ANTIFA attacks peaceful right wing protestors in Berkeley CA.

[JessFR]

You don't see it at all do you? How you can use this logic, these justification to excuse doing anything you want. No need for law, no need for rules. When the stakes are so high you gotta do what you gotta do. Which is exactly what the people you're fighting think too. You're just as bad as them. The only difference is who the enemy is.

You know it's rich you talking about circular logic. We need to preserve a just society where people can feel safe from the government arbitrarily doing whatever they want to us because they don't like us. And to safeguard the government from becoming like that we need to arbitrarily do whatever we need to do to preserve it from being changed by people we don't like.

It's ok to break the rules to stop people from breaking the rules.

It's ok if we do whatever we want, to whomever we want, whenever we want provided it's for the greater good of preventing fascists from doing whatever they want, to whomever they want, whenever they want.

Pfft, those crazy stupid fascists are so deluded they think the world is better their way. They don't even stop and think they might be wrong. Thank god we aren't like that.

My circular logics got nothing on you.

 

[aihfl]

No I'm going to make a pretty strong stand and just come out and say white supremacy and National Socialism is evil. I believe that to the core of my being. Some things are absolute. Terrorizing minorities is not a right.

 

[Scrofula]

Edit: ^it is one of the only clear moral divisions out there: fascism, fascists, torn fascia, all evil. Of all the hills to stake a "right to be heard" pose, why choose the "murdering racists ambitious for power" one? Even the "eaters of newborn puppies" at least make me curious.

It's like you get a diagnosis that your cancer just spread, but instead of chemo, we're going to let the little tumors speak, cause both sides, right?

(And don't try any herbal stuff either, cause that's the real problem, attacking tumors' right to divide unchecked. That squirt of lemon'll burn if it gets in their eyes, and then you're no better than cancer.)
.
We know how this stuff turns out.

 

[JessFR]

All you are is metafascists. You both think the greater good justifies being a law unto yourself. You both think the system isn't serving the greater good and so you gotta take matters into your own hands.

Fascism is about having dictatorial power, no rules to get in the way, what you say goes. And fascism is about oppressing all you disagree with.

There is no difference. And you've gone to such a political extreme you can't even see the truly mind boggling hypocrisy of it.

You don't want to let fascists have their say because of the danger that they might successfully get others to agree with them. Replace the word fascist with any other word, and it becomes obvious that it IS fascism. You think free speech cannot be allowed when the speech becomes too dangerous. Why is it too dangerous? Cause someone might agree with it. That is what every fascist group in history has believed.

 

[aihfl]

You don't see it at all do you? How you can use this logic, these justification to excuse doing anything you want. No need for law, no need for rules. When the stakes are so high you gotta do what you gotta do. Which is exactly what the people you're fighting think too. You're just as bad as them. The only difference is who the enemy is.

You know it's rich you talking about circular logic. We need to preserve a just society where people can feel safe from the government arbitrarily doing whatever they want to us because they don't like us. And to safeguard the government from becoming like that we need to arbitrarily do whatever we need to do to preserve it from being changed by people we don't like.

It's ok to break the rules to stop people from breaking the rules.

It's ok if we do whatever we want, to whomever we want, whenever we want provided it's for the greater good of preventing fascists from doing whatever they want, to whomever they want, whenever they want.

Pfft, those crazy stupid fascists are so deluded they think the world is better their way. They don't even stop and think they might be wrong. Thank god we aren't like that.

My circular logics got nothing on you.

God Adolph, Goebbels, Goering, Hess and company would have loved you. That's exactly the kind of logic that allowed Nazi Germany to become a legit government.

 

[JessFR]

I know you are but what am I?

This is officially past the point where I am still interested in discussing it.

You've so self radicalized that you think advocating free speech, believing that people should be allowed to say what they believe in without censor is being a nazi. That is such an obscene perversion of anything approaching common sense that I'm done with it.

I'm out.

 

[aihfl]

I'm a Jew that used to work for a Holocaust organization.

 

[JessFR]

I don't care, it changes nothing.

 

[Scrofula]

Pfft, those crazy stupid fascists are so deluded they think the world is better their way. They don't even stop and think they might be wrong. Thank god we aren't like that.

Silly Allied Forces, no better than the Axis cause they wouldn't stop and think they might be wrong. They might've saved several tens of millions of lives if they'd just held a rally in peace.

Oh wait, they're fucking famous for those. They fucking LOVE rallies, almost like it's how they operate.

 

[Scrofula]

Holy shit jess icant keep up on the jitterbug. How can we convey it's about a lot more than a goddam dictator? The clue was the ref. to six million systematic state run murders of a people. That's the agenda you think deserves a stage?

FFS, please allow these men to tell us the order of races to be exterminated with pesticides. How young to accept child slaves for the munitions factories? How much rape is ten too many for an enlisted man?

Let them speak, or you're no better!

 

[spacejunk]

You don't see it at all do you? How you can use this logic, these justification to excuse doing anything you want. No need for law, no need for rules. When the stakes are so high you gotta do what you gotta do. Which is exactly what the people you're fighting think too. You're just as bad as them. The only difference is who the enemy is.

Jess i don't want to quote you out of context, but you say this in another thread:

What I’m saying is that the law has to work a certain way, because it’s dealing with society as a whole. But that in certain, extreme situations, it can be morally justified to break the same laws you support. In situations where for various reasons the justice system can’t act, but you still know something must be done.

To take an extreme hypothetical. Say I was in a situation where I had children and I got in a situation where someone I know might try and kill them to hurt me.

I would kill them. I wouldn’t go to the cops and get a restraining order, I’d kill them. And I believe such action in that circumstance is morally justified.

But the I also think the law and the system can’t condone that. Because while I know in my case it’s justified. As a society we can’t just assume everyone in such a position is right to do so. The system must take action against me for commiting extrajudicial homicide. I think in the end I should be found innocent because I was defending my children. But broadly speaking it can’t be encouraged.

To take another, probably even more relevant example. Say someone kills my lover. There’s no proof they did it. But I know for a fact they did, cause they told me. I might well kill them for doing that. And I don’t think that’s immoral. But I do think it should be illegal and if caught I should be put in jail because the system can’t show I didn’t simply murder them, so even though for me I’m being punished for something I consider morally justified, I feel that the system doing so is also morally acceptable because it can’t be allowed in the broader case.

Do you think we are saying similar things in different contexts?

Fascism is about having dictatorial power, no rules to get in the way, what you say goes. And fascism is about oppressing all you disagree with.

"Fascism" means a lot more than "oppressing all you disagree with" - it's explitly about state power.
Antifa is the absolute opposite of state oppression - antifascists are autonomous, and often anarchists.
Calling it fascism is just not the right label.

 

[cduggles]

To be clear, my views are just mine.

I am only familiar with Antifa in a historical and political context.

Antifa is not a terrorist movement and there's not a great deal of clarity in the US about Antifa's activity or structure. The white supremacist movement, however, is becoming increasingly active, organized and violent.

I'm so sick of BLers thinking everything is academic. Yes, I help when I see a parent/caretaker hitting their child. It's an awful situation and you have to be careful because you don't want to unintentionally cause a child getting hurt more as a result later, but if you do nothing you are definitely not helping the situation.

Sometimes you can just ask the mother if you can help her somehow and starting a dialogue, but I don't believe doing nothing is okay. (I realize a male has fewer options to assist in the situation.) Even though I loathe people who beat children, no I don't walk up and start beating them.

And I have been consistently clear, to the best of my knowledge, about Neonazis, Ku Klux Klan members, and groupies including radicalized white supremacists as representing the current growing white supremacist movement in the US.

Trump has supported this movement and vice versa. His continued affiliation with Steve Bannon alone is proof, although it's just the tip of a very white male iceberg.

Nazis are very old, some in Argentina, and I'm fine with a punch and then calling Elie Wiesel'a people to bring them to some justice and take back their ill-gotten gains.

I believe in effective self-defense and defending the vulnerable.

Evaluating a situation before any action is part of self-defense. Not sparking unintended violence against others is part of intelligently defending others.

But sometimes I believe it's important to take a stand and hold your ground. That's it.

If this has lowered your opinion of me, that's fine. But I don't want to contribute negatively to the perception of Antifa.

And swilow, I really do understand the danger of thinking that certain people could do with a good punch and the ensuing decay of civil society, particularly as a woman. I actually had someone make that argument recently to me irl after I took something a bit far. :D

But my feeling is that if people don't stand up and at least say something is wrong, or do something about it, ill-intentioned people will run over you and others. So I believe in firm lines and some punches.

 

[JessFR]

Yes. Sometimes what has to be a certain way in one situation, doesn't in another. But not every time is one of those times in every circumstance.

In this case to me, the question is about free speech. And you know, if I truly, actually believed that letting these extremists have their little racists protests really might result in society becoming like nazi Germany's and ultimately choosing to do away with free speech and exterminate people. I probably would get on board with using force to stop it. Though in that case id probably be so depressed by humans I'd sooner kill myself than bother trying to save such a worthless bunch of retards from themselves. But despite my already very low opinion of people in general. It's not that low. I don't really believe there is any risk of that. Not for a second.

What I think is this is a case of one group of people prone to self radicalization, who've attached to a racist bandwagon, triggering another group prone to self radicalization, who've attached to an anti racist bandwagon. Different underlying belief, completely identical social phenomenon in play. A result of a little glitch in how human minds tend to work and their tendency to fail to see the big picture and focus on what's in front of them. So people imagine some small nonissue into this world ending monstrosity.

I think there is a greater danger posed to society by accepting conditional free speech, that arbitrary people get to arbitrarily rule one political speech as unacceptable because it's too dangerous. Than there is by letting a bunch of racists hold stupid protests. The former holds much more potential for the wrong people getting in power and actually turning society into something dangerous than the latter.

I also hold a separate but also very low opinion of the thinking that you gotta stop fascists by doing shit that is the definition of fascist. It's completely hypocritical.

 

[Scrofula]

And you know, if I truly, actually believed that letting these extremists have their little racists protests really might result in society becoming like nazi Germany's and ultimately choosing to do away with free speech. I probably would get on board with using force to stop it

Jebus, that was my damn point a hundred pages back.

 

[spacejunk]

^ indeed


The free speech argument is a rabbit hole in itself.

Why is violent nazi provocation ok, under some idea of "free speech", but anti-fascist violent provocation isn't?
Surely anti-fascists have a right to say what we think too, no matter how much people don't like it.
As i've pointed out many times, nazism is more violent - in rhetoric and action (!) - yet they get a "free speech" pass?
It makes no sense to me.
Surely "punch a nazi" is just as valid (if not, y'know - more valid) as "kill the jews" or whatever.

 

[JessFR]

^^ it is ok until you start trying to be the law yourself. It's not ok if they do it and it's not ok for you to do it. I don't have a problem if all you do is hold counter protests. I care when it becomes talk about doing whatever you feel is right, legal or illegal, to stop people spreading a point of view. I don't care what the point of view you're stopping is.

"Fascism" means a lot more than "oppressing all you disagree with" - it's explitly about state power.
Antifa is the absolute opposite of state oppression - antifascists are autonomous, and often anarchists.
Calling it fascism is just not the right label.

Except nothing you're talking about is opposing the state. If it were I probably wouldn't care. It sounds like it's about stopping a bunch of dumb shit racists and rednecks from holding rally's. That's not opposing the state.

 

[spacejunk]

I'm not talking about opposing the state (although the police tend to be a lot more generous to nazis than to anti-fascists) - i'm talking about autonomous, community action to oppose violent mobs mobilising.

People acting in solidarity against fascism is not something you can call "fascism", because fascism can only exist as a state entity.
Fascism, by definition, is state power. People can say "oh, my boss is a fascist" or whatever, in a colloquial sense, but it's an incorrect use of the term.


As for the state, and state violence - antifascists cop that too. You're typically looking to avoid police violence and nazi violence if you go to a counter demo.

 

[JessFR]

How can you be antifascists when the people you're opposed aren't agents of the state then. You're talking about counter demonstrations. The state isn't holding demonstrations, regular people are. People you deem fascists. But they have no state power. They might want it, you might fear them having it, but they don't have it when you try to force them not to organize.

You keep saying community action, which is a nice spin but when you actually talk about what it entails it sounds like community action like how lynching is community action. It sounds like vigilantism. Mob justice.

 

[swilow]

My golden rule is that violence never solves anything. It never completely settles an issue. The civil rights movement in the USA did not rely on violence and it's easily argued that it received extreme violence to counter it. It was a pretty successful movement too.

I think the greatest threat to society doesn't come from Nazi's but from the countless people who think they are justified in using violence to impose their will.

 

[spacejunk]

How can you be antifascists when the people you're opposed aren't agents of the state then. You're talking about counter demonstrations. The state isn't holding demonstrations, regular people are. People you deem fascists. But they have no state power. They might want it, you might fear them having it, but they don't have it when you try to force them not to organize.

You keep saying community action, which is a nice spin but when you actually talk about what it entails it sounds like community action like how lynching is community action. It sounds like vigilantism. Mob justice.

It's not anti-state.
I think you're making this more convoluted than it needs to be.

When you say "lynching", you're actually referring to the sort of shit antifa tries to stop.

The people counter-protesters are opposed to are pushing a political agenda that is a fascist one. We're trying to prevent that fascist state from ever being possible.

Back to the example of the beer hall putsch - people laughed at those idiots, at the time - thinking they could take over Germany.
But ultimately, they did.
If you can't see how this is a threat - especially with the president of the united states on their side - i'm not sure how much more i need to spell it out.
If you wait for fascists to have control of the state apparatus, it's too late.