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Sure, "Nazi" and "white supremacist" get overapplied. But that doesn't mean it's impossible to tell. Look at the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville: people were literally brandishing Nazi symbols, chanting "blood and soil" and "Jews will not replace us". Is that not sufficient information to say that yep, these are actual Nazis?

And yes, you could stretch the "predicated on violence" to encompass a lot of things. But that's just a slippery slope fallacy. Nazism and white supremacy literally have dominance over and/or extermination of others as their explicit goals.




Sure, "Nazi" and "white supremacist" get overapplied.

Massively!

But that doesn't mean it's impossible to tell. Look at the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville:

Yes, many of the attendees were National Socialist equivalents. However, what I see in recent years, is that someone advocating for Free Speech for everyone can be held falsely equivalent. That's going too far. Someone criticizing Antifa branded violence can be held as falsely equivalent. That's also going too far. Very often, I see ideologues who basically proclaim that people who don't agree with their platform are to be falsely equivalent. Example: Kirsten Gillibrand Compares Being Pro-Life to Racism | ‘The Other Side Is Not Acceptable’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN6XKChXMJ4

It's as if someone, somewhere, is trying to spread emotionally charged, outrage inducing, anti-intellectual ideas designed to short circuit discourse. As a society, what we instead need to do is to quell outrage, promote intellectual integrity and rational discourse.


> It's as if someone, somewhere, is trying to spread emotionally charged, outrage inducing, anti-intellectual ideas designed to short circuit discourse.

Scott covered that also:

https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/10/30/sort-by-controversial/

The way people are starting to behave, that story actually doesn't seem all that hard to believe anymore.




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