Antifa: There are Monsters Everywhere!!!!

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Estebonrober

Estebonrober

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Ok ladies and gents here is your antifa revival thread.

I challenge anyone on this forum to show me any evidence of antifa or communists or social democrats or anyone left of center for that matter systematically shutting down free speech in the last what? ten years? Showing up to Proud Boy rallies to counter protest and those confrontations devolving into fist fights do not count. Spray painting ACAB on a courthouse does not count.

The reality is the whole talking point is jsut fear mongering from the right to give you all a boogey man to fret over.

Anyways I look forward to the crickets!

Have fun!
 
Should have saved the title for “Rants Thread #426”.
:P
 
amadeus said:
How are we defining “antifa?”
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Given that this branched from the US Elections. I suppose this Wiki article would be a starting point on how we’re defining Antifa in the US.
 
amadeus said:
How are we defining “antifa?”
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Feel free to define it however you like, but how far you stretch that definition will be considered when looking into whether "antifa" is repressing free speech.

My take is this is a lot of hot air. There is no shortage of horrible fascist like takes all over the internet now so I'm pretty sure this is jsut fear-mongering 101.
 
Why can't you think of examples? Like, why wouldn't you be aware of examples? Also, how do I distinguish this from sealioning? It seems like sealioning.

Is your echo-chamber such that you're never confronted with examples that you will not defend, even while you tiredly explain that the need for the antifa concept is necessary in today's world, because the Right is dangerously mobilizing?
 
El_Machinae said:
Why can't you think of examples? Like, why wouldn't you be aware of examples? Also, how do I distinguish this from sealioning? It seems like sealioning.

Is your echo-chamber such that you're never confronted with examples that you will not defend, even while you tiredly explain that the need for the antifa concept is necessary in today's world, because the Right is dangerously mobilizing?
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I've looked and cannot find any relevant examples. Again showing up to a Patriot Prayer rally to counter-protest and that devolving into a fist fight is not systemically shutting down their speech.
 
I had a dream the other night that this supposed literalist bible based conservative retelling of some classic religious tale swapped the original antagonists with antifa. Like the text referred to the [insert sodomite or pharaoh or whatever here] antifa directly
 
amadeus said:
German militants of the Communist Party backed by Stalin in the early 1930’s.

So probably not a terrible threat today. “Antifa” is as much a fiction as the fa they are anti.
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If you want ot be that exact and play Patine's game then I agree with you, unfortunately social reality is not so clean.
 
Antifa was a thing in the post-war UK, France, and Italy, too. They're still strong in Europe. They fought fascists, mocked Mosley, fought in Scotland and Rome and MIlan.

But apparently Americans lose their **** at it. Whatever. Like always America is stuck in a political rut and decades behind the first world. Antifa gets my support, the PBs and Alt-Right and Alt-Lite and Right that coddles them doesn't.
 
At least in parts of Europe (like Italy and Greece) antifa is certainly a lot less tame than the US one.
Moreover various euro countries had leftist terrorist groups, including Germany.
Maybe the situation in Greece is a bit better cause by now leftist terror is not associated with partition, while in Italy there is the north-south divide and in Spain there was the alliance between the left and independence groups (like the Catalans) in the civil war (maybe it still exists? don't know anything about this).

In my view such groups (whether they are left or right) are usually characterized by people who speak in slogans and have no practical idea for any successor state if their 'revolution' would materialize. They are, thus, reactionary in nature.
 
Estebonrober said:
If you want ot be that exact and play Patine's game then I agree with you, unfortunately social reality is not so clean.
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But reality isn’t that interesting, either. How many people do you think there are in the U.S. that fit in the following camps: fascist, and antifa? I mean people can describe themselves as anything, but I just think there aren’t enough of both really to warrant so much of my attention.

I think of it as two tiny groups of low-intensity stupids that are into fantasy roleplaying. At least the Renaissance Festival had those big chicken-on-a-stick things.
 
I think it would be productive to add a few notes to this thread.

Freedom of speech is already restricted, be it legally or socially. It always has been save for a few extreme examples, all of which are far removed from the Western status quo today. As such, it's malleable and the current standard is nuanced both with benefits and problems. Restrictions to it are benefitial in many cases.

Freedom of speech also entails activity beyond words; rights to organize, gather, make art, move.

Antifa primarily targets hategroups if not nazis. There are definitely segments of the movement that push for certain restrictions of freedom of speech, but I'd argue people should abandon some blissful idea of freedom of speech as an unmalleable purism and consider the benefits of either loosening or tightening it. And such changes won't be universal. The status quo is incredibly complicated. It's not a video game slider.

Politeness (socially enforced speech restriction) is always political. Political correctness is just a form of it with a particular method and goal (overall; there are nuances). Social control of speech is already present in the status quo. There are also certain rights granted to controlling speech in social spaces.

So my own view, yes, Antifa definitely has segments of it that works to restrict certain views, particularly those of the extreme right. These segments vary from zero tolerance to contextual approaches to the targeted speech in question. It varies whether the activities are violent or peaceful, this includes engagement with far right demonstrations.

It's just worth it doing some thinking about the current state of affairs, what is and should be acceptable. We don't want Nazism.

I have acquaintances in Antifa, for the record. Not that I agree with them or their methods; my concerns are mostly whether they are efficient, and whether certain intended states of society are desirable. Also, they're the Danish facet of a global loose community. They aren't representative of US activities at all; my understanding of those comes from research. It's just that I have a better understanding of the Danish situation, if you want to know about that.
 
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I think Antifa ironically does more harm than good for their own cause. They just give their opponents ammunition to paint themselves as the real victims. And to bystanders not on either side, it makes them think less of the left in general because of the violence and terrorist acts they commit.
 
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