No, I believe what I’m stating are facts, and I’ll do my best to prove it in good faith hoping you’ll do the same.
No, they are cheering for the violent suppression of fascism.
Fascism is an authoritarian system of government that uses state power and violence to forcibly suppress political opposition. A citizen with zero institutional power having a restrictive stance on immigration isn’t a fascist state; they are just a voter you disagree with.
Let’s look at the actual power dynamic in the UK right now. The government wielding state power is the Labour Party. The citizen you are calling a “fascist” is arguing against the state’s current immigration policies. That makes the citizen the political opposition.
If you want to see what actual authoritarian suppression looks like in the UK right now, look at the state. The government recently upheld the use of the Terrorism Act to arrest hundreds of people—including an 82-year-old former magistrate—simply for peacefully holding placards that read, “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action.” Amnesty International explicitly called this a “grave misuse of sweeping counter-terrorism powers.”
You are blinding yourself to the actual authoritarianism being wielded by the state right in front of you. For them to be cheering for the suppression of fascism, they would have to be protesting the state’s use of anti-terror laws to violently crush political dissent. Instead, they are cheering for a street mob to violently crush a powerless citizen. You are redefining a voter’s opinion as “fascism” simply to justify using violence against the political opposition.
No, that is a debate. Democracy is more complicated than that, and includes the duty to defend the right to free speech by preemptively suppressing the free speech of those who would use free speech to suppress free speech. It sounds hypocritical at first, but if you sit with it for a little while, the logic of it is unassailable.
The logic isn’t unassailable; it is a complete misreading of the very philosophical concept you are trying to lean on. Popper explicitly wrote that we should not suppress intolerant philosophies as long as we can counter them with rational argument and public opinion. Popper argued that suppression is only justified when a group abandons rational debate and begins answering arguments with fists and pistols.
Let that sink in. The philosopher you are trying to use to justify your position explicitly warned that the line is crossed when people abandon debate and resort to physical violence to silence their opponents. By cheering for a mob to use physical violence to preemptively shut down someone’s speech, you are acting as the exact intolerant, anti-democratic threat that Popper warned about. You aren’t defending free speech; you are destroying it.
No, they are defending the use of physical violence to ensure people with fascist ideas stay afraid. This is a crucial defense of democracy. Someone this far gone isn’t going to respond with an open mind to better arguments. There is always hope that they might at some point realise how stupid they’ve been, but in the meantime, they do need to be afraid to voice their ideas.
First, by your logic, any group of citizens has the right to violently assault their political opponents, as long as they unilaterally declare the victim’s ideas to be unacceptable. That isn’t a defense of democracy. It is the definition of a lynch mob.
Second, democracy is a system explicitly designed to replace physical violence with debate, laws, and the ballot box. Delegating the suppression of speech to extrajudicial street thugs is the exact opposite of democracy.
Finally, look at your own words. You are explicitly defending the use of “physical violence” to ensure a specific group of people “stay afraid to voice their ideas.” You are arguing that physical violence should be used to induce public fear for political purposes. Which brings us perfectly to your final claim…
No it isn’t. Look it up.
Let’s look at the exact legal definition under UK law.
Under Section 1 of the UK’s Terrorism Act 2000, an action legally constitutes “terrorism” if it meets three specific criteria:
The action “involves serious violence against a person” (Section 1(2)(a)).
The use or threat of action is “designed to influence the government or to intimidate the public or a section of the public” (Section 1(1)(b)).
The use or threat is made “for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological cause” (Section 1(1)(c)).
Now, let’s look at what you just explicitly defended in your previous paragraph:
You defended “the use of physical violence” (meets criteria 1).
You said the goal was to ensure people “stay afraid” (meets criteria 2: intimidating a section of the public).
You said this must be done to advance your political ideology (meets criteria 3: advancing a political/ideological cause).
You didn’t just advocate for terrorism; you literally typed out all three legal prerequisites for terrorism under UK law, defended them as a “crucial defense of democracy,” and then arrogantly told me to look up the definition.
You’ve not proved any of this, so you don’t get this triumphant bit, sorry.
I have just cited the actual actions of the UK government, quoted the exact philosopher you tried to use to justify your stance, and mapped your own words directly onto the statutory definition of the UK Terrorism Act 2000.
You are cheering for terrorists because you have convinced yourself that as long as you use the right buzzwords, your brand of authoritarian violence is the “good kind.” History is full of people who thought exactly like you, right up until it was wielded against them.
So you started by promising to argue in good faith, and I started reading your reply with the intention of going through and responding to your points.
But then by the end you have confused me with another commenter, accused me of cheering for terrorists, being an authoritarian, advocating for terrorism, etc. Your last sentence is an unjustified ad hominem attack, and a threatening one at that. Your comment isn’t even logically consistent, let alone good faith, so I don’t feel like it deserves a well-thought-out reply.
Bottom line: you’re apologising for fascism. You’re implying that there’s a consensus on where the line of intolerance for the intolerant should be drawn, and how it should be defined. You don’t have the authority to tell us where/what that line is.
Oh look, a gish gallop tactic in the wild! Combined with some strawmen and moving the goalposts and the sealioning from earlier. You’re just a lovely can of logical fallacies and bad faith debate tactics, aren’t you?
All those words just to easily be disproven by the fact that the people who beat this shitstain asshole weren’t members of the government in any way or form. They weren’t even cops. It was other random citizens who beat him up. Ergo, not fascism when it’s literally not the government doing it, aiding it, promoting it, or even siding with the ones who beat the asshole. In fact, the government arrested those people.
Oh, and just you get it out of the way - in the video, the ones beating him up aren’t promoting their own ideology, they just think the asshole is an asshole for saying bullshit. No different than beating up a drunk at a bar who’s calling everyone’s mom a whore. So, not terrorism. Probably why they aren’t being charged with terrorism. Not that you can trust the application of UK laws anyway as intended, but even a government happy to label every but of uproar as “terrorism” these days hasn’t labeled it as such.
You are accusing me of “strawmanning” and arguing in bad faith, but you seem to have forgotten how a comment thread works. I was responding directly to the specific claims made by the previous commenter.
The person I was replying to explicitly claimed that the mob’s violence was politically motivated—they called it a “crucial defense of democracy” designed to ensure people “stay afraid.” I responded directly to their stated ideological motive. It is not a “strawman” to quote a person’s exact words and reply to the argument they actually made.
Now you have jumped in with a completely contradictory defense. You are arguing the mob had no political ideology at all, and was just acting like unprincipled thugs “beating up a drunk at a bar.”
I had no reason to address your alternative explanation at the time, because the person I was talking to was actively claiming this was a noble political crusade. Ironically, by stripping the mob of their political motive, you are actually arguing against the person I was responding to.
If you want to completely scrap their defense and present your own distinct viewpoint—that this wasn’t about defending democracy, but was just a senseless, apolitical street assault—I’m more than happy to address your argument separately. Let me know if that is the premise you want to go with.
Both can be true at the same time, Sir Gishgallop.
You can beat up an asshole who threatens to destabilize democracy just because he’s an asshole spouting violent bullshit while that in itself happens to strengthen democracy, much like an angry person beating up a drunk person at the bar causing a ruckus will bring order back to the bar even if they were just beating up the drunk for also being an asshole.
Listen, it is clear your responses are devolving into bad-faith, contradictory claims just to avoid admitting that a mob committing battery isn’t a noble political act.
I’ve said everything I intend to say. Either sit on it and reflect on why you are so desperate to justify vigilante street violence, or keep doing logical backflips to defend a mob. Either way, I am leaving the conversation here. You can have the last word if you need it.
No, I believe what I’m stating are facts, and I’ll do my best to prove it in good faith hoping you’ll do the same.
Fascism is an authoritarian system of government that uses state power and violence to forcibly suppress political opposition. A citizen with zero institutional power having a restrictive stance on immigration isn’t a fascist state; they are just a voter you disagree with.
Let’s look at the actual power dynamic in the UK right now. The government wielding state power is the Labour Party. The citizen you are calling a “fascist” is arguing against the state’s current immigration policies. That makes the citizen the political opposition.
If you want to see what actual authoritarian suppression looks like in the UK right now, look at the state. The government recently upheld the use of the Terrorism Act to arrest hundreds of people—including an 82-year-old former magistrate—simply for peacefully holding placards that read, “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action.” Amnesty International explicitly called this a “grave misuse of sweeping counter-terrorism powers.”
You are blinding yourself to the actual authoritarianism being wielded by the state right in front of you. For them to be cheering for the suppression of fascism, they would have to be protesting the state’s use of anti-terror laws to violently crush political dissent. Instead, they are cheering for a street mob to violently crush a powerless citizen. You are redefining a voter’s opinion as “fascism” simply to justify using violence against the political opposition.
The logic isn’t unassailable; it is a complete misreading of the very philosophical concept you are trying to lean on. Popper explicitly wrote that we should not suppress intolerant philosophies as long as we can counter them with rational argument and public opinion. Popper argued that suppression is only justified when a group abandons rational debate and begins answering arguments with fists and pistols.
Let that sink in. The philosopher you are trying to use to justify your position explicitly warned that the line is crossed when people abandon debate and resort to physical violence to silence their opponents. By cheering for a mob to use physical violence to preemptively shut down someone’s speech, you are acting as the exact intolerant, anti-democratic threat that Popper warned about. You aren’t defending free speech; you are destroying it.
First, by your logic, any group of citizens has the right to violently assault their political opponents, as long as they unilaterally declare the victim’s ideas to be unacceptable. That isn’t a defense of democracy. It is the definition of a lynch mob.
Second, democracy is a system explicitly designed to replace physical violence with debate, laws, and the ballot box. Delegating the suppression of speech to extrajudicial street thugs is the exact opposite of democracy.
Finally, look at your own words. You are explicitly defending the use of “physical violence” to ensure a specific group of people “stay afraid to voice their ideas.” You are arguing that physical violence should be used to induce public fear for political purposes. Which brings us perfectly to your final claim…
Let’s look at the exact legal definition under UK law.
Under Section 1 of the UK’s Terrorism Act 2000, an action legally constitutes “terrorism” if it meets three specific criteria:
Now, let’s look at what you just explicitly defended in your previous paragraph:
You didn’t just advocate for terrorism; you literally typed out all three legal prerequisites for terrorism under UK law, defended them as a “crucial defense of democracy,” and then arrogantly told me to look up the definition.
I have just cited the actual actions of the UK government, quoted the exact philosopher you tried to use to justify your stance, and mapped your own words directly onto the statutory definition of the UK Terrorism Act 2000.
You are cheering for terrorists because you have convinced yourself that as long as you use the right buzzwords, your brand of authoritarian violence is the “good kind.” History is full of people who thought exactly like you, right up until it was wielded against them.
So you started by promising to argue in good faith, and I started reading your reply with the intention of going through and responding to your points.
But then by the end you have confused me with another commenter, accused me of cheering for terrorists, being an authoritarian, advocating for terrorism, etc. Your last sentence is an unjustified ad hominem attack, and a threatening one at that. Your comment isn’t even logically consistent, let alone good faith, so I don’t feel like it deserves a well-thought-out reply.
Bottom line: you’re apologising for fascism. You’re implying that there’s a consensus on where the line of intolerance for the intolerant should be drawn, and how it should be defined. You don’t have the authority to tell us where/what that line is.
Oh look, a gish gallop tactic in the wild! Combined with some strawmen and moving the goalposts and the sealioning from earlier. You’re just a lovely can of logical fallacies and bad faith debate tactics, aren’t you?
All those words just to easily be disproven by the fact that the people who beat this shitstain asshole weren’t members of the government in any way or form. They weren’t even cops. It was other random citizens who beat him up. Ergo, not fascism when it’s literally not the government doing it, aiding it, promoting it, or even siding with the ones who beat the asshole. In fact, the government arrested those people.
Oh, and just you get it out of the way - in the video, the ones beating him up aren’t promoting their own ideology, they just think the asshole is an asshole for saying bullshit. No different than beating up a drunk at a bar who’s calling everyone’s mom a whore. So, not terrorism. Probably why they aren’t being charged with terrorism. Not that you can trust the application of UK laws anyway as intended, but even a government happy to label every but of uproar as “terrorism” these days hasn’t labeled it as such.
You are accusing me of “strawmanning” and arguing in bad faith, but you seem to have forgotten how a comment thread works. I was responding directly to the specific claims made by the previous commenter.
The person I was replying to explicitly claimed that the mob’s violence was politically motivated—they called it a “crucial defense of democracy” designed to ensure people “stay afraid.” I responded directly to their stated ideological motive. It is not a “strawman” to quote a person’s exact words and reply to the argument they actually made.
Now you have jumped in with a completely contradictory defense. You are arguing the mob had no political ideology at all, and was just acting like unprincipled thugs “beating up a drunk at a bar.”
I had no reason to address your alternative explanation at the time, because the person I was talking to was actively claiming this was a noble political crusade. Ironically, by stripping the mob of their political motive, you are actually arguing against the person I was responding to.
If you want to completely scrap their defense and present your own distinct viewpoint—that this wasn’t about defending democracy, but was just a senseless, apolitical street assault—I’m more than happy to address your argument separately. Let me know if that is the premise you want to go with.
Both can be true at the same time, Sir Gishgallop.
You can beat up an asshole who threatens to destabilize democracy just because he’s an asshole spouting violent bullshit while that in itself happens to strengthen democracy, much like an angry person beating up a drunk person at the bar causing a ruckus will bring order back to the bar even if they were just beating up the drunk for also being an asshole.
Listen, it is clear your responses are devolving into bad-faith, contradictory claims just to avoid admitting that a mob committing battery isn’t a noble political act.
I’ve said everything I intend to say. Either sit on it and reflect on why you are so desperate to justify vigilante street violence, or keep doing logical backflips to defend a mob. Either way, I am leaving the conversation here. You can have the last word if you need it.