ToastedPlanet @ ToastedPlanet @lemmy.blahaj.zone

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We as a society need to decide that we know to be dangerous disinformation is not allowed to be transferred over the mail. We know gender affirming care and abortion are lifesaving medical treatments. We know that a ban on gender affirming care would deny trans people the fundamental right to exist. We know banning abortion denies people reproductive freedom. This Canadian woman made an important first step with her civil disobedience. We as a society should follow her example and make the strategic decision to defend life and liberty.

Here in the US, we have an election this November 5th. Fascists in the MAGA movement, a christo-fascist movement, are planning to takeover our democracy. Civil disobedience may soon be the last line of defense to prevent the worst outcomes of fascist policies.

What's indefensible is fascist intolerance. We should not be complicit in our own destruction.

Sorry to hear about what you've discovered with Canada's charter. It's definitely good to take breaks from this stuff because it can be discouraging. I try to think about this stuff in lighthearted terms so I can focus on contributing to useful discourse.

Thankfully we live democracies. So, in the long run, we can work to make our societies better places to live for everyone. Hopefully we will be able to leave things in a better state than we found them. I like to think stories like this mom's story will inspire us all to do better.

Presumably the practice of preventing anti-queer disinformation would fall under the more general practice of preventing disinformation. Cis people can benefit from gender affirming care as well, it's just more regulated for and discussed in terms of trans people.

regardless of how much you might agree with it or think its righteous.

It's got nothing to do with me or righteousness. This is about strategic decisions to defend life and liberty from bad faith actors such as fascists.

regardless what it is

Not if it's dangerous to the people it's being delivered to. We do not want dangerous substances or bombs sent in the mail.

You arguing that each postal carrier has some intrinsic right to not deliver mail they find objectionable is arguing for the destruction, not the defense, of the US Postal Service.

No, I am arguing that we as a society should refuse to tolerate intolerance. Gender affirming care is a collection of lifesaving medical treatments. A ban on gender affirming care would deny trans people the fundamental right to exist. The success of this targeted disinformation campaign would put trans people in a life-threatening situation. By refusing to spread this disinformation campaign, this Canadian woman made the strategic decision to defend life and liberty.

Here in the US, the MAGA movement, a christo-fascist movement is attempting to takeover our democracy this November 5th. Depending on the outcome of the election we me all soon find ourselves in the position of this woman. Acts of civil disobedience might be the last line of defense to prevent the worst outcomes of fascist policies. We should not allow our institutions to be the instruments of our destruction. edit: typo

I would say that tossing your planned parenthood mail is a form of intolerance. Which is just as unacceptable as a disinformation campaign to ban planned parenthood in order to deny healthcare and reproductive freedom to individuals.

People aren't allowed to shout fire in a crowded movie theater when there is no fire. This basic premise doesn't change because of the medium of communication. People shouldn't be allowed to spread dangerous disinformation via the mail.

We shouldn't be concerned with what bad faith actors, such as fascists will do, when making our decisions. Bad faith actors will seek to infiltrate and undermine our institutions and systems no matter what we do. Our energy should be spent preventing bad faith actors from infiltrating our institutions.

I think I've made that mistake. I think I got excited, asked, and was informed that the curly fries were not in fact onion rings. I still love both though. =D

But I’m saying we shouldn’t tolerate intolerance. You’re the one saying we have to.

The opposite is in fact true. The fascists have breached the social contract of tolerance with their disinformation campaign. If they are not going to follow the agreement, then they are not protected by it. In other words, standing up against the fascists does not make us fascists. We should strategically defend our lives and liberties as needed. To do otherwise would make us complicit in our own destruction.

This is something we decide as a society. It's about who we are as a people.

We should not factor in what fascists will do into our decision. Fascists are bad-faith actors. Bad-faith actors will attempt to infiltrate and subvert any and all systems and institutions to their own ends. Instead we should focus on making systems and following best practices to prevent bad-faith actors like fascists from overturning our democracy.

No uneven application of the law would be required. This issue your argument is getting at is known as the paradox of tolerance. Where society is in the position of wanting to be tolerant while have to deal with intolerance. The resolution of the paradox comes from reframing tolerance as a social contract or peace treaty.

Under tolerance as a social construct people agree to tolerate each other. If a group of people such as fascists decide to not tolerate another group of people, then the fascists have breached the social contract of tolerance. The fascists are no longer protected by the social contract of tolerance and their speech, in the case of the disinformation campaign, is not protected.

As a society, we should not tolerate intolerance. It is not enough to individually toss out the flyers as trash. There are people who could be mislead into denying trans people their fundamental right to exist.

Gender affirming care is a collection of lifesaving medical treatments. A ban on gender affirming care would deny trans people the fundamental right to exist. This Canadian women's act of civil disobedience by refusing to spread a targeted life-threatening disinformation campaign is a strategic decision to defend life and liberty.

We should stand up to fascists, even if there isn't a law telling us to do so.

This is referred to as the paradox of tolerance. The idea that we have to tolerate intolerance is an incorrect resolution of the paradox. We can solve the paradox by reframing tolerance as a social contract or peace treaty.

In this framing, everyone agrees to tolerate each other. If a group, such as fascists, decide to be intolerant to another group the fascists have broken the social contract of tolerance. The fascists are no longer covered by the protections of the social contract of tolerance and in the case of this disinformation campaign, their speech is not protected.

This is the minimum that freedom loving people should expect from their democracy. We should tolerate everyone, but not tolerate intolerance. Fascists do not have the right to deny groups the fundamental right to exist with their speech.

To be clear, gender affirming care is a collection of life saving medical treatments. A ban on gender affirming care would deny trans people the fundamental right to exist. That Canadian woman's refusal to spread a targeted life-threatening disinformation campaign was a strategic decision to defend life and liberty.

Having systems in place to prevent the spread of disinformation campaigns would be preferable. However, in the US we are in the verge of a christo-fascist takeover of our democracy. We may all soon find ourselves in the position of this Canadian woman. Acts of civil disobedience may be the last line of defense in preventing the worst outcomes of fascist policies. We should not dismiss her actions out of hand. Actions like hers may soon save people's lives.

This is not about personal belief, but who we are as a society. We should want to live in a society where the fundamental rights of people to exist should be upheld.

Gender affirming care is a collection of lifesaving medical treatments. A ban on gender affirming care would deny trans people the fundamental right to exist. We should make the same strategic decision this Canadian woman did when she refused to spread a targeted life-threatening disinformation campaign and instead defend life and liberty.

We should not tolerate intolerance. It's not enough to individually throw this away in the trash when a disinformation campaign could mislead the public into denying a group of people the fundamental right to exist.

Nor should we worry about what fascists would do. Fascists are bad-faith actors. Bad-faith actors will always attempt to infiltrate and upend systems and institutions for their own ends. Instead our efforts should go to preventing bad-faith actors, like fascists, from taking over our democracy. Stopping the spread of disinformation campaigns is part of how we do that.

It has nothing to do with competency. We as a society should reject intolerance. It is very much the fascists problem that we do not tolerate their intolerance. The fascists have broken the social contract of tolerance and thus, in this case, their speech should not be protected by the social contract of tolerance.

You have the right idea.

Fascists are bad-faith actors. Bad-faith actors will undermine any system or institution they infiltrate for their own benefit and purposes. So our efforts should be in building systems and engaging in best practices to prevent bad-faith actors, such as fascists, from taking power. We should not be concerned by what fascists will do when we stand up to them, because they will do it anyway. And standing up to fascists does not make us fascists.

Gender affirming care is a collection of lifesaving medical treatments. Denying gender affirming care to trans people is to deny trans people the fundamental right to exist. So refusing to spread a targeted life-threatening disinformation campaign is not a arbitrary decision based on who is in charge. It is a strategic decision to defend life and liberty. This happened in Canada, but we should learn from this woman's example here in the US.

Canada is a democracy. They can choose to change their system for the better. We should do the same in the US as well.

This is the paradox of tolerance. We resolve the paradox your argument is describing by reframing our concept of tolerance. When viewed as a social contract or peace treaty, we are able to tolerate each other and can refuse to tolerate intolerance. Under tolerance as a social contract, everyone in society agrees to be tolerant. If one group, say fascists, choose to be intolerant to any other group, the fascists are no longer protected by the agreement.

Thus we can reject fascist intolerance and bigotry while still tolerating each other. We can reject hate speech and targeted life-threatening information campaigns against lifesaving medical treatments while still enjoying free speech.

Also, fascists are bad-faith actors. Bad-faith actors will attempt to undermine our institutions for their gain no matter what we do. So our efforts should instead go to preventing bad-faith actors like fascists from taking power.

Banning gender affirming care is a direct threat to trans people. Gender affirming care is a collection of lifesaving medical treatments and banning it denies trans people the fundamental right to exist. Refusing to spread a life-threatening disinformation campaign in Canada or hypothetically in the US is a strategic decision to defend life and liberty.

We do not need to tolerate intolerance. Nor should we. Tolerance is a social contract or peace treaty. When one group, such as fascists, break that contract, they are no longer protected by that social contract.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/first_amendment

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

A person's freedoms do not end when they break laws, rather there are no laws against our freedoms. A person's freedom to swing their arm ends at another person's nose. The freedom of speech ends where a person's right to exist begins. Allowing fascists to trick people into banning lifesaving medical treatments isn't speech we should protect. As it infringes on the right of those people to exist who depend on those lifesaving medical treatments.

In the US, we are a nation of freedoms. We write laws to protect those freedoms. When the laws infringe upon our freedoms we change the laws.

We should want to see postal workers in the US do the same thing. Especially elected officials with responsibilities overseeing elections since the MAGA movement, a chriso-fascist movement, is attempting to takeover our democracy and start a genocidal dictatorship.

It's not about having it both ways. This is a strategic decision to defend life and liberty. We do not need to tolerate intolerance nor should we.

Gender affirming care is a collection of lifesaving medical treatments. A ban on gender affirming care would deny trans people the fundamental right to exist. So the postal worker's decision to not spread a life-threatening targeted disinformation campaign was a strategic decision to defend life and liberty.

We should not base our decisions on what fascists will do. Fascists are bad-faith actors. Bad-faith actors will attempt to infiltrate and undermine all of our systems and intuitions and bend the rules to do whatever they want. We should instead focus our efforts on preventing bad-faith actors such as fascists from overturning our democracy and instituting a christo-fascist dictatorship.

Also, I'm aware this happened in Canada. We should want to see the same thing happen this November 5th in the US when fascists attempt to overturn our democracy. We should want people in positions of leadership and power to say no.