Quote Originally Posted by Alonzo
1.) Again, AFIK, you don't have a history of people patronizingly telling you to "calm down" about very real (AGAIN, empirically proven) existential threats facing your communities, that we are overreacting to being disproportionately targeted for abuse, incarcerated, shot down, etc.... And this is why, AGAIN, I don't believe you are the right one to be telling ME to calm down OR defining what I find to be patronizing. My point is that it's a privilege to not be reactionary regarding certain things. I would be a fucking tool if, when a woman was telling me that she feels uncomfortable walking by a gang of men sneering/gesturing at her and so she dawns her rape whistle, due to her increased likelihood of being sexually victimized by virtue of her sex, I told her to "calm down."
I probably shouldn't respond, for my peace of mind that is, but the following needs to be said.

People expressing views over the internet does not directly put you in physical danger, unlike the woman in the example you describe.

I'm the type of guy that is perfectly willing to listen when people feel distressed, but I can't excuse victim mentality.

Someone expressing racist views online does not automatically mean they will go out and attack someone.

I do think such views carry great danger, because it is inevitable that some of the people who hold racist views will act on violence.

But since this is the internet, what dangerous situation are you describing? No offense but you sound like those college kids who claim they feel "unsafe" because of someone else's speech. How silly is that? Honestly.

Free speech is a thing in a free society. This type of behavior you demonstrate which attempts to shut down speech is dangerous in its own way. Now, speech in itself doesn't kill anyone. Ideas lead to actions, and actions can kill people. So it is the ideas we have to fight, not free speech. If you shut down someone else's speech, you are not fighting ideas which you oppose, you are fighting free speech.

So my whole point is that you should fight the ideas being spread in this thread with better ideas, not by shutting down speech and playing victim.

Think about it.