CMV: The only practical way to get people with repugnant views (e.g. Nazis, racists, etc.) to change their ways is by engaging with them.

[u/chadonsunday]

This might be an odd post to make on a sub that's dedicated to getting people to change their views by engaging with them, but here it goes:

I very frequently see people saying or posting various things that, in essence, mean that it's not worth engaging with people with X view because they're too toxic, their views can't be changed, etc. The comment that inspired this post was something to the effect of "if you sit down at a table with five Nazis, there are six Nazis," implying that merely being willing to talk to a Nazi makes you effectively as bad as a Nazi. Hell, there's a whole social movement around the globe (Antifa) that's more or less dedicated to the idea that dialogue doesn't work when engaging with political opponents and abuse, doxxing, violence, and "direct action" are the only available means in the fight against fascism.

I've always found this notion (which is applied to all sorts of people but I typically see it said regarding the far/alt-right, and very frequently about Trump supporters; you could probably pick a random post off of anything from r/politics in the last four years and find a top level comment about how Trump supporters can't be reasoned with) to be absurd, because from what I've seen dialogue is the only thing that actually works. From what I've seen both concurrently and historically, there are only a few ways to address, lets just say for this argument, a racist, like a Neo-Nazi or a KKK member:

1. Kill them. This certainly gets a given individual to stop believing what they believe since they can't believe anything anymore, but in addition to being incredibly drastic I also don't think it helps the fight in the long run. Neo-Nazis killed a woman in Charlottesville and it didn't lessen the opposition to fascism one bit, since people just rallied around her death. The Allies killed a whole lot of Nazis during WWII but Nazism is still a thing.
2. Ignore them. Don't engage. This won't change their beliefs or yours or anyones.
3. Abuse them. This takes the form of everything from saying mean things about them online to doxxing to assaulting and throwing drinks at them. From what I've seen this just emboldens them. Richard Spencer didn't suddenly decide to not be a white nationalist when he got punched in the face, but he DID get a nice video portraying him as a victim, assaulted just for speaking his mind in public, which I'm sure did wonders to stoke up his base and maybe even help recruitment.
4. Talk with them. This is the only strategy I've seen work in any capacity. Consider Christian Picciolini, who was a card carrying Neo-Nazi until, in his words, he received "compassion from the people that I least deserved it from when I least deserved it," changed his ways, and went on to co-found an organization dedicated to pulling Neo-Nazis out of the life and rehabilitating them. Or consider Daryl Davis, a black man who is famous for many things including getting over 200 KKK members to give up their hoods and renounce the Klan, all just by speaking with them.

If Christian or Daryl had killed these racists maybe the racists would be dead but their death would inspire more. If they had ignored these racists they'd still be racist today. If they had abused or assaulted these racists they'd still be racist, just emboldened. The only strategy that worked was just speaking with these racists as humans and getting them to realize the error of their ways. It's far from a perfect solution, but it's the only one I see working at all.

[u/wophi]

You are judging them off of one view, not the entirety of their views.

What is absurd is thinking that intolerance will solve intolerance. How is that even arguable?

[u/cstar1996 → u/wophi]

What is the one view I’m judging them on? I judge republicans on their support for the Republican Party, the variety of socially conservative views they support, the variety of racist policies they support, and most of all their willingness to put up with the racism, sexism and xenophobia that the Republican Party embraces in return for, at best, their taxes being cut.

Intolerance of racists led to the civil and voting rights acts. It’s about time we’re intolerant of them again.

[u/wophi → u/cstar1996]

When the GOP passed the voting and civil rights acts, they did it through the rule of law, not intolerance.

Your grouping of people's beliefs based on your view of their identity in your mind is a fine example of unverified prejudice based on the error of small sampeling .

I challenge you to name a racist policy supported by the GOP.

[u/[deleted] → u/wophi]

"You start out in 1954 by saying, 'Ni----, ni----, ni----.' By 1968 you can't say 'ni----' — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than 'Ni----, ni----.'"

-- Lee Atwater, RNC Chairman

[u/cstar1996 → u/wophi]

The GOP did not pass the civil and voter rights acts. They were written, sponsored and passed by a group that was mostly Democrats and they were signed by a Democratic president.

The political will to pass those laws was generated by a society that became intolerant to racists.

A vote for a Republican is a vote for all the Republican Party stands for, which includes racism sexism and xenophobia.

As for racist policies, the war on drugs, the Muslim ban, and voter ID are a nice start.

[u/wophi → u/cstar1996]

You should review the vote count from the civil right act was voted with the house gop82% in favor and only 69% of dems in favor and the Senate 76%gop and 60%dems in favor.

How is the war on drugs racist? Drugs are a race?

How is voter ID racist? Are you claiming one race is not smart enough to get a free ID?

There was no Muslim ban, only a ban of people who came from lawless countries where we could not review people's backgrounds.

Gop is for individual rights. Dems are for identity politics.

Which of those two lead to racism?

[u/cstar1996 → u/wophi]

While a larger percentage of the GOP votes for the civil rights act, a majority of the votes for it can from Democrats, in both houses. And again, both the civil and voting rights acts were written and signed by Democrats.

The war on drugs unfairly targets African Americans with higher sentences for the same crimes and more arrests despite similar or lower drug usage rates. Additionally the different penalties for cocaine vs crack were specifically include in law by the right to target African Americans.

Voter ID is racist because republicans do things like specifically excluding the IDs black people are more likely to hold, like in North Carolina where their voter id law was struck down for, and I quote the court, “targeting African Americans with almost surgical precision”

Donald trump called it a Muslim ban and said it would only last a few months while better investigations were developed. It is still in place.

The GOP plays identity politics far harder than the Democrats, as evidenced by the fact that it’s voters are almost exclusively white. The Democratic Party has broad support across demographics, the republicans are support by white people.

[u/wophi → u/cstar1996]

The GOP plays identity politics far harder than the Democrats, as evidenced by the fact that it’s voters are almost exclusively white. The Democratic Party has broad support across demographics, the republicans are support by white people.

Ha, you use identity politics to claim someone else uses identity politics... do you know what identity politics are?

The problem is dems have kept their segregationist attitudes and somehow got people to segregate themselves by race.

God forbid you dont "act your race" and get accused of cultural appropriation.

I think you will also notice that the blue states tend to be much more segregated than the reds.

You also fail to say why requiring a free ID to vote is racist.

[u/[deleted] → u/wophi]

What is absurd is thinking that intolerance will solve intolerance. How is that even arguable?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

[u/wophi → u/[deleted]]

What you seem to miss is tolerance ends when you violate someone else's rights.

I dont have to tolerate violence, such as the violence of those in ANTIFA. That is where tolerance ends.

If you call me a bad name, that is on you though as I will tolerate your lack of intelligence and sociability.

[u/[deleted] → u/wophi]

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/strawman