You can't debate someone that isn't arguing in good faith, and these people never ever are. Yeet and move on, save your energy for the people that have just been mislead by the altright and may actually change their opinions.
All you can do is force them to face their convictions. What happens after that is up to them. Just do what Tim Walz did to JD Vance when he asked about the election results, and bluntly ask the root question.
“Do you think migrants are less important than citizens? What about men vs. women? Or gay people vs. straight people? Or trans people vs. cisgender people?”
“Do you think that the government should force people to follow your religion? If the government picked a different religion than yours, would you just agree to follow it?”
To everyone pearl clutching in response to this correct meme with one of the following phrases:
"That's how you create an echo chamber"
"paradox of intolerance doesn't say how to fight fascism"
"This is about silencing opposing thought"
I would like to take this moment to remind you that the paradox of intolerance isn't about exiling those who disagree on economic policy; it's about recognizing and directly opposing those who are trying to harm or disadvantage others and doing so in a meaningful way that will actually change the outcome. You can't debate Hitler out of doing a genocide, but you could have jailed him before he gained power.
Being too spineless to call out and fight intolerance enables fascism. The longer you live wrapped up in your civility politics, the overton window shifts further right, and it strengthens the fascist support. It happened in pre-WW2 Germany, and it's being repeated in dozens of countries worldwide. If you feel the urge to block me, go ahead...
...but know that this is your fault
Edit: spelling
The paradox of intolerance is not a paradox. Tolerance is a social contract, folks who demand us tolerate intolerance are violating the social contract and should be ignored.
I'd argue it's not a paradox because it relies on two different definitions of tolerance.
Tolerance 1 is basically the kind of free speech principles adopted by most democratic societies and is probably necessary for such societies to remain free. Tolerance 2 is just silly. If you're in a forum specifically for debating deplorable opinions, fine. But there's no reason that a politics forum needs to cater to deplorable opinions.
THANK YOU. In a Post about banning Germany's far-right Party AFD, some people wrote such delusional nonsense! It's unbelievable how far some People go to defend POS like the AFD.
I was recently reminded about the caveats that Germany has on the "no Nazi parties" rule. It's truly insane that it's essentially (this is hyperbole, but less than you'd think) "you can ban a party from running if they're Nazis... As long as they call themselves Nazis, and they've won an election, and the leader is called Hitler, and the leader went to art school. All other parties must be allowed to run"
Why does everybody online insist on misusing "centrist" and "moderate" when they're talking about spineless, bitch-ass accomplices? An actual centrist in America in 2024 would be very progressive relative to most of the country. It's a good place to be.
The comic specifically calls out apologists. The kind that say "both sides equally bad" when both sides are most assuredly not equally bad. Or that try to suggest there can be anything meaningful gained from discussion with hateful intolerant people. They paint themselves as centrist. It's not really misusing it.
Hypothetically there could be bigots you could have a rational debate with, but they tend to not remain bigots for long.
I knew one. Nazi-tatted dude. White separatist (he was careful in specifying separatist, not supremacist). He believed racial conflict was inevitable (not a full on race war just ongoing low scale conflict) and he'd decided he's white, he's gonna be on the white side of the conflict. He was moderately respectful of other races as long as they didn't come into what he considered white territory.
He sounds like if a sundown town was a human being.
"Faschisten hören niemals auf, Faschisten zu sein
Man diskutiert mit ihnen nicht, hat die Geschichte gezeigt"
"Fascists won't ever stop being fascists. You don't argue with them, history has shown that"
Wenn du friedlich gegen die Gewalt nicht ankommen kannst, ist das letzte Mittel das uns allen bleibt Militanz
I 100% believe the lemmy developers' firm belief in this policy is why the platform was able to take off eventually. In the early days we would frequently have people join and then stomp their feet about free speech and the slur filter and then fuck off to whatever variant of voat was en vogue (...that was wolfballs for a little while). It was a small community, discussions were heavily (but not exclusively) tech and communism, but I don't think it would have been an appealing landing spot if that kind of toxicity had been allowed to grow.
Absolutely no question there's more hostility in the conversations here after redditors came here, but more users will do that. The exodus has made it a lot easier for me to abandon some of the smaller subreddits I was still active on.
You should engage them in debate though. The people who need to do so are always such cowards that they'd rather ban and run.
It's easy as fuck to outmaneuver one of those dipshits. And it's funny as fuck when they stomp off mad because you made them look like an idiot.
But it's not a debate. They have no interest in listening to you, any facts you present, nor presenting any disputing facts.
Never wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and the pig likes it. ― George Bernard Shaw
I'd argue it's better to make fun of the fascists!
But it’s not a debate. They have no interest in listening to you, any facts you present, nor presenting any disputing facts.
the debate is not for them. it is for potential impartial observer who just encountered the problem for the first time and is now forming an opinion.
unfortunately it is really hard, because since the onset of the machine learning generators the pile of crap is literally endless.
But it's not a debate. They have no interest in listening to you,
Adam doesn't debate Bob to convince Bob of Adam's viewpoint. Adam debates Bob to convince their shared audience: Charlie, David, Edward, Frank, George, Harry...
When Bob is ejected from this forum, Charlie, (et al), never hear that debate and are never convinced of Adam's views. They aren't inoculated against Bob's logic. When they come across Bob uncontested in another forum, they may be persuaded; they fall into his echo chamber. When they bring their half-formed ideas back to your forum, they are banned as apologists rather than debated.
Ejecting Bob makes your forum better. Adam debating Bob makes the world better.
Fascism demands a response. When it stands without objection, it grows. We are obligated to respond, less to convince the fascist to change their ways, and more to extend a branch to those passers-by who might get swept away.
Sometimes that responder is me. Sometimes it should be you.
The response can also be a closed fist or the end of a bayonet.
Not a first goal, but still a time tested answer.
Sometimes that is the best response.
It's the only worthwhile response. If you try to debate them, they will just toy with you and give garbage arguments, then go silent when they run out of useless arguments.
Your objective should not be to convince the bigot. Your objective should be to convince the curious bystander.
The response in this context is a preemptive: "not welcome here". We've all heard what the fascists have to say, and it's worthless. Zero tolerance for fascists.
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