Good luck with trying to solve an ideological conflict with Nazis with free speech.
I think you're wasting your breath here. Corsi is never going to get off his high horse about granting people free speech, when they continually prove they do not deserve that right. Nazis continually try to inflame situations with their free speech rhetoric. They want a race war, and they take every opportunity they are granted to fan those flames. Their rhetoric is not about free speech as much as it is about trying to incite an altercation. They continually goad people on the other side of the debate, trying to draw them into a confrontation. This is their strategy, and they stick with it at every event they have. They do not attempt to engage in thoughtful discourse - they insult, belittle, and degrade those who disagree with them. That is not using your free speech for constructive means, that is yelling fire in a crowded theatre.
I do find it hilarious when people suggest these clowns be granted their free speech rights, when their intent is to intimidate. When these #######s show up in numbers, and are brandishing multiple weapons, they are not there to share their insight on ways to improve the human condition. They are there looking for trouble. Why else do you show up to any sort of "peaceful protest" wearing an assault rife and a pistol on your person? There is clear intent there, and it is not to engage in excise of your right to free speech and the exchange of ideas through rhetoric and dialogue. To suggest as much is to be obtuse to the tactics being used by those there to disturb the ####. Seriously, when a guy prepping for a march has three guns, a knife, and two assault rifles with him, he is not there to discuss the benefits of one socioeconomic system over another. He's packing with intent.
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Also, you're seriously arguing that in Europe in 1936 Nazis marching through Jewish quarters were probably not up to anything? That there was absolutely nothing to worry about? I think you should read up on your history. Antisemitism was becoming an acceptable and commonly discussed stance in UK politics by the mid 1930's. Anti-jewish rhetoric was widespread, as were small scale attacks. Antisemitism is still common in the UK today. It was not and is not in any way a marginal issue of some lunatics.
Fascists and communists were fighting in the streets across Europe in that period. Radicalism fuels radicalism.
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Originally Posted by Itse
I mean, it's theoretically quite possible that if the BUF didn't get the wind knocked out of them in 1936, the anti-war and pro-fascist sides in UK politics would have won over the pro-war side in the debate on whether or not to commit to the war against Nazis. Even the way things went, it was an extremely close call that UK didn't make peace with the Axis in May 1940. It took Churchill a lot of maneuvering to get his way against Lord Halifax. After that point he got Mosley and BUF interned, because that's just how dangerous they were thought to be.
France did make peace, and one of the reasons for its rapid collapse was the polarization of the country. In their zeal to bring down the Third Republic, the communists undermined the war effort.
The lesson of the inter-war turmoil in Europe isn't that the left was not bold enough in confronting fascism. It's that liberal democracy was either too new or too weak in many countries to stand up to the violent polizaration of both the left and right. People were frightened and insecure, and their fear and insecurity drove them into the arms of authoritarian zealots of various stripes, who told them their governments were illegitimate and they needed to take to the streets and achieve their goals through violence. The Western democracies avoided this fate because they successfully defended liberal values in the face of violent agitation from both the left and the right. The center held.
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Last edited by CliffFletcher; 08-15-2017 at 12:23 PM.
Totally. There's no statues to nazi's in germany and nobody knows what a nazi is anymore.
It is illegal to use the Nazi salute in Germany and Austria and will get you arrested. Hell, in Germany, it will get you beat up, as an American tourist found out (the hard way).
I think it's pretty clear that we just completely disagree on principle. I just want to point out the specific positions you're taking that I think are wrong and dangerous.
But let me start with the parade of straw men.
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Originally Posted by Itse
The vast majority of people injured were the anti-fascists, followed by the police and the fascists as a really distant third. This makes your argument essentially "they did not win because a lot of them got hurt while fighting the police who were trying to disperse them". What ever, the anti-fascists and history and philosophy in general disagrees with that kind of reductionist utilitarianism.
I didn't make anything resembling that argument. I don't care who won. When a demonstration turns violent, it's an automatic loss. And I don't care if they lived or are proud of what they did, either. I'm sure the vast majority of people involved this weekend are proud of what they did as well.
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Also, you're seriously arguing that in Europe in 1936 Nazis marching through Jewish quarters were probably not up to anything? That there was absolutely nothing to worry about?
Again, feel free to quote me on where I said that. "Not up to anything"? They were provocatively promoting hatred against Jews by demonstrating, is what seems likely. That is deplorable. In Canada, it would now be illegal. Why do you insist on trying to argue against positions that no one has taken? This happens a lot with you.
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The counter-protestors did not go out on a march against the Nazis. They gathered to stop Nazis from coming to a certain place at a certain time. Yes they were prepared for a fight, but that was simply practical because they knew a fight was coming if they tried to stop the Nazis. The counter-protestors were protecting an area, not "turning it into a war zone".
Read this again. You can't possibly have convinced yourself that this makes sense. They knew that if they did what they did, it was likely to turn an event that was a bunch of awful excuses for human beings marching for a destestable cause where no one would be injured, into a violent encounter that would hurt people. That is what I am objecting to. You can try to characterize that as "protecting a space", but that's disingenuous. They sought a confrontation.
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The police turned those marches into an all out fight when they tried to violently get the anti-fascists to disperse. Instead of backing down against police violence the anti-fascists fought back. Yes, a lot of them got hurt, but to argue that they were in the wrong because the got hurt for fighting for what the believe in is pretty bonkers.
Fighting police, who are attempting to allow a lawful demonstration to happen, is not noble. Ever. Even if the demonstration is awful. This, I think, is the crux of our difference in philosophy. You seem to think that violence is a defensible tactic where you believe strongly enough in the cause you're fighting for. Well, they believe in their nonsense pretty strongly too, and they have all the guns.
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Let's remember the anti-fascists had a right to their protest too. In the face of two opposing groups of protesters, the Metropolitan police unambiguously sided with the Nazi white guys against the local Jews protected by a large gathering of mostly communists and ethnic minorities.
The state is required to be completely neutral as to the content of the speech in question, especially when applying state force. The anti-fascists certainly had a right to protest, so long as that protest does not infringe on the right of the people they don't like to exercise their own speech. This seems to have been less of a protest than an instance of "we don't like what you have to say, so we're going to fight you".
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So, they should not oppose Nazis because Nazis are armed and dangerous and they might get hurt? I take it you still think Lord Halifax war right and Churchill was wrong in May 1940? Just think of all the lives that could have been saved.
This is a really dumb analogy. We're not talking about international war. I'm saying that if you want a race war, if you want there to be actual full out fighting in the streets, well, that's certainly on the table right now. We're surely heading that way. But again, the other side has all the guns, so I think I know who's going to take the worst of that. Is that the result you're hoping for here?
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Good luck with trying to solve an ideological conflict with Nazis with free speech.
You have two options here; conversation, or killing people whose views you don't like before they can kill you. There is almost no scenario where I will pick the latter, when given that choice. Again, it appears we differ in that view.
Really, all I'm getting from your posts is that it's okay for you, or people who think like you, to do violence to your opponents, because you're right. That is a very dangerous way to look at politics. And as I noted above, apparently exactly the same way Richard Spencer sees things, only from the other side of the battle lines.
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Should go without saying that packing and being proud of either a swastika flag or a hammer and sickle flag, makes you a giant POS and a detriment to society.
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But it we try to bury the past or white wash it we are doomed to repeat it.
On the flip side if you're a black kid that walks by such a statue every day that tells that kid something, more when they learn the history of a lot of these monuments and their actual purpose.
I do agree with burying though (though I'm a pack-rat at heart). I think I've read other places that have taken the monuments and put them in a more appropriate place, so that people could still see them, but they are put somewhere where they can be seen in a historical context.
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Absolutely, and the numbers are likely higher comparing which areas you're comparing in Canada and the US.
Racism, homophobia, sexism, bigotry... these are all alive and well in far greater amounts that most people are willing to admit. The problem is that we allow an "acceptable" amount of it (not just legally, free speech protects it and it ought to) but as a society. It's easier to let problem comments slide, or laugh them off, than it is to confront them. We weigh the intent behind the comment which is good sometimes, but we're not always skilled in measuring that intent, nor should it be our habit to give the benefit of the doubt to everyone.
Actually, the opposite is true. I can't find it right now, but a poll earlier this year showed Canadians' overestimate how widespread bigotry is. Canadians thought something like 40 per cent of their fellow-citizens believed homosexuality was morally wrong, but in fact only 15 per cent believe that. There were similar numbers around the question of whether we should encourage women to enjoy every freedom men enjoy - Canadians thought far more people were opposed to that ideal than were in fact opposed.
The problem is social media acts as a megaphone without any kind of context. Depending in where you look, you can find whole communities of people who passionately believe pretty much anything. The mainstream media is complicit in how they frame and promote the most divisive stories, making society appear far more angry than it really is.
Then there's the fact people have different notions of what justice entails. For some, any system which results in unequal outcomes for different groups is systematically bigoted, and everyone who doesn't champion equal outcomes is complicit. Which is why identity politics are so corrosive to liberal, pluralistic democracy - it presumes there is only one legitimate aspiration for society (equality of outcome), and only one genuine source of inequality (systemic oppression), and then it wraps up that dogma in the trappings of moral sanctimony, rendering any disagreement illegitimate.
Take a look at the graph I posted a couple days ago. Approval of interracial marriage in the U.S. has gone from 4 per cent to 87 per cent in one lifetime. That's incredible. The belief that homosexuality is immoral has plummeted. As has the belief that women should stay home barefoot and pregnant.
Why are we so fiercely resistant to recognizing progress? Why doesn't anybody want to talk about what we've been doing right, if only so we can make sure we keep doing it to sustain the remarkable run we've been on for the last century?
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The leader of a North Carolina based group associated with the Ku Klux Klan says he is glad that a woman died while taking part in a protest in Charlottesville, VA over the weekend.
Monday night, Justin Moore - the Grand Dragon for the Loyal White Knights of Ku Klux Klan, said he was glad Heyer died in the attack.
"I'm sorta glad that them people got hit and I'm glad that girl died," Moore said in a voicemail to WBTV's Steve Crump. "They were a bunch of Communists out there protesting against somebody's freedom of speech, so it doesn't bother me that they got hurt at all."
"I think we're going to see more stuff like this happening at white nationalist events," Moore warned.
"Nothing makes us more proud at the KKK than we see white patriots such as James Fields Jr, age 20, taking his car and running over nine communist anti-fascist, killing one [expletive]-lover named Heather Heyer," the recorded message says. "James Fields hail victory. It's men like you that have made the great white race strong and will be strong again."
Meanwhile, Heyer's father says he has forgiven the man charged with her death.
“I include myself in forgiving the guy who did this,” he said. “I just think about what the Lord said on the cross, ‘Forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing.’”
Actually, the opposite is true. I can't find it right now, but a poll earlier this year showed Canadians' overestimate how widespread bigotry is. Canadians thought something like 40 per cent of their fellow-citizens believed homosexuality was morally wrong, but in fact only 15 per cent believe that. There were similar numbers around the question of whether we should encourage women to enjoy every freedom men enjoy - Canadians thought far more people were opposed to that ideal than were in fact opposed.
The problem is social media acts as a megaphone without any kind of context. Depending in where you look, you can find whole communities of people who passionately believe pretty much anything. The mainstream media is complicit in how they frame and promote the most divisive stories, making society appear far more angry than it really is.
Then there's the fact people have different notions of what justice entails. For some, any system which results in unequal outcomes for different groups is systematically bigoted, and everyone who doesn't champion equal outcomes is complicit. Which is why identity politics are so corrosive to liberal, pluralistic democracy - it presumes there is only one legitimate aspiration for society (equality of outcome), and only one genuine source of inequality (systemic oppression), and then it wraps up that dogma in the trappings of moral sanctimony, rendering any disagreement illegitimate.
Take a look at the graph I posted a couple days ago. Approval of interracial marriage in the U.S. has gone from 4 per cent to 86 per cent in one lifetime. That's incredible. The belief that homosexuality is immoral has plummeted. As has the belief that women should stay home barefoot and pregnant.
Why are we so fiercely resistant to recognizing progress? Why doesn't anybody want to talk about what we've been doing right, if only so we can make sure we keep doing it to sustain the remarkable run we've been on for the last century?
Well stated. I agree.
I get a little pissed at people who post comments on Facebook or Twitter claiming that people should just ignore the White Nationalist/Nazi ralliers, and say that the attention given them by the media is the real problem. It only emboldens them and makes them believe that there's a large group of people who silently support them. The advances in the past century didn't happen by ignoring evil. Their rallies need to be met by counter-demonstrations 100 times bigger.
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I get a little pissed at people who post comments on Facebook or Twitter claiming that people should just ignore the White Nationalist/Nazi ralliers, and say that the attention given them by the media is the real problem. It only emboldens them and makes them believe that there's a large group of people who silently support them. The advances in the past century didn't happen by ignoring evil.
Those advances happened because we stopped treating people differently depending on inborn differences, and started regarding them as individuals who should be treated the same regardless of identity.
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Originally Posted by GirlySports
Their rallies need to be met by counter-demonstrations 100 times bigger.
That would certainly help show how marginal their beliefs are.
Violently confronting them, however, only makes martyrs out of a bunch of losers, radicalises more borderline-losers, and legitimises political violence for everybody.
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Originally Posted by fotze
If this day gets you riled up, you obviously aren't numb to the disappointment yet to be a real fan.
Last edited by CliffFletcher; 08-15-2017 at 02:13 PM.
Bah.
