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gruezlast Monday at 7:37 PM1 replyview on HN

>Group A: "Mandatory masks in crowds during an airborne pandemic is fascism! Watch out!"

>You: "Group A was foolish, therefore Group B is foolish, because all warnings against fascism are equally un-grounded and meritless for some reason."

So it's only "fascism" if it's not for a Good Reason? Who decides whether something is a good reason? Is it us, because we're obviously the Good Guys? Doesn't this seem suspiciously close to a defense of Flock that others have referenced[1]? ie. "Doesn't vaccine passports seem pretty dystopian? You're thinking of [other group] authoritarianism. Our authoritarianism helps granny from getting sick and stops the spread of covid". This kind of attitude is exactly the reason why people tuned "fascism" out. It just became a tool for partisan in-group signaling.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46357042


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Terr_last Monday at 7:52 PM

> Good Guys [...] Our authoritarianism helps granny

That's quite a *whooooosh* of missing-the-point. Perhaps because you've confused me with another poster, and you're smushing a bunch of unfinished tu-quoque accusations together?

I'll simplify it further, you're acting like these are equivalent:

1. Yelling "Wolf! Danger!" ... because you were in downtown Chicago and saw a fur hoodie.

2. Yelling "Wolf! Danger!" ... because you were in rural Albania and saw a paw-print and a dead deer.

It's foolish to consider them the same just because the same two words were uttered. The accuracy or reasonableness of one does not reflect on the other.

> Who decides whether something is a good reason?

Well, in this case I decide that seeing a fur hoodie downtown is a bad reason to warn of an imminent wolf attack, and that seeing a paw-print in the European hinterlands is... a much-less-bad reason.

If I (or you) are somehow not permitted to make that decision about 1-vs-2, please explain why.

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