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This is a very obvious trick from the right.

“Kill all pedophiles!”

Yeah most people will say pedophiles are really bad and nobody wants to defend them, so they’ll either agree or let it slide. However, they’re not anticipating the next part

“All trans people are pedophiles!”

“All gay people are pedophiles!”

“All immigrants are pedophiles!”

Once you define a group of people as being subhuman and unworthy of human rights, then there is a strong motivation to expand the definition of that group to include more people that a lot of people don’t like and won’t stick their neck out to support for fear of getting labeled as part of that group and oppressed like them. The circle then just keeps growing as the machine needs more people in the outgroup to oppose. If there is broad consensus that pedophiles (or people who commit any type of crime) are a danger so foul that the people who might commit said crime should be summarily executed to subjected to torture, then oppressed minority groups will just be identified with said crime. Think about how panic about urban theft and murder was used to advance policies that harm racial minorities in the late 20th century, and how panic about “bolshevism” was a major driving force of the Holocaust. Nothing good comes from this path.

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lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

However, they’re not anticipating the next part

I think we can easily retort “All pedophile killers are pedophiles!”.

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Juice@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Right, but at this point pedophilia does exist as an actual phenomenon, which the right uses to build a culture of fear and suspicion in which they can frame all their arguments credibly.

Like people are actually worried about child abuse, for many good and bad reasons. So without addressing the fear and the underlying desire for just governance then no amount of political humanism will get through. People are, irrationally, more afraid of pedophiles than they are willing to criticize the cultural implications of the meanings of words.

That’s not your fault, you aren’t creating or reproducing this phenomenon and I largely agree with you. I just think its time to start coming up with better criticisms than trying to poke logical holes. The right is fighting a war and we are having an intellectual debate. I’m a firm advocate for scientific intellectualism, while exploring even philosophical implications of your plans and actions. I think this is logically strong, but practically weak argument.

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