Antifa rocks!

[Estebonrober]

To which the response has over and over and over been been, join the little anarchist militia, plan and practice to defend one's self. Go get permits that allow you to do so vigorously. If other people are pretending to be you and smashing randoms with crowbars like a bunch of useless turds that need deleted from society, let us know that is happening. Useless turds that smash randoms with crowbars should be deleted from society. You have our support on that. So much so, that in the face of lowest common denominator idiocy, we even support creating institutions that will forever be imperfect and problematic because of the nature of their work, specifically to hit those turds with "compliance tools" in reaction. So much so that many of us support the right of people to shoot back in reaction if necessary.

People who start cracking heads at protests and beating journalists deserve removed. The person in your example deserves removed. I know there are dangerous fools that are otherwise politically and personally aligned, they deserve removed. But not for pre-crime bull****. That is actual authoritarian society destroying anarchist dipwadery. It's the wish and desire of violent men, rapists, and the worst of man.

I'm more sympathetic than most here are to militiamen. More sympathetic than you are, qualified by the people you have decided that you do not like. But it will still run into limits. Beating journalists on the street, hacks or not, well exceeds the line. Was that false flag? Should I reorient my judgement of the event based on the actors responsible?

The bolded part of this statement still applies for me as well. Even though contrary to @Commodore 's point the conservatives have been slaughtering minorities and murdering in the name of domestic politics at an ever increasing rate. . .

Terrorist attacks by right-wing extremists in the United States have increased. Between 2007 and 2011, the number of such attacks was five or less per year. They then rose to 14 in 2012; continued at a similar level between 2012 and 2016, with a mean of 11 attacks and a median of 13 attacks; and then jumped to 31 in 2017.7 FBI arrests of right-wing extremists also increased in 2018. 8

https://www.csis.org/analysis/rise-far-right-extremism-united-states

Let us be clear here, there is no comparison of Antifa to these "lone wolf" (you know with friends on the web) actors who violently have murdered hundreds in the past decade or so, and to equate such is to show willful ignorance.

 

[Patine]

I still think that flattening the perspective down to "preemptive violence" misses the point. If a sniper takes out a guy drawing down on someone with a handgun doesn't seem like the same 'preemptive' that busting that same guy in the head with a bat as he leaves his house is, but if he has made his intentions clear then maybe it is the same preemptive. What do we accept, and what do we call excessive? How much responsibility do we insist on in regards to "find another way"? And how do those demands shift if the guy the hunter with the handgun is looking for happens to be us?

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.

Sounds like that could almost spiral and blow up into a "Minority Report" dystopian conundrum, but with a vigilante flair. How frightening!

 

[cardgame]

Not saying counter-protesting isn't allowed. Just saying if you start a fight, you can't play the victim later on when you lose that fight.

You can't play the victim just because someone died in an act of intentional homicide

 

[Patine]

You can't play the victim just because someone died in an act of intentional homicide

It's all fun and games still someone gets shot. Then it's war.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

My perspective doesn't include tolerating fascists and bigots so yes, yours is intrinsically warped.

Well thankfully for you, a bigot, I am more tolerant.

Moderator Action: As mentioned in my mod post, stop discussing each other and discuss the topic. --LM

 

[Estebonrober]

Well thankfully for you, a bigot, I am more tolerant.

Except of the opinions of bigots. . .Gotcha!!!

 

[Manfred Belheim]

That's kind of the opposite of what I just said.

 

[zxcvbob]

I still think that flattening the perspective down to "preemptive violence" misses the point. If a sniper takes out a guy drawing down on someone with a handgun doesn't seem like the same 'preemptive' that busting that same guy in the head with a bat as he leaves his house is, but if he has made his intentions clear then maybe it is the same preemptive. What do we accept, and what do we call excessive? How much responsibility do we insist on in regards to "find another way"? And how do those demands shift if the guy the hunter with the handgun is looking for happens to be us?

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.

To legally claim self-defense (or defense of a 3rd party) the threat has to be more than just credible, it also has to be imminent. Your first example might be justified (IMHO, even if you're shooting a cop in some cases), the second is not because there is no *immediate* threat. I will admit that there's a gray area that exists between what's legal and what's right. That's why we have jury trials, and contrary to popular belief, the jury has the prerogative and sometimes the duty to override the judge on matters of law, not just matters of fact. (that's not just my opinion, it was also the opinion of Chief Justice John Jay) But also my opinion, there's no "gray area" in the second example you provided

 

[Cloud_Strife]

Well thankfully for you, a bigot, I am more tolerant.

You are indeed more tolerant.

Tolerant of neo nazis, fascists and their fellow travellers, homophobes and transphobes, racists etc.

Moderator Action: I just mentioned upthread that you folks should discuss the topic at hand and not each other. You've gone back to discussing each other. This is trolling. Stop it, or I will be forced to hand out more infractions. --LM
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[brennan]

We all feel simply terrible that we don't want to beat up as many people as you do Cloud.

Moderator Action: This is trolling as well. Knock it off. --LM

 

[Cloud_Strife]

We all feel simply terrible that we don't want to beat up as many people as you do Cloud.

Are you done?

 

[Patine]

To legally claim self-defense (or defense of a 3rd party) the threat has to be more than just credible, it also has to be imminent. Your first example might be justified (IMHO, even if you're shooting a cop in some cases), the second is not because there is no *immediate* threat. I will admit that there's a gray area that exists between what's legal and what's right. That's why we have jury trials, and contrary to popular belief, the jury has the prerogative and sometimes the duty to override the judge on matters of law, not just matters of fact. (that's not just my opinion, it was also the opinion of Chief Justice John Jay) But also my opinion, there's no "gray area" in the second example you provided

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

 

[brennan]

You sound like some of my more immature students Cloud. What sort of retort do you expect? Your mum?

 

[Estebonrober]

Except of the opinions of bigots. . .Gotcha!!!

That's kind of the opposite of what I just said.

You are indeed more tolerant.

Tolerant of neo nazis, fascists and their fellow travellers, homophobes and transphobes, racists etc.

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.

 

[Traitorfish]

I never blamed the fall of the Weimar republic and rise of the Nazis solely on the Communists. Their tactics during that period were unsuccessful and counterproductive however.

That may be the case, but what is the metric for "success" we are applying? Obviously, the rise of the Third Reich was not the KPD's intention- but was the preservation of a zombified Weimar regime? The expectation is always that the Communists should have quietly towed the SPD line, even when that line was to grudgingly prop-up Hindenburg's conservative government. That the Social Democrats could have swung to the left, that the foundation for cooperation was not a half-hearted defence of a republican constitution that nobody really believed in, but an upsurge of militancy across the left, is dismissed out of hand, not because it was impossible, but because those were not the priorities of the SPD leadership, who are, inexplicably, assumed to have possessed the moral and historical right to decide what "correct" opposition to Nazism should look like.

You referring to the Spartacists, Luxembourg and Liebknecht?

Among others, yes. I grant that, strictly speaking, they were killed by Friekorps acting on behalf of the provisional republican government rather than by the Social Democrats as such, but if you unleash right-wing paramilitaries onto your political enemies, do nothing to curb their excesses, and make no effort to bring the perpetrators to justice when it's finished, I would tend to think that you not only bear responsibility for that, but implicitly accept it.

Melodramatic much? While you fret over a chant, your Antifa thugs are running riot in the streets attacking everyone that expresses even the slightest disagreement with their extremist politics.

This is not a real thing.

 

[AmazonQueen]

That may be the case, but what is the metric for "success" we are applying? Obviously, the rise of the Third Reich was not the KPD's intention- but was the preservation of a zombified Weimar regime? The expectation is always that the Communists should have quietly towed the SPD line, even when that line was to grudgingly prop-up Hindenburg's conservative government. That the Social Democrats could have swung to the left, that the foundation for cooperation was not a half-hearted defence of a republican constitution that nobody really believed in, but an upsurge of militancy across the left, is dismissed out of hand, not because it was impossible, but because those were not the priorities of the SPD leadership, who are, inexplicably, assumed to have possessed the moral and historical right to decide what "correct" opposition to Nazism should look like.

So what metric for success would you apply for the KPD? They didn't achieve their own aims (although I wouldn't consider the establishment of a regime subservient to Stalin desirable), prevent Fascism, protect the workers. The prospect of an insurgency across the left under KPD leadership seems unlikely. In Spain there was an insurgency of the left and the Communists chose to suppress it in the middle of the Civil War.

 

[Patine]

So what metric for success would you apply for the KPD? They didn't achieve their own aims (although I wouldn't consider the establishment of a regime subservient to Stalin desirable), prevent Fascism, protect the workers. The prospect of an insurgency across the left under KPD leadership seems unlikely. In Spain there was an insurgency of the left and the Communists chose to suppress it in the middle of the Civil War.

Well, they came back 12 years later under Thalman's lieutenant from the Weimar party, Walter Ulbricht, and got to govern a fifth of the country for 45 years...

 

[Cloud_Strife]

You can't play the victim just because someone died in an act of intentional homicide

What's really insidious is this assumption that because you use violence, both sides are automatically equivalent.

One side's endgame is the wholesale elimination of certain groups of people, the other side wants to stop that, even if it means using violence. People can condemn violence all they want but if their solution is to essentially rely on an institution that already fails the victims of these fascists and bigoted groups, then that does nothing but functionally allow the status quo to remain and does nothing to remedy the situation, as well as placing the onus on minorities to suffer what they must until some non-specific time in which society decides that it is no longer willing to tolerate it. The police alone have very little interest in rooting out right-wing extremism nor does the government.

The unfortunately reality is that debate is simply not enough to tackle emboldened fascists and bigots and minorities cannot risk them even getting their hand on the lever of power and it's made worse by the current POTUS and his rhetoric, especially towards PoC.

 

[Patine]

What's really insidious is this assumption that because you use violence, both sides are automatically equivalent.

One side's endgame is the wholesale elimination of certain groups of people, the other side wants to stop that, even if it means using violence.

The unfortunately reality is that debate is simply not enough to tackle emboldened fascists and bigots and minorities cannot risk them even getting their hand on the lever of power and it's made worse by the current POTUS and his rhetoric, especially towards PoC.

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

 

[Cloud_Strife]

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

Fascists are kind of the ultimate evil if you are one of the groups they want to eliminate.