Antifa: There are Monsters Everywhere!!!!

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Gorbles said:
@Zardnaar

Put solely in terms of body count, arguably. But threat isn't just body count. Which, for the record is also why Covid is dangerous (and why people often ignore or downplay it). Because people don't like seeing threat. People don't like seeing things they can't measure. And that's understandable - it's okay to be cautious about claims of something threatening. But the prpblem is we've taken that to its extreme - where even with evidence (as with Covid, or with repeated alt-right and far-right terrorist attacks) - we try and explain away the issues as though they're not actually issues.

We train ourselves to ignore the threat, often because of its lack of proximity to us as individuals. And that's not great either.


Not all threats are equal, but threats are contextual. Especially to someone not even living in the US. You probably shouldn't tell other posters what is or isn't a threat for them in their lives, because it comes off as both arrogant and condescending.

As for "wake you up", I mean, Charlottesville. There you go. Charlottesville wasn't isolated. People came from all over. But I don't expect this to change your mind, because you've come into this with a particular attitude and chosen to ignore salient counterarguments in favour of mocking forum posters' lived experiences.
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If people ignored Charlottesville no one would have died.

Just let the Nazis go there blow off steam and look stupid doing it.

Kinda feeds into my main point in CFC though. Main way to keep Nazis out if power is don't let them win elections.

If that means you have to be buddy buddy with someone who's not ideologically pure so be it.
 
@Gorbles, Charlottesville is an excellent example. An event from three years ago with how many participants? And if they came from all over, then that just means there aren't all that many to begin with since they had to bus them in. This is not convincing me that neo-Nazis are this danger that lurks around every streetcorner.

I agree threats are contextual, and I'm considering that with everything I'm posting. Even taking in those considerations, how much fever is warranted over the threat posed by these groups? How many FBI agents do we need? How many billions of dollars should be spent pursuing them? How many laws should Congress pass to block them from holding a rally or spewing hate?

edit: it's kind of like some rightists' paranoia about antifa being this huge thing that's going to destroy Western civilization or whatever. I don't see the two being all that different. America is a country of 300 million people. That's a lot! Assorted loonies here and there are a mathematical certainty.
 
amadeus said:
I don't fail to acknowledge it, I fail to see it as being disproportionately high enough of one to consider it to be a looming crisis. I'd say the overall trend over the past 40 years has been more positive than negative for LGBT, and even the right side of the spectrum has abandoned some of the more discriminatory policies that were once considered more socially acceptable.
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It doesn't literally have to be a looming crisis for it to be an existential threat to people.

The last 40 years includes a period of time in which the LGBTQ community were essentially socially, medically and physically cleansed by way of ignoring the AIDS/HIV disaster that ripped through our community.

amadeus said:
Let me ask you this as a question: if you were to rank order the top ten risks in your life, would neo-Nazis really be on it? There's a hundred things that I could think of that present a more real threat, and I would say that society should place attention proportionally on those dangers rather than focusing too much on groups that, statistically, have little impact. FBI resources or whatever, I think sure, they should be looking into them and preventing them from gaining influence. But even if they didn't, I don't think they would gain any influence.
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I've nearly been killed by bigots. Your approach to that is essentially tell me to wait until there's a more conveniant time to deal with that threat, the same threat which harms multiple other communities, except there never is a conveniant time to deal with it.

And you are wrong about not gaining any influence, Trump is the literal POTUS! Jesus christ
 
Zardnaar said:
If people ignored Charlottesville no one would have died.

Just let the Nazis go there blow off steam and look stupid doing it.

Kinda feeds into my main point in CFC though. Main way to keep Nazis out if power is don't let them win elections.

If that means you have to be buddy buddy with someone who's not ideologically pure so be it.
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My dude, people live in Charlottesville. You can't ignore that.

Congrats on proving my main point on these topics though. You don't see, because you're not close to it. And you don't care to look closer.

amadeus said:
@Gorbles, Charlottesville is an excellent example. An event from three years ago with how many participants? And if they came from all over, then that just means there aren't all that many to begin with since they had to bus them in. This is not convincing me that neo-Nazis are this danger that lurks around every streetcorner.

I agree threats are contextual, and I'm considering that with everything I'm posting. Even taking in those considerations, how much fever is warranted over the threat posed by these groups? How many FBI agents do we need? How many billions of dollars should be spent pursuing them? How many laws should Congress pass to block them from holding a rally or spewing hate?

edit: it's kind of like some rightists' paranoia about antifa being this huge thing that's going to destroy Western civilization or whatever. I don't see the two being all that different. America is a country of 300 million people. That's a lot! Assorted loonies here and there are a mathematical certainty.
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Charlottesville is a fantastic example, so I guess you didn't even bother clicking the link through to Wiki.

I'm not in this to convince you. I could write a whole thing on how big Charlottesville was, how many varied far-right, white supremacist (self-labelled) and neo-Nazis groups (again, self-labelled) it brought together. But you've proving to me how pointless it is, particularly as you don't even live there. It's easier to just sit and call you on your aloof potshots against people like Cloud, who do live in the US and have lived experiences that you'd rather pretend weren't real, because otherwise you'd have to deal with the cognitive dissonance you're avoiding.

Nobody is saying neo-Nazis lurk around every corner. That's you exaggerating to make things seem more fantastical than they are. That's two times now you've used semantics to downplay peoples' concerns about neo-Nazis and their assorted ilk in the US, and that's more than just coincidence. You don't want to believe in peoples' concerns? Fine. Just don't try and make a debate out of it, because you evidently don't know enough to debate it.
 
Gorbles said:
My dude, people live in Charlottesville. You can't ignore that.

Congrats on proving my main point on these topics though. You don't see, because you're not close to it. And you don't care to look closer.


Charlottesville is a fantastic example, so I guess you didn't even bother clicking the link through to Wiki.

I'm not in this to convince you. I could write a whole thing on how big Charlottesville was, how many varied far-right, white supremacist (self-labelled) and neo-Nazis groups (again, self-labelled) it brought together. But you've proving to me how pointless it is, particularly as you don't even live there. It's easier to just sit and call you on your aloof potshots against people like Cloud, who do live in the US and have lived experiences that you'd rather pretend weren't real, because otherwise you'd have to deal with the cognitive dissonance you're avoiding.

Nobody is saying neo-Nazis lurk around every corner. That's you exaggerating to make things seem more fantastical than they are. That's two times now you've used semantics to downplay peoples' concerns about neo-Nazis and their assorted ilk in the US, and that's more than just coincidence. You don't want to believe in peoples' concerns? Fine. Just don't try and make a debate out of it, because you evidently don't know enough to debate it.
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I'm not denying Cloud anything.

I view it as a strategy game.

How do you protect Cloud? Pass laws that get enforced.

How do you do that? Win elections.

How do you do that? In US terms you need to win those purple states.

I suppose you could theoretically try and change the constitution but that's not really viable.
 
Zardnaar said:
I'm not denying Cloud anything.

I view it as a strategy game.

How do you protect Cloud? Pass laws that get enforced.

How do you do that? Win elections.

How do you do that? In US terms you need to win those purple states.

I suppose you could theoretically try and change the constitution but that's not really viable.
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I think you mixed up my reply to amadeus, and my reply to you.

I understand how you view things. With respect, that is your view, and not necessarily the best way. In the meantime, stuff happens.

amadeus said:
I disagree that I am responsible for the exaggerations posted in this thread.
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Nobody said you were. I would say you're only responsible for the ones posted by you. Try harder.
 
The fash are a disease and antifa are not an autoimmune disorder. Germany, Italy and Spain didn't get better by being left alone.

Edit: Ok, calling it now. This was a bad analogy due to the precise meaning of the terms I used not being widely known. Poor choice, apologies etc.
 
amadeus said:
Because saying the earth is flat, while dumb, does not increase the risk of disease and human suffering.
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Well, it depends on how you connect the two. The idea of the Earth being flat in itself is only harmful in a way of knowledge and trust in the scientific community (and, if applied, would have some strange consequences for some businesses); but that's not what I wanted to point out. People that believe the Earth is flat are not just funny tee hee people. They're generally linked to a political agenda, usually ultraconservative and extreme Christians with the intention of stripping rights and currently overlapping with the qanon community, that is definitely going to further human suffering if it's allowed to grow. At least in the US.

So believing the Earth is flat does not = human suffering. But the populations that espouse it are generally, well, toxic and cruel. And pushing for politics that are basically alt right in execution, but based on different premises.
 
The only reason anyone is seriously even talking about the anti fascist movement is that the current US president is a far right booster. He's giving those people relevance and many of their obsessions and talking points have been rushing into parts of the mainstream. You can hear versions of replacement theory on like TV these days. Things have gotten real bad.

That whole ecosystem needs bogeymen, and they love dumb false equivalences with which to bamboozle credulous centrists and liberals.

I'm sorry to well-meaning people in the squishier parts of the reasonable discourse spectrum, but even getting sucked into indulging this utter non issue is kind of at least appeasement flavoured. You've been had by people using your instincts against you.
 
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Only the seriously naive or delusional believe fascists can be debated out of their positions, history has shown that only force or the percieved use of force can stop or prevent them
 
Some people indeed mostly respond to display of power. It's something I don't understand on a personal level, but that I have to accept.
 
Cloud_Strife said:
Only the seriously naive or delusional believe fascists can be debated out of their positions, history has shown that only force or the percieved use of force can stop or prevent them
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Generally you can change people's minds for genuinely held beliefs via facts, logic and arguements.

Doesn't matter if it's fascism or hardcore christian or whatever.

You can with a personal connection (sometimes). Takes a bit of individual effort.
 
cardgame said:
cult deprogramming is not easy
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Nope it's not just cults though. There's people on CFC so hardcore though no amount of facts and figures will change their minds.

I suspect some are alt accounts though as they tend to go quiet when certain posters do.

Or when certain posters get mod enforced holiday.

It's not just the alt right types who deny reality.
 
Zardnaar said:
Nope it's not just cults though. There's people on CFC so hardcore though no amount of facts and figures will change their minds.

I suspect some are alt accounts though as they tend to go quiet when certain posters do.

Or when certain posters get mod enforced holiday.

It's not just the alt right types who deny reality.
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What are you struggling to say here, old man
 
Cloud_Strife said:
What are you struggling to say here, old man
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I think he might be obliquely saying he's hardcore, because he's never changed his mind about anything as long as he's been active on OT. Hard to say though.
 
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