Summary
Jacob Hersant, a self-described Nazi, was sentenced to one month in prison, becoming the first person in Australia jailed for performing an outlawed Nazi salute.
Convicted in Victoria for making the salute outside a courthouse in October, Hersant’s act followed new legislation banning the gesture.
Magistrate Brett Sonnet justified the sentence, citing Hersant’s intent to promote Nazi ideology publicly.
Hersant’s lawyer argued that his actions were nonviolent and claimed they were protected as political expression, stating plans to appeal the ruling on constitutional grounds.
Good.
It was a mistake letting Nazis and others practice their terrorist views in public. Freedom of expression is not and never should be an absolute right.
I understand why people seem to think we should tolerate these views, because “muh free speech,” but to them, I say:
The paradox of tolerance doesn’t exist once you understand that tolerance is a social contract.
If one party doesn’t adhere to the contract, then the other party also doesn’t have to either.
I keep forgetting who said it, and I will rephrase terribly but there’s this antifa quote that goes something like “A person of color, homosexual, or Jew doesn’t really have a choice to stop being who they’re. Meanwhile, a fascist can stop spreading their hate towards others. That’s all we ask, and we won’t be tolerant.”
Also, what does it mean to “tolerate” the existence of minorities? What exactly are we “tolerating”? Tolerance in every other context means to accept deviation from a standard or some negative outcome.
Framing anyone’s mere existence as a thing to be “tolerated” is to imply they are deviant or negative.
That’s where the paradox of tolerance loses me. I don’t think we should be tolerant in general. I think we should make value judgements about what is good or bad and act accordingly. Every society does this, and pretending we’re above it all and completely neutral is dishonest.
And if the “tolerance” is of differing views, diversity of thought is also good, not a bad thing to be tolerated.
It’s simple: we identify behaviour that is bad, like bigotry and hatred, and we say no. We’re not rejecting it because it’s merely different, and to accept that framing is to accept the cry-bullying of fascists. We reject them because they suck, and we don’t owe them shit about it.