After any direct action such as a counter-protest, there will be some people arguing something along the lines of "well now that you've been violent towards them you've just proved their point/invigorated them/made them believe even harder/made the problem worse."
While these comments are usually well-intentioned, they are unhelpful and miss the point of direct action, which is a tactic used when other methods like talking peacefully or explaining things have already failed.
If someone is marching or otherwise actively trying through political or extra political means to remove someone's right to live peacefully as themselves, they are already beyond the stage of reasoned argument. They have made the transition into intolerant ideology.
The first step to countering these ideologies is to understand that ignoring extreme intolerant behavior does not make it go away. In fact, it makes it worse. Furthermore, there's a lot of historical evidence (the Nazi party's rise to power being the most famous) that trying to argue with intolerant ideologies using reason and peaceful means is not effective.
Enter the paradox of tolerance:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
Groups such as anti-LGBTQ hate groups (including TERFs), neo-Nazis, and Christian extremists have violated the social contract. If we try to counter them by reasoning with them but are otherwise tolerant of them, they will use that tolerance against us to take over society and enforce their intolerance on the broader society as a whole.
TL; DR: You have to reject intolerant ideologies or they will spread. If reason does not work, other means may be necessary. This is the nature of the social contract we all keep with each other in order to live together peacefully.
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