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Similar experience. I am a reddit mod for a quite large community, and the ugly truth is that a lot of bad-faith arguments are being used to provide cover for simple bullying.

This a reality that is deeply uncomfortable for people who share political views with the bullies, but it is the reality on the ground.

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Believe me. I have to live with the fact that I tolerated this behavior and enabled a ton of harassment for way too long when I had the ability to stop it. Making a post like this in hackernews I guess is my way of trying to make things right.

So many people told me I had it wrong and I didn't listen.

Looking at the positives here though: it's a sign of progress and maturity that you recognize you made mistakes that unintentionally aided bullies, and that you're trying to help others not make those same mistakes. So few people are willing to admit things like this.

It's Popper's classic Paradox of Tolerance: to maintain a tolerant society, we have to be intolerant of intolerance.

That's not exclusive to any particular politics, it's just selection effects. The bullies who agree with you politically are off terrorizing somebody else who doesn't.

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