Do they not teach critical thinking at ALL in K-12/colleges? I mean, it honestly feels like the world has gotten... dumber... since when I started using the internet to discuss and debate topics.

I keep seeing this trend of "it's okay to do X, because the end justifies the means" and if you don't like it, you're probably a Nazi.

When Obama was in office I kept pleading with people over and over. They would say, "Congress is gridlocking him, so he has to go around them!" Okay! But Obama doesn't exist in a vacuum. He's a President setting PRECEDENTS. (Note the c.) You can swell the executive branch and do whatever you want... but eventually your guy leaves the office and all those powers you gave the office are now available to the new guy. A new guy... you might not agree with.

The same applies to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and now Cloudflare. You may agree with them NOW but you might not four years from now. And all those censorship tools will be used against _you_.

Further, the second you make a distinction between what "is" and "isn't" acceptable, you are no longer a passive carrier. You are an arbitor. You are a judge. You are an enforcer.

The guy who hands you your mail isn't legally liable for the content of the words inside. He doesn't open it. But if he had a service where he opening all your mail and deciding which mail to give you, and then accidentally leaves off an important bill, he's open to being sued.

I mean, has anybody really thought about what Facebook et al really are? Utilities. Almost complete monopolies that provide utilities for communication. What else is a utility? Your phone. Imagine if your text messages and phone calls were scanned to prevent you from sending nude pics to comply with state law. Would you be okay with it? How about censoring any mention of sodomy, which is still illegal in many states? Hmm, all a sudden our rights matter again.

The current generation seems to have completely forgotten that you can't have two classes. You can't have rights for some, and trampled for others, just so it's easier to "fight the nazis." And this fight-the-nazis logical fallacy has become the new version of "Think of the Children!" and our current generation has learned NOTHING from the past. You change the name, call a new set of people "sinners" (the same way the authoritarian rightwingers did in the 90's), and shame people into submission but it's the same lynch mob mentality.

It's the same logic and witchhunts currently being used to attack nazis, that I personally watched happen to gays in the 90's and it's saddening, disturbing, and scary all at once. How a mere 20 years can pass and we're lynching a whole new group of people... having learned nothing.

I mean, what if we applied the same logic of "Rights don't matter if it's for a good cause" to Muslims? Tons of "not nazis" have been swept up as "almost nazis" or "might-as-well-be nazis / nazi supporters" and attacks have been done against them. All for the "greater good." Why shouldn't we do the same thing to potential Muslim extremists and "almost" extremists and might-as-well-be extremists? Why shouldn't we "punching a Muslim".

Oh, wait, because that's bigoted and hateful as hell. Yeah. Whoops?

A Muslim argues for chopping off little girl's genitals and nobody riots in the streets and burns down the city. But a KKK member stands up and before they open their mouth, they're surrounded by 10x the counter-protesters as there are supporters.

Pretty interesting how the "march against fascism" doesn't include certain fascists. Oh look, there's even an older word for it:

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

[Islamofascism] is a term drawing an analogy between the ideological characteristics of specific
Islamist movements and a broad range of European fascist movements of the early 20th century,
neofascist movements, or totalitarianism.

Looks like we're only for "fighting fascists" if they pass a skin color test first.