiment makes this whole "trans nazis are infiltrating and controlling the cis lesbian and gay rights movement" accusation a little scarier, in my opinion, due to context - portraying your ideological opponents as nazis as prelude to violence, and trans people are already the target of plenty of violent transphobic attacks.

(I still don't think this arrest is warranted, absent some sort of other evidence that he intends to do more than call people names online... but there are very specific connotations to calling trans people nazis, that I feel like it's fair to call out aside from mere 'political beliefs')

I can't speak to the UK, but in the US, the term nazi gets thrown around a lot. For example, the Left calls Right nazis and Right calls the Left nazis, etc. As such, it's hard for me, and I'd imagine a lot of HN users, to consider calling someone a nazi as a violent threat.

We used to call one of our friends a beer nazi. As in he would try to force you to drink beer.

> I could be wrong, but I think there's a specific violent threat embedded in calling trans people nazis

There is not now and likely never will be a politician who has not at some point compared their adversaries to Nazis. Do we put them all behind bars, or only the ones you disagree with?

What do we do with the trans activist comparing those who oppose them with Nazis?

There's really no need for a deep ideological discussion on the topic of Nazis. In modern times, the phrase "everyone I don't like it is a Nazi" sums up the definition.

> No it's not, it's literally not relevant (or at least shouldn't be). You are saying a person's political beliefs are legally relevant to if they should be arrested or not.

Isn't the idea that the intent behind actions being legally relevant pretty well established? There's a difference between different degrees of murder and between murder and manslaughter based not on whether the actions themselves differed, but whether the intent to kill was there (and not even that, but how _long_ it was held, e.g. "spur of the moment" versus premeditated). It seems like in any case where intent is relevant, looking at the context of the accused would be necessary to determine the scope of the crime.

Intent behind speech that "caused someone anxiety" should be entirely irrelevant, because nobody should ever be arrested for it. Period.

That's not what I'm referring to; that's just in the headline. The context I'm referring to is in the parent of this comment chain, which describes both the actual image being shared and some of the writings of the accused along with others who they feature on their website. I think there's room for debate about whether that context is relevant, but it's not what I'm responding to.

Yes, mens rea (state of mind/intent) is part of many crimes.

But we're not talking about murder, we're talking about a social media post that "caused someone anxiety." Whether intent matters for other (actual) crimes is irrelevant.

Intent and beliefs are not the same thing.

> No it's not, it's literally not relevant. You are saying a person's political beliefs are legally relevant to if they should be arrested or not.

In other western democracies, freedom of speech isn't paramount. What you say matters and you can be held responsible for it and the harm you cause. I'm not taking one side or the other, personally, but this is an opinion question settled by the voters.

That's not what OP was arguing, though. OP appeared to be suggesting it was ok to arrest someone on flimsy grounds, because they were participating in a meme promoted by an organization with harmful ideology. I'm not sure what other motive we can ascribe to that post, really.

Arresting someone on flimsy grounds is pretty well protected by decades of case law. The police are granted a wide degree of latitude over whom they can arrest and for what reason. Sometimes this is abused but there are limits to how much damage you can do with this abuse.

The fact a fairly minor inconvenience was suffered to somebody with a pretty sick ideology certainly means I wont be clutching my pearls. Im sure the government did 1000 worse things happened today that didnt catch the attention of the editor of the mirror.

> The fact a fairly minor inconvenience was suffered to somebody with a pretty sick ideology certainly means I wont be clutching my pearls.

This feels like Martin Niemöller's poem, personified. I agree that this guy has a pretty sick ideology, but what if one of us posted something snarky/disrespectful about, say, pedophile religious leaders, and someone got offended, claiming we were being disrespectful toward their religion? I doubt you'd be so calmly dismissive of an arrest in this case, even if it was a "fairly minor inconvenience".

I know UK law is different, but at least in the US, just the fact that you have been arrested, even if no charges are ever filed, can cause you problems down the road. Just last week I was applying to renew my Global Entry subscription (for non-Americans who may not be familiar, it's a lame-I-have-to-do-this-yet-useful program to streamline re-entry into the US after traveling abroad), and there was a question that specifically asked if I had ever been arrested, even if the record for such an arrest had been expunged or sealed. Fortunately I was able to truthfully answer "no" to that, but had I been caught up in something ridiculous like the article describes, I would have had to answer "yes", and possibly be denied a useful government service.

You might also consider that a "minor inconvenience", but I'm sure there are more severe examples where merely having a no-charges-filed arrest on your record can have some dystopian consequences for a person.

> Im sure the government did 1000 worse things happened today that didnt catch the attention of the editor of the mirror.

That's just whataboutism. So we shouldn't care about what are perhaps minor abuses, just because there are worse abuses?

Whataboutism is definitely the most abused term of 2022.

A reasonably charitable interpretation of OP's comment suggests they were not suggesting that at all.

I don't see that at all, and invoking "charitable interpretation" is a bit disingenuous. Why bring up the context if not to suggest that this arrest was justified because of the person's ideology?

I don't think it's ever disingenuous to invoke charitable interpretation when an uncharitable interpretation is made.

The comment was giving context around why the guy's actions might be considered morally reprehensible (or more simply, "wrong"), and was not in any way suggesting that that made an arrest justified. In fact the text explicitly says that this is not the point being made.

If the reader makes that leap (here despite the comment author's warning), then that's on the reader, and it's exactly why charitable interpretation is important. Without charitable interpretation, people put words in each others' mouths, talk past each other, or don't hear each other.

It's essential to civil discourse in general: most of what most people write or say will be less than perfect, so productive two-way communication requires making constant active effort to forgive any perceived allusion, subtext or sleight, to the point of unreasonableness. So no, it's not disingenuous at all to bring this up. (But isn't doing this exhausting? My goodness is it ever! Yes.)

Note, crucially, that a "charitable interpretation" is not necessarily the "most likely interpretation" or "the interpretation you believe is the most accurate". It is the interpretation that puts the other person in the most favourable light, while remaining mostly (yes, this often requires flexibility and some approximation) logically consistent with what was actually said or written. In this particular case, a charitable interpretation can be made by simply not putting words in the author's mouth: his text is entirely consistent with the charitable interpretation.

"Disingenuous" was definitely an unfair characterization, and I apologize for that.

> In fact the text explicitly says that this is not the point being made.

I don't think it's fair to prime someone with a bunch of negative information, and then turn around and say "no, no! I'm not trying to prejudice your thinking at all!"

To me, I think all this context was entirely unnecessary. This article is able police excess -- or, really, legal excess. I would much rather have a discussion about whether or not the sorts of laws that lead to arrests like this are reasonable and acceptable in a free society. Instead -- and I agree that doing this is exhausting! -- we are not only muddying the waters by giving people an excuse to say "yeah, but this person deserved it because they are anti-trans", but we are going into a meta-meta discussion about whether or not someone meant to muddy the waters or not. Which, IMO, is entirely irrelevant: the waters have been muddied, and this entire subthread is a stupid waste of time, time that I regret wasting (but, given who I am, I know I will waste again sometime in the future).

To me, the point is not "this guy said some stuff that muddied the waters, but he didn't intend to muddy the waters, so it's ok". The point is that the waters have been muddied with irrelevant context, and instead of having an interesting discussion about freedom of speech, we're talking about how shitty an anti-trans group is. Which, ok, sure, this group does indeed seem pretty shitty, but I don't come to HN because I want to get into a mood where need to yet again get pissed at shitty transphobic people.

> so productive two-way communication requires making constant active effort to forgive any perceived allusion, subtext or sleight, to the point of unreasonableness.

This two-way communication is a two-way street. We should not put all of the burden on the reader. The author should have a responsibility to be as clear as possible, and avoid posting things that are guaranteed to throw a discussion off-topic.

I don't disagree! I think a fairer criticism of the parent comment might have been, for example, something like:

"The relevant question is not whether this person did something reprehensible or wrong or even harmful, but rather whether the police's actions were proportional, or whether there was a legal basis for an arrest... Or even whether the current legal framework is how it ought to be."

The goal in the above paragraph is to:

- neutralize any unfair rhetorical impact of the parent comment

- allow for the parent comment to be read charitably

- argue directly to the relevance of the point, and help refocus or reframe the discussion

Now query whether I'd be successful at any of this... But I think that's how I would approach it!

I think your criticism demonstrates a willingness to only criticize one side of an argument, the one you happen to disagree with.

You ask for a charitable interpretation of OP, but don't give a charitable interpretation of the response.

To demonstrate, even if OP didn't mean to imply the interpretation as everyone sees it, it's highly upvoted and natural to interpret it as such.

The fact that it's upvoted demonstrates that many people do agree with the perspective of that interpretation. In other words, even if the interpretation is not correct (a very dubious claim), it's clearly a popular perspective. Yet you're not willing to engage with it.

I'm actually not on anyone's "side" here, and I provided an example of criticism I thought would be fairer. I also explained (I believe quite clearly) why I thought one criticism was valid and the other was not.[1]

The popularity of a comment does not change its meaning.

---

[1] In fact, I would like to point out that the alternative criticism I have just proposed (the one on which you are commenting) is essentially the same one you yourself made here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32428259

It would appear we're actually of the same opinion on the substance of the parent comment, so I'm not sure where you're coming from here. Is it at all possible that you may have projected a little bit?

Nonsense. That is what they were saying.

> In other western democracies, freedom of speech isn't paramount. What you say matters and you can be held responsible for it and the harm you cause.

I understand, but that's not what you said in GP.

I'm not GP.

That's fine, my mistake. You should charitably interpret it as "your response doesn't align with the GP comment."

Apologies, I didn't mean it negatively or anything, just for folks following along.

It’s relevant for me.

If you tweet or retweet Nazi propaganda or holocaust denial material and live here in Austria then you may be prosecuted. I’m not a super fan of these restrictions on free speech but I do note that I live in a place where there are a few and they are important to us here.

Edit: There is some amusing irony to being downvoted for this reply which only states my own personal interest in hearing some information from someone and doesn’t tell anyone else what to think ;)

> Edit: There is some amusing irony to being downvoted for this reply which only states my own personal interest in hearing some information from someone and doesn’t tell anyone else what to think ;)

Being downvoted is not equal to government prosecution. You can be told people don't like your opinion and just say so, compared to having police knock on your door over it. I don't agree with what the guy from the article is advocating, but I do agree that he should not be prosecuted/arrested for what he did.

Was this actually Nazi propaganda? I think the meme is trying to say the trans community acts like Nazis and Nazis are bad.

I don’t really have enough info to make a fair judgment. I only wanted to provide my perspective that I personally do find the context the GP provided relevant to the story even if they don’t. Wasn’t an attack or being contrary or anything.

This clearly was not "Nazi propaganda". Calling your opponent a Nazi does not imply that Nazis are good. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Yes, it is relevant in that context. Europeans tend to hold the view that Nazis are deplorable and don't deserve a voice.

Being a German, I tend to agree.

There is such a thing as being beyond the pale.

Funnily enough the phrase beyond the pale is, perhaps apocryphally, said to originate from Ireland. The pale was an area around Dublin under the control of the English in the Middle Ages. Only “barbarian Irish” lived outside, beyond the area. I’m from the part outside ;)

While that would be a specific instance of it, my understanding is that "the pale" would refer more generally to the fence, or palisade, that encircled a town (made up of wooden stakes, or "pales"; this is also the origin of "to impale"), and "beyond the pale" simply meant "outside the protection of the town", and thus, metaphorically, outside of what's right and proper.

....In fact, Wiktionary states [0] "According to the Oxford English Dictionary, there is insufficient evidence that the term originally referred to the English Pale, the part of Ireland directly under the control of the English government in the Late Middle Ages".

[0] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/beyond_the_pale