Antifa rocks!

[hobbsyoyo]

the other side wants to stop that, even if it means using violence

I think even this is a stretch as there really isn't a mass movement of antifa out there moving to fight violence with violence. That some of these people may exist should not be conflated with it being a major movement. I think you feed into the 'both sides are bad' argument by making it out to be the case.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

You know, you sound uncannily like Josip Broz Tito did in his WW2 Partisan days - complete with "Fascists" being the "ultimate evil."

And what's wrong with that ?
Bleiburg was unfortunate but necessary.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

I think even this is a stretch as there really isn't a mass movement of antifa out there moving to fight violence with violence. That some of these people may exist should not be conflated with it being a major movement. I think you feed into the 'both sides are bad' argument by making it out to be the case.

I accept that but i genuinely don't think it's possible to tackle extremism from the right-wing without some sort of implicit force or violence, or indeed any form of extremism, Christian, Islamic etc.

Debate alone cannot convince them of how wrong their opinions are, even shaming can only hold them back for so long and is less effective when there are entire communities out there that will actively enable their opinions and help them organize and spread... They need to know if they are open about their desire to eliminate groups wholesale that society will fight back because history is replete with examples of what happens when society does not.

People can be aghast at this but usually these are the same people who don't already have skin in the game and don't have to worry about violence in the first place, who can ignore it until it starts to affect them and theirs.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Hey man, I hear you. It's just that one of the principal rhetorical retreats of the right has been to project their own misdeeds and violence on everyone else even when that's not been a reality. When they run people over at protests and shoot up schools, they do it while claiming there is a vast left-wing armed resistance doing the same to them. This is patently false and while your point that there maybe should be an armed resistance, acting as if there already is one plays into their hands.

Then again, it probably doesn't matter. The Nazis staged a Polish attack on a border outpost as pretext to invade and everyone knew it at the time and it didn't matter. Maybe it's the same now. Nothing we can say can stop the madness and maybe people need to do something drastic.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

Hey man, I hear you. It's just that one of the principal rhetorical retreats of the right has been to project their own misdeeds and violence on everyone else even when that's not been a reality. When they run people over at protests and shoot up schools, they do it while claiming there is a vast left-wing armed resistance doing the same to them. This is patently false and while your point that there maybe should be an armed resistance, acting as if there already is one plays into their hands.

Then again, it probably doesn't matter. The Nazis staged a Polish attack on a border outpost as pretext to invade and everyone knew it at the time and it didn't matter. Maybe it's the same now. Nothing we can say can stop the madness and maybe people need to do something drastic.

There is no way you can stand against these people, be it peacefully or otherwise, that does not in some legitimize their deepest, darkest desires; of being persecuted, which they believe gives them the right to eliminate other groups.

These people don't operate in the same reality as you and i, they think that the white man has it bad, that heterosexuals are institutionally discriminated against, that transpeople are converting their children to an "ideology", that immigrants are destroying America and to be frank we cannot extend any of the benefit of the doubt to them.

In this thread we've seen people trying to equate an anti-fascist group with zero deaths attributed to them with neo-nazis and other far-right groups who have demonstrable deaths attributed to them, at some level they must know what it comes across as, perhaps not but it's not up to me to coddle them and their fantasies...

 

[zxcvbob]

When John Jay was chief justice, large swaths of the rural and "pioneer" United States had no REAL, functional law-enforcement...

That's true, but I'm not sure how it's relevant. ??? It might be, but I don't see it; can you elaborate?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

There is no way you can stand against these people, be it peacefully or otherwise, that does not in some legitimize their deepest, darkest desires; of being persecuted, which they believe gives them the right to eliminate other groups.

These people don't operate in the same reality as you and i, they think that the white man has it bad, that heterosexuals are institutionally discriminated against, that transpeople are converting their children to an "ideology", that immigrants are destroying America and to be frank we cannot extend any of the benefit of the doubt to them.

In this thread we've seen people trying to equate an anti-fascist group with zero deaths attributed to them with neo-nazis and other far-right groups who have demonstrable deaths attributed to them, at some level they must know what it comes across as, perhaps not.

Preach!

 

[Cloud_Strife]

It sucks that this position is even considered extreme in todays discourse, but such is life.

Edit:

A part of the reason for me being so openly hostile to others who disagree is that for decades minorities have had to deal with and accept the violence used against them, as well as having to defend themselves from it.

It really galls me that people are so quick to dismiss that just because they are uncomfortable with a conflict that they're involved in possibly impacting upon them, but the honest truth is for many minorities they never had the option to opt out of this and to do so would functionally and materially harm them when society has shown itself to be reluctant to do much about it.

If anyone expects this to go away via peaceful words then with the greatest of respect, that is a deeply naive opinion. Education can only go so far because at somepoint their words and messages will translate to someone acting upon their dark desires to harm people they consider beneath them.

Even more naive is the opinion that the government and police can handle it, but historically and currently they have not, which is why we are in this situation to begin with. I do not give either the benefit of the doubt because they have shown themselves to be complicit in aspects of this problem.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

The overton window is so far to the right that suggesting people shouldn't be forced to sleep on the streets or arguing it's not ok for employers to steal tipped wages is decried as Soviet-style communism. Everything is extreme and therefore nothing is extreme. I have been saying though that this renewed attack on all things socialistic or even anti-capitalist is a godsend as the extreme positions being taken up by the far right de-legitimizes all of their positions. It's a bit like how the LDS Church campaigned against gay marriage in California on grounds of pedophilia wound up helping (in my estimation) make gay marriage the law of the land a few short years later. I think overreach is a real phenomenon.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

The overton window is so far to the right that suggesting people shouldn't be forced to sleep on the streets or arguing it's not ok for employers to steal tipped wages is decried as Soviet-style communism. Everything is extreme and therefore nothing is extreme. I have been saying though that this renewed attack on all things socialistic or even anti-capitalist is a godsend as the extreme positions being taken up by the far right de-legitimizes all of their positions. It's a bit like how the LDS Church campaigned against gay marriage in California on grounds of pedophilia wound up helping (in my estimation) make gay marriage the law of the land a few short years later. I think overreach is a real phenomenon.

It's crazy isn't it? If Britain, with it's hereditary peers, literal lords and ladies, the queen etc or even the fact that the previous prime minister is in line to the throne (even if distantly), is considered socialist then the word has lost all meaning and shows how entrenched the right are.

 

[Imaus]

You can get more with a kind word and a gun, than you can with just a kind word - Mao, maybe, quoting Capone, maybe.

All politics is based on hard power. But not all hard power is uniform. To defend democracy and the diverse peoples from the retrogressive racists, at the very least, one must be prepared to dismantle the retrogressive racists, sic the law on them, and defend when the intolerant come out with their torches, guns, cars.

It may not be needed to have to hunt them down, burn them out of their holes, and fire on them on sight, but it is needed to be prepared to bash them back when they come around head-hunting; and it is necessary to make sure whatever forays they get into power, local or national, are short, brief, and blocked.

It is my sincere hope this just all turns out to be a hot fever for the nation that dissipates quickly.

But like all fevers, and all bodies, it will return in a new form, and all we can do then is be ready again and again. Italy and Germany and the UK have had bouts of fevers; the US has preferred to down whatever happy placebo and move on, but this isn't the first nor last time. All we, all the body of democracy can do, is to prepare and be ready to defend itself.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

The problem comes when the law and the racists/fascists overlap, which they certainly do in America at least, that is why we cannot expect the police to help.

I sincerely ask; why are fascist, white supremacist, Neo-Nazi etc groups that have killed people and committed terrorism still treated with kid gloves by the government and police?

What is the difference between them and Islamic terrorists? Both are existential threats to America. What reason could there be for this discrepency beyond the lack of political will to anything and the fact that the make-up of their members is predominantly if not entirely caucasian? Or indeed conservative leaning? The far-right has "enjoyed" more success than their leftist counterparts and that isn't an accident, in fact i contend that i may be by design and intent.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

It is all hypocritical, it is just one side is arguing that the side that wants to exterminate or quarantine about 40% of the population shouldn't be allowed to hold public forum. I'm reluctant to concede that completely, but still you are being hypocritical too when you don;t want Antifa to hold public forum either and are defending Nazi's rights to hold public forum. I at least know which side of that duplicity I'd rather be on as a moral actor.

You would of course have a point if I had at any point said anyone should not be allowed to hold public forum. What I've actually said is that I think it's wrong to violently attack people or strip them of their legal rights. That includes the right to voice their opinions and beliefs. Or, in this case, to misrepresent the opinions and beliefs of others. As long as I have the right of reply to correct you, it's all good.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

And if their opinions end up ultimately endangering minorities what then? That is an acceptable price to pay, a price that coincidently you would not pay? If that is what functionally happens how can you continue to hold that belief without at least acknowledging the price paid by others?

 

[Patine]

You can get more with a kind word and a gun, than you can with just a kind word - Mao, maybe, quoting Capone, maybe.

Probably Capone. The Mao quote I think you're thinking of is "Political power emanates from the barrel of the gun."

 

[hobbsyoyo]

You would of course have a point if I had at any point said anyone should not be allowed to hold public forum. What I've actually said is that I think it's wrong to violently attack people or strip them of their legal rights. That includes the right to voice their opinions and beliefs. Or, in this case, to misrepresent the opinions and beliefs of others. As long as I have the right of reply to correct you, it's all good.

Do you think it was wrong when New Zealand moved to shut down the sharing of the mass shooter's manifesto and attack video?

Probably Capone. The Mao quote I think you're thinking of is "Political power emanates from the barrel of the gun."

Nah, that was Leonard Nimoy

 

[Narz]

I think that you, me, and Narz all look at this question from a perspective where we are, and always have been, pretty safe. Other people, due to their skin color, their gender, their lifestyle, don't have the comfort of that same level of general safety, so their perspective has to be different.

Whatever someone may or may not have been thru does not excuse them from behaving like a decent human being.

 

[brennan]

The video, sure no reason that should be in a public forum. But why ban the manifesto when I can buy Mein Kampf from my local bookshop?

 

[Cloud_Strife]

Do you think it was wrong when New Zealand moved to shut down the sharing of the mass shooter's manifesto and attack video?

I think whats interesting is that the holy cow of unlimited free speech, which doesn't even exist in reality nor legally, is somehow put upon a higher pedestal than the lives of those impacted directly or otherwise by the filth that drips from these groups mouths.

Whatever someone may or may not have been thru does not excuse them from behaving like a decent human being.

When i came out as trans, nobody wanted to know or defend me. My friends abandoned me, my church decried me, my parents were thoroughly ashamed of my existence even if they've learnt to tolerate it since.

What crime or sin did i commit to deserve such a reaction and why should i not take the positions i hold when i have personally experienced the brunt of it? Understand i did nothing other than be true to myself and yet that marked me as being socially worth less in society. As an empathic person, i don't want anyone to undergo that and unfortunately that means pushing back at every opportunity even if it leaves the majority uncomfortable because believe me, their and by extension your discomfort, does not even begin to compare to the abandonment me and other minorities often feel by society.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

@brennan Yeah I may be mis-remembering. I know for sure they blocked the video but I am not sure they blocked the manifesto. Though there are not many other true 'freedom of speech' countries like the US, in most places hate speech is pretty trivially shut down with applicable laws and enforcement mechanisms so I wouldn't be surprised if they did block it too.

Edit: @Cloud_Strife got the crux of where I was going with that post