This is a thorough once-over giving the lie to the "conservatives'" self-serving bullshit squealing that "Butbutbutbutbut if you don't tolerate my intolerance you're a hypocrite!" The short version, as put forth in the article, is this: tolerance is a peace treaty, not a suicide pact.
Put another way, it's social technology, just like laws. It allows us, in an ever-more-connected global society, to exist and function. Like a treaty it covers those, and only those, who are party to it.
This means that if you're a genocidal fucking psychopath then no, Virginia, we do not have to "tolerate" your unhinged ramblings. You are cancer in the body politic. You have gleefully ripped your human card to shreds and dropped the pieces in an incinerator, cackling like a hyena on PCP at how you have "owned the libs." You have placed yourselves outside the treaty. We are not obligated to put up with your shit.
tl;dr: if you can't behave like a civilized human being, don't be surprised when you get treated like a rabid animal. Read and be better, or don't, it's your choice, but don't bitch when you get your find-outs.
My take on this is that there were a bunch of Internet Tough Guys in the thread, and things got out of hand. I guess that doesn't bode well for the mental health of anyone bragging in that thread.
I'm not proposing that anything be done about Runaway. I am sincerely concerned about his mental health. His comments aren't a direct threat, however. But tolerance doesn't mean that I sit back and indulge his fantasies or pretend that this is a simple difference of opinion. No, I'm going to tell him that what he's saying is awful. It's not a simple difference of opinion like me arguing with you about what is an appropriate level of economic regulation. You might disagree with my views, but Runaway's views are objectively wrong and truly loony. When he expresses those views, it's appropriate to condemn them. When he discusses his paranoid delusions, it's appropriate to tell him that he's not being rational and that his paranoid delusions are lunacy. I fail to see why you might have a problem with this.
You already introduced a subjective component, interpreting a conditional statement as an absolute one. Here, it was quite clear that he was speaking of this enormous harm in response to a hypothetical enormous provocation ("a future with slavery in it looks pretty damned bleak"). The real mental health question would be how does he determine that these dire circumstances are near enough at hand to issue such a dire warning? Seems pretty thin to me though there are a lot of authoritarians out there.
It's the same with the January 6 protesters. They were protested for a point of view that had already bombed harshly in the courts. Sure, if they really had solid evidence of a fraudulent election, then storming the Capitol in the way they did would be reasonable and effective. But they didn't.
You're attacking the wrong part of the logic chain.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday May 01, @01:14AM
You already introduced a subjective component, interpreting a conditional statement as an absolute one. Here, it was quite clear that he was speaking of this enormous harm in response to a hypothetical enormous provocation ("a future with slavery in it looks pretty damned bleak"). The real mental health question would be how does he determine that these dire circumstances are near enough at hand to issue such a dire warning? Seems pretty thin to me though there are a lot of authoritarians out there.
It's the same with the January 6 protesters. They were protested for a point of view that had already bombed harshly in the courts. Sure, if they really had solid evidence of a fraudulent election, then storming the Capitol in the way they did would be reasonable and effective. But they didn't.
You're attacking the wrong part of the logic chain.