What’s happened to you in the last couple of years? You sound right up your own arse. You never used to sound like that. Be careful about bigging up your own levels of articulacy because that can lead to nasty surprises.
I said nothing about being articulate dismissing your views. I was, as Scrofula pointed out, referring to your condescension and presumptiveness.
You know what, this really has turned into a joke. I have voiced a difference of opinion, you haven't addressed any of my arguments. You are now the second person to direct
ad-hominem attacks my way instead of addressing the substance of what I said. If I am so obviously wrong it shouldn't be hard to demonstrate why. If this weren't supposed to be a forum for serious discussion of politics it would actually be amusing that yourself and scrofula are alluding to errors in the way I have articulated myself and my arguments, errors that it is apparently beneath both of you to bother to point out.
Your constant reference to state actions being able to contain fascism flies in the face of history. Your refusal to acknowledge the cycle of history repeating itself, or our own (or yours) necessity to learn from this, also speaks volumes about the position you are coming from.
You talk of locking people up after others, who most certainly aren’t you, have suffered. That’s a nice ivory tower to watch from.
Places where fascism have taken hold were very different times and places to the ones we live in now, people did not have the same access to information back then. I do have faith that people in general are decent and intelligent enough to reject fascism when presented with the facts. In any case, a large part of my argument against militant antifascism is I don't believe it is
effective, I believe it is contributing to a polarised political climate which is pushing people further toward political extremes. The onus is really on those who would advocate vigilante activities to provide evidence that those vigilante activities lead to positive outcomes, so far I have not seen anybody present said evidence.
It isn't a given that history repeats itself, certainly not in the sense relevant to the rise of fascism. It's not a valid argument to say 'it has happened before, therefore it will happen again'. You could use the same argument for the persecution of people with different political ideologies than fascism, including one I know you are quite sympathetic to - of course, doing so would be fallacious, and fly in the face of fairness, democracy and free speech.
Yes, locking people up
after crimes are committed is how the criminal justice system works. It is unfortunate for the victims in all cases, but if we did not wait until the crimes were committed then the people we were locking up would be the victims. Believing something is not a crime, saying you believe something is not a crime. It is not the role of citizens to create and enforce laws, no matter how special you think your cause is.
I expected better from you than to have my talking points ignored and insults directed at me for expressing a difference of opinion. You should really examine the soundness of your own position when this is the best sort of defense you can muster. The stupid thing is that I am open to the possibility I am wrong, but instead of engaging me in intellectually honest debate and potentially changing my mind, you have resorted to petty insults. This is part of the problem I am talking about, instead of explaining why militant antifascism ought to take place you insult those who question its utility or moral justification. I am officially done, enjoy your echo chamber.
Yeah, cdugz, he doesn't understand, still, that we're talking about a community response to a growing evil, with a long history in the US that he completely ignores. He continues to label the community "antifascist", which, while certainly correct, is not what they're explicitly about. He still supports the alt-right propaganda that labels anyone who turns out to yell at nazis "vigilante thugs". He says they're violent, even though no violence (ok, a sucker punch, a shove) has been reported.
You are incredibly intellectually dishonest. I explicitly stated that I was talking about militant antifascism and that my commentary was more relevant to the community in which I live than the US. Fair enough, this is technically a thread about something that happened at Berkeley, but I don't believe I am the first person to shift the discussion toward militant antifascism more generally. When you pointed out that your commentary was confined to the US and this incident, I acknowledged that we were probably talking past one another and even apologised for the miscommunication on my part (
here, first paragraph), your response to this post was an insult...
Moreover, I did say why, in general, I view counter protest as an attempt to stifle free speech, even if none of the counter protesters engage in violence.
Regardless, I think your assumptions about law enforcement are naïve for any country. I realize there was probably a more diplomatic way to state it.
I don't see that I made any explicit assumptions about law enforcement. I certainly don't view law enforcement through rose tinted glasses, but I think it is naive to assume that a bunch of unrestrained and unaccountable citizens are going to consistently do an adequate job of maintaining law and order.
I'm not sure why you save education and debate for white supremacists.
Who says I 'save' it for them? I generally believe bad ideas are defeated by education and debate, white supremacy is no exception to this. We are talking about white nationalists and fascists, so my comments about education has been focused on them. It does not mean my support for education and debate is confined to this case.
Cduggles, thank you for treating me with respect (for the most part) and engaging with what I said. We may not agree on this issue, but I appreciate your willingness to engage in intellectually honest debate. We obviously have fundamentally different outlooks on this issue, and some other posters seem to have lost the ability to carry on this debate in the mature tone it deserves, so I am bowing out of the discussion.
