Prompt: Extremist political parties should be banned from standing for political office.

Hey guys. If this intelligent community would be willing to debate this issue with me, I'd be very happy. Here's how I think this could work. You throw arguments out there, and other people shoot them down. I honestly don't care about any sides, winners/losers, but there should be a lot of good ideas arising from this thread. I'd like to place an emphasis on using evidence, so links where-ever possible please.

Here are my current arguments:
Pro: EPPs are known for hate speech, and are anti-democratic in nature.
Con: banning will promote violence to get across ideas, and would prevent the evaluation of ideology by subjecting it to public scrutiny.

Go.

Extremist parties and ideologies use prejudice and bigotry as tools. Hate speech here and there, free speech can be restrained if it is meant to or does cause harm. Politicians from extremist parties often encourage intolerance, discrimination, and sometimes direct violence. We have morals. Any party that violates these morals can be seen as harmful and swiftly removed from political happenings.

Counterarguments:

No examples stated, thus your entire argument can be invalidated by a simple "no" to the implied claims that ALL EPPs use prejudice, bigotry, hate speech, intolerance, discrimination, and direct violence.
Yes, a society has morals. And thus, it is up to the society itself to decide such morals. If a society wishes to follow the morals set by EPPs (extremist political parties), they should have the ability to vote for such EPPs.

We have had this discussion here in Norway after the massacre. Any my personal opinions is not to supress them, pushing them out of politics. If we do it won't stop people from believing the same and it won't stop them from preaching what they think.

The direct effect of shutting them out is them banding together, encuraging each other, driving each other more and more extreme without anyone knowing and without anyone talking against them. In a political debate they have to have valid arguments, we get a chance to correct them trough exposing wrong "facts" instead of letting them support each other out of our sights.

Counterargument:
By allowing EPPs to run for political office, they are able to garner the attention they crave and try to obtain in order to spread their views. For example, the highly publicized Le Pen of the National Front (France) used his public profile in order to attract attention to his cause, which could be seen as one of the major factors in his later political success.

btw, yes i am going to try and rebut all arguments, from both sides

What is extremist in my view is relative. For example in India we have 2 major political parties - BJP and Congress. BJP is a nationalist party, promotes military and infrastructure development more than congress does, but at the same time promotes the concept of Hindutva - Meaning India is a Hindu land. But India is a secular state according to the constitution of India, and therefore the BJP is considered communally extremist. There have been lots of riots between Hindus and Muslims especially in states ruled by BJP, with the BJP actively supporting the Hindu radical groups (they are nowhere in the scale of terrorists though).

Now since India is a land where the majority are Hindus, I know a lot of people, even my friends who support the BJP. However since I am not a Hindu, to me they are a big no no.

They have managed to win the elections once, and they were the ones that conducted the nuclear tests back in 1998, which even I am proud of, but you see what I mean. Its not that EPPs are anti democratic. All that I have said above, has happened within the democratic framework. They campaign, win elections by using extremist views as election propaganda (Again, to a lot of Hindus , it is not extremist). Therefore, if it is within a democratic framework, then every free country should allow even for extremist views. Its peoples right to be extremist, or moderate on issues that they feel strongly about.

I don't like extremists, they are blinded by the ideals of the political views, be it from communism or capitalism.

For me, although I'm a loyal communist, I must agree that there are some good and bad in communism and capitalism. I accept all points of view.

Different political views, so wat? The main thing is that they want the best for their country. Although my country has only one political party: communism, it allows every other political parties to live, sometimes accept ideas of those parties. With one condition though, no extremists.

Extremist is the reason why political and religious talking are prohibited in my country.

Duo, whats best. That they get the attention they want by political debates or by violent demonstrations?

And I don't see how shutting out the extremists from the politics will help anything. Will they stop believing what they think of it because they are shut out, or just fight harder against those who supress them?

I define extremism as a political party whose ideals consist of views that stray from those of conventional beliefs. I'm a bit confused at what the argument in the first half of the post was...could you explain?

Counterargument: It is clear that even in democracies, there should be a set standard in which people should follow. Adolf Hitlers political party, extremist by above definition, was also democratically elected. It is immoral and wrong for such parties to be able to gain control, as they oppress minorities or have racist overtones in their message, as seen in Hitlers party, National Front, and the BNP. The people do make decisions, but in many times, extremist parties gain power and make poor moral judgements that have a detrimental impact on society. If we refer back to the prompt, we see that EPPs should or shouldn't be allowed to run for office. Thus, it can be seen that for the interest of the country, and the moral standard of the society as a whole, EPPs should be banned from running for office.