I remember when Trump ran the first time liberals were fond of bringing up this argument coined by Karl Popper. Essentially, he says that unlimited tolerance enables intolerant groups/ideologies to hijack society and eventually dominate it. Therefore, deplatforming certain people is crucial to maintaining freedom. It’s been a real conundrum for me and I’m interested in hearing some opinions about it.

Obviously, this premise runs into a lot of real world problems fairly quickly: How do we get people to agree on when an idea goes too far? How do we spot a group that is dangerous, especially if they’re good at hiding their true intentions?

Is it fair to evaluate a group based on the potential dangers one could argue is implied by their beliefs, rather than what they’ve actually done? How would we stop accusations of intolerance from being weaponized by groups whose real intention is to silence dissidents?

On the other hand, it’s kind of hard to completely disagree with Popper’s premise. A healthy society cannot function when unhinged, dangerous ideologues exploit the rest of us to grant themselves special privileges. The rest of us have the right to make these people cut that shit out before the problem spirals out of control like it did in places like Germany or Iran. Don’t we?

TRAs are a good example of this happening in real time. They took advantage when tolerance for the gay community was becoming more widespread. Before most people realized what was happening, they infiltrated and infected gay spaces. They mocked and undermined the principles and values it used to stand for. Now they abuse their power to control and intimidate the very people who that community was built for. Even free speech absolutists have to admit it’s hard to argue that deplatforming them a long time ago wouldn’t have been an objectively positive thing for women, children, and LGB people.

The unfortunate reality is that intolerant people can and will take advantage of being perceived as victims to exploit public sympathy and push questionable agendas. It’s a bit odd that college campus protests that are ostensibly about humanitarian concerns for Gazan civilians quickly morphed into “globalize the intifada”. Why are they now advocating for horribly oppressive, violent Islamist regimes that have nothing to do with Palestine? It seems obvious that they’ve been infiltrated by bad actors exploiting free speech and hijacking social justice rhetoric to advocate for fascism. Do we have to wait until they’ve crossed a line into organized violence before even attempting to de-escalate?

There’s no easy answers or perfect solutions for sure, but what do you think? How much do you agree or disagree with Popper’s premise? Where would you draw the line? What principles do you think strike an acceptable balance between considering all these issues?