The answer to the question of whether actual bona fide extremist full-on Hitler-worshipping Jew-hating holocaust-denying non-parody non-ironic serious neo-nazis exist, the answer is very simple: Yes, they do exist.
You can easily find their vile rhetoric eg. on Gab.com by searching with certain keywords. While Poe's Law is in full effect here, and it may well be that some of those accounts are just trolls, I believe many of them are bona fide neo-nazis with some of the vilest and most racist opinions and conspiracy theories you can think of.
One question that may arise: Should they have the same right to free speech as everybody else? Should they be allowed to express their opinions online, for anybody to see?
Well, that's also in my opinion an unequivocal yes. The right to free speech is not conditional. It's not contingent on those opinions being "politically correct". As long as they are not inciting to and causing actual criminal activity, or soliciting a crime, or defaming (in the legal sense) somebody in a manner that causes them actual real-life harm like loss of income, then they have the exact same right to free speech as you and me. As vile and disgusting as expressing racist opinions may be, as long as it's not directly causing criminal activity to be committed, it is covered by the fundamental right to free speech.
And now to the other question: Does it matter that they exist?
For the most part, no. These people are pretty much inconsequential. In the grand scheme of things they are pretty irrelevant and can be (and should be) safely ignored.
Why? Because they hold no political power and have no influence in society. They do not affect law-making (at least not in the direction they want), they do not affect policies, their opinions are not being taught at schools. They might be able to dissuade a few individual people, but that's a pretty negligible effect on society as a whole (and, in the end, those people do have the fundamental right to receive any information they want and choose their political views as they want.)
The situation is rather different with the modern neo-Marxist regressive leftist ideology. They are not a fringe minority with no political power and no influence. On the contrary, they have a huge amount of political power and influence in society, and this power is only growing stronger and stronger by the day.
They, too, have the same right to free speech as you and me, but in this case their existence does matter, which makes them a lot more problematic than the neo-nazis. It's a much harder dilemma. How to combat their totalitarianism without at the same time trampling over their fundamental rights? They cannot be simply ignored (like the neo-nazis can). But what to do about it? It's a difficult question.
You can easily find their vile rhetoric eg. on Gab.com by searching with certain keywords. While Poe's Law is in full effect here, and it may well be that some of those accounts are just trolls, I believe many of them are bona fide neo-nazis with some of the vilest and most racist opinions and conspiracy theories you can think of.
One question that may arise: Should they have the same right to free speech as everybody else? Should they be allowed to express their opinions online, for anybody to see?
Well, that's also in my opinion an unequivocal yes. The right to free speech is not conditional. It's not contingent on those opinions being "politically correct". As long as they are not inciting to and causing actual criminal activity, or soliciting a crime, or defaming (in the legal sense) somebody in a manner that causes them actual real-life harm like loss of income, then they have the exact same right to free speech as you and me. As vile and disgusting as expressing racist opinions may be, as long as it's not directly causing criminal activity to be committed, it is covered by the fundamental right to free speech.
And now to the other question: Does it matter that they exist?
For the most part, no. These people are pretty much inconsequential. In the grand scheme of things they are pretty irrelevant and can be (and should be) safely ignored.
Why? Because they hold no political power and have no influence in society. They do not affect law-making (at least not in the direction they want), they do not affect policies, their opinions are not being taught at schools. They might be able to dissuade a few individual people, but that's a pretty negligible effect on society as a whole (and, in the end, those people do have the fundamental right to receive any information they want and choose their political views as they want.)
The situation is rather different with the modern neo-Marxist regressive leftist ideology. They are not a fringe minority with no political power and no influence. On the contrary, they have a huge amount of political power and influence in society, and this power is only growing stronger and stronger by the day.
They, too, have the same right to free speech as you and me, but in this case their existence does matter, which makes them a lot more problematic than the neo-nazis. It's a much harder dilemma. How to combat their totalitarianism without at the same time trampling over their fundamental rights? They cannot be simply ignored (like the neo-nazis can). But what to do about it? It's a difficult question.
Comments
Post a Comment