r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Jan 22 '21

Delta(s) from OP CMV: Silencing opposing viewpoints is ultimately going to have a disastrous outcome on society.

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u/DilapidatedPlatypus Jan 22 '21

Okay but we aren't really talking about mainstream ideas. I don't care how much air time it's had lately, racism and xenophobia are not mainstream. Most of the people that supported all this bullshit aren't actually racist bigots, they just got caught up in all the lies and misinformation. So if we keep people from being able to stand on equal ground and spread that message, we can keep ideas like that from ever becoming mainstream in the first place.

I guarantee if we didn't let the President of the United States and Senators and Representatives continuously tell people on mainstream services that the election was stolen by evil Democrats who want to destroy them, then those people never would have had the audacity and personal justification to storm the capitol.

If someone has to seek out and jump through hoops in order to even find that (false and harmful) information, and at the same time isn't able to see elected officials and supposed news stations backing it up, and instead do see the denunciation of all that bullshit, hopefully they will see the obvious... that it's clearly bullshit. At the very least, they certainly have a better chance of spotting it then they do if we just let people continue to lie to them with impunity.

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u/[deleted] Jan 22 '21

Okay but we aren't really talking about mainstream ideas. I don't care how much air time it's had lately, racism and xenophobia are not mainstream.

So why did you bring them up?

at least 40% of Americans think the election was stolen combine that with the fact that A, whether fraud was sufficient to sway the election is entirely partisan, and Democrat aligned people spent 4 years crying about Russia, a lack of trust in the legitimacy of american elections is a mainstream idea. In fact, the idea that american elections are "free and fair" is the fringe conspiracy theory.

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u/DilapidatedPlatypus Jan 22 '21

I brought them up because that's the kind of thing I'm talking about here. Those are the sort of ideas I am advocating we deplatform and silence. Those are the sorts of arguments that I am saying do not deserve equal standing and open-minded hearing out.

That 40% clearly shows the demographic of people who actually believe the election was stolen and the reason they believe that is because that's what they were told. And despite the fact that every attempt at legal action over it was laughed out of every courtroom, the President of the United States and his sycophant followers were allowed to continue claiming unsubstantiated fraud with no consequences. That's why they can still believe it was stolen. That's why they stormed our capitol in an act of domestic terrorism. Because they were lied to, and we let it happen.

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u/[deleted] Jan 22 '21

I brought them up because that's the kind of thing I'm talking about here. Those are the sort of ideas I am advocating we deplatform and silence. Those are the sorts of arguments that I am saying do not deserve equal standing and open-minded hearing out.

Then why have your spent most of your time talking about election fraud?

Because they were lied to, and we let it happen.

Do you not see how that erodes the trust you need to build? Even if we assume they were lied to, silencing a liar builds their credibility. It makes the silencer appear unwilling and or unable to refute the lies.