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A big principle I go by is to entirely refuse to participate in attacking a target, even if they may have done something wrong, if the attacks are coming from a bad-faith source.
A flip side to that is that, even in an individual or organization has clear problems, it can be worthwhile standing up for them, funding them, supporting their defense when they're attacked by a bad-faith party.
And to clarify: good vs bad faith is a matter of whether they actually share values of justice with you, especially in the area of what the accused has supposedly done, or if they're attempting to exploit your values that they normally ridicule to get a behavior they want from you.
@fabio No. Because there are millions of people doing bad things. You cannot let far worse people control which of those you put your attention on in ways that empower them.
@fabio You can't create justice working with a sampling-biased set of bad things to care about when that bias is under the control of someone who wants to further injustice.
You need either unbiased or biased-for-good information.
@fabio Even police know this, despite being bastards. If you go into a police station trying to report someone you obviously have a beef against for some petty law violation, they're gonna laugh at you, not go arrest the person.
@dalias Weren't you the one mad at the ACLU for defending people you don't like?
@landley How many times are you going to intentionally twist stuff I say?
Legal attacks on nazis are not bad-faith. None of what I said above applies to ACLU bankrolling nazi legal expenses.
@landley And I'd appreciate if you'd refrain from referring to *literal nazis* (like carrying banners with swastikas and other nazi symbolism) as "people I don't like", implying that it's some sort of personal preference.
@dalias Over the years, "am I doing more harm than good here" has gained increasing weight in my decision-making process.
And I've watched a lot of my theoretical allies succumb to divide and conquer "let's you and him fight" diplomacy, in multiple contexts.
You make very different decisions than I do on both counts. Oh well.
@landley The post you replied to was literally about NOT doing that.
It was a subtoot to the Wikipedia dialogue, in the context that, even for all its faults, we should not say "hey maybe he's right, WP sucks", but stand up for them, and aim to make them better.
@landley OTOH the ACLU, which you brought up, rarely even speaks up for *civil rights*, much less win any big victories, while they jump at every chance to "defend to the death his right to say it" the most abhorrent hate speech and accompanying violent threats.