American Politics Thread: Orange is the new POTUS (Archive)

[Itse]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Madness.

As time ticks along, we seem to be forgetting the lessons of history.
We don't understand why we have the freedoms and laws we have. We fail to see the terrible peril in suppressing speech and and tolerating political violence.[/quote9


Too many people today fail to recognize how tolerating institutional suppression of speech they hate could (and inevitably will) be turned around to suppress their own speech.

While I'm sympathetic to your worry, I would say history doesn't really support it that well.

I've been looking into this punching a nazi -thing for a while, and have not been able to find a single example from actual history where anti-fascist violence can be clearly shown to a have lead to a general escalation of political violence towards other political movements.

There have obviously been situations where anti-fascist violence preceeded much larger violence towards their opponents, but we're generally talking about places where a fascist coup eventually happened. (Germany, Italy, Chile...)

I don't think you can seriously make a case that the violence towards the political opposition in fascist regimes would have been any less bad if only there would not have been violent opposition towards the fascists.

Very important sidenote however:
There is also no way to use history to clearly disprove your claim either.

If it's okay to punch a Nazi, how about punching a Marxist? After all, they're defending an ideology responsible for the deaths of tens of millions. Their aim of mandating an even distribution of property and wealth has only ever been achieved at the end of a gun.

Right now in India, the states of Tripura and Kerala have democractically elected Marxist governments.

Almost every country in the world has had (and many still have) Marxist political groups that have peacefully taken part in normal democractic processes. Nazis do not have a similar history. Nazi movements everywhere take part in street violence, as the use of violence as a political tool is simply a fundamental part of their ideology.

So comparing Nazis and Marxists is very much a false equivalency.

So I guess the next time some campus Marxist opens her mouth about equality of outcome, the grandson of a Lithuanian massacred in the bloodlands of Eastern Europe should punch her in the face. That's where we're headed.

If a Marxist student opens her mouth about armed revolution, sure, punch in the face is fine. But talking about equality of outcome is not the same thing as talking about white supremacy.

Again, there's plenty of history to prove that Marxists are perfectly capable of being a constructive part of a peaceful democracy. There is no similar history with Nazis.

Stop being children. Read some history.

I have read a crapload of history, and really don't think they support your conclusions. I don't think there's much there to disprove the idea either. History is complicated.

But please don't accuse people of being "children" when they don't agree with you.

Part of me wonders if subconsciously a lot of people really do want an open, violent struggle to sort out politics today. Us against Them. Left vs Right. Fight to the finish, with only one group left standing. Because that's where this type of encouragement of political violence leads us. Think polarisation and political hatred are bad today? It can get worse. Much, much worse.

Good question. I think there is very good reason to worry about an actual war of ideologies.

I am firmly in the belief that we here in the West have failed to identify that a new Cold War of ideologies has started. (Note that I say that only us in the West, because I think there's plenty of evidence that Putin has been fighting this exact battle for a good while now, mostly with the goal of positioning himself as the flag-bearer of the reactionary conservative right. With moderate success.)

I think it's starting to be obvious that the next big clash of ideologies is that between Conservative and Liberal. You may argue (like I guess peter12 does) that this is a war that the Liberals started, and heck, he might even be right. At this point however that doesn't matter.

I think it's clear the new reactionary conservative movement is by now such a large movement that there's no point in "not provoking them" anymore. I think it's ridiculous to say trying to block a fascist social media darling from speaking is contributing to the problem, when you already have a very similar guy (only luckily much dumber) in the White House.

Even further, very clearly a large part of these conservatives have firmly decided they are fighting a literal war of survival. It's apparent both because A) that's what they say and B) That's how they act.

That is the very simple reason why they are so clearly willing to sacrifice things like a working democracy or why they are so eager to walk all over normal political and legal processess. Or why they don't really care that Trump was supported by Russia. I think it's obvious the conservatives in the US are ranking Russia as less dangerous than the liberals.

The above is very much my speculation. Back to history.

I can't thin of an example of a civil war where you can clearly argue that if only one side had refrained from violence, things would not have escalated the way they did. Is USA 2010's different? Of course it could be, because like every other situation in history it's unique.

There are also plenty of examples where a democracy has through mostly non-violent opposition survived an authoritarian turn. But I do think that it's very much a time for the liberals to start playing rough. By that I mean civil disobedience, which is exactly the way things have started to go.

Historically, rioting and destruction of property has been proven to be fairly succesful in getting civil rights. Peaceful protests not so much.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by photon

punching to enforce a viewpoint is just 'might makes right', but that's a whole other discussion.

Punching someone is not necessarily "might makes right" any more than say throwing a shoe at a president is.

It only becomes might makes right if it's a serious attempt to literally stop that person from talking.

Which means, sometimes it's just a form of protest.

(Note that I don't think it's a very good way to protest.)

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Madness.

Madness? That's a little melodramatic.

Some dickhead got punched in the face. Let's not pretend it's an existential threat or the end of anything. The dickhead in question goes out in public and says we need to get rid of anyone in North America who isn't white. There's nothing complicated about why someone would want to punch him in the face. It's not institutional suppression (or even the slippery slope to it), it's a guy in a mask being pissed off and then running away so he doesn't get arrested for punching the guy in the face.

If the face-puncher was wearing a uniform and didn't feel the need to run away, that would be something else. If his actions in any way could lead to suppression of beliefs or ideas, then that would be something else. Lets just take it for what it was — a guy who deserves a punch in the face getting a punch in the face.

[Resolute 14]

Assault is objectively wrong, and should be prosecuted the same no matter who the victim. That said, while a neo-Nazi deserves the same protection under the law, what they do not deserve is sympathy when someone gets fed up with them and feeds them a knuckle sandwich.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

Assault is objectively wrong, and should be prosecuted the same no matter who the victim. That said, while a neo-Nazi deserves the same protection under the law, what they do not deserve is sympathy when someone gets fed up with them and feeds them a knuckle sandwich.

Out of thanks, but well put.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

That was a super interesting post. This is much better than this thread usually is.

Originally Posted by Itse

If a Marxist student opens her mouth about armed revolution, sure, punch in the face is fine.

So we've now expanded the category of speech where it's okay to use violence to silence people to:
a) advocating for genocide or race-based violence; and
b) advocating for an armed revolution.

Any further categories we need to add here where it's okay? Maybe advocating for violence, generally? And to be clear, are we talking about just punching in the face? What if they start talking again, do you keep punching them until they stop? Can we just do whatever it takes to shut them up?

These aren't rhetorical questions; I'm seriously trying to figure out where people draw the line. Or rather, lines.

Again, there's plenty of history to prove that Marxists are perfectly capable of being a constructive part of a peaceful democracy. There is no similar history with Nazis.

What about the Nazi ideology are we focused on here? It's probably not the tenets of national socialism so much as the concept of ethnic purity or mass killings, right? Because there are a number of states that successfully pulled that off and went on to operate as viable states afterwards. Look at Indonesia.

But this is sort of beside the point. Your argument here, if I understand it, is that there is something essential to the Nazi ideology that is incompatible with a functioning democracy. I'm not actually sure that's necessarily true (largely because I don't know exactly what part of the Nazi ideology you're focused on), but let's assume you're right. If that's the standard we're using for our face-punches of silence, wouldn't we definitely want to start beating up anarchists?

It just seems like you're arbitrarily picking beliefs and practices you find odious and saying it's fine to silence the people who hold them.

I am firmly in the belief that we here in the West have failed to identify that a new Cold War of ideologies has started.

I think the exact problem we're hoping gets addressed is the notion that it's a cold war. Make it a hot war. Get everyone's views out in the open and let's see whose win. I'm pretty confident that reason and evidence have a shot at the title, if actually given a chance. They were doing pretty well for a while and it's time for a comeback.

I think it's starting to be obvious that the next big clash of ideologies is that between Conservative and Liberal. You may argue (like I guess peter12 does) that this is a war that the Liberals started, and heck, he might even be right. At this point however that doesn't matter.

At the risk of being accused of semantics, this is pretty important: can you define the ideologies you're saying are clashing? Because it's really obvious from your post that your idea of what "liberal" means is very different from mine. I suspect you mean two loose collection of mutually incompatible policy positions that aren't really tied together by anything but have been aggregated to the "left" and "right" side of the political spectrum, respectively.

I'm not sure I disagree that there's a clash of ideologies coming, but if there is, I suspect it'll be between liberals - in the sense of the real meaning of that word - and authoritarians. If so, the "left" and "right" will gradually become less important.

That is the very simple reason why they are so clearly willing to sacrifice things like a working democracy or why they are so eager to walk all over normal political and legal processess.

But so are you! You say so above in condoning the silencing of some ideas by means of violence. And again later on:

I do think that it's very much a time for the liberals to start playing rough. By that I mean civil disobedience, which is exactly the way things have started to go.

Historically, rioting and destruction of property has been proven to be fairly succesful in getting civil rights. Peaceful protests not so much.

Isn't this hypocritical, given your earlier statement about punching Marxist revolutionaries? An armed revolution in support of marxism - i.e. political violence aimed at effecting a change in how the country operates - justifies beating someone to stop them from talking, but violence in support of what you've described as "liberal" ideology is laudable? Maybe there's a good reason for treating these sorts of political violence differently, but I'm not sure I see what it is.

There are now two groups of people with very different ideas about how the country and world should be run, each of whom are utterly certain that their ideal vision of society is the righteous, correct outcome and are willing to compromise more or less any principle to effect this outcome.

There is then a third group that says, "no, you say you know what's best, but I don't trust you. Every time some political movement du jour has claimed dominion over what must be for everyone and tried to seize total control to create their utopian vision, they've ultimately been shown to be wrong. The principles we came up with about 200 years ago have carried us to the golden age of human history. Let's continue that project."

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Too many people today fail to recognize how tolerating institutional suppression of speech they hate could (and inevitably will) be turned around to suppress their own speech. If it's okay to punch a Nazi, how about punching a Marxist? After all, they're defending an ideology responsible for the deaths of tens of millions. Their aim of mandating an even distribution of property and wealth has only ever been achieved at the end of a gun. So I guess the next time some campus Marxist opens her mouth about equality of outcome, the grandson of a Lithuanian massacred in the bloodlands of Eastern Europe should punch her in the face. That's where we're headed.

Yeah man. Good thing the history of liberalism has been all puppy dogs and ice cream cake, or are you going to pull a "no true Scotsman" regarding this?

[GGG]

I'd like to add people who drive slow in the left lane to the face punching list

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

^And people who talk in the theatre.

Originally Posted by rubecube

Yeah man. Good thing the history of liberalism has been all puppy dogs and ice cream cake, or are you going to pull a "no true Scotsman" regarding this?

That'd be pretty hard for him to do without you listing examples... but it should probably be pointed out that the outset that it's not a "no true Scotsman" fallacy if you mischaracterize a regime as liberal.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Itse

I think it's starting to be obvious that the next big clash of ideologies is that between Conservative and Liberal. You may argue (like I guess peter12 does) that this is a war that the Liberals started, and heck, he might even be right. At this point however that doesn't matter.

I think it's clear the new reactionary conservative movement is by now such a large movement that there's no point in "not provoking them" anymore. I think it's ridiculous to say trying to block a fascist social media darling from speaking is contributing to the problem, when you already have a very similar guy (only luckily much dumber) in the White House.

What do the terms Conservative and Liberal even mean today? The left used to be associated with working-class, blue collar workers, and the right with the professional classes and the affluent. Today, it's the populist right who call for protectionism, and the cosmopolitan left who jet all around the world.

On top of that, you have the cultural issues that are deeply dividing societies. The educated and cosmopolitan hold the values of the rural and the uneducated in contempt. We are self-sorting into homogeneous enclaves in our work, in our neighborhoods, in our social circles. Political differences are increasingly being regarded as intractable moral differences.

What's missing is an understanding of liberalism (classical liberalism, not the bizarro inversion of the term that has become common parlance), and how it's under threat today from both the authoritarian left and the authoritarian right. The post-War democracies in the West were liberal democracies. That meant they looked to free markets and capitalism for their prosperity, while tolerating liberal and individualistic social behavior.

Liberalism has always been challenged by the social conservatives of the right, by authoritarian patriots and my country right or wrong types. Today, liberalism is also under threat from the left, who wherever they gain authority have demonstrated just as much enthusiasm for conformist moralizing and oppression of unpopular opinions as their counterparts on the right. A great many liberals today run afoul of the pious shibboleths of the progressive left far more often than they're shamed or judged by conservatives on the right. Where do those who value individual rights and pluralism of ideas turn?

Again, the great struggle of the 20th century was not a 2-sided struggle between left and right; it was a three-sided struggle between the authoritarian left, liberalism, and the authoritarian right. It will be folly to forsake liberalism in the fight against the far right. Not only will it mean abandoning many of our core post-Enlightenment values, but a great many liberals may look at the excesses of the left and either sit out the fight, or regard the right as the lesser of two evils. The doctrinaire left can't afford to alienate liberals, who even in these polarized times still make up a plurality of voters.

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

Madness? That's a little melodramatic.

Some dickhead got punched in the face. Let's not pretend it's an existential threat or the end of anything.

A guy getting punched in the face isn't the end of the world. Any widespread acceptance of it as a legitimate political act is a big problem, though. The legitimization of political violence is a slippery slope towards ever-greater acts of violence in public affairs.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

^And people who talk in the theatre.

That'd be pretty hard for him to do without you listing examples... but it should probably be pointed out that the outset that it's not a "no true Scotsman" fallacy if you mischaracterize a regime as liberal.

Let's go with the big 3 of England, the U.S. and France. All three regimes have had and continue to have their fair share of blood on their hands well after they declared themselves to be liberal societies.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Itse

Historically, rioting and destruction of property has been proven to be fairly succesful in getting civil rights. Peaceful protests not so much.

Nope. Look at the Civil Rights movement in the U.S. All of the gains of black Americans in legislation and public opinion occurred during the era of MLKs peaceful marches and civil disobedience. The race riots of 1967 and the rise of the Black Panthers sparked white flight, a sharp reduction in public sympathy for the black community, and the election of Richard Nixon to two terms in office.

[ResAlien]

3 new and vague EOs today expanding police power signed immediately after "too racist in the 80s but just racist enough now" Sessions was sworn in.

But is punching a Nazi bad? Hopefully time will tell oh wait it already did. No, no it's not.

[ResAlien]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Nope. Look at the Civil Rights movement in the U.S. All of the gains of black Americans in legislation and public opinion occurred during the era of MLKs peaceful marches and civil disobedience. The race riots of 1967 and the rise of the Black Panthers sparked white flight, a sharp reduction in public sympathy for the black community, and the election of Richard Nixon to two terms in office.

http://www.theroot.com/mlk-would-nev...ths-1790856033

Myth #4 might be of particular interest to you

[Azure]

So do people actually think Trump is sitting there on the computer typing out those tweets without any oversight from his staff or the people around him?

[AltaGuy]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

The race riots of 1967 and the rise of the Black Panthers sparked white flight, a sharp reduction in public sympathy for the black community, and the election of Richard Nixon to two terms in office.

Sparked white flight? Really?

I must have overlooked that brief four or five year period of racial harmony in the US between MLK and the Black Panthers.

Seems more likely white people just didn't much like the new rights black people had just earned, doesn't it?

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by Azure

So do people actually think Trump is sitting there on the computer typing out those tweets without any oversight from his staff or the people around him?

Well I'm sure President Bannon is overseeing the messaging but other than that it's probably pretty autonomous.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Let's go with the big 3 of England, the U.S. and France. All three regimes have had and continue to have their fair share of blood on their hands well after they declared themselves to be liberal societies.

This makes no sense. To the extent any of these countries have made foreign policy blunders, has it ever been for the sake of liberalism? It's not like England has gone around the world murdering and enslaving people for their lack of commitment to free speech and freedom of assembly. The USA didn't go into Vietnam on the basis that the government wasn't allowing people to practice their religion without interference or write subversive books.

As far as I'm aware, no one in history has ever started a violent conflict out of an overabundance of respect for reason, evidence and a desire for the expression of a plurality of viewpoints.

[REDVAN]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

Well I'm sure President Bannon is overseeing the messaging but other than that it's probably pretty autonomous.

Right, as we all know everything is coming from Bannon anyway so Trump has a lot of free time for tweeting.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

This makes no sense. To the extent any of these countries have made foreign policy blunders, has it ever been for the sake of liberalism? It's not like England has gone around the world murdering and enslaving people for their lack of commitment to free speech and freedom of assembly. The USA didn't go into Vietnam on the basis that the government wasn't allowing people to practice their religion without interference or write subversive books.

As far as I'm aware, no one in history has ever started a violent conflict out of an overabundance of respect for reason, evidence and a desire for the expression of a plurality of viewpoints.

Uhm, Al Quida? ISIS?