News

I suspect we’re on the same broad page, but our means are vastly different.

I suspect the same and I appreciate you engaging with me civilly.

Your concerns about the situation being a slippery slope are understandable. We're discussing things that live on the very edges of basic, modern human morality. I recognize that this creates a lot of unease.

I don't hate the human. I would not kill baby Hitler if I had a time machine, as baby Hitler was not born evil.

My hate lies with what the human has become, the views the human has developed. I will not tolerate them. If that hatred, of those who outwardly espouse this level of murderous intolerance (and only those who do so), makes me no better than Fuentes, then I suppose I will gladly be that villain, if only so that others can continue to live their lives in peace. The violence and genocide inherent to the fascist ideology must never be allowed to take root. It is an existential threat to global peace that must be shut down with any and every means available. Peaceful means should always be prioritized where possible.

Less well known [than other paradoxes] is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.

• Sir Karl Raimund Popper, speaking on The Paradox Of Tolerance.