Thanks for asking, I think it‘s a good question. The difference is that I would never support a government doing such a thing, but that does not mean that i do not support direct action against people who attempt to assume authority over others. Example 1: Germany has been considering banning the AFD - i dont think thats a good idea, but i do support every person who sabotages their operations. Example 2: I‘ve been working on an article about EU sanctions on free speech, which include both very left and very right wing figures. While I would support people making the decision to not platform them, I do not support their government censorship. I think its a very important distinction thats missing in your above analysis, much of which I agree with by the way.

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Another point i think you are missing is the paradox of tolerance: if we remain tolerant towards those who are intolerant, there will quickly be no more tolerance left; its pretty much what killed all anarchist movements around the world, who over and over again teamed up with the commies, only for the commies to turn around and sell them out.
Thanks for engaging, L0la. I appreciate the discussion, but I think there's a fundamental flaw in this framework. You say they "assume authority over others", but I watched the journalist's videos. I saw a few small websites where racists meet each other in their corner. There was zero factual danger from these websites. I saw swastikas, extremist people expressing opinions - sure, abhorrent opinions - but just opinions. They weren't exercising authority over anyone. They were organizing among themselves. For me, it seems the opposite - CCC (which is de facto an institution at this point) and these hackers are the ones assuming authority over others. They decided which groups deserve infrastructure and which don't. They exercised power to destroy spaces they disapprove of. That's assuming authority. With the same logic, we could now attack "black-only" sites, or any nationalist sites, or any group organizing around identity. The principle "they're trying to assume authority" is so broad it justifies attacking almost anyone you disagree with. Democracy itself is fundamentally about "assuming authority over others." That's what voting is - 51% assuming authority over the other 49%. If you're really against people assuming authority over others, it would be far more consistent to support sabotaging all democratic political parties, not just the ones you personally don't like. The "paradox of tolerance" doesn't solve this. Everyone believes they're fighting intolerance. White supremacists think they're defending against forces trying to destroy them. This framework and theirs seems structurally identical - both claim the right to preemptively attack because the other side is "intolerant". But this is exactly how tribal conflicts escalate into endless cycles of retaliation.
So coercion, censorship and destruction of property when exercised by the state is bad, but the same things exercised by private individuals is fine. You’ll do fine as a politburo agent. 👌 View quoted note →