ANTIFA attacks peaceful right wing protestors in Berkeley CA.

[Scrofula]

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.

A lot of this is academic because no one is goose stepping yet. But it's not as far removed as it seems.

In your civil rights war analogy, the fascists would be (not far from) southern governments and police, but with a Federal government and troops sympathetic (or feeling guilty) to the oppressed, who would not have emerged otherwise.

The non-violence movement successes--here, India, south Africa--were an appeal to the outside for help. And help came from economic pressure, or in the US in the form of the fucking Army.

Guys with guns. To let a little black girl get to class. LBJ may have gotten Congress to sign the Civil Rights Bill, but it was the threat of violence that enforced it.

(Who controls those guns right now? A guy who inspired Charlottesville, with a fascist as his top law enforcement official.)

The peace movements that weren't successful aren't heard about.

The problem is that while both sides of any conflict believes they're "right" or deserving, in a few of those, there is--from a wide, moral, humanistic view--ONE that is at least more right. And with fascism, one that is evil. Maybe the only case where one side is indefensibly evil.

You can't ignore them because lots of people use violent methods. They themselves are a violent method. It's humanity's Id that flares up occasionally like a drunk's rage. You don't argue with it, you throw it out of the bar before it burns everything down.

 

[JessFR]

You're the one that said fascism is about state power. How can you be anti fascist then if what you're anti isn't related to the state.

I compared Antifa to fascism. You replied that fascism was related to state power with the implication being that antifa isn't fascist because it isn't anything to do with state power. I'm saying by that reasoning, the fascism you're fighting can't be labeled fascism anymore than you can be anti to it. Because the supposed fascists don't represent state power either.

 

[Scrofula]

Jess, just by the dictionary, they are opposite in method. One is via the state, the other opposed to it.

Opposition to fascism doesn't have to be directed at the state. The state is just the goal, and one of the tools used by fascists. The antifa would have a goal of no state.

Fascism is the ultimate totalitarian, authoritarian government. These antifa would be total anarchists, i.e., no government.

Edit: how do we know the fascists are making progress? Since when would freedom-loving redblooded 'merican republicans EVER side with the ultimate big government and call the ultra-libertarians the bad guys? You tea party people hate your taxes now? Wait till there's no money at all. You don't need it when manning your turret.

 

[cduggles]

Counterprotesters Shout Down “White Lives Matter” Rallies in Tennessee
Speaking of which...

 

[JessFR]

Jess, just by the dictionary, they are opposite in method. One is via the state, the other opposed to it.

Opposition to fascism doesn't have to be directed at the state. The state is just the goal, and one of the tools used by fascists. The antifa would have a goal of no state.

Fascism is the ultimate totalitarian, authoritarian government. These antifa would be total anarchists, i.e., no government.

As a general rule I hate arguing over what words mean, so I just go with whatever definition the person I'm talking to is using. Works great so long as that person has a consistent definition.

 

[Scrofula]

Well jess, I use the consensus meanings of the rest of the English speaking world, which can be found on most devices by highlight and right-click.

 

[JessFR]

So do I. But I don't wanna argue about it if I'm talking to someone else using it differently so I just go along with how they're using it.

 

[spacejunk]

Here is a disturbing link to a video of a couple - black guy and white girl - getting beaten after a nazi demonstration in Tennessee today.


Nice people these nazis, aren't they? This is why people are fighting them.

It's a good thing people are defending their 'freedom of speech'

 

[JessFR]

Yes. It is a good thing. If we only defended freedom of speech we agreed with we'd have no freedom of speech at all.

Unfortunately not everyone can be supporting only the rights they personally make use of and look the other way the rest of the time, or we'd have no rights at all.

It always starts by taking the freedoms away from those least deserving of them. The people who society has the least regard for. People like drug addicts for that matter.

First you take them away from the worst. The pedophiles and the rapists. Then the thieves and homeless and other small time criminals (many of us). Then the poor and those who don't have the social support and wealth to fight back (more of us). Eventually only the upper class is left with any real rights or freedom.

As drug users, drug addicts, etc, we are the first who's rights are ignored.

 

[spacejunk]

You know that the nazis rounded up drug addicts and threw them in labour camps, right?

The irony of pulling out the "first they came for the communists..." line is just too much.

How many times do we need to explain to you that "antifascists are the real fascists" is a completely illogical position?
Sometimes i think you're arguing a position just for the sake of argument, or to take some kind of high moral ground - but you're happy to admit that taking the law into your own hands is "morally justified" just because it's one of your particular hang-ups, but you'll condemn anyone for making a similar call on a different issue (see post 251)

I can't believe you are taking this hypothetical argument to the lengths you are. Nazis aren't the victims here - did you watch the video? See the gang of men beating the woman, see the blood running down her face?

And you call me a hypocrite...

 

[JessFR]

You know, you make a good point. You've made theWhen you get down to it, the real difference here morally speaking is you think the greater threat to society is the idiot rednecks little rally's and online hate groups and I think the greater threat is destroying free speech.

If I believed in the former over the latter, I'd probably be on your side. But I don't.

You also fail to recognize that if I consider both camps, the fascists and anti fascists to both be naziesk, then as a drug addict I have reason to worry about both, which I do. Don't mistake my dislike of antifa here as endorsement of fascists. If I were on a forum with them with them talking about using force to stop your counter protest I'd be speaking up about that too. But they aren't here, you are.

 

[Scrofula]

Jess go watch a good ww2 documentary. Be careful who makes a "Rise of the Third Reich" video, but get one on how the damn Nazis came to power. We all dismiss the "redneck idiots" now, cause we're white, just like Germany dismissed the pubhouse drunks cause they weren't Jewish.

Nazis didn't just "appear" in 1939 Poland. They had roots in media manipulation. A slow rise to power over a decade, by winning over the masses. At rallies.

And FFS, the antifa would not give a fuck about your drugs, half of them would be users. No laws for them.

The fascists would shoot all the addicts if the ammo wasn't too expensive.

Although they'd probably mandate stims depending on your ordered factory munitions station. Can't be too shaky on the explosives line.

 

[JessFR]

You know what it would mean if you were right though right? It sounds to me like it would mean real free speech inevitably leads to tyranny. You're saying their use of free speech can't be allowed because it allows fascists to recruit more fascists and potentially one day turn society fascist. That the only way to keep it in check, is to keep fighting to suppress it. Over a long enough time, free speech and freedom will be tested by people who use it to advocate getting rid of it. And if it has to be ignored to preserve it, it's all meaningless. It means humanity isn't enlightened enough to have real free speech. It means such ideals are meaningless.

In that case I might just go off myself cause fuck living with other humans.

Fortunately I think you're wrong. I think freedom and rights can be preserved so long as we NEVER accept justifications to disregard it in principle.

The in principle part is important, cause when I said what spacejunk quoted. Which is that I think the rules for society and the rules for individuals differ. That's a big part of the difference. The rules for society are what apply when you're talking about social problems in general. When no specific individual is the problem but some phenomenon is the problem. Individual morals apply one on one.

And so I might agree with he morality of an individual murdering some pedophile who raped their kids. I'd never agree with the morality of random pedophile haters tracking down random pedophiles to kill. The former is an individual context with rules of individual morality. The latter is a wider social issue with with for wider social issues.

You're saying it's ok for for random people to use force to disperse groups of random, Inspecific people deemed nazis. And that's why I'm not ok with it. That's a social issue. The social rules apply.

If you were going after some individual fascist who'd wronged you in some specific way, the individual rules apply.

I said in spacejunks quite that we as society must follow one set of rules, a stricter set, than we as individuals. When you start saying that it's ok for random antifa people to do some thing to random fascist people. That's a social issue. That's not what I was talking about.

I was talking about how individuals can sometimes be justified breaking the social rules with personal one on one issues. As in the example I gave at the time. That's the separate rules I was talking about.

You can have your own moral beliefs on right and wrong. But mine aren't compatible with some general group breaking the just social rules of a free society in some generalized way against a group they disagree with. Even if I hate that group too. And I consider freedom of speech a just rule. and flawed as it may be in implementation. I ultimately consider this a society of just rules. The USA I mean. And similar countries.

Spacejunk quoted me saying that I thought it was sometimes ok to break those rules, and indeed I do. In extreme, individual cases. Where one individual or perhaps a very small but identified group has escaped broader justice that you believe in. But never should that extreme case encompass an unidentified group of indeterminate size. That's no longer an individual exception.

If society is so far gone that the only option is civil war, the rules become very gray very fast. But I don't believe this time remotely resembles that time. And much as I'm sure someone will suggest "oh so we shouldn't act till it's too late?". That is kinda what I'm saying. Every peaceful option must be exhausted before war is acceptable.

 

[cduggles]

Charlottesville violence prompts ACLU to change policy on hate groups protesting with guns

The American Civil Liberties Union said Thursday it would no longer represent white supremacist groups who demonstrate with guns.

After the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, turned deadly, ACLU executive director Anthony Romero told The Wall Street Journal that the group will review legal requests from white supremacist groups on a case-by-case basis, assessing more closely whether their protests would have the potential to be violent.

“The events of Charlottesville require any judge, any police chief and any legal group to look at the facts of any white-supremacy protests with a much finer comb,” Romero told the Journal. “If a protest group insists, ‘No, we want to be able to carry loaded firearms,’ well, we don’t have to represent them. They can find someone else,” he added.

Charlottesville officials originally denied organizer Jason Kessler a permit for a march protesting the removal of a Robert E. Lee Confederate statue from a local park. In response, the ACLU filed a lawsuit against the city, citing the national organization’s long-held belief to uphold the rights of free speech for all.

The city of Charlottesville would ultimately grant the permit for the rally, where violence broke out between armed white nationalist groups and counter-protesters. It ended with a car attack that injured 19 and killed counter-protester Heather Heyer, 32, whose funeral was held earlier this week.
...
The question of how to defend the speech rights of white supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis has dogged the ACLU for years. The Los Angeles Times illustrated this point by digging up a 1934 pamphlet created by the ACLU’s board of directors. The pamphlet was titled “Shall We Defend Free Speech for Nazis In America?”

“We do not choose our clients,” the pamphlet read. “Lawless authorities denying their rights choose them for us. To those who support suppressing propaganda they hate, we ask — where do you draw the line?”

The ACLU still officially condemns the hate speech of white supremacists, Romero told the LA Times, but “at the same time, we believe that even odious hate speech, with which we vehemently disagree, garners the protection of the 1st Amendment when expressed non-violently.”

ACLU spokeswoman Stacy Sullivan told Reuters that the announced policy shift doesn’t change the group’s position on civil liberties; it was prompted more by a concern over firearms, she said.

“We’ve had people with odious views, all manner of bigots. But not people who want to carry weapons and are intent on committing violence,” she said.

Even the ACLU is moving the line.

Nazi-Style Art Poster for Charlottesville Rally

 

[Scrofula]

No jess. I'm saying Nazis are bad and have nothing to say. Only propaganda. It is your moral duty as a human to oppose them. You don't need to hunt them down, I know you get that urge at night.

Right now the biggest antifa agents are on the district courts blocking trump s more fascist orders.

Edit: so, what about the aclu lawyers drawing the line at guns? A huge attack on free speech?

 

[JessFR]

The ACLU are hypocrites then. They always have been with the 2nd amendment. This just takes the hypocrisy further. But they have a right to their own personal view of what civil liberties are. But far as I'm concerned in America you have a right to demonstrate with a gun where it is, and should be legal to do so. But that's another issue. Gun control. Which I am NOT willing to discuss. People can believe what they want but I've long spent my energy to talk about it with other people.

Shame really. I quite like the ACLU. For the most part I think they do good work. I strongly disagree with them here. But so long as they don't actively fight against the 2nd amendment I'm happy to support them. Even if I disapprove of their selective interpretation of the bill of rights and the joke that is collectivist interpretation.

Scrofula. I said this already. I don't support the fascists. I'd be saying all this same shit to them if they were here and then some. But they're not. Don't assume I have to be on one side or the other. My point from the beginnig is I see both sides as wrong. Not equally wrong god no. The fasicsts are a lot worse. But once more, they aren't here.

And no, this isn't an attack on free speech by the aclu. It's politically motivated hypocrisy, but even if they only support some of the rights I believe in, so long as they don't fight to take away the others. They're still the good guys in my book. They've done a lot more good than most historically.

Although, I must admit I do worry that this might be some tactical decision to try and selectively not have to support free speech they disagree with by finding some non free speech basis to discriminate over. But I'll give them the benefit of the doubt given their long history of antigun leanings. It's not out of character for them. I just hope this isn't part of a wider effort to find covert justifications not to support free speech they disagree with.

I find it disturbing. But I've long approved of the ACLU despite their long history of what I consider highly dubious interpretations of what are and aren't civil rights in America. This isn't something new for me. They're cool with me so long as they're doing good, even with their selective deafness.

 

[cduggles]

It's an interesting shift in ACLU policy.

The casualties at Charlottesville were not a result of gun violence but rather by a Neonazi who drove a vehicle into a crowd and other white supremacists (and one insistent "conservative") beating individuals with objects or physical blows.

Additionally, the possession of guns and their open display was legal.

The ACLU statements refer to both the intention to carry guns and the intent to commit violence.

So in the end I think they don't want to defend groups that are so closely aligned with violence, but they're not quite sure how to qualify themselves.

 

[JessFR]

It's an interesting shift in ACLU policy.

The casualties at Charlottesville were not a result of gun violence but rather by a Neonazi who drove a vehicle into a crowd and other white supremacists (and one insistent "conservative") beating individuals with objects or physical blows.

Additionally, the possession of guns and their open display was legal.

The ACLU statements refer to both the intention to carry guns and the intent to commit violence.

So in the end I think they don't want to defend groups that are so closely aligned with violence, but they're not quite sure how to qualify themselves.

It's not that surprising. The ACLU has long had it as an official policy that they hold a collectivist interpretation of the 2nd amendment. That there is no right for individuals to keep and bare arms.

I think such a view is indefensible bullshit. They don't agree with that part of the bill of rights but they don't have the balls to admit it, so they pretend they have a legitimate difference of legal interpretation rather than admitting their idea of civil rights isn't entirely in line with the bill of rights.

It's intellectually disingenuous. But it's always been like this. Hardly new. They've always been happier to defend a child molester than someone wanting to carry a gun to protect themselves. I tolerate it because that's still better than defending neither.

EDIT: Just to be clear here, I don't actually agree with the 2nd amendment as it stands either. I do agree with the protesters being allowed to bare weapons legally. But I don't think it should be an automatic unconstrained right as it exists in the constitution now.

It's not so much the ACLUs disagreement I hate it's the dishonesty of trying to pretend a collectivist interpretation of it is legitimate.

It's just like all gun politics in America. Nobody tries to do the right thing, what the system requires, which to hold a referendum to change the 2nd amendment. Cause everyone knows it'll never happen in the current political climate for the indefinite future. So people who want gun control pretend it means something else instead. And I think if you start doing that, creatively reinterpreting the amendments you don't like, then none of them are safe.

I would prefer it if the ACLU held a strict constitutionalist view including the 2nd amendment so long as it still exists. I don't approve of a group called Americans for civil liberties picking and choosing which civil liberties they acknowledge. But it's largely the collectivist interpretation bullshit I take issue with.

My views can get a bit complicated.

 

[cduggles]

The ACLU is not clear in their statement about the policy issues, as above.

However, it should be known that they represented the white supremacists in two lawsuits.

The first one was based on the 1st and 14th Amendment rights of activist Jason Kessler and the protesters to receive a permit to protest in Enancipation Park. They received the permit.

ACLU-VA, RUTHERFORD INSTITUTE FILE SUIT TO UPHOLD RIGHT OF FREE SPEECH FOR ALL; SUE CITY OF CHARLOTTESVILLE

On Aug. 7, the city informed Mr. Kessler that he would only be allowed to hold the rally if it were moved to another location a mile away. The city claimed that “many thousands” of people were likely to attend the rally, including supporters and opponents, and cited safety concerns.

In Mr. Kessler’s complaint, the civil rights organizations have argued that the city is discriminating against his message because it is controversial and unpopular, and that more acceptable views – those of counter-protesters – are being favored. Moving the rally to a different location would dilute Mr. Kessler’s message because the planned location of Emancipation Park is directly related to it, and thus his constitutional rights to free speech, assembly and petition are being violated.

“The ACLU of Virginia stands for the right to free expression for all, not just those whose opinions are in the mainstream or with whom the government agrees,” said ACLU-VA Executive Director Claire Guthrie Gastañaga. “The city’s action is unconstitutional in that it denies Mr. Kessler and his supporters the ability to fully express their views in the location most closely associated with their message while leaving in place permits granted other organizations with opposing views.”

If the ACLU had not defended the white supremacists in the second lawsuit, in which their right to free speech was not suppressed, just moved a bit, then a young woman might be alive and violent altercations might have been avoided.

I realize that the ACLU did not make this distinction.
...

It's worth noting that while supremacists have been successfully challenging legal attempts to deny them the right to assemble or exercise free speech.
...

Also, entities that unwillingly host these rally locations, such as universities, end up paying large amounts of money for security to prevent further casualties.

Costs run six to seven figures. This exorbitant expense, which must be paid in order to ensure that the participants can go home safely, are more likely the driver for trying to deny the white supremacists a venue than stifling their hate speech, in my opinion. I think everyone involved in hosting is more concerned about casualties.

 

[aihfl]

This is the last word I'm going to have on this matter but German complacency --> Nazi Government --> a disastrous war that decimated the populations of Central and Eastern Europe, especially the 20 million plus Soviet deaths and the Holocaust. If you can't think it can happen again, that's when it's going to happen.