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ANTIFA attacks peaceful right wing protestors in Berkeley CA.

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Jess, I saw your post in my email.

Understand that I'm not throwing any stones, much less the first ones. I'm not defining where that line is. But I'm saying, of course there's a line, and you can't tell me you wouldn't use violence to defend yourself or family if the time came.

Some posters see that future arriving sooner than others, is all.

So it's getting all mixed up about where we're saying it's time to go to arms. Surely you wouldn't call the French Resistance Nazis for using violence? That's the scenario, the serious scenario, that I'm talking about. It's a long way off, and I'm pretty sure will never come to be. So most of this is all rhetorical. But it gets "liberals" to talk about getting violent, so that we can be set up for a "hypocrite" shut down later.

ETA: OK, and you gotta define force and direct action. Nobody's bombing anybody. And the insidious propaganda machine we have now is not on the order of illegal interference, much less "force". Direct action does not require violence at all.

But you know your history. You can't tell me that propaganda doesn't play a huge role in these things, the very center, actually. I can think of several times in history when you'd have been ready to use actual shooty boom force against it.
 
These are not words I disagree with, spoken at the rally. They are provocations. But they have a right to make them.

When propaganda reaches a point, it is no longer about words I disagree with, it becomes self-defense. Not political discourse. At least 100 million people died last century over this. I'm all ACLU, all about it. Glad to live somewhere where civil liberties are as strong as they are and allow nazis to march.

The shooting nazis thing is a scenario we hopefully won't see again, but if it comes to that, i'm sure we'll both be shooting, not discussing the finer points of race-based nationalism.
 
Scrofula said:
Jess, I saw your post in my email.

Understand that I'm not throwing any stones, much less the first ones. I'm not defining where that line is. But I'm saying, of course there's a line, and you can't tell me you wouldn't use violence to defend yourself or family if the time came.

Some posters see that future arriving sooner than others, is all.

So it's getting all mixed up about where we're saying it's time to go to arms. Surely you wouldn't call the French Resistance Nazis for using violence? That's the scenario, the serious scenario, that I'm talking about. It's a long way off, and I'm pretty sure will never come to be. So most of this is all rhetorical. But it gets "liberals" to talk about getting violent, so that we can be set up for a "hypocrite" shut down later.

ETA: OK, and you gotta define force and direct action. Nobody's bombing anybody. And the insidious propaganda machine we have now is not on the order of illegal interference, much less "force". Direct action does not require violence at all.

But you know your history. You can't tell me that propaganda doesn't play a huge role in these things, the very center, actually. I can think of several times in history when you'd have been ready to use actual shooty boom force against it.
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I realized I was jumping the gun with my initial interpretation of your post which is why I changed my reply. Of course I would use violence to defend myself or my family, what I don't agree with, and in answer to your question about what I mean by force and direct action in this context, is that it's not ok to use violence, intimidation, or similar methods to try and stop people from saying what they want to say and protesting what they want to protest. You can set up a counter protest, you can call them fucking retards and mock them, you can parody them and show them for the fools they are, but what you can't do is take action to attempt to prevent them actually saying what they want to say, for they have a right to do that.

Yes you can use violence and force for self defense, but you can't be doing it for self defense from words. And no, arguing that the words you don't like could lead to violence isn't acceptable either. If someone is saying people SHOULD do violence, as in say, saying people should go and lynch blacks, well that isn't free speech, that's against the law because you are actually telling people that they should do something to hurt someone in a context where that something could conceivably happen. And if someone does that, it's for law enforcement to deal with according to the law, you still can't be going vigilante in it.

What people can do is advocate for a change in how the government works, and to give their political opinion, whatever it may be.

There is a line between what is free speech and what isn't, but right now that line isn't relevant. Because it's not for private citizens to enforce that line in the first place. But just for arguments sake, the line is where speech is saying government should do something, and saying people of their own volition should do something.

So, you can argue that the government should become socialist, you can argue that blacks shouldn't be allowed to vote. You CANT tell people to use violence to PREVENT people voting. And you and I more specifically can say that those people are fuckwits, but we can't try and actually prevent them saying it in the first place.
 
zephyr said:
Why dont antifa just organise their own protest against nazis etc instead of stopping other whatever protests?
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Because we don't organise to protest; we exist to shut down fascists.
Fascism isn't a legitimate political stance - it is violent and dangerous and must be resisted.

At least, that is what anti-fascist believe and (at least attempt to) act upon.
"Antifa" isn't about protest, it's about resistance and increasing the cost of entry for fascists, nazis and other hateful polarising political groups.
 
But I'm arguing hypotheticals because no one has used violence to stop anyone's free exchange of ideas. That's the thing, nothing happened in Berkeley, and as far as I know, you can find plenty of white power words and "ideas" online and, well, on cable TV. I never said anyone should throw rocks or spit at a half dozen media plants looking pained in front of cameras in Berkeley. And no one did.

And in some ways the law is very loose on what you can actually get away with saying; I think that mostly comes after the fact anyway, probably as a civil matter. No cops are taking a transcript when someone finally punches the street preacher.


Our government is not separate from citizens, it is the citizens. Private citizens DO enforce that line in the first place. Maybe not an individual all het up at some demo, but I'm trying to segue into this possible future, the Trumplandia that many people see as an actual possibility the way things are going, and reminding about the past, since SJ isn't here or he's hiding (this is his bit). When it comes time for self-defense, the police and the government are by then separate from the citizens.

What I'm saying is you can't talk about the 1st amendment and respect for the police, since by then the first is gone, and the police are storm-troopers corralling the imperfect. We're talking sci-fi level disjointedness. But it has happened pretty damn fast in the past. One of the ways that started was with propaganda like the anti-antifa stuff.

At some point the speech became a threat. This has happened, a line was crossed, people were herded away to be powdered with insecticide. So not fantasy, but actual events. One day you respect freedom of speech, the next you're on a list. So a line exists where you, as an individual human being, must make decisions and prepare for self-defense, even if that means which of your neighbor's corpses is meatiest after the bombs start falling.

THat's an overarching over-the-top philosophical question underlying some of this.


But it's just a red herring mostly. Nothing happened in Berkeley, except a media event to get liberals labelled as hypocrites who want violence after all and hate free speech. As usual they won.
 
spacejunk said:
Because we don't organise to protest; we exist to shut down fascists.
Fascism isn't a legitimate political stance - it is violent and dangerous and must be resisted.

At least, that is what anti-fascist believe and (at least attempt to) act upon.
"Antifa" isn't about protest, it's about resistance and increasing the cost of entry for fascists, nazis and other hateful polarising political groups.
Click to expand...

Ok that clears it up for me. Thats very noble and if I come across as bagging them its because I think if things like this in terms of dealing with my kid. I cant teach her not to hit people by hitting her so why does using physical means teach violent people to not be violent? Maybe its the only thing that they react to.
 
spacejunk said:
Because we don't organise to protest; we exist to shut down fascists.
Fascism isn't a legitimate political stance - it is violent and dangerous and must be resisted.

At least, that is what anti-fascist believe and (at least attempt to) act upon.
"Antifa" isn't about protest, it's about resistance and increasing the cost of entry for fascists, nazis and other hateful polarising political groups.
Click to expand...

Holy shit, is that what you really believe? I mean you say at the end that's what THEY believe but you also said we. In which case... Isn't a legitimate political stance? So... You get to just deem a political stance you don't like illegitimate and shut it down. And this is supposed to be ANTI fascist. If that's really what you think man I'm disappointed. I mean I knew you and I had wildly different political views, but if that's really what you think...

I got nothing further to say in that case. It's too far gone to be worth arguing with. All I can say is, much as I've never agreed with your point of view, at least I respected it. But I can't hold respect for that kinda attitude.
 
Scrofula said:
But I'm arguing hypotheticals because no one has used violence to stop anyone's free exchange of ideas. That's the thing, nothing happened in Berkeley, and as far as I know, you can find plenty of white power words and "ideas" online and, well, on cable TV. I never said anyone should throw rocks or spit at a half dozen media plants looking pained in front of cameras in Berkeley. And no one did.

And in some ways the law is very loose on what you can actually get away with saying; I think that mostly comes after the fact anyway, probably as a civil matter. No cops are taking a transcript when someone finally punches the street preacher.


Our government is not separate from citizens, it is the citizens. Private citizens DO enforce that line in the first place. Maybe not an individual all het up at some demo, but I'm trying to segue into this possible future, the Trumplandia that many people see as an actual possibility the way things are going, and reminding about the past, since SJ isn't here or he's hiding (this is his bit). When it comes time for self-defense, the police and the government are by then separate from the citizens.

What I'm saying is you can't talk about the 1st amendment and respect for the police, since by then the first is gone, and the police are storm-troopers corralling the imperfect. We're talking sci-fi level disjointedness. But it has happened pretty damn fast in the past. One of the ways that started was with propaganda like the anti-antifa stuff.

At some point the speech became a threat. This has happened, a line was crossed, people were herded away to be powdered with insecticide. So not fantasy, but actual events. One day you respect freedom of speech, the next you're on a list. So a line exists where you, as an individual human being, must make decisions and prepare for self-defense, even if that means which of your neighbor's corpses is meatiest after the bombs start falling.

THat's an overarching over-the-top philosophical question underlying some of this.


But it's just a red herring mostly. Nothing happened in Berkeley, except a media event to get liberals labelled as hypocrites who want violence after all and hate free speech. As usual they won.
Click to expand...

Well, I take anything the media says with a huge fucking grain of salt, but from what space junk is saying, it's obvious some of them really don't believe in free speech. You can talk all day about defending yourself against an oppressive group or government, but the hypothetical I'm talking about is a group of private citizens trying to prevent another group of citizens saying what they wanna say and acting like that's perfectly ok. Well it's NOT ok, and THAT isn't fighting an oppressive state. That isn't fighting for your rights, that hypothetical is just being the very thing you're supposedly against in this case.

But seems to me this point keeps getting derailed by other shit so as to prevent any one point being discussed (I call it ice skating discourse). And I for one am kinda tired of arguing this stuff. It's a lost cause and that's the feeling I always wind up coming too when I spend any time in the politics forum here. Or anywhere really. It's all so extreme. You always gotta be wholly in one camp or the other, and so so few seem to believe in defending your political enemies on general principle (and I've been trying REAL hard so far not to say this, but I find this problem is much more common with the English speaking countries outside North America. Australia and New Zealand especially. Whereas it seems less prevalent with Americans and Canadians. I think it's a cultural difference). You either support something or you don't, and if you don't, you want them to be made to shut up. You don't seem to believe in fighting to preserve someone's right to say something you don't like. Or even if you do believe in it in theory, in practice you look the other way and don't act on it. It's not just free speech on this one it's everything.

Man I'm starting to hate politics. I gotta learn to stay out of it. I do for a while but then I stupidly let myself start reading it again and it always lowers my opinion of people dramatically. And I've been feeling pretty good about people lately and I'd rather that not stick around and become disappointed by what I see as people's refusal to think about any position but their own. It's automatically fight for your side, never thinking about it seriously, not even in private. Like I said, extremism. I blame social media for some of this, it's worsened the division by falsely convincing people that their views are the majority when they're not. They've just surrounded themselves by an echo chamber of identical views and convinced themselves anyone else is extreme.
 
The problem with the "free speech" argument is that nazis don't believe in it, so fuck them if they want to march around bashing people of colour, homosexuals, their political opponents, jews, muslims or whatever.

The principles of anti-fascism are about protecting communities from hate.

Let's not kid ourselves that nazis are decent human beings who honour or respect freedom of expression or human life.
Some people get upset that leftists can be militant, but to me that's a bit naive.
 
Just because they don't believe in free speech doesn't change the fact that I do. And I can't say I believe in it while arbitrarily denying it to whomever I want. If I expect my right to say what I want to be respected, I have to support everyone else's right to free speech to. Regardless of my agreement with them or not.

It's like when people talk about how child abusers didn't care about children's rights so we shouldn't respect theirs. NO, WE are NOT child abusers. We don't and shouldn't follow their idea of rights and we should be good enough as a society to afford rights to societies least deserving unconditionally. But yes, this is exactly what I mean by not believing in the concept of disagree with what you say but defend to the death your right to say it.

Not enough people follow that belief for my liking full stop, but I've found it significantly rarer outside North America. Cultural difference is my explanation.

EDIT: And just to follow up on that, Australians, New Zealanders, the British, they're all great people and I'm not saying otherwise, just that I've noticed a cultural difference in this regard vs Americans and Canadians where the latter seem much more likely to follow a philosophy of thought whereby you stands up for people being able to say things you hate. I wouldn't bring it up at all but I think it's interesting that part of the difference may come down to different cultural attitudes regarding exactly what 'rights' are and how you feel about them. And I'm not saying Aussies, Brits, etc, don't believe in people's rights, just that they have a subtle but nevertheless different philosophy on the subject.
 
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Some people seem to think that free speech is just making a public spectacle of yourself and spewing out the worst shit possible and getting away with it.


Whatever happened to common human decency?


These groups that insist on being embarassing and polarising do get attention but who is actually listening? No one. What was all this shit about exactly?

Free speech assumes an audience is interested and going to follow some ideal but delivered in such a stupid way its not gonna work.
 
How do you figure ANTIFA is against free speech? I don't think they are trying to say these people shouldn't have freedom of speech, just that if their speech preaches hatred and violence against groups based on bigotry, they should expect resistance/ opposition.

I don't agree with their use of violence(except when used in self- defense) and vandalism, but counter-protesting itself is not suppressing free speech, it's exercising your own free speech.
 
-=SS=- said:
Not sure what difference that makes when it comes to protecting communities from hate..
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Communities can always just ignore stupid pointless attention seeking rallies and in fact most would really like to and just get on with living their lives. Freedom of any speech doesnt necessarily guarantee anyone really cares about what they crap on about anyway.
 
RDP89 said:
How do you figure ANTIFA is against free speech? I don't think they are trying to say these people shouldn't have freedom of speech, just that if their speech preaches hatred and violence against groups based on bigotry, they should expect resistance/ opposition.

I don't agree with their use of violence(except when used in self- defense) and vandalism, but counter-protesting itself is not suppressing free speech, it's exercising your own free speech.
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Of course. And if all they did/do is counter protest I'd have no problem. My only issue IS if people are trying to or wanting to suppress free speech with force. I'm all for counter protesting.
 
Jess, but no one has prevented anyone from speaking anything or wants to, and if anything, it would be nicer sometimes if fewer people were speaking. No one on the libtard side over here is wanting to suppress free speech at all, much less with force.

And SS, I don't know why SJ's views wouldn't extend to ISIS, considering it's fascist too. In fact it's a pretty good parallel: plenty of Americans feel like we were warped into a kind of Iraq just before the rise of ISIS. Only it's Christians trying to make a White State instead. Maybe that helps explain some of the militant talk, Jess?

And really, no one's mentioned, but I keep bringing it up, is there any evidence of "Antifa" showing up to anything other than, supposedly, this event in Berkeley? Somebody here at least listens to Amy Goodman (I don't have a commute anymore), if they had a rep there'd at least been an interview with her, no interviews or anything?

Are there any instances of violence AT ALL at a "rally", besides the white power guy who drove his car into a crowd and the cracker that fired shots, and the one where black guy got beat?

But an old white man fell over in Berkeley. Antifa truly is to be feared and hated for their anti-free speech violence.
 
Jess, I have been mulling over your posts in a few threads as even though I dont know much about you- I really do like your style and hope to continue to have it around in my life.


The thing that I dont understand and maybe you could shed some light for me is what your take on a society actually is?

I am ruminating on that myself and not ready to put it in words yet.

What is a decent society, what does it take to have one and is what we live in today actually decent?


The one thing that is being put out by you (I could be reading this wrong) is that society needs absolutely everyone to have the exact same equal rights and rveryone to treat everyone else exactly equally.


Is this the case?

I have trouble reconciling that simply because people do not behave in exactly the same way and never have. We are all different. So accepting and including all the rainbows and spectrums of every person is noble. Treating people exactly the same at the same time? How is that achievable?
 
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