[RD] Berkeley Riots

[Timsup2nothin]

If I show up to express my objection to the removal of statues and I get attacked by 'anitfa' I dont give a damn if the person next to me getting attacked too attended a torchlit march the night before.

If you show up "to express your objection to the removal of statues" and find that you are standing shoulder to shoulder with Nazis and Klan members and you don't just leave you deserve whatever you get. Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas.

 

[Berzerker]

Just don't be surprised that who you like will be reflected in who dislikes you.

I'm not surprised, I get the same reaction from people when I defend speech from 'the left'. You're keeping good company with people you dont like.

Personally, I don't like Nazis, white supremacists, or their sympathizers.

And you dont believe they should be free to speak... The 1st Amendment did not lead off the Bill of Rights because popular speech needed protecting.

Defend the free speech of whomever you like.

You're a bit late with that advice, but you didn't answer the question.

 

[Berzerker]

If you show up "to express your objection to the removal of statues" and find that you are standing shoulder to shoulder with Nazis and Klan members and you don't just leave you deserve whatever you get. Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas.

Like getting run over by a car?

 

[Sommerswerd]

You're a bit late with that advice, but you didn't answer the question.

Careful now... I did answer... very directly. You tried to add a strawman, which I ignored and simply answered the question. Tim got it immediately. So do you want an explanation? Or do you get it now?

 

[aelf]

No, it's where the media stop pretending that the black bloc is reacting to fascists, and start actually calling them out for being violent thugs who don't differentiate between fascists and right-leaning, but peaceful protesters.

Which media? Fox News? It's one of the biggest news channels. Has it been pretending that "the black bloc is reacting to fascists"?

That's aside from the point that someone could react to fascists and also have a disproportionate reaction that affects non-fascists. Playing fast and loose with facts and definitions is Trump's game.

 

[Ryika]

Which media? Fox News? It's one of the biggest news channels. Has it been pretending that "the black bloc is reacting to fascists"?

Ah yes, interesting strategy. Let's be very, very critical with every word in that post so we can ignore the argument that was being made.

That's aside from the point that someone could react to fascists and also have a disproportionate reaction that affects non-fascists. Playing fast and loose with facts and definitions is Trump's game.

Both don't have to be mutually exclusive, true, but the media - and yeah, I'm still phrasing it like that again - have ignored the fact that Antifa have attacked right-leaning, peaceful non-fascist free speech rallies in the past, and pretended that these free speech rallies were something that they were not. That one in Berkeley a week ago that has finally made some of the media turn on them was one of a series of attacks on rallies that were not fascist rallies.

 

[Berzerker]

Careful now... I did answer... very directly. You tried to add a strawman, which I ignored and simply answered the question. Tim got it immediately. So do you want an explanation? Or do you get it now?

I asked if I should defend the free speech of people I like and attack the free speech of people I dont like. Thats what Tim advocates, do you? That isn't a straw man, thats the ideology put forward by 'antifa' and being defended in this thread by opponents of fascism lol. Now if you're looking for a straw man, you compared defending free speech to defending rape, cheating and murder - Cosby, Patriots and OJ.

 

[Berzerker]

Tim supports running over protesters even if they aren't neo-Nazis

 

[zxcvbob]

It's okay as long as you accuse them of being a Nazi first.

 

[Senethro]

I don't think that is in-line with Tim's espoused values.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Tim supports running over protesters even if they aren't neo-Nazis

If you stand between two Neo-Nazis and seem to fit in, you do it at your own risk. Look like a duck, quack like a duck, catch a shotgun blast as you leave the water.

 

[Berzerker]

It's okay as long as you accuse them of being a Nazi first.

Tim dont care if you're a (neo) Nazi or not, just dont be near 'em when he drives into the crowd. Well, he wont be driving the car but he's fine with those who do.

I don't think that is in-line with Tim's espoused values.

He aint espousing his values to you...and I wish he'd stop espousing them to me.

If you stand between two Neo-Nazis and seem to fit in, you do it at your own risk. Look like a duck, quack like a duck, catch a shotgun blast as you leave the water.

You said protesters get what they deserve if neo-Nazis are among them... That was essentially the same argument I saw a neo-Nazi make about Heather Heyer during an msnbc interview. And stop sending me messages, the inbox is not a means for you to bypass the forum's civility rules with your dishonest venom. Go troll Breitbart and report back on your success.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

The ''right to free speech'' is the right to not be arrested by the government for talking, it doesn't give you the right to not be punched in the face for it.

No but that is still a criminal offence. I mean no-one has a "right" not to be a victim of a criminal offence technically, but... you know... what's your point again?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

You said protesters get what they deserve if neo-Nazis are among them... That was essentially the same argument I saw a neo-Nazi make about Heather Heyer during an msnbc interview. And stop sending me messages, the inbox is not a means for you to bypass the forum's civility rules with your dishonest venom. Go troll Breitbart and report back on your success.

Then quit making false claims about what I said or believe. It is clear that your goal is to get me to call you a lying sack of excrement or something so you can get me banned. No one here is so stupid they can't see that.

 

[Synobun]

Moderator Action: @Timsup2nothin and @Berzerker: The two of you are going to stop responding to each other if this is going to be the standard of discussion between the both of you.

 

[Traitorfish]

Inalienable rights dont come from government or the collective and the right to free speech was adopted into the Constitution, not created by it.

And yet they, in practice, they are granted by the collective. You appeal to an innate right to "speech"- but who defines speech? We have laws designed to limit liberal and slander, and although there is some debate over how strong these laws should be and where the burden of proof should lie, few people argue that we should abolish them altogether. We criminalise . We criminalise credible threats of violence. Are any of these distinctions "natural"? Does the moral fabric of the universe provide for the difference between misrepresenting your income on a dating site and on your tax returns? Does it provide for any of those categories at all?

Whether or not the moral principles underlying free speech are prior to any given social compact, they can only be clearly articulate as actual standards, as legal or even just as social norms, within the context of a self-conscious community.

You dont know who did what, you're just painting everything in sight. The torches were a night time march by the anti-Jew crowd from what I could tell. The brawl was daytime and included people with all sorts of political agendas, including the gun rights people you mis-portrayed as violent fascists. By your logic the peaceful counter protesters should be condemned because of the violent people who showed up to attack the unite the right people. If I show up to express my objection to the removal of statues and I get attacked by 'anitfa' I dont give a damn if the person next to me getting attacked too attended a torchlit march the night before. You're attacking free speech with a guilt by association you dont want applied to people you like.

The overt white supremacists weren't an unfortunate fringe presence, though. They made up a sizeable portion of the rally, perhaps the majority. These rest of the rally weren't unfortunate dupes, they were knowingly aligning themselves with overt white supremacist, whatever the depths of their own attachment to the ideology, self-concious saying "these are the guys I want to have my back". Being a Vichyist rather than an outright Quisling does not put you on the right side of history.

Rights are valid claims of moral authority that exist among people interacting with each other - 'the moral high ground'. They precede society too, they even exist in nature.

Nature is mostly things murdering each other; it's hard to see the moral logic in that.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I asked if I should defend the free speech of people I like and attack the free speech of people I dont like. Thats what Tim advocates, do you? That isn't a straw man, thats the ideology put forward by 'antifa' and being defended in this thread by opponents of fascism lol. Now if you're looking for a straw man, you compared defending free speech to defending rape, cheating and murder - Cosby, Patriots and OJ.

That's another strawman. You asked me about my position not Tim's. You asked me if I was suggesting you should:
1.defend the free speech of people I like; and
2. attack the free speech of people I dont like

My response was quite clear. Yes to #1. I never suggested you do #2 so asking me to defend that position is strawmanning me. You say "but Tim said!"... I'm not Tim. Take it up with him... or don't. I fully acknowledge the rights of scummers. I'm not carrying their water (unless I'm being paid to do so). My suggestion to you was just that... don't carry scummer's water. Let them carry their own water for their own scummines. The OJ/Cosby/Bellichek/Brady analogy was an illustration of that point and you know it, so it is very intellectually dishonest of you to try to characterize it as a strawman.

I used to do exactly what you are doing, and like you, I thought that it gave me some moral high ground/made me more "fair minded" or some other such nonsense... but I discovered a long time ago that defending positions you don't agree with is pointless, as it puts winds in the sails of things you don't support and it just gets you lumped in with the unsavory position even though you feel you're trying to protect some high-minded abstract ideal. I would defend all the conservative positions in class and it made all the Republican guys like me and want to sit next to me and hang out with me because they thought I was Republican, since I was "defending free speech" and so forth... but then when they would eventually find out that I was an Obama supporter, most of them grew cold towards me, and would stop talking to me, stopped sitting with me in class, etc.

Meanwhile all the liberals in class who I would have more common ground with ideologically, were wary and suspicious of me because, they thought I was Republican. So I basically needlessly isolated myself and had to then go build new relationships from scratch... I then realized that the whole exercise was just a bunch of virtue signalling on my part. But worst of all... and I have to admit that I didn't realize this on my own, one of my Deans/Professors had to point this out... what I was doing in class by always playing devil's advocate, taking the conservative/Republican/ etc, side... was giving positions that I actually opposed, propaganda to justify them. Basically I was supplying a "See the black guy agrees with this so it can't possibly be racially prejudiced, etc" to the numerous people who love to use this type of argument to defend their prejudiced positions. When she told me that, I realized that my virtue signaling just wasn't worth it.

 

[Berzerker]

And yet they, in practice, they are granted by the collective. You appeal to an innate right to "speech"- but who defines speech? We have laws designed to limit liberal and slander, and although there is some debate over how strong these laws should be and where the burden of proof should lie, few people argue that we should abolish them altogether. We criminalise . We criminalise credible threats of violence. Are any of these distinctions "natural"? Does the moral fabric of the universe provide for the difference between misrepresenting your income on a dating site and on your tax returns? Does it provide for any of those categories at all?

The word free(dom) defines speech... If freedom is the absence of coercion or constraint, then I'm not free to murder people or make death threats, not because of some law, but because the word freedom limits my behavior. I cant coerce or constrain others with my actions or my speech.

The overt white supremacists weren't an unfortunate fringe presence, though. They made up a sizeable portion of the rally, perhaps the majority. These rest of the rally weren't unfortunate dupes, they were knowingly aligning themselves with overt white supremacist, whatever the depths of their own attachment to the ideology, self-concious saying "these are the guys I want to have my back". Being a Vichyist rather than an outright Quisling does not put you on the right side of history.

They aint the only ones standing on the wrong side of history, the fate of the South's 'heritage' takes a back seat to the health of free speech. But your photo showed some guys in fatigues having each other's backs, I dont see neo-Nazis around them.

Nature is mostly things murdering each other; it's hard to see the moral logic in that.

Indeed, maybe might makes right, not valid claims of moral authority... On the other hand nature has produced critters who question the morality of the design. But murder is a term we apply among humans, not when critters kill. I do see a moral hierarchy in nature though, animals seemingly protect the homestead with more vigor so maybe 'property rights' run deeper than human institutions.

 

[plarq]

If I encounter people I don't like, I secretly hope that the authority will get them with loads of excuses to silence them, and I would not shed a tear for them.
If the government cracks down people to silence a political stand that I like, I would become angry about the government's decision.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

If I encounter people I don't like, I secretly hope that the authority will get them with loads of excuses to silence them, and I would not shed a tear for them.
If the government cracks down people to silence a political stand that I like, I would become angry about the government's decision.

But don't you understand that if you let society crack down on white supremacists and nazis and other scummers that the next thing you know that society will crack down on people who voice their appreciation for bunnies and rainbows? Don't you see that as the obvious outcome since only actions matter and intent is too complex to be analyzed?

We need to all get out there and stand shoulder to shoulder with nazis, psychopaths, and geeks and support their oppressing, killing, and biting of live chickens...lest we lose our freedumbs.