Internet Vigilantism

[Traitorfish]

We're talking about protesters and the 'anti-fascists' who dont think they should be allowed to protest... Yeah, free speech is a 'positive good'. Letting 'antifa' decide who can or cannot speak is neither positive or good.

I agree that free speech is a positive good. Where I disagree is in your, just, stunningly naive reasoning that allowing armed paramilitaries intimidating the opposition contribute to "free speech". We- that is, the barbaric wastes of Unamerica- have been down that road before, and the conclusion has not usually been a harmonious liberal republic.

I mean, do recall the small but important detail that these guys have actually killed people. The "peace-keeping" operation you imagine ended with an act of domestic terrorism. If the fascists were ever entitled to the benefit of the doubt, it has been thoroughly squandered.

 

[JollyRoger]

And now a lawyer shows up to spread the guilt by association... Okay, nobody died until armed counter protesters started a fight. They hate 'fascism' so much they risked the lives of others to silence protesters.

Who did the killing again?

 

[timtofly]

I agree that free speech is a positive good. Where I disagree is in your, just, stunningly naive reasoning that allowing armed paramilitaries intimidating the opposition contribute to "free speech". We- that is, the barbaric wastes of Unamerica- have been down that road before, and the conclusion has not usually been a harmonious liberal republic.

I mean, do recall the small but important detail that these guys have actually killed people. The "peace-keeping" operation you imagine ended with an act of domestic terrorism. If the fascists were ever entitled to the benefit of the doubt, it has been thoroughly squandered.

This country was established by small bands of para-military. I am pretty sure, we will survive.

The point that both groups show up means the system is working, but both sides seem to hate the ideology of the other. If people are absurd or insanely think they are God to criticize the thoughts of others, instead of the simple idea of getting one's message out there, then this world is in desperate straights. It does not matter who thinks they are right. What matters is there are still plenty of humans to hold both sides accountable. Otherwise if you just prejudice your opponent as being full of hate, I am sure the one with the greatest fire power is going to win out in the end. Not just haters who hate other haters.

 

[Berzerker]

Listen, you can play their distortion of reality game all you want, but you've already revealed what you are about so it isn't going to work.

A neo Nazi in Charlottesville wandered around spouting his crap at anyone he came across. He was treated as a harmless crank and ignored. No one imposed on his right to free speech.

But he doesn't like the whole "majority" aspect of Democracy when he's the minority, so he organized an armed invasion of his city to "make people listen." That isn't a protest, it's terrorism.

Around here, you are that crank being ignored, and based on your sympathy for the Charlottesville terrorists I assume you are sad that you can't get your fellow white supremacists and neo-Nazis to invade CFC with guns and torches to force us all to credit your nonsense. Internet.

Your analogy has a flaw, I wouldn't attend much less start a rally to keep a statue. I support removing them all and renaming parks. I think you're missing the point of free speech if it belongs only to the majority... And if it was an armed invasion, why wasn't anybody shot? Some of the protesters were gun rights activists, the guys in fatigues in TFs photo of "violent Nazis". "Unite the Right" represented a bunch of people. Didn't 'majorities' and "Democracy" put up the statues and name the parks? Did the locals vote on removing them or did some council members?

Who did the killing again?

Some guy in a car... Why does he represent free speech?

I agree that free speech is a positive good. Where I disagree is in your, just, stunningly naive reasoning that allowing armed paramilitaries intimidating the opposition contribute to "free speech". We- that is, the barbaric wastes of Unamerica- have been down that road before, and the conclusion has not usually been a harmonious liberal republic.

I mean, do recall the small but important detail that these guys have actually killed people. The "peace-keeping" operation you imagine ended with an act of domestic terrorism. If the fascists were ever entitled to the benefit of the doubt, it has been thoroughly squandered.

I dont have to imagine a peacekeeping operation, you posted a photo of it to represent Nazis attacking someone's rally. It was their rally and they were defending themselves and in the process 'keeping the peace' in their immediate neighborhood. The armed men in that photo did not kill anyone, apparently didn't even fire a shot.

 

[Arwon]

Nah, they just terrorised everyone around them. How you reckon the folk at the local synagogue felt about their "keeping the peace" complete with nazi symbology and chants like "sieg heil"?

“For half an hour, three men dressed in fatigues and armed with semi-automatic rifles stood across the street from the temple,” Alan Zimmerman, the president of Congregation Beth Israel, wrote. “Had they tried to enter, I don’t know what I could have done to stop them, but I couldn’t take my eyes off them, either.”

Zimmerman said he was forced to hire an armed guard because the Charlottesville police refused to provide an officer to watch over the temple’s Saturday morning services.

“Several times, parades of Nazis passed our building, shouting, ‘There’s the synagogue!’ followed by chants of ‘Seig Heil’ and other anti-Semitic language,” Zimmerman said. “Some carried flags with swastikas and other Nazi symbols.”

If free speech is heavily armed nutjobs protecting nazis as they threaten and terrorise the people they hate and want to kill (it ain't) then screw free speech (but it ain't that).

 

[civver_764]

Nah, they just terrorised everyone around them. How you reckon the folk at the local synagogue felt about their "keeping the peace" complete with nazi symbology and chants like "sieg heil"?

How is that relevant? Free speech is free speech, no matter what people think of it.

 

[Arwon]

As everybody knows from history, nobody is more in favour of the free exchange of ideas, the sanctity of diverse political discourse and respectful engagement with opposed ideas than armed nazi paramilitary groups.

 

[Ryika]

As everybody knows from history, nobody is more in favour of the free exchange of ideas, the sanctity of diverse political discourse and respectful engagement with opposed ideas than armed nazi paramilitary groups.

They are as long as its their speech that is being suppressed.

 

[Arwon]

Hence the degenerate book burnings I guess. Retro really is in right now.

 

[Berzerker]

Nah, they just terrorised everyone around them. How you reckon the folk at the local synagogue felt about their "keeping the peace" complete with nazi symbology and chants like "sieg heil"?

If free speech is heavily armed nutjobs protecting nazis as they threaten and terrorise the people they hate and want to kill (it ain't) then screw free speech (but it ain't that).

The guys in fatigues with guns weren't neo-Nazis, just 2nd Amendment activists, and they were keeping the peace where they were. See anyone fighting in that photo?

 

[innonimatu]

The guys in fatigues with guns weren't neo-Nazis, just 2nd Amendment activists, and they were keeping the peace where they were. See anyone fighting in that photo?

The really irritating thing here is knowing that people of previous generations who actually were around when nazism arose, fought it and overthrew it, have already had these discussions about the value of free speech even if it means the nazis can use it. And they concluded that free speech must be defended.

Now we have a new generation of sheltered frail flowers who would throw away free speech because they are "offended" or "scared"... and don't even bother hearing arguments or doing some research on their own about the history of this issue. I do trust that they will grow out of it and good sense will prevail. This is looking like more of the typical manifestations of "rebelliousness against the perceived status quo", that tendency of people to wic«sh to belong to a group that changes stuff. But it is irritating.

The "alt-right", "libertarians", whatever, I see on the Internet seem to suffer from the same thing, btw. They just chose another "cause", just because...

 

[Traitorfish]

The really irritating thing here is knowing that people of previous generations who actually were around when nazism arose, fought it and overthrew it, have already had these discussions about the value of free speech even if it means the nazis can use it. And they concluded that free speech must be defended.

Who decided? You see the shadowy hand of capital in in almost everything, so why, on this point, do you find yourself entirely free of cynicism?

The American state has never taken a soft-touch approach to left-wing descent. From Shay's Rebellion to Black Lives Matter, through Red Scares and Civil Rights Movements, the cudgel and rifle have always been the first response to unrest from below. Does it not strike as suspicious that when we encounter movements so historically bourgeois as Nazism and Klanism, the American ruling class discovers its innate civil libertarianism?

The guys in fatigues with guns weren't neo-Nazis, just 2nd Amendment activists, and they were keeping the peace where they were. See anyone fighting in that photo?

They were members of the militia movement. "Second amendment activists" don't dress up in faux-military costumes and carry faux-military weapons, because that would undermine their central premise that gun-owners are ordinary, law-abiding Americans. Maybe they were neo-Nazis, maybe they weren't, but they evidently quite happy to be seen in the company of neo-Nazis, protecting neo-Nazis, and making common cause with neo-Nazis. If you think that a rabbi should be able to appreciate that fine and subtle distinction when an armed bozo shows up outside his temple, you should reconsider your priorities.

Hence the degenerate book burnings I guess. Retro really is in right now.

I've never seen "Bolshevism" and "Teen Vogue" grouped together like that.

 

[innonimatu]

Who decided? You see the shadowy hand of capital in in almost everything, so why, on this point, do you find yourself entirely free of cynicism?

The American state has never taken a soft-touch approach to left-wing descent. From Shay's Rebellion to Black Lives Matter, through Red Scares and Civil Rights Movements, the cudgel and rifle have always been the first response to unrest from below. Does it not strike as suspicious that when we encounter movements so historically bourgeois as Nazism and Klanism, the American ruling class discovers its innate civil libertarianism?

Have they? I see a ruling class eager to seize the opportunity of playing censors. The big Internet companies are already effectively censors for the vast majority of communication, and they are in the process of becoming the ruling elite, already see themselves as such.

 

[Arwon]

The guys in fatigues with guns weren't neo-Nazis, just 2nd Amendment activists, and they were keeping the peace where they were. See anyone fighting in that photo?

Do you know what we call people who are happy to make common cause with nazis?

 

[Berzerker]

They were members of the militia movement. "Second amendment activists" don't dress up in faux-military costumes and carry faux-military weapons, because that would undermine their central premise that gun-owners are ordinary, law-abiding Americans.

The 2nd Amendment mentions both militias and guns

Maybe they were neo-Nazis, maybe they weren't, but they evidently quite happy to be seen in the company of neo-Nazis, protecting neo-Nazis, and making common cause with neo-Nazis. If you think that a rabbi should be able to appreciate that fine and subtle distinction when an armed bozo shows up outside his temple, you should reconsider your priorities.

Can you identify the neo-Nazis in the photo?

 

[Berzerker]

Do you know what we call people who are happy to make common cause with nazis?

I dont even know who 'we' is much less what the 2nd Amendment activists think of neo-Nazis. Assuming some are vets and from military families who served in WWII I'd think it prudent to not label them as Nazis.

 

[Arwon]

Sympathisers and collaborators are the usual terms. The point at which you see the swastikas and hear the chants and you don't get the hell out of there, you've decided your allegiance.

 

[Traitorfish]

The 2nd Amendment mentions both militias and guns

See, now you're just playing dumb.

Can you identify the neo-Nazis in the photo?

In that photo? No. In this photo?

sauce.

I could maybe spot a couple.

 

[Berzerker]

Sympathisers and collaborators are the usual terms. The point at which you see the swastikas and hear the chants and you don't get the hell out of there, you've decided your allegiance.

You decided it... People protesting the government are not allying themselves to the causes of other protesters, just the cause at hand. If neo-Nazis show up to protest the removal of a statue, that doesn't mean everyone else is a Nazi collaborator. If I attend a rally to protest the drug war, am I now a communist collaborator if they show up shouting their ideological slogans? I dont think you want your standard applied across the political spectrum.

 

[Arwon]

They chose not to leave when stuff got all nazi. They did not intervene when nazis, who showed up looking for a fight, did violence. They did not move themselves or the nazis away from a terrified synagogue. That speaks loudly about their allegiances. The distinction between the armed paramilitary far right and actual nazis is tenuous at the best of times, here it collapses into fatuous nonsense.