Harmless beliefs are categorically different from deliberate obtuseness motivated by partisan (tribal) expectation. A child's belief in Santa Claus is one such thing that harms nobody - or that an adult believes Earth is literally 6,000 years old. Similarly, a "flat-earther's" belief doesn't affect how the rest of us live (certainly not in the modern age) - because it isn't taken seriously. When Christians promote a biblical definition of sexual morality, they're citing written rules they believe, which if voluntarily adopted, harm nobody.
But promoting risible falsehoods for political (policy) expedience is in a different category. Claiming 10/7 "never happened" or "the Jews deserved it" - is motivated from a far different place and the objective isn't harmless. In fact, "harm" is exactly the intent of promoting the lie - specifically the elimination of Jews globally. We see similar dangerous belief-based behavior in the Nashville murderer's manifesto: believing Christians present an existential threat to transexuals justifies murdering young children. More dangerous still is that Nashville authorities (and complicit social media) refuse to release the (full) document out of fear it will somehow taint the larger transexual community. These are very dangerous ideas - based on categorical falsehoods - that serve no purpose being hidden from view, or obfuscated away among hand-waving about "copycats".
The problem with letting harmless counterfactual beliefs (in adults, that is) slide is that it coddles irrationality, which can then lead to less-harmless counterfactual beliefs.
In the spirit of libertarianism - what, or who, is "letting" (allowing) the harmless beliefs slide? If a government, it's none of their damn business. It's not the government's "job" to define what is or isn't "counterfactual" nor is it their business to patrol the boundaries of acceptability. It's sufficient, as I stated, to watch for harmful intent - not to outlaw thought based on what could possibly happen. Let sunshine be the best disinfectant and we'll all be better off for it.
Peter, thank you for the well-crafted, interlocking essay.
The particular chic stupidity of 'that' section of the population, while observable-at-a-safe-distance (here-hold-my-beer, nope) should also be seen thru the glass of implementation.
Those complicit (to any degree) in their observation & support of the insanity of Lenin, Jim Jones, and a spate of Fed Democratic congress-oids, fuel growing levels of risk.
The step beyond observing their penchant for perdition, are the incidents in which they take the unwilling with them. Jonestown was not only a mass suicide but an assasination, and mass murder for the unwilling. While Lenin' horror cast a generational madness accruing the tally you noted.
Today, the current deniers are not only sheep, but pre-shearlings, and their execution of one of this republic' dearest rights sets up the same scenario that Hamas cowardice employs in Gaza.
The line officer knows it, the precinct commanders know it, and are sobered by it. The politicians, in their own form of denial, know but ignore. The double edge granted by the Bill of Rights was created with the thought of a reasonable person in mind.
The porous border (no matter what equation for infiltration one uses) had allowed enough activist elements, that when they join the pro-palestinian rallies, well insulated by human shields, the damage they will stage may be a wakeup call echoing 9/11.
How disgusting that such debased chic, welcomes hatred into its midst, and forces the common person to question how we can 'safely' implement the bill of rights.
Harmless beliefs are categorically different from deliberate obtuseness motivated by partisan (tribal) expectation. A child's belief in Santa Claus is one such thing that harms nobody - or that an adult believes Earth is literally 6,000 years old. Similarly, a "flat-earther's" belief doesn't affect how the rest of us live (certainly not in the modern age) - because it isn't taken seriously. When Christians promote a biblical definition of sexual morality, they're citing written rules they believe, which if voluntarily adopted, harm nobody.
But promoting risible falsehoods for political (policy) expedience is in a different category. Claiming 10/7 "never happened" or "the Jews deserved it" - is motivated from a far different place and the objective isn't harmless. In fact, "harm" is exactly the intent of promoting the lie - specifically the elimination of Jews globally. We see similar dangerous belief-based behavior in the Nashville murderer's manifesto: believing Christians present an existential threat to transexuals justifies murdering young children. More dangerous still is that Nashville authorities (and complicit social media) refuse to release the (full) document out of fear it will somehow taint the larger transexual community. These are very dangerous ideas - based on categorical falsehoods - that serve no purpose being hidden from view, or obfuscated away among hand-waving about "copycats".
The problem with letting harmless counterfactual beliefs (in adults, that is) slide is that it coddles irrationality, which can then lead to less-harmless counterfactual beliefs.
In the spirit of libertarianism - what, or who, is "letting" (allowing) the harmless beliefs slide? If a government, it's none of their damn business. It's not the government's "job" to define what is or isn't "counterfactual" nor is it their business to patrol the boundaries of acceptability. It's sufficient, as I stated, to watch for harmful intent - not to outlaw thought based on what could possibly happen. Let sunshine be the best disinfectant and we'll all be better off for it.
Peter, thank you for the well-crafted, interlocking essay.
The particular chic stupidity of 'that' section of the population, while observable-at-a-safe-distance (here-hold-my-beer, nope) should also be seen thru the glass of implementation.
Those complicit (to any degree) in their observation & support of the insanity of Lenin, Jim Jones, and a spate of Fed Democratic congress-oids, fuel growing levels of risk.
The step beyond observing their penchant for perdition, are the incidents in which they take the unwilling with them. Jonestown was not only a mass suicide but an assasination, and mass murder for the unwilling. While Lenin' horror cast a generational madness accruing the tally you noted.
Today, the current deniers are not only sheep, but pre-shearlings, and their execution of one of this republic' dearest rights sets up the same scenario that Hamas cowardice employs in Gaza.
The line officer knows it, the precinct commanders know it, and are sobered by it. The politicians, in their own form of denial, know but ignore. The double edge granted by the Bill of Rights was created with the thought of a reasonable person in mind.
The porous border (no matter what equation for infiltration one uses) had allowed enough activist elements, that when they join the pro-palestinian rallies, well insulated by human shields, the damage they will stage may be a wakeup call echoing 9/11.
How disgusting that such debased chic, welcomes hatred into its midst, and forces the common person to question how we can 'safely' implement the bill of rights.