The very idea that we should concern ourselves with establishing rules of conduct that guarantee equal treatment for both ourselves & for the racist, murdering fascists who are aiming to carry out genocide & overthrow democratic governments makes no sense.

I appreciate everyone’s commitment to ideas of liberalism & equality but fascism exists outside of liberalism & there are people trying to kill us whose very ideology is based on the idea of there being no equality. They can only defeat us or be defeated.

There’s a reason we had an entire world war over this issue and it’s not because people at the time couldn’t figure out how to come up with a standard for free speech that applied equally to fascists & all the people they were trying to kill.

Furthermore, the idea we have to apply equal standards to all forms of speech implies all speech is equal. By that logic, there’s no difference b/w someone using social media to incite genocide v someone using it to advocate equal rights. Is that really the moral position?

The idea that holding Trump & other fascists to account might later have negative impact on others ignores that it’s already been the case that Black & brown ppl have received unequal policing & banishment online. The only thing new is that they’ve finally banned Trump.

The truly violent nature of the US neoliberal bipartisan political establishment is revealed in its commitment to funding racist, militarized police forces above funding healthcare & housing. The same ones who scoff at “defund police” also scoff at funding universal healthcare 1/

They put immense energy toward maintaining a veneer of “civility” by wearing high-priced suits, adhering to a certain decorum with one another & engaging in performative governance. But their policies, words & actions reflect the truly violent nature of their character. 2/

These are people who see little distinction between property & human life, particularly the lives of the poor, nonwhite &/or marginalized. It’s not surprising—given that this is the value system of those who established the nation in the first place,... 3/

...that those most comfortable in the modern day establishment would share this same general viewpoint.

These are not individuals who oppose violence in principle but who instead want to monopolize the use of violence in their roles as gov’t officials & the political class. 4/

What ultimately made the Trump era disruptive to the bipartisan establishment wasn’t racism or violence—the establishment upholds both & he still enjoys support from the majority of Republicans and white voters—but that there was no veneer of civility. 5/

Double standard: a rule or principle which is unfairly applied in different ways to different people or groups

Insurrection: a violent uprising against an authority or government

Terrorism: the use of intentional violence for political or religious purposes

Anarchism: belief in the abolition of all government and the organization of society on a voluntary, cooperative basis without recourse to force or compulsion

Fascism: a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition and strong regimentation of society and of the economy which came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe.

Neoliberalism: market-oriented reform policies such as "eliminating price controls, deregulating capital markets, lowering trade barriers" and reducing, especially through privatization and austerity, state influence in the economy.

Genocide: the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group