For the garden of tolerance to thrive, the intolerant weeds must be ripped out of the soil and disposed of in such a way that they can not spread their seeds further,
What does this look like?
That’s the part that made me uncomfortable as well. Sounds like a planty euphemism for violence. The rest I find agreeable.
I guess I should have made it more explicit then, since you think its merely a colorful euphemism and not a direct statement.
Words and feelings don’t defeat authoritarians/nazis/fascism/tyrants.
Violence does.
You’d be sitting there with a swastika on your arm in a world without jews, roma, and gays, trans people, and far more… if good men and women didnt take up violence against the ideology of hate that these people push.
They don’t care about yours words. Your tolerance. They use them as toys for amusement, laughing as you exhaust yourself trying to argue against their ever increasingly absurd statements, and as tools to spread their intolerance and hatred.
You cant debate or compromise with them, because debating gives them false legitimacy and compromise does nothing but sacrifice society to advance their position and gains.
You should be uncomfortable that these people are emboldened to come out and make their speeches. to fly their flags. to hang their banners and to assault government buildings at the direct command of their masters.
They have no problem using violence to eradicate you and everything you hold dear.
and you being uncomfortable about it will do nothing but make them laugh. Because its not a matter of if they come for you, its when.
And if you insist on inaction and being the last one standing because you did not fight… well, you’ll be the final verse of a poem and no one will be left to speak for you.
Trying to paint this as hypocritical, as paradoxical, as cognitive dissonance, or anything else, is nothing but tools of soft handed approach for the intellectuals of the ideology of hate to try and carve a space of false legitimacy for themselves via compromise and exploitation of societies tolerance.
These people are a direct threat to everything we hold dear as a people, as a society, and as a species, and need to be treated as such.
You do realize that these “authoritarians/nazis/fascism/tyrants” use the exact same language when talking about you, right?
Thought is not a crime; ideas are not crimes; political leanings are not a crime; being a racist, nazi, facist, communist, socialist, bigot, homophobe, transphobe or whatever else is not a crime. The moment it becomes one, we start punishing people for what they believe which is IMO and the opinions of many others objectively wrong. You don’t do that. Even if you lose, you don’t become a barbarian. You fight the ones that act. You fight the ones that actually hurt people. Actions, not thoughts, are what is punishable in a civilized society, so take it easy, Big Brother.
You use “these people” and “they” a lot. You do know that the people you are talking about are individuals, right? Human beings like you? Hurt in maybe a thousand more ways than you. Embracing some terrible hatred to cover whatever brokenness they have. If someone is actually convinced that fascism is the way forward, you’re actually ok with enacting violence on them? If you really would be ok with hurting them for their beliefs, then you, my friend, are the one who will bring tyranny; just a tyranny of a different sort. A tyranny of your ideas, your definitions, and your “tolerance.” No better than “them.”
That’s kinda the reason why I believe the solution to defeat intolerance is by talking directly to the intolerant and showing how they are wrong otherwise you’re just showing them you are the intolerant fascist. By attacking their freedom of speech your proving that you attack free speech. In history it seems that fascism arizes when there is injustice like how when the Germans were oppressed after WW1 it was the fascists that had a solution to the injustice. Mind you a not very good solution but when you are dirt poor humiliated forced to live in a land desimated by war the Nazi party was a pretty effective way to get back at the world that destroyed your home. Had we caught onto the injustice the Germans were facing we could have prevented the rise of Nazi Germany. Granted at the time the Germans would have told anyone who listened that it was the Jews that made everything bad happen but if your smart enough one could see past the hate and see exactly why these people are hurt to the point of blaming a religion and feeling the need to puff themselves as superior any nation could have caught onto that and become the hero the Germans made the Nazis out to be. Just look at any other regime like Soviet Russia or North Korea they rose because they had a issue and only evil people were around to wear the cape of a hero.
Yes, the left has to counter hateful rhetoric with their own rhetoric and propose viable alternatives. Making the issue about freedom of speech, like this comic does, plays right into the hands of the right wing. They know they can win that battle, because most people are in favor of free speech.