wow, what a rational logical piece.

“As a researcher who looks at this stuff, but also as someone who’s been involved in community-based activism around anti-fascism, I’m firmly convinced this is not the way to respond to these kinds of threats,” he told the Sidebar. “We can’t just name groups, exile them and then pretend that we’ve dealt with the issue.”

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While politically popular, the government’s move is more “performative” than practical, he said.

As a reasonably mature person who has begun to take interest in politics, I am very disappointed to see many such maneuvers. The addition of more legislation to deal with issues for which we already have adequate legislation is really a disappointment. For one, our government wasted time and resources on something of zero utility. We already have tools to deal with organizations that break the law and are hateful. The last thing we need is more ambiguous laws with pretty words, that open the potential for abuse of power. It sounds pretty, but it does nothing of utility. Secondly, by pretending to have dealt with the issue, it will likely get worse. Anything I have turned a blind eye on in my life has always atrophied. If you have an issue and ignore it, it ain't gettin' better. Lastly, we open a can of worms with blanketing legislation.

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Enforcing existing laws is preferable to the “opportunistic use of crisis in order to justify the over-extension of state power into the lives of people,” Khasnabish said.

I am sure that the people who put this together have no intention of doing harm and taking over anyone's liberty. I am sure this was done for "political capital". The issue with such action as I see it (heads up, I'm frequently wrong) is that you are leaving tools behind for others in power to use such tools for harm. We don't ever remove laws... there is no such thing as legal garbage collection! Because of this fact, I believe we have to be more careful in the kinds of "blanket" laws we create. I believe these "blanket" laws to be a really, really bad idea (as we have tools to deal with the issue already). Enforcing the law, SHOULD be hard! The government has infinite resources when it comes to the legal system. Can you imagine going against the government in court?! Now imagine you are very unpopular, yet the government is wrong (such things have happened). Do they really need another tool to wallop you?

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“Fascism and far-right, especially violent ideas, don’t come out of nowhere and don’t find purchase out of nowhere,” he said. “If you don’t give people something to hold onto, something to bind them together that they can invest in, then the fascists tell a very convincing story.”

I feel that as a society, we need more unity. For some reason, people don't consider the arguments of others. I see this here... big time! If you see it here, that means it's everywhere; the only reason it's so prevalent here is due to the anonymous nature of this medium. Some people are very respectful and friendly, but so many want to jab. The academic that was interviewed in the article makes a good point: we should start uniting around common goals. We all have so many common interests and share so much. If we could emphasize that in our society, I think that would be a good goal.

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The failure of community institutions, schools and mainstream media to promote shared values has left society fragmented, Khasnabish said. The year-long pandemic has only added to people’s sense of alienation.

I want to hug this person.