Fascists Riot in Virginia

[Perfection]

 

[caketastydelish]

That's what should have happened. Instead, the Nazis themselves drove a car into the anti-racist crowd. Someone actually got killed IIRC.

 

[Senethro]

His argument is stupid either way, he's acting as if it's a righteous act, but it's just empty signalboosting because of that church shooting that is absolutely unrelated from the statue. Nobody is "putting up statues", that's just a completely different thing to what is happening. It's a statue that has been there, and the issue of controversy is that it is being removed because apparently, erasing history is the way to deal with history.

Nobody who's not a nagging idiot gives a damn about those, and there's no greater issue to discuss, it's about morally outraged collectivists who want to remove it, and other morally outraged collectivists who want it to not be removed bashing each others faces in.

It's good entertainment, and the way it's going you'll soon have another civil war of which you can put up statues, but it's just big fuzz over nothing. People whose opinion about that controversy surrounding the staute is anything other than "Meh. Who cares?" should get some real problems to occupy themselves with.

If you can't understand why owning other humans attracts controversy and consider lethal political violence as entertainment then you should think about improving your ability to relate to other people and their experiences.

 

[Arwon]

Anyone talking like this is genuinely about the removal of a statue and not about deadly rallies by actual nazis is, um, to be charitable, pretty confused.

Likewise those engaging in "both sides" dichotomies, equivalising actual nazis and the opponents of actual nazis.

 

[Ryika]

If you can't understand why owning other humans attracts controversy and consider lethal political violence as entertainment then you should think about improving your ability to relate to other people and their experiences.

There was no large controversy about the statue before the church shooting, and the church shooting is in no way directly related to the statue. Removing the statue doesn't solve anything, it's useless virtue signaling from people who live in a world where showing that you're a virtuous person by meaningless gestures makes you a valuable asset to society, for people who thing the same.

Anyone talking like this is genuinely about the removal of a statue and not about deadly rallies by actual nazis is, um, to be charitable, pretty confused.

Likewise those engaging in "both sides" dichotomies, equivalising actual nazis and the opponents of actual nazis.

The statue is the reason the alt right protesters, of which many are actual neonazis, organized the rally. I don't see how the two are supposed to be separate things of which only one can be true.

About equalizing them... yeah, when you have videos of the black bloc using weapons to hit people who lie on the ground, unconscious, and have them openly call for violence against protesters, dehumanize anybody on the right as Nazis who they tell think it is okay to be violent again, then I don't see a big difference between the group in terms of radicalization. The only real difference is that the people showing up to those protests for the far right are pretty buffed guys in their thirties, while Antifa and the rest of the protesters are largely college age, and not very trained, which is why they get mobbed up whenever the two groups clash. Both groups are pathetic, are following terrible ideologies, and don't live in reality.

What you say you are is meaningless, what you do is what counts. Act like a fascist, be lumped in with fascists.

 

[Senethro]

Nah. Nazis and their ilk break a modern social contract in democracies of political change through non-violent means. If you call yourself a nazi then you're openly declaring hostility to particular groups of people and refusing to rule out seizing of government. You might have no skin in the game, hence you callously think it is all entertainment, but fascist marches are the sort of thing that causes families to draw up exit plans or maintain additional citizenships.

 

[Ryika]

Nah. Nazis and their ilk break a modern social contract in democracies of political change through non-violent means.

Sounds very much like certain far-left groups to me.

You might have no skin in the game, hence you callously think it is all entertainment, but fascist marches are the sort of thing that causes families to draw up exit plans or maintain additional citizenships.

Of course it's a wicked form of entertainment, what else would it be? Do you seriously think you can change the world if only you take what you see very, very seriously and make it a personal issue?

The world is dominated by idiots who have chosen a side to fight for, and now look at everything from the lens of the team they've chosen, supported by media that create narratives that reinforce the beliefs of their viewers, and online echo chambers. There's nothing you, or I, or anyone can do to change that. All we can do is watch, write down our meaningless opinions, and either go mad while we look at the world, close our eyes and look away, or find ways to get amusement out of it.

 

[caketastydelish]

Yeah, Nazis and anarchists deserve each other. They really make their presence known with that stupid 'may day' thing. We should round up all the anarchists and nazis and put them all in a huge gladiator ring and them have at it in a fight to the death.

Moderator Action: As distasteful as Nazism may be in a democratic society, advocating for them to be round up and put to death is inappropriate. - Vincour
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[metatron]

Anyone talking like this is genuinely about the removal of a statue and not about deadly rallies by actual nazis is, um, to be charitable, pretty confused.

Likewise those engaging in "both sides" dichotomies, equivalising actual nazis and the opponents of actual nazis.

Look, here is how this Rommel Barracks thing went down in the good old F.R. of G:
"Oh, i just noticed we still have barracks and feces named after Nazi generals."
"My goodness. The military; they're not that quick, aren't they?"
"Apparently not."
'"I have to say, i'm quite perturbed. We shall have a Commission."
"Do you want tea with that?"
"No."
Outrage... in the FRG.


On the other hand we have cartoonishly post-jim-crowish Virginia.
They still think the state killing people is ok, but can't agree on it when the cops do it.
They even yellow-mama'd a dude.
In 2013.
And they still sentence Brock Turners like Brock Turner and Corey Bateys like Corey Batey.

But the statue... the statue is an outrage.
Worse.
To people in Arlington and Alexandria and in 79.7 to 13.2 Charlottesville the statue is far worse than an outrage.
It's an eyesore.

Btw:
At Monticello they have a neat little alibi-plaque. I'm looking at a photograph of it right now.
Truly pathetic. Looks like a school project.
Heck, maybe it is; what do i know?
But Monticello is great. Right? Very American. Right?
Better rename a football team or something...

I could branch off here into my usual why-are-there-still-slaveholders-on-money rant.
But that's neither here nor there.

 

[W|M]

The world is dominated by idiots who have chosen a side to fight for, and now look at everything from the lens of the team they've chosen, supported by media that create narratives that reinforce the beliefs of their viewers, and online echo chambers. There's nothing you, or I, or anyone can do to change that. All we can do is watch, write down our meaningless opinions, and either go mad while we look at the world, close our eyes and look away, or find ways to get amusement out of it.

The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.

 

[Arwon]

The funny thing about that stupid "virtue signaling" concept is the way boilerplate reactionaries fall over themselves to find the dumbest, non-leftist possible position on a given issue.

For a lot of people, virtue signaling about not being left wing is most of their politics, which is why you see fiery hot takes "both sides"ing about literal nazis starting an angry wave of torchlit intimidation, violence, and outright murder over something as immaterial as a bloody statue.

 

[Arwon]

Meanwhile, it's a shame modern day nazis with a fashion sense that tends towards the nostalgic are keen on reviving the retro "torchlit terror-march" chic, but continue to neglect the equally striking "shooting yourself in a bunker surrounded by your own failure" aesthetic.

 

[Ryika]

True, virtue signalling is also something that both sides do, it's not inherent to the left. It's probably something that collectivist ideologies in general do. Don't really see how it does make sense to "virtue signal" that you're not part of either of the two big groups though, who would such a person be virtue signaling to? All such a person gets for sitting between the chairs is anger from both sides, because "muh team!!". Unless there's some global community of fence-sitters that I'm not aware of, I'll have to respectfully disagree with that idea.

But I actually agree that the two are not the same in execution. While the extreme ends of both sides don't seem to have many boundaries when it comes to how far they're willing to go with their mistreatment of their ideological enemies, the far right is clearly, to phrase it a bit hyperbolic, militarizing. The far left seems to see these skirmishes as some kind of a sport or something, while the far right sees it as the beginning of a war.

Funfact: The car used to run people over was a Dodge Challenger. That's just... I mean... that's ... dark ... but. Dodge. Challenger.

 

[Arwon]

Unless there's some global community of fence-sitters that I'm not aware of

Let me introduce you to liberalism.

 

[Ryika]

Liberalism is not a politically neutral world view, it is a left leaning world view that has clear values that its followers use to form their political opinions.

 

[Arwon]

That's just the American misuse of the term which I, for one, refuse to indulge.

Liberalism spans soft left to soft right but is mostly defined by being obsessed with the individual and blind to the structural and by being fence-sitting, order-obsessed cowards. In the US right now they're the people going "this isn't us!" and similar.

 

[Ryika]

I'm from Germany, and that's exactly how we use the word.

 

[Arwon]

You'd be the first person I've seen describe the FDP as left wing.

 

[Ryika]

That's economic liberalism, which is indeed right leaning or maybe even center right, but we were talking about social liberalism, which is left leaning.

 

[Arwon]

Eh, positions on social matters really have very little to do with left vs right. Plenty of people who hate foreigners want to nationalise stuff, and the corporate world is nearly unanimous in plastering rainbows over everything in support of same sex marriage.

It certainly doesn't make much sense to call a group like the FDP "left wing" in any meaningful sense of the world. Those sorts of implicitly to explicitly pro-capitalist socially laissez-faire types are made for the term "liberal" rather than "leftist".