[quitspamming]

I don't know how a country filled with guns can survive the normalization of calling people you disagree with Nazi, Fascist, etc. We've all been taught since grade school it was a good thing to kill Nazis, even in small percentages there are mentally unstable people who will hear you call someone a Fascist and take the logical step from "it's good to kill nazis" to "they're a nazi so I should kill them". I am both very pro freedom of speech and right to bear arms, and I think where Canada and the UK have gone with hate speech laws are too far, but I don't know how you solve this.

[tdeck]

What do you think the definition of fascist is? Is it ever appropriate to apply that label to someone?

[alickz]

I suspect many of the people on social media who use the word fascism could not define it

I think George Orwell was right when he said it has lost most of its meaning

https://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/As_I_Please/english/e...

>It will be seen that, as used, the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless

>By ‘Fascism’ they mean, roughly speaking, something cruel, unscrupulous, arrogant, obscurantist, anti-liberal and anti-working-class. Except for the relatively small number of Fascist sympathizers, almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’.

[dnissley]

It of course has a technical/historical definition but it's not used in that principled way by most people.

Just like "neoliberal" this is a kind of buzzword that generates a particular emotional reaction for those on the left. Meaning people being labeled with them are not just bad but really bad.

[tokioyoyo]

I generally agree with you, but wouldn’t lump Canada into this rhetoric. Its hate speech laws are fairly balanced, if I’ll be honest.

It’s going to sound absurd, but right now, USA’s global image is a very good counter-ad towards “complete” freedom of speech.

[all2]

We are an excellent example of what happens when the Hegelian Dialectic is applied successfully by the small minority.

We are also an example when a people becomes completely divorced from their cultural and religious heritage. Without a moral anchor, we are a people cast adrift, lost in confusion, calling evil good and good evil, all trying to do our own thing and benefit ourselves, consumed by greed, by self-interest.

Freedom of speech, or lack there-of, plays no role in what is happening in the United States. This country and its founding charters were written for a moral people. That the country is byzantine, crumbling, has more to do with a people who have lost their way than it has to do with this-or-that law that the government no longer heeds.

[cthalupa]

It's not even a matter of calling people fascists or nazis - there's been plenty of violence towards the politicians on the opposite side of the aisle, too. Nancy Pelosi and her husband. Melissa Hortman, John and Yvette Hoffman earlier this year.

If it was just a matter of people internalizing that killing fascists is fine and thus that calling people fascists is dangerous, then we would not see the same sort of violence being perpetrated against other politicians not getting the same label.

Kirk himself suggested that a "real patriot who wanted to be a midterm hero" should bail out the man who nearly killed Pelosi's husband. The rhetoric around political violence in this country has been ratcheted up to an insane degree, with or without any accusations of fascism, and this will continue or get worse as long as that remains the case.

[nailer]

He then immediately said he was joking and this kind of violence was obviously awful. I don’t think it was funny, but it’s worth completing the quote.

[mothballed]

No one shot the Skokie march Nazis and they literally showed up at a Jewish dominated town at a time when there weren't even background checks for guns. The ACLU even defended them in court, which is unthinkable that they would stand on their principles and do that today.

There's just less tolerance for discussing or exhibiting "extreme" or highly unpopular opinions, nowadays, it seems. Although, I could definitely be wrong -- people like MLK were shot for doing same long ago.

[magicalist]

> Although, I could definitely be wrong -- people like MLK were shot for doing same long ago.

I mean, you're almost there realizing the recency bias. The 1970s, when the Skokie Affair occurred, were arguably the high point for political violence in the post-WWII US.

[engintl]

Good point. I don't think we can avoid gun violence. Maybe a good improvement would be to incent basic education ?

But I hate so much attacks on freedom from governments that will always choose freedom of speech.

[foofoo4u]

“It’s good to kill Nazis” — this is certainly the prevailing sentiment in modern culture, reinforced by the vast number of books, stories, movies, and video games that support the premise. But something important is often overlooked in this view of righteousness:

1. People who believe they could never become Nazis are often the most unknowingly susceptible to it.

2. People who believe they can confidently identify a Nazi are often wrong — a mindset akin to witch hunts, where everyone is seen as a witch.

[dutchCourage]

You could've stopped your sentence at "I don't know how a country filled with guns can survive."

The main downside of abusing the words nazi and fascist is that it gives an out to the actual fascists out there. When it comes to gun violence, there are a lot more (self proclaimed) neo-nazis killing innocent people than people killing them.

[bcrosby95]

I'm old enough to remember Fox News hosts playing B-roll of Nazi footage while discussing Obama back in 2008.

[drak0n1c]

I'm old enough to recall MSNBC in 2011 cropping video footage of an Obama townhall protestor to only show his long-sleeve shirted back with slung open-carry rifle. They used it to immediately launch into a pundit discussion claiming that the protestors were motivated by racial animus. Turned out the protestor was black.

News manipulating footage to cast aspersions to historical boogeymen is routine. All it takes is one pundit mentioning an imagined similarity to play the edited B-roll.

[OCASMv2]

Calling people nazis and fascists nilly willy doesn't even count as hate speech...

[sharkjacobs]

"Hate speech" isn't just hateful speech, it's a specific term with a specific meaning. Being a nazi isn't an inherent characteristic of a person, it's an affiliation or ideology that they consciously choose.

[kaycey2022]

Isn't the whole point of the MAGA, non woke right, not to tone police people? How are you going to stop people from abusing other who they don't agree with? That is the basics of free speech.

[antonymoose]

I’ll throw my hat in on another comment on this thread - my last wasn’t well received but ask you take it honestly.

Circa 2017 during then “punching Nazis” era of social discourse, I started a new job. The first week in I went for lunch with a Junior teammate and was told “violence against ‘Nazis’” is fine, it’s justified. I asked how. I was told, my brain is a part of the body, so if someone says something so stupid that it ‘hurts the brain,’ the speech is now assault, so counter-violence is justified.

I, with hint of irony, told my new coworker that was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard and asked if I should now assault them for hurting my brain… and was met with hostility.

I don’t quite known I’m going with this exactly, but I feel folks are not giving the world around them an honest assessment, no matter their Ivy diploma. Politics isn’t a “gotcha game” and please stop tying to make it such.

[oceanplexian]

> I don't know how a country filled with guns can survive the normalization of calling people you disagree with Nazi, Fascist, etc.

The same way it did for the last 250 years as the world's oldest Democracy. By respecting and upholding our Constitution, especially the 1st and 2nd Amendments.

[allanmacgregor]

Can we stop pretending like the are not serious tribalization, polarization and problems on both left and right. Both sides are insane and there is no longer any people in the center.

[CivBase]

Genuine question: What makes you believe actual nazi and fascist beliefs are being normalized?

I have personally not seen this at all. I've seen a lot of talk about it being a thing, but I've still never seen it. I know and talk with many conservatives and they are all extremely anti-nazi and definitely do not promote fascist ideals.

[rmah]

I have to strongly disagree with this. From what I've seen, it's very rare that positions espoused by those being called "nazi" have anything to do with fascism.

[sojournerc]

Often people get their impression of someone like Kirk without ever actually engaging with the content. Too many hot takes and not enough real engagement. "It's cool to hate this guy..? Ok I guess he must be evil."

Painfully ironic given how open he was to debate.

[runjake]

> What is a better way to describe their unprecedented actions in this country?

I think you have the concepts of fascist and authoritarian confused.

[lenkite]

Aren't they being very non-racist ? AFAIK all illegal immigrants get deported - brown or yellow or whatever. Why have immigration laws if they are not enforced ? If there should be 100% open entry & benefits to the US, then Congress should first abrogate those laws, right ? It seems in the recent past, I beg your pardon - only suckers - entered the legal way with documentation.

[quitspamming]

It's interesting that you don't think I'm talking about both sides. Rush Limbaugh used to call women he disagreed with feminazis. The "tea party" under Obama used to call everything communist and fascist.