by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF | 2026-01-26 16:53:11+00:00
> You've made it abundantly clear, by this, that no matter how I actually went about it, you would consider it inappropriate to make comments that suppose that ICE agents (citizens with due process rights, BTW) might not have committed murder, and would consider that it's inappropriate that comments making any argument of that form are permitted to remain publicly visible (again: flagging, not downvoting); only concurrence is okay.

This isn't ambiguous: yes, any behavior which normalizes and/or excuses these actions is not appropriate, no matter how said normalization and/or excuse is delivered. That is surely not against this site's ethics because...

> And many recent political threads have made it abundantly clear to me where that leads: an environment where people chant "Nazi, Nazi, Nazi, fascist, fascist, fascist" — despite the admonitions "Be kind." and "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive." Maybe you're okay with that, but I'm not. The solution to divisiveness is not to exclude one side of the divide.

When one side of the divide is driven almost exclusively by their hatred of others, it is of course reasonable to reject them as hateful. At this point, calling something "fascist" is primarily intended as a description; it's not an insult except to the fascists who aren't brave enough to wear it on their sleeve. It's rather thoughtless to disregard that simple observation.

Sure, maybe you don't see that ICE are murdering citizens who are doing nothing wrong but that doesn't mean your opinion is unequivocally right or even needs to be given any consideration by others. Sure, maybe you can say you observe things differently but that doesn't mean others' observations are invalid, nor that people need be respectful to your behavior which has the effect of normalizing and excusing what they observe to be terrible things.

That is the thoughtfulness I am suggesting; the thought you might consider is that others are rejecting your comments because said comments ignore these observable facts of community. These comments which have people chanting "fascist" can objectively meet all of the site guidelines and they will be rejected simply for being in extremely bad taste. For an example, consider that Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal meets this site's guidelines. Of course a post genuinely suggesting that we eat poor children is going to be rejected, regardless of the sugar coating with which it's delivered.

> And you completely disregard everything I've shown you about how I've been treated unfairly in this situation.

Something you have also missed is that you completely disregard everything others show you about how the protesters have been treated unfairly by ICE in their situations (your complaint is that your opinion is disregarded, yet you disregard others' opinions); I am entitled to my opinion as you are yours and my opinion is that your supposed unfair treatment is something that can be disregarded as such. To say otherwise would be to deny others their opinions to reject your thoughtless commentary as such. In other words, your perception of such rejection as unfair treatment is a personal problem which has no place affecting the opinions others choose to express (say, by flagging your comment).

People are telling you to stop carrying water for fascists; complaining about how they do that (flagging your comments), rather than considering why they do it is, indeed, thoughtless.