The Tolerating Intolerance Myth

Since John McCain had to ruin my last post by growing a spine, the Health Care debate is over. The Trump administration has proven itself to be a feeble and utterly useless machine that cannot accomplish any Republican goals. The battle in America isn't in Washington anymore. The battle now is in the streets. Charlottesville this weekend revealed to everybody a lot of ugly things about this country that I've been seeing for a year now. Trump is a failed joke who cannot govern. But as a symbol of the festering evil in this country? Oh, he's a brilliant success.

Donald Trump is not a Nazi. He is however, a source of inspiration to Nazis. He's deeply beloved by Nazis. He hesitates to condemn Nazis when he never hesitates to condemn his own cabinet members. Trump is a willing accomplice to these people and only maintains vague pretenses of plausible deniability. Charlottesville may not be what you thought of when Trump said he would "Make America Great Again", but this is the result. (Trump himself has no idea what MAGA means and never cared to find out.) The president might not believe he is a racist, but his actions, inactions, and statements are a clear message otherwise. There is no political calculus that explains the president's behavior. Also there definitely are no excuses.

The solution for the White Nationalists is not easy. But let's not bog ourselves down in false equivalencies here. Freedom of Speech is a great virtue in this country. However, fantasies about open discourse being the solution to everything have already failed. But while the government can't stop Nazis from speaking, that doesn't mean the rest of us are bound by those same rules. The First Amendment lets you talk. But it doesn't say you're still welcome in society after you've spoken.

There's been a debate for years over a Tolerating Intolerance Paradox. "If you're a truly open and tolerant society, intolerant people should be allowed to speak, right?" We should hear all thoughts and all ideas, theoretically. The problem is that a frank discussion of ideas is not what we have anymore. We have delusion and propaganda. People scream past each other. The idea that we can have an "ideas competition" where logic and morality can beat out madness has sadly been proven wrong. People just don't listen to things they don't want to hear.

Fascists are also full of shit every time they reference the First Amendment. White Nationalists don't believe in free speech, they don't believe in civil rights, they don't believe in anything but power. They claim to be oppressed to gain sympathy only so that they can oppress in turn. Pleas for freedom only work if you actually believe in freedom - they don't. A call for a "White Christian America" is a call that has two lies in it already. Nothing about these people are Americans beside place of birth. And I'm not sure what god they worship, but it isn't Jesus Christ.

You can see this even in right-wing subreddits. r/the_donald will complain to infinity that the rest of the internet is against them and censors them. Then they block all dissent and will not allow even the slightest criticism within. They are knowing hypocrites who have no logic. There is nothing to be gained from trying to talk with them.

This is what happens you decide that trolling is a somehow a philosophy to build a life around. You end up with nonsense and bullshit to a scale beyond comprehension. You end up with obvious frauds like Donald Trump as your hero. The entire right-wing has been sucked down into the black hole of nonsense, to the point that we have Tucker Carlson justifying slavery. Trump can't see the difference between George Washington and a traitor like Stonewall Jackson. The Party of Lincoln has become obsessed with saving monuments to the Confederacy. Conservatism of all stripes is threatening to become a sad lie.

Still just because Nazis don't believe in America doesn't mean that they are exempt from the freedoms of America. However, their rights are a lot more limited than they believe.

Because here's the little thing about the First Amendment: it only says the government cannot stop you from speaking. (Specifically it says "Congress" but it's been interpreted by the courts to mean all branches of government, state and federal.) It does not say that you are free to say whatever you want whenever you want. There are common sense restrictions, such as the "shouting 'fire' in a crowded theater" example. And more importantly: while you are infinitely free to speak, your rights don't mean that you have to be heard. Your rights to free speech also does not make you immune to consequences.

Take the Right's favorite Google employee, James Damore, who was the flavor of the week when he wrote a public memo against diversity. Besides the bad science justifying his prejudice, Damore's First Amendment rights don't protect employment. In my job if I were to exercise my First Amendment rights to expose a patient's medical history, I would be shitcanned in seconds. If I decided to tell my bosses that my black coworkers are genetically inferior to me, they would fire me twice as quickly. Damore opened his company up to lawsuits, showed he was incapable of working with female coworkers, and brought a massive controversy that Google didn't want or need. He is only a martyr if you believe women really are inferior. Libertarians can rejoice that the free market cleaned up this issue all on its own.

Now let's look at some of the latest news: GoDaddy and Google have started terminating right-wing websites for violations of their terms of service. GoDaddy and Google are not branches of the government. The First Amendment does not apply to them. They are legally liable if sites on their service share child porn or violate copyright, and can terminate clients whenever they need. Airbnb can choose to terminate White Nationalists accounts too. Most people do not want to rent their homes out to Nazis or Klan members who will bring chaos to their town. Airbnb has a responsibility to keep up a clean open network, so do Google and GoDaddy and even reddit.

As for reddit, I once believed that r/t_d should be allowed to vent in its own loud agony. But reddit is becoming increasingly complicit in the actions of these White Nationalists. r/the_donald needs to go.  Hate subreddits are deleted for a reason. This brand of troll supporters have lost all legitimacy as a political force. Get rid of them.

In the 21st century, getting cut off from private internet servers is almost akin to complete banishment from society. I'm fine with banishing these people. Lots of people had lots of things to say in the past, but that didn't mean they automatically got a forum. Nobody just gets on TV or is published in the newspaper or summons a crowd to listen. All websites need to work to cut off hate speech from within their communities. As for the racists: the First Amendment only gives you a voice, it doesn't give you a microphone.

I hear a worry about a "slippery slope". Some people worry that if we clamp down on hate speech today we're opening the door to arbitrarily deciding what is a "bad thought" and what isn't a "bad thought". The problem with this is that we're standing on another slippery slope: one where racism is no longer taboo. Our tolerance over the last decade led to Charlottesville. How much further are we going to slide? We could find ourselves back fifty years where at least half the country really did believe in White Supremacy. The Republican party is ashamed now, they might not be in a few years.

And let's not put quotation marks around "bad thought". The things said at Charlottesville are bad thoughts. Literally bad. I thought the Right was the side against moral relativism. If the Right is half as religious as it pretends to be, it should recognize the immediate evil within. Fascism is 100% bad all of the time. Let's not weasel and pretend what's happening isn't what's happening. We can leave the imaginary thinking to the president.

You want to argue that Robert E. Lee is an American hero and misread your history, go ahead. I'll tell you how you're wrong. You want to have a boring discussion about the tax code, let's have it. However, there is no discussion to be found with naked hate. They're delusional assholes. Discussion is pointless. I don't need to tell them why they're wrong. Their wrong-ness is so obvious it does not need explanation. The only cure is isolation.

Fascism needs to remain toxic. The people who marched in Charlottesville need to suffer consequences. When they get home they should lose their jobs, they should lose friends, and they should lose opportunities. This isn't to maintain some kind of liberal echo chamber. This is to maintain a civil society. I always demand honesty, not "safe spaces". (If you want a "safe space" or an "echo chamber", try r/t_d.) Society cannot be allowed to tear itself apart with stupid hatreds. Nobody gains anything. If the Alt-Right doesn't like the consequences of their speech, they have the option to not say anything. Grow up.

If the White Nationalists want their White Nation, they can have it. This is a big country. Go out into the woods. Or find a swamp. Or squat in a desert. Follow the Fred Phelps model and build a compound all to yourself in some godforsaken stretch in the middle of nowhere. You can scream to the heavens how unfair things are, how America is doomed. Have fun. But let's not pretend you can go home after revealing what a horrible person you are and have everything be just like it used to be. You may not have broken a law, but you are still not welcome in this society. We cannot allow them to be welcome.

The only problem now is trying to find a way to silence the king of all this madness. How exactly do you shut a president up?

I think impeaching him is a good start.