ANTIFA attacks peaceful right wing protestors in Berkeley CA.

[JessFR]

They can't beat people up, I never said that was ok and you damn well know it. I said they have the right to protest (it being 'ok' is different, being a nazi is NOT 'ok', but it is your right).

And you're not protecting anyone by using force to silence a non violent demonstration, THAT is what I'm talking about and again, you know that. You ought to cause I've made it clear over and over. So don't pretend this is about stopping nazis from beating people, cause it's not. I've made that more than clear enough that you couldn't possibly have genuinely thought otherwise.

 

[spacejunk]

Did you follow what happened in Charlottesville?

Nazis literally congregated and beat the shit out of people.

I'm not sure what you think happened, but the fascists attacked peaceful counter-protesters first. I even posted a link to a video of it in this thread.

 

[JessFR]

And that would be illegal, they have no right to do that. My point is that YOU have no right to try and prevent anyone from holding a peaceful demonstration no matter what it is they're protesting.

Now, if there in reality actually ARENT any demonstrations that have been peaceful by the kind of people you're talking about, then there's no problem, far as I'm concerned you're free to calls the cops on them, have them stopped, defend yourself, etc.

But where they ARE peaceful, you have no right to go any further than holding a counter protest, they have every right to say what they wanna say.

THAT is the point I'm making.

 

[JahSEEuS]

Did you follow what happened in Charlottesville?

Nazis literally congregated and beat the shit out of people.

I'm not sure what you think happened, but the fascists attacked peaceful counter-protesters first. I even posted a link to a video of it in this thread.

I'm not sure how you can claim that video as proving who attacked who first.

There is very little context provided as to what was going on before that or outside of the frame.

 

[spacejunk]

The cops initially ignored the violence, then cleared the square the fascists were congregated in.
This pushed them into the streets where they attacked anti-racist counter-protesters (who were exercising their freedom of speech - peacefully).

The anti-fascists were attacked, so they defended thenselves.

The american right wing press have been carrying on about "violent leftists", but they have made a huge range of erroneous allegations and claims relating to this issue.
They tend to support the far right - even open neo nazis.

Believe what you wish, but i will say this; don't believe the hype about anti-fascists.
Peaceful actions are always preferable, until they become impossible. The KKK and neo nazis are inherently violent in both words and deeds.
This is why they face physical resistance. Sadly, it's the only way. We were lucky only one counter demonstrator died that day - but one is still far too many.

 

[spacejunk]

I'm not sure how you can claim that video as proving who attacked who first.

There is very little context provided as to what was going on before that or outside of the frame.

The live tweets leading up to it made it fairly clear.
The people in that video had linked arms up to the point the nazis attacked them.

Nobody would link arms if there had already been clashes - it's a passive resistance/picket tactic that leaves your body extremely vulnerable.
People in groups aren't naive enough to ignore their own self-preservation in an instance like that.

 

[JessFR]

So I'm still unclear here. I'm just gonna ask directly. Spacejunk, hypothetically speaking, forget what has ACTUALLY happened in reality, I'm talking hypothetically, are you ok with using force to prevent groups like nazis and or any other group of people from demonstrating peacefully? Because that's really all I'm objecting too. And if that's NOT what you're saying, I'm wasting my time getting outraged about a misunderstanding. So really that's all I wanna know.

 

[spacejunk]

In all honesty, i think it's a moot point, because when nazis gather in numbers large enough to be emboldened, they never seek to do so peacefully.
Everything about nazi rhetoric is violent. Nazism is - by its very definition - violence.

If a bunch of racists - lets say, uh - trump supporters - want to rally peacefully, that's fine.

But to assume nazis will - or can - be peaceful is to misunderstand everything they stand for.
That's my take.

 

[JahSEEuS]

I don't think you are wrong there.

When you willfully block another humans path in a public street though and provide them no way around can you really expect that you won't get shoved or bumped into?

It looks like both sides were throwing some punches, one side just had flag poles and riot shields.

Most likely because they are violent by nature, but also very likely that they have had things thrown at them / been assaulted while "peacefull" gathering previously.

 

[JessFR]

In all honesty, i think it's a moot point, because when nazis gather in numbers large enough to be emboldened, they never seek to do so peacefully.
Everything about nazi rhetoric is violent. Nazism is - by its very definition - violence.

If a bunch of racists - lets say, uh - trump supporters - want to rally peacefully, that's fine.

But to assume nazis will - or can - be peaceful is to misunderstand everything they stand for.
That's my take.

And that's exactly why I said hypothetically, and why I said forget reality, AND why I specifically said "demonstrate peacefully". To try and keep you from dodging the question, or giving me something to point to if you did.

Now having said that, my next question is, why should I have had to do that? It's not a trick question, either way I don't much care to continue on this thread, the only difference is in what my opinion of you is in future. So why not just answer truthfully? If you believe in your position there's no reason to dodge it. And even if you say you're making a political point, it's still ALSO a dodge cause I intentionally phrased the question in such a way so they you'd have to be either answering it or not answering it and can't honestly argue that that answe IS the answer. Cause it's not.

So can you please answer legitimately now? It really doesn't matter because if you dodge it again I'll simply have to assume the answer is yes and that for whatever reason you don't want to have to say it probably cause you know it's a hard position to defend once you take the rhetoric out of it. So if the answer really is no, nows the time to say it. I'd prefer it to be no and be able to continue to have respect for you even if I almost never agree with you. But if the answer is yes, well that's why I want to know.

 

[spacejunk]

I'm not dodging, i'm being honest.
Drop the outrage for a minute and reconsider siding with these fucking genocide-pushing bonehead fucks.
Nazis don't do peaceful protest - they fucking killed a girl in charlottesville, and many celebrated this fact.

They've waived their right to polite rebuttal, by threatening and carrying out violence - and they deserve everything they get.

If you think the police will save you from fascist thugs, think again. We (citizens) have to protect our own communities - police aren't interested

 

[spacejunk]

Related:

Hitler speech found at home of Baton Rouge man accused in 'brutal' killings of black men, official says

A law enforcement official says a copy of an Adolf Hitler speech was found at the home of white man accused of killing two black men and firing on a black family.

The official spoke to The Associated Press on Tuesday on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

Authorities said at an earlier news conference that Kenneth James Gleason would be booked on first-degree murder in the shooting deaths last week of a homeless man and a dishwasher who was walking to work.

Authorities say the men were unarmed when they were attacked. Authorities say Gleason also shot at the house of a black family in his neighborhood before the killings. No one was hurt in that shooting.

Link

Let's not pretend that neo nazis are anything but terrorist miscreants.
The amount of americans killed by islamic terrorist is absolutely dwarfed by the death-toll of far-right nazi/fascist/nationalist/white supremacist murders - especially in the last 12 months.
Let's not beat around in the bush - nazis are terrorists this administration has no desire to go after legally, because they share many of the same disgusting views - and many are trump supporters.
This is why antifa is necessary.

Oh yeah - and this alleged racially motivated killer was initially released by Baton Rouge police. Cute eh?

All this talk about "peaceful nazi rallies" is hypothetical. It's make-believe. There is no such thing as a peaceful nazi.

 

[JessFR]

Yes you're dodging. My question was written in very plain English and impossible to misunderstand if you're a native speaker. So I'll take that as a yes. If it's not a yes, you can still tell me now. Otherwise I have nothing left to say, I have my answer. Im not interested in what the nazis do or don't do. I'm interested in what I said. You refused to give a clear answer to a clear question. I don't think you'd have done that if the answer was no. Getting the answer was all I was interested in. And actually I have even less respect for the fact you dodged it, and twice. You're not being honest, you're not exactly lying but it's not honesty either. It's a yes or no question. If you feel it's a loaded question you can give context to your answer, but refusing to actually say yes or no is a dodge. It's that simple.

It may be hard to argue that it's EVER ok to use force against peaceful demonstrators even with their abhorrent beliefs, but if that's what you think you could have at least owned up to it. Would have saved me some time. But if it's NOT what you think, I see no reason you'd be so unwilling to say it. And since it's clear that you won't give a direct answer, there's no point in my trying to ask a third time, I'll go with what I believe. Which is you do think that that's ok.

But given you're willing to use the transparent trick of trying to make it seem like I'm defending nazis when I've made it clear I'm not, I can see why you'd probably not want to say yes, cause you think I or someone else will use that and refocus the debate on the rights aspect when you want to focus it on the nazi aspect.

I'm not interested in verbal trickery. It's lazy, and above all pointless arguing. It's not constructive, no one ever comes to new opinions, it's just shouting your own beliefs at each other. It's a waste of time.

By all means continue to reply and try and claim you're doing no such thing and that you supposedly are answering but that I'm asking a loaded question etc etc. I'm not interested though. All I was interested in was if you thought it was ok to use force to disrupt peaceful protests in any circumstance. And your refusal to just say it, not to mention dodging it TWICE when I decided to just come straight out and ask directly, has made it take SUBSTANCIALLY longer to work out the answer. When it could have been a lot easier if you weren't engaging in these low debating tactics.

Don't get me wrong, I know why you do it, nearly everyone does it. And nearly everyone is wrong to be doing it. And its what I hate most about politics. It makes it impossible to discuss anything constructively and lowers it all to endless wastes of time just talking but never listening and never learning.

I'm disappointed, like I said, I thought better of you than this, but I'm not interested in arguing it further. It's a waste of time, an unpleasent waste of time at that.

 

[spacejunk]

Peaceful demonstrations are fine.
Nazi demonstrations are not fine.

Is that clear?

 

[JessFR]

Peaceful demonstrations are fine.
Nazi demonstrations are not fine.

Is that clear?

Not really. Cause that is just asking for you to play tricks with the definition of peaceful. And argue that even a peaceful demonstration by nazis isn't peaceful in some broader scope, or that the very content itself is verbally violent or aome other lawyer ball bullshit.

The question was simple. Is it ever ok to use force to stop a public demonstration where the people in that demonstration are only using words, signs, and other such typical peaceful protesting shit.

I already put a lot of thought into the question as dodge deterrence. The question need not reference Nazis at all. Either answer it or just say you won't answer it for whatever excuse you wanna use. But please don't waste my time trying to playing politician with it. I've already wasted more than I wanted to or normally in order to give you the benefit of the doubt. But there's only so long I can keep pretending you could possibly be struggling with understanding the question before I just find it insulting.

You understand the question just fine. You're dodging it to avoid me or someone else using the answer divert the discussion away from your point. And possibly because you know it's hard to argue that it's ok to believe in a yes answer.

I'm not interested in those games as I already said. You're not running for office.

 

[spacejunk]

No it probably isn't ok - but as i've taken great lengths to point out, the context you speak of isn't the one we are presented with.
It's a false dichotomy - so i'm sorry if you're not satisfied with my response.

people are able to protest whatever they want.
When they use violence to get their point across, things tend to escalate. It's life, i'm afraid.

You don't see anti-fascists mobbing the creeps who hassle women at abortion clinics, even though i'd put money on close to 100% of us being extremely opposed to their beliefs and their tactics.
Most abortion clinic protesters do so "using words, signs, and other such typical peaceful protesting shit" - but some of them are murdering terrorists as well...

The reason i keep bringing it back to people resisting nazis/fascists is that this is what this thread is about.
You may think i'm dodging, but the context is relevant and important IMO

 

[JessFR]

See why couldn't you have just said that ages ago?

Man you HAD to bring up abortion, and this was so close to resolved!

Not to derail the topic, and especially since I absolutely detest discussing abortion, more so than any other political subject. But while you might be right about almost all of us disapproving of those protestors, cause I do. It's not true that almost all of us believe abortion doesn't end a human life, cause I don't, and I know I'm not the only one. Granted I'm a fairly moderate prolifer, I don't think it's 'murder'. I don't personally hold anything against women who get abortions. I'm not even entirely convinced that I think it should be illegal, I'm still undecided. And I wouldn't call myself religious. But I do think it's killing a human life and I'm not the only one here to think that.

So perhaps nearly all of us do disagree with their tactics, I do, I think it's just making the situation worse. We probably don't all disagree with their beliefs.

But getting back on topic. While I don't agree with their behavior, the antiabortion protesters I mean, I still support their right to do what they do. I think it's destructive, disrespectful, ignorant, and makes our side look bad. But they still have a right to do so.

As for a few people bombing abortion providers or other terrorism. It's exceedingly rare. And bringing it up at all strikes me as alarmingly similar to those people who say "yes not all Muslims are terrorists, but many terrorists are Muslims!". It's technically true but being used to support a much wider array of political beliefs that I suspect neither of us support.

But again, just cause some fanatics bomb abortion providers or assassinate doctors who perform it. Doesn't change that most people who don't believe in abortion, like say, me, are peaceful and have a right to protest in favor of their views without being subjected to violence.

Not that I would ever do that cause I absolutely detest the abortion debate. Maybe I should be more willing to stand up for something I believe in, but I've found abortion is an issue where almost everyone already has a view that is utterly impossible to change and hold anyone with a different view in utter contempt. It's one of only two political issues I have a stance on but desperately try not to get involved in. The other is gun control. And it's the same reason for both. I hate both sides of the debate, largely having both been pushed to such an extreme by each other that constructive discussion is now impossible and lies and deceit are condoned and widespread. And neither are interested in the slightest in being reasonable and listening to anyone.

 

[Scrofula]

I wrote a thing about how the God and GUns debate was a good analogy, as they are other examples of nuanced discussion v. politcal opportunism, then realized I would have to defend what I meant by that.

So I'll just say they are, and point out the irony that some see in your statement, Jess, that you "hate both sides of the debate [because they're] pushed to such an extreme . . . lies and deceit are condoned and widespread."

The anti-fascist argument that I, not authorized to speak for admin, try to make, is that there is no pro-fascist argument, and all is lies and deceit. On top of that, the lies and distortion are intended to get the audience to take up arms. Not metaphorical arms, either; the entire point, the reason for the "debate," is to foment civil unrest, not get votes or signatures or even dollars. This is as opposed to the pro-life side, which is "vote GOP" and the anti-gun control side, which is "donate to gun-rights groups"; both argle-bargles can be safely sat out to a large degree.

[and stop] cause I bet if anyone reads it they'll veer off to attack the last sentence . . . as you warned it would.

 

[PriestTheyCalledHim]

Wait are you saying we should aspire to be soviet era russia? LOL that is just tooo much... you've been programmed my young social justice warrior... i bet your 20 years old or younger. This is America not soviet era Russia.

Not yet, but with any luck get there. A better world is possible.
No, but you could try a bit harder with your ad-homs if that's the path you want to go down.

I was being facetious, because i think capitalism doesn't work, as we are seeing play out across the globe.
Of course i'm a socialist

For real? I know you're a Socialist/Marxist/Communist but you really need to study history and political science.

The United States will never become like the USSR and other Socialist/Marxist/Communist countries were with the massive starvation, bread lines, persecution and killing of people who are religious/spiritual, censorship and secret police, mass spying and fake propaganda, system of government where nothing gets accomplished and it gets given to someone else who gives it to a lower person in command untill it is forgotten in the beauracracy/shuffle, massive poverty of the general population while the leaders who supposedly want everything in society, the government, etc. to be equal live in lavish wealth, massive actual violations of human rights-including people protesting or saying anything negative about the governmet at all, rigged elections, greatly restricted emigration and travel abroad so you can't leave.

Don't forget the Soviet GULAG camps, Mao's Laogai/re-education camps, and the prison camps in North Korea that all make the Nazi holocaust or concentration camps seem like an easier alternative.

 

[JessFR]

You might well be RIGHT that the protests we're talking about are with an aim to getting people to take up arms and commit violence, and I'm sure you probably are right that it's all lies and deceit.

My point is, provided they aren't actually telling people to take up arms and go and kill or harm this group or that group, even if that's their larger goal, so long as that's not what they're actually doing, it's protected speech and they have a right to do that.

The line can get gray at times, but the way I see it, and the way that it has generally been seen from a more American Constitutional law point of view, is they CAN protest and say whatever they want, provided they aren't specifically telling people to go take up weapons and hurt this person or that group. You can say whatever you want about how you think society should be, you can encourage other people to support that view, you can even lie your ass off doing it so long as it's not defamation. You can't give instructions that if followed would result in someone being hurt or killed.

And I'm saying I agree with that.

My whole point is I can both absolutely detest what they say but still support their right to say it. Hell I can completely agree that is all lies and deceit, and still support and defend their right to say it. That's been my whole point all along. It may be ironic, but it's not something that needs to be pointed out.

Perhaps it's more ironic that I'm more willing to speak out to defend their right to say it than I am speak out against what they're saying. But I figure, there's already plenty of people arguing such views I agree with. There are a lot fewer coming out and defending the right to give a view they hate. It's a stand that has fewer people behind it so I feel it's more important someone come out and support it.

To take another example...

Coming out in support of gay marriage for example? There's no shortage of people doing that. But far fewer are like me who'll come out and support the right of people to say they think being gay is an abomination towards God, while also being completely against every part of that belief. So I have no interest in the former but a lot of interest in the latter. Not to mention the latter is a key part of the freedoms that allow us to make changes like gay marriage in the first place.

Of course now that I think about it, this if of course exactly why when I do come out strongly advocating some point of view, there's usually almost no one else but me advocating it. Of things I believe in, I only get involved in the ones where almost no one agrees with me.