Two things can be true at once:
Yes, they should stop doing and saying things that are so horrendous.
Yes, we should not sink to their level with similarly violent rhetoric thus justifying their “see? The other side is just as violent as we are”.
Oh, look at that: Denouncing violent rhetoric on Lemmy gets met with a lynch mob of downvotes. I’m shocked!
Point out the elected democrat official who was openly calling for violence against republicans? What rhetoric are they even talking about? Us calling them an existential threat to our democracy? If it wasn’t true, we wouldn’t say it. Saying that isn’t calling for violence, and proposing that it does is engaging in the same whataboutism that republicans always do. It’s BS. Republicans shooting republicans and somehow it’s progressives fault 🙄
Smith is quoted here as saying:
“Have you not looked at the headlines about how Pierre Poilievre is described as dangerous?” the premier said. “How the leader of the Opposition in Alberta has described me as dangerous? When you start using that kind of rhetoric, that ends up creating an elevated risk for all of us.”
She’s complaining about being called “dangerous”. That’s hardly violent rhetoric and certainly no worse than the language they use to describe their opponents.
Sure, there are some individuals on the internet spreading violence, but you cannot equate the non-conservative media rhetoric with the violent and dishonest rhetoric coming out of conservative sources.
Jokes aside you need to look up the concept of the paradox of tolerance. Only people lacking reason and centrists (but i repeat myself) would see “both sides” as being the same
The paradox of tolerance is almost universally misunderstood. It means that we need to have strong legal guarantees of human rights and punish those who violate those rights. It does not mean that we should try to violently or extra-legally suppress the right when it tries to gain power legally.
The paradox of tolerance is not about laws which are distinct from morality. It’s not a legal concept at all
