Emily's Cat,
Of course you have a right to make your own judgements.. But you are saying that words have no power, whereas to my knowledge they are among the most powerful forces on the planet. They birth and drive political and religious movements that have changed the lives of 100s of millions of people. They can comfort people or frighten them to the core of their being. You know- a pen is mightier than the sword and that kind of stuff? But you say that are only concerned with what people do, their actions, as if what they speak is not an action.
Words do have power. But we have a constitutionally protected right to free speech. I may personally disagree very strongly with what someone says - I'm not compelled to listen to them, nor should they be compelled to listen to me. And I do not support silencing them in any fashion because some people disagree with them. Disagree all you want, loudly if need be - but don't silence dissenting opinions no matter how odious you find them to be.
The silencing of political and ideological opponents has ever been the tool of religion and oppression. This is the province of dogmatic zealotry that cannot tolerate question. It's impossible to change someone's mind if you refuse to hear what they think.
Counter words with words. Don't counter words with violence. Don't condone violence and threats as a weapon against 'wrong thoughts'. I tolerate the religious and political beliefs of other people, even when I find them highly offensive. I will argue against them, I will discuss them ad nauseum... but I won't mock or deride them, I won't shame them, and I definitely won't resort to threats and coercion in an attempt to force people to adopt my way of thinking.
And you say that you don't care about their signs or symbols as long as they don't "violate the rights of others," which I gather from your posts means that they don't illegally violate the rights of others. Well, there are a lot of ways to be a mean, dispictable, nasty, evil person who hurts, damages, or ruins the lives of those around them but still keep well within the limits of your criterion.
Well, not really. Being mean, despicable, nasty, evil, and hurting, damaging, or ruining the lives of others is an act - one that I feel free to judge.
But believing something different from me, even expressing those beliefs out loud, is insufficient for me to ethically condone the silencing or censoring of those beliefs.
I actually doubt if this is really how you choose your friends or determine who instead you dislike in your personal life. I doubt if this is really how you judge who is a good person and who is a bad person among the people you know. You really don't care what they say or think?
In fact despite what you posted as to attending a rally run by white supremacists if you agreed on one issue, say preserving Confederate statues, I doubt you choose to socialize with people in your private life based on one point of agreement. "Oh we are all into scrapbooking so I love our weekly meetings even if they are all rapists! Well they haven't actually rapred anyone yet. They just talk and fantasize about rape all the time. Read books about rape. Watch movies about rape. Emulate the symbols of rapist gangs from a few years ago. Yell at women that they would like to rape them. They even have some friends who did rape people. But I don't judge them until they actually rape someone."
There's a difference between tolerating someone for a larger purpose, and seeking out their companionship
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Of course I don't go voluntarily hang out with bigots who hold views I dislike. But I do (and will continue to) tolerate the fact that they hold views I don't when those views are not the central topic of the event. In your example, I'm not going to join a scrapbooking club that is predominantly composed of rapists - the rapeyness at that point overshadows the actual central topic of scrapbooking. But people aren't one-dimensional. It's entirely likely that there is some overlap on some topics with extreme differences in many, many others. I could very feasibly end up at a firearms rights event that has several racists in attendance... because some racists care about firearms in addition to whatever idiotic belief about skin color that they hold. But tolerating them in attendance at an event that has some other topic as the focus is entirely different than hanging out with them socially!
Perhaps I am wrong to doubt these things about you. To suspect that you were exaggerating your willingness to ignore what people say or believe. But I would feel better if my doubts were correct.
I willingly ignore what people say and believe all the time. I suspect you do too. For example... big foot, god, etc. There are lots of people on this forum who hold beliefs that I profoundly disagree with, yet I remain respectful and tolerant of them anyway. And if the topic of discussion is something different than the belief that I disagree with, I have no qualms about being on their side on that topic. Just because I agree with certain posters in these threads about not removing confederate statues does NOT in any way mean that I agree with their views on race (which I most assuredly do not).
