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   Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 09-Jun-2024 19:19:39 JST Aral Balkan

   The very fact we have to say “vote against fascism” is a damning indictment of the failure of our democratic institutions and the rule of law. You shouldn’t be able to vote FOR fascism. Democracies that lack constitutional safeguards against fascism will, eventually, stop being democracies. When? At the last election. The one that elected the fascists. Democracy cannot tolerate fascism. Tolerance cannot tolerate intolerance. I’m afraid this is a lesson we will learn the hard way. Again.

   • Embed this notice
     Rui Seabra (ruiseabra@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 10-Jun-2024 00:08:50 JST Rui Seabra

     in reply to

     • António Manuel Dias

     @aral
     You're wrong on many levels.

     1. You do not know enough about what Karl Popper actually said and wrote, the meme that circulates is an insult to what he wrote

     2. Only democracies without checks and balances can succumb like that, work on them to have those or they're fake democracies

     3. The examples of past wouldn't be on what we recognize as democracy, today

     @ammdias

   • Embed this notice
     enoch_exe_inc (enoch_exe_inc@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 10-Jun-2024 03:45:30 JST enoch_exe_inc

     in reply to

     • Rui Seabra
     • António Manuel Dias

     @RuiSeabra @aral @ammdias Karl Popper could’ve read his classics better, for he misunderstood Plato and Platonism quite badly. He also wasn’t the first to discover the tolerance paradox; only the first to call it as such. To my knowledge, this was first laid out by political philosopher (and literal Nazi) Carl Schmitt in his book Political Theology (1922), arguing that liberals and their love of free speech would defend the free speech of those who sought to destroy it.

   • Embed this notice
     Rui Seabra (ruiseabra@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 10-Jun-2024 06:10:36 JST Rui Seabra

     in reply to

     • enoch_exe_inc

     @enoch_exe_inc there are too many cripto-autocrats trying to reach power, any restriction on speech favors autocrats. If it isn't universally promoted and defended, freedom of speech is removed by autocrats, regardless of political positioning, as it enables criticism and dissent. Any defense of censorship is promotion of autocracy.

   • Embed this notice
     enoch_exe_inc (enoch_exe_inc@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 10-Jun-2024 06:24:11 JST enoch_exe_inc

     in reply to

     • Rui Seabra
     • enoch_exe_inc

     @RuiSeabra @enoch_exe_inc I’m not defending censorship. In fact, I want to maximise free speech. However, because some speech naturally drowns out other speech, the relative power of some speech must be restricted, unfortunately, but necessarily.

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     enoch_exe_inc (enoch_exe_inc@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 10-Jun-2024 07:20:16 JST enoch_exe_inc

     in reply to

     • Rui Seabra
     • enoch_exe_inc

     @RuiSeabra @enoch_exe_inc Personally, I see the paradox of tolerance like I see Russell’s paradox in set theory: unavoidable and inevitable in retrospect. However, another way of seeing it is that if there were no limitations on freedom of speech, people would make them anyway, and in an environment where all ideas are equal, tend towards their extremest versions.

   • Embed this notice
     Rui Seabra (ruiseabra@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 10-Jun-2024 07:20:16 JST Rui Seabra

     in reply to

     • enoch_exe_inc

     @enoch_exe_inc
     Freedom of speech doesn't mean all ideas are equal. That's a very, very dangerous statement. All people having the right of speaking their mind is not the same as all having equal value. It's a corner stone of democracy. Arguing against free speech is in fact arguing against the very concept of democracy, revealing a wish to replace it with autocracy. The autocracy of "only the opinions I like".

   • Embed this notice
     Rui Seabra (ruiseabra@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 10-Jun-2024 07:29:08 JST Rui Seabra

     in reply to

     • enoch_exe_inc

     @enoch_exe_inc
     There is no paradox. Popper argues precisely *against* the idea that it is,, because intolerance is the last resort that you should use when "the other side" moves beyond speech. Do not confuse offense with aggression, in Portugal we have good sayings for offensive people: "words, the wind takes them", and "while dogs bark, the caravan moves along". This is different from hitting someone, killing, or harassing.

     Dilution or replacement of meaning are the tools of Big Brother.

   • Embed this notice
     enoch_exe_inc (enoch_exe_inc@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 10-Jun-2024 07:36:45 JST enoch_exe_inc

     in reply to

     • Rui Seabra
     • enoch_exe_inc

     @RuiSeabra @enoch_exe_inc That may be true, but it’s not what freedom of speech is taken to mean, at least not in all the countries that proclaim to have it. Supposedly, freedom of speech prevents the government from removing opinions it doesn’t like, but that is, at best, binding only to those with lots of money; and, at worst, a blatant lie. Also, it’s usually those with lots of money who get the power to determine which opinions are sanctioned and which may send you to the secret prisons.

   • Embed this notice
     enoch_exe_inc (enoch_exe_inc@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 10-Jun-2024 07:42:05 JST enoch_exe_inc

     in reply to

     • Rui Seabra
     • enoch_exe_inc

     @RuiSeabra @enoch_exe_inc On that, I agree. “Literally 1984” memes have it all wrong. It’s not the revision and creation of new words that’s Orwellian; it’s the annihilation of words and the dictionary getting thinner. In terms of linguistics, Newspeak would never work, but that hasn’t and isn’t stopping people from trying.

   • Embed this notice
     enoch_exe_inc (enoch_exe_inc@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 10-Jun-2024 23:50:40 JST enoch_exe_inc

     in reply to

     • Rui Seabra
     • enoch_exe_inc

     @RuiSeabra @enoch_exe_inc In every other way, though, it doesn’t look like we’ll ever see eye to eye. I consider pluralism to be an unsolved problem in political science much like the P vs NP problem in computer science.

   • Embed this notice
     Rui Seabra (ruiseabra@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 10-Jun-2024 23:50:40 JST Rui Seabra

     in reply to

     • enoch_exe_inc

     @enoch_exe_inc
     No two people will ever see eye to eye on everything, but it's in my DNA to respect your right to express your different opinion, even when it's an obnoxious one as those nasty xenophobe crypto neo Nazis. If we don't let them do that, nothing separates us from them, as they'll be the first to remove our freedoms, I refuse to be like them.