White supremacy run amok

[Campitor]

@Campitor:

Terrorism is not limited to swaying votes, nor is that the sole purpose or method of "political influence". Terrorism, as the name implies, is quite literally this: "the fear I felt was real to the point of not leaving my hotel and checking out at 4AM the next day for fear of being attacked".

So the black people who actually did beat me and called me spic and caused me to fear for my life were terrorist committing terrorism? Or were they just bigots whose motivations had no intention of affecting a political change? How about my fellow Hispanics who hated me and harassed me for being South American instead of Latino Caribbean? Were they terrorist? There is no universal definition for terrorism - everyone has an opinion on what it means and it gets co-opted by any group looking to ascribe a level of evil to their targets in order to heighten their rhetoric.

> "If you're white and used to having things and are being told that your advantages are being curtailed because you're white..."

But no white people are losing advantages because they are white. We already covered this and no one chose to continue the line of discussion so I assume there was no argument. The essential difference is one of capital. Poor white males are losing advantages because they're poor, not because they're white or male.

I disagree. When its okay to make fun of a group openly without fear of societal repercussion - the targeted group has lost power and dignity. It's racist when "white privilege" becomes a mean of repressing a dissenting opinion. It's racist when you can openly advocate for minority groups and their interest with society's approval but white people are perceived as racist if they do so. Start a group and label it the NAACaP - the National Association for the Advancement of Caucasian People - and see how it goes. For the record I see nothing wrong with the NAACP or their action to better the condition of people of color or their efforts to promote the positive traditions that minorities and their culture bring.

If an idea is both false and harmful, why should it be defended? Is false and harmful speech even covered by notions of free speech? We don't allow people to spread false fire alarms, do we?

At what point does "We are going to kill you and your entire family" cease to become "harshly spoken words" and cross the line into violence?

1) False and harmful ideas need to be defended because allegations regarding harm and falsehood were often used to suppress the voices speaking out AGAINST slavery or improvement in access and equality. Tomorrow's truth may be consider seditious or false today - history is littered with people who were killed, imprisoned, threatened for speaking "harmful" truths.

2) False fire alarms (yelling fire in a crowded theater?) are illegal because it moves beyond speech and incites a call to action. Saying "I hate <insert your minority/non-minority here>" may be morally reprehensible but still legal and protected speech. Saying "kill <insert your minority/non-minority here>" is a call to action and therefore illegal and its also morally inexcusable. "We are going to kill you and your entire family" is a call to action. I don't defend or condone illegal or immoral calls to actions. I defend speech as long as it doesn't fall into the illegal/immoral call to action category.

[ I believe the fundamental problem that needs resolving is global inequity in capital as an inevitable result of capitalism, a system that served its purpose three hundred years ago but has long since outlived its efficiency once you get to an environment when five old white dudes hold half of all the world's resources and control the world's most powerful governments with their wealth. What that solution looks like, though, I don't know exactly.

So far no one knows how that solution(s) looks like which is why we're still using capitalism as the best necessary evil. And don't confuse crony capitalism with real capitalism - there is a difference. And crony capitalism can't exist without government. As long as there is government (socialist, fascist, capitalist), there will always be cronyism.

[BRUTE]

But does it not concern YOU how much you sound like them?

no. love of muscle cars is orthogonal to love for white supremacy.

[OTCW]

1) False and harmful ideas need to be defended because allegations regarding harm and falsehood were often used to suppress the voices speaking out AGAINST slavery or improvement in access and equality. Tomorrow's truth may be consider seditious or false today - history is littered with people who were killed, imprisoned, threatened for speaking "harmful" truths.

This x 1000.

[Dream of Freedom]

"I do believe part of the solution is getting working class white males to start blaming the 0.1% white male elite for their troubles rather than other poor people who happen to have darker skin."

Why do they have to blame other people at all? It's victim mentality. If people spent as much time trying to improve their own lives as they do trying to tear others down the world would be a much better place.

[Spartan_Warrior]

@FFJ:

"Nobody gives a fuck what the daily stormer has to say."

If you don't give a fuck that your argument in this thread happens to be identical to their own attempts to minimize and de-politicize their actions, that's up to you. But the similarity is likely why some of us found your "Maybe it's not terrorism" defense argument a little off. That is my main reason for pointing it out, to answer the question as to why people might be "jumping all over you".

"I'm guessing that you are the only person on this forum that has ever visited their site."

Hopefully.

"Stop trolling."

Free speech for Nazis, but not for me? I'm not trolling at all and accusations otherwise seem (ironically) like attempts to silence me. "PC run amok" except in reverse.


@bryan:

Again, I'm not lumping people here together or putting words in anyone's mouth that I can see. I didn't call anyone here a Nazi and I still don't think anyone here is. I do find it sociologically interesting that some here are using similar lines of argument and thought patterns, presumably unconsciously, which ties in to my interest in analyzing the kinds of thoughts and beliefs (e.g. white male persecution) that underlie or form a causal connection to the the thoughts and beliefs of white supremacists.

"As for punching nazis or free speech.. the more interesting (and maybe scary) thing to me is how the determination in such matters is made (this guy is a nazi or this subject can be freely spoken and protested for).

Well, when they wear swastikas, beat black people and hold them captive in churches surrounded by torch-wielding mobs, chant "Jews will not replace us", and call themselves Nazis, I don't think there's a lot of ambiguity in saying "this guy is a Nazi".

Which is why the "How do we choose who to restrict" arguments strike me as needlessly complicating and equivocating on an issue that is clear and obvious in this case and most cases that matter. It's an implicit slippery slope argument that if we restrict the free speech and gathering rights of Nazis, KKK, and other problematic ideologies we must eventually necessarily restrict the rights of everyone. Well, slippery slopes are logical fallacies for a reason.

Germany--which presumably has the most experience dealing with these people--managed to "de-nazify" and ban Nazi symbols and open gatherings while retaining rights to free speech and assembly for everyone else.

Shouldn't that fact alone be sufficient to defeat the slippery slope argument?

@Campitor:

"So the black people who actually did beat me and called me spic and caused me to fear for my life were terrorist committing terrorism? Or were they just bigots whose motivations had no intention of affecting a political change?"

Was their beating of you politically motivated or did they just not want strangers in their hood? Were they part of a registered hate group with clear and announced political motivations to annihilate you?

I'll give you that terrorism can be an ambiguous term, but not in this case, and neither of your examples strikes me as qualitatively similar to avowed white supremacists holding a hate rally during which they beat up minorities and run over protesters.

"When its okay to make fun of a group openly without fear of societal repercussion - the targeted group has lost power and dignity."

It's "okay" to make fun of white males according to who? Are there examples of this anti-white male bias, particularly examples that indicate this bias is "okay" and accepted at a systemic level?

Assuming that they did lose their power and dignity, was that loss because of anti-white male bias?

"It's racist when you can openly advocate for minority groups and their interest with society's approval but white people are perceived as racist if they do so."

As you yourself pointed out in your previous post, whites are not a minority group. They are the dominant culture in America. Every institution is primed toward their benefit, starting with the US Constitution itself, a document written of, by, and for genocidal white slaveowners.

Minority groups for the advancement of non-white males exist primarily to reverse the effects of imperial-colonialism that white males inflicted on everyone else. Historical oppression, in other words.

Whereas groups for the advancement of white males are premised on a fiction of oppression. Rather big difference.

Which brings us to...

"1) False and harmful ideas need to be defended because allegations regarding harm and falsehood were often used to suppress the voices speaking out AGAINST slavery or improvement in access and equality. Tomorrow's truth may be consider seditious or false today - history is littered with people who were killed, imprisoned, threatened for speaking "harmful" truths."

This strikes me as a particularly modern way of thinking--that false and harmful ideas deserve equal footing with objective reality, and everyone's beliefs are to be treated equally no matter how absurd or harmful. I actually don't think that's what the Enlightenment era founders intended nor do I think it's a particularly healthy default for society. You're also conflating "harmful falsehoods" with "truths perceived as harmful at the time but were actually truths". White supremacy and its little cousin white persecution simply are not "harmful truths" that will someday be proven correct. Those speaking out against slavery were right. Those speaking for it were wrong. Those speaking out against the flat Earth were right. Those who killed for their delusions were wrong. Some things just don't require moral nor factual relativity.

"2) False fire alarms (yelling fire in a crowded theater?) are illegal because it moves beyond speech and incites a call to action. Saying "I hate <insert your minority/non-minority here>" may be morally reprehensible but still legal and protected speech. Saying "kill <insert your minority/non-minority here>" is a call to action and therefore illegal and its also morally inexcusable. "We are going to kill you and your entire family" is a call to action. I don't defend or condone illegal or immoral calls to actions. I defend speech as long as it doesn't fall into the illegal/immoral call to action category."

Perhaps this is essential to the difference of opinion. IMO rallies like this weekend's are quite clearly "calls to action".

Some of you seem to be under the impression that this was just an ordinary peaceful political protest of some statue being removed. That the only reason violence occurred is because counter-protesters were there. In reality it was a hate rally. Do I need to elaborate as to what that is and what it means? They were there specifically to incite violence. That is in fact the entire modus operandi of the KKK, and this was the largest open-air rally they've had in decades.

White supremacists beat black man with poles in Charlottesville

This is the kind of thing they came to do and encourage. I would think this kind of example should put an end to the "But they were just there to talk, not to actually hurt anyone" line of bullshit.

They were there to hurt people. They are all about hurting people.

"And don't confuse crony capitalism with real capitalism - there is a difference."

What is the difference?

@Dream of Freedom:

"Why do they have to blame other people at all? It's victim mentality. If people spent as much time trying to improve their own lives as they do trying to tear others down the world would be a much better place."

IMO there are legitimate reasons for poor white males to complain. They are simply related to their poverty, not their whiteness or maleness. You are perhaps right, though. It's not individual capitalists they ought to blame, but the system of capitalism itself.

And perhaps "blame" is not even right. Maybe "hold responsible as a causal factor."


----

A few more articles on what happened.

Charlottesville: far-right crowd with torches encircles counter-protest group

A reckoning in Charlottesville

[GandK]

If people spent as much time trying to improve their own lives as they do trying to tear others down the world would be a much better place.

Yes.

What is end game here? Of the thread, I mean, and others like it. Knowledge and understanding? Reasoned debate? To identify the like-minded, and dissenters? To change minds?

If the latter, there's a problem. Nobody changes his opinion on a moral issue because someone he's never even met argues with him about it. Evangelism 101 says you have to have both relationship and respect in place already if you expect to sway someone even an inch on their beliefs. Any of their beliefs. One can't change people's minds on major issues by informing them that they're wrong, let alone by shaming, belittling, insulting and swearing at them. The best you will ever manage going that route is to send them off to a different corner of the world/internet to continue holding the same view, now resenting and potentially hating you (and maybe people who think like you, too). Take a look at the present splintering of the U.S. to see the result of that tactic. Does more of the same look like a profitable endeavor? Not to me.

I've avoided the forum lately. Apart from a mean case of clinical depression, I'm tired of all the yelling, on forum and off. Over the last year, otherwise reasonable people all over the political spectrum have transformed into Gollum, snarling and muttering over their "precious" point of view, completely uncaring that they've moved past not caring about other people [of whatever position or color], past demonization of them, and are now squarely on the path to harming/killing just to get them out of the way.

[Jean]

Spartan warrior. You seem to refuse to see them as people. I start to think that it is because you miss violence in your life, and you hope it will be the only way out, that you refuse the possibility that those people aren't white supremacist. If you need violence in your life, go join organised crime, but stop trying to involve everybody in a civil war. If you don't want violence, give the possibility that they aren't as bad a chance.

[Spartan_Warrior]

@GandK, others making the same point:

Why do I have to justify the "purpose" of this thread amidst every other thread expressing political opinions and theories? What makes this thread so controversial?

"now squarely on the path to harming/killing just to get them out of the way."

Wait, did I advocate killing a person to get them out of the way?


@Jean:

More horseshoe theory.

White supremacists: "Die nigger!" ::bludgeons person with poles:: ::runs over crowd of people::
Spartan_Warrior: "This is problematic and must be stopped at all costs."
Jean: "Spartan_Warrior just needs violence in his life!"


It occurs to me you both have just put words/beliefs in my mouth.

[Jean]

You dont read me and you make a fool of yourself.

[Spartan_Warrior]

Nazism and white supremacy isn't a type of "people", it's a political ideology and belief system.

I never advocated for killing anyone or even particularly for violence, especially not outside of self-defense.

I would, though, love to see their belief system die. Failing that, I'd also be quite happy with the outcome @GandK described, for starters:

"send(ing) them off to a different corner of the world/internet to continue holding the same view, now resenting and potentially hating you (and maybe people who think like you, too)"

They already hate me and people who think like me, so no difference there. And yeah, I have no problem at all with those who support white supremacy retreating back to the darkness of ever-decreasing, hood-hidden "safe spaces" where they can drown each other (figuratively) in their own hate. Sounds like a move in the right direction to me.

[Spartan_Warrior]

@FFJ: Importantly, though, it wasn't really a "rash conclusion" or a "wild accusation". It really was immediately obvious what the situation was to anyone with 1) all of the facts and 2) no reason to deny or mitigate the situation. Clearly Nazis fail the latter as the alt-right now has something of a media shitstorm on its hands (hopefully) and all the reason in the world to deny association and/or downplay the severity of the incident. On the other hand, I fully and without sarcasm accept that your reason for raising speculation and doubt really is simple devil's advocacy and/or temperance of judgment. I already said so, if I recall. Again, my main reason for linking to Daily Stormer was to clarify why some could be upset by your words and perceive them as mounting a defense of the terrorist. Which, again, technically it was, but I get the motivation.

Much like I'm sure @Brute just loves cars.

I apologize if I implied otherwise. My intent was mainly to highlight the optics, the similarity in the statements, not necessarily the similarity in motivations. And I did ask if that similarity was concerning to any of you. I read you there, too.

It's all only secondarily related to the point of the thread, though, and irrelevant now that it's pretty indisputable the incident was exactly what it appeared to be.

[Spartan_Warrior]

And sorry, but I have to push back a little more against this insinuation that this thread's purpose needs to be justified somehow.

A woman was killed by a Nazi on US soil in the year 2017.

The US was just attacked by a terrorist organization operating in broad daylight.

The same or similar terrorist groups have killed nearly twice as many Americans since 9/11 as Jihadists.

That's also far more than political correctness has killed, to whoever called that a more widespread problem. Other popular topics on this subforum include Venezuela, climate change, Trump, Obamacare, political ideologies, and poverty. I don't see how discussing white supremacy is jarringly different in quality, significantly more or less important, or significantly more or less charged, in and of itself. Beyond what each of us brings to it.

And I'm sure I brought some baggage into the conversation. It's an emotional conversation. Again, we just experienced a terrorist attack.

I apologize if my tone has been discouraging or divisive, but I have to note again the irony of the optics when my tone is enough to question the need for this topic, while at the same time others are advocating the importance of free speech for literal Nazis.

So if this isn't the right place or time to talk about it, then where, and when?

[OTCW]

Free speach is important to everybody in the US. Limit it because the majority find it repugnant, and every other topic is fair game. Screw that.

[Spartan_Warrior]

@OTCW: That's a slippery slope fallacy with little basis or precedent in reality that I am aware of. There is, however, evidence to the contrary. Germany--which presumably has the most experience dealing with these people--managed to "de-nazify" and ban Nazi symbols and open gatherings while retaining robust rights to free speech and assembly for everyone else.

Shouldn't that fact alone be sufficient to defeat the slippery slope argument?

[OTCW]

@OTCW: That's a slippery slope fallacy with little basis or precedent in reality that I am aware of. There is, however, evidence to the contrary. Germany--which presumably has the most experience dealing with these people--managed to "de-nazify" and ban Nazi symbols and open gatherings while retaining robust rights to free speech and assembly for everyone else.

Shouldn't that fact alone be sufficient to defeat the slippery slope argument?

The ACLU disagrees. As does the constitution. You clearly have good intents, but it doesn't work that way in the US even if you want it to. Banning speech because you don't like it wouldn't make it through the courts. Nor should it.

[Spartan_Warrior]

You sure?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_ ... ed_theater

[OTCW]

You sure?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_ ... ed_theater

1. Not liking people is not a crime.
2. Doesn't apply to rallies or speech where the purpose is to say (no matter how vile) your peace. They had a permit to do so. The ACLU backed them up on this. Theaters are public places open to anyone. Different deal altogether.

It's a bad precedent. I'm against it, so yes I'm as sure as I can be on this. I Don't want to go down that path for any reason. I Don't want to argue it on a message board either. I've said my peace.

[BRUTE]

A woman was killed by a Nazi on US soil in the year 2017.

The US was just attacked by a terrorist organization operating in broad daylight.

The same or similar terrorist groups have killed nearly twice as many Americans since 9/11 as Jihadists.

terrorism works by making humans irrational, assigning way too much importance to a few deaths compared to their actual impact. cigarettes kill more than terrorists. so do car crashes. terrorism is just very dramatic.

just as brute disapproved of the frothing at the mouth over jihadist terrorism, he also doesn't approve of similar outrage over white supremacist terrorism. attention is what terrorists want, and over-size reactions that aren't rationally warranted. like all the TSA bullshit after 9/11.

effective policing to prevent these terrorist plots, sure. but dramatic displays of fear over the whole population, making everyone's life miserable? no.

it is hard to compare these effects, of course, but brute is actually convinced that the aggregate negative effect of white supremacy is far below the aggregate negative effect of political correctness. nobody has directly died from PC, but brute isn't convinced that 1 death is worse than, say, lowering the GDP by 1%, or making 100 million humans miserable every work day, and so on. this has indirect effects on actual lives too - more money to be spent on health care, food, foreign aid, could have saved way more than 1 life.

also, interestingly, brute takes a similar position to this to the one Dragline had towards the Trump election: the fault of the white supremacist attacks lies with the white supremacists. no discussion needed. it's not whites, males, white males, enablers in the white house (ZOMG! coincidence?). it's simply aggressive assholes that are looking for an excuse to be violent.

[Spartan_Warrior]

@FFJ:

Video: "We should want Nazis to march in the streets."

Um... no thank you? LOL.

Aside from that, I obviously don't have the patience to go piece by piece through every line of argument in a 22 minute video. The gist, however, seems to be that people ideologically opposed to Nazi rallies inherently represent a fringe position "like communism", and that it's self-defeating for anyone with such fringe opinions to look to the government for defense. There are merits to that argument, to be honest.

However, my responses would be: 1) anti-fascism in and of itself shouldn't really be a fringe opinion (and I still hope that it isn't). 2) It's still a slippery slope argument that placing limits on the rights of a specified group of violent political ideologies will necessarily lead to suppressing the rights of other groups, fringe or otherwise.

Moreover, I personally don't expect the government to do what's right, not generally speaking and not in the case of suppressing the rise of white supremacist violence. Rather I expect them to enshrine and defend it. All accounts I've heard indicate that had those citizens not been there, the violence done by the alt-right to other citizens would have been worse. The lack of police intervention for the safety of anyone on either side has been reported, by both sides.

I definitely have no illusions that what is legal or Constitutional is necessarily moral either, or vice versa.

That's why I lean more in support of the efforts of the citizens of Charlottesville and all other good-hearted civilians who took it upon themselves to stand together in protest of the rally and in protection of those most threatened. The streets of their city belong to the people, not to out of state white supremacists nor to the government that sanctioned their presence.

The thing is, if you're going to argue against citizens taking direct action through counter-protests and the like, AND you argue against legal enforcement and restrictions that would obviate the need for the former, what solutions to the problem of protecting the marginalized does that leave you?

This guy's proposal seems to be to just ignore them and they'll go away. Again, as I said on page 1, that seems like a demonstrably wrong approach when the metrics that would seem indicative of "going away" are in fact moving the opposite direction.

Ignoring the problem seems like a great way to let their ideology continue to spread to a population caught in one of the crises of end-stage capitalism and thus particularly susceptible to fascism, as history has shown. Especially if it is also taboo to discuss much less dispel the thought processes and motivations that lead these ideologies to thrive.

So is there some fourth option that you would suggest? Not restricting their rights through government, not confronting them as private citizens, and not simply ignoring them in the hopes their ideas will fade?

@OTCW:

I didn't say not liking people is a crime. But there is legal precedent in the US that activities that present a "clear and present danger" of "imminent lawless activity" are not protected by free speech. Once that line is crossed, whether issued a permit or not, your assembly and speech rights are not guaranteed. That would be my understanding of the current case law.

The disagreement and ambiguity seems to be over where the line is between "speaking their peace" and promoting "lawless activity".

Once there are 500 of them surrounding 20 activists with torches, beating them and chanting racial epithets, I'd say the line is pretty thoroughly crossed, though. Regardless of what the ACLU has to say, frankly.

[Dragline]

it is hard to compare these effects, of course, but brute is actually convinced that the aggregate negative effect of white supremacy is far below the aggregate negative effect of political correctness. nobody has directly died from PC, but brute isn't convinced that 1 death is worse than, say, lowering the GDP by 1%, or making 100 million humans miserable every work day, and so on. this has indirect effects on actual lives too - more money to be spent on health care, food, foreign aid, could have saved way more than 1 life.

Well, the data says you are wrong.

I would assume that you have data to support that PC causes any damage other than to snowflakes who don't like to be criticized/annoyed or see their world changing? I mean along the lines of "lowering the GDP by 1%, or making 100 million humans miserable every work day." Those are fairly serious numbers that I expect would have been documented in some way.

In reality, the death toll since 2001 is right winger hundreds and leftist PCers zero.

White supremacists and other far right terrorists commit terrorist acts every year and twice as many as Islamic-related terrorists, although the overall death toll is similar. More important, despite angry sputterings on the internet and elsewhere, nobody died of "PC".

Here is the report from Trump administration in April of this year (I wonder if he read it -- he was warned of this problem in May and did nothing; I am guessing this missed his censor brigade who were focused on suppressing environmental stuff): http://www.gao.gov/assets/690/683984.pdf

These are the terrorists who committed hundreds of murders as described in the report:

"Far right violent extremist attackers are characterized by ECDB [US Extremist Crime Database] as having
beliefs that include some or all of the following:
• Fiercely nationalistic (as opposed to universal and international in
orientation);
• Anti-global;
• Suspicious of centralized federal authority;
• Reverent of individual liberty (especially right to own guns; be free of
taxes);
• Belief in conspiracy theories that involve a grave threat to national
sovereignty and/or personal liberty;
• Belief that one’s personal and/or national “way of life” is under attack
and is either already lost or that the threat is imminent; and
• Belief in the need to be prepared for an attack either by participating
in or supporting the need for paramilitary preparations and training or
survivalism.

In addition, according to the ECDB, many persons having violent extreme
far right views express support for some version of white supremacy, the
Ku Klux Klan, and neo-Nazism."

Meanwhile, the total casualties of far-left and any alleged "PC" acts is exactly zero:

"During this period [2001 - 2016], no persons in the United States were killed in attacks carried out by persons believed to be
motivated by extremist environmental beliefs, extremist “animal liberation” beliefs, or extremist far left beliefs."

Again, if you have data you would like to present, please do so. If not, I take it your views are either based on selective anecdotes or your own subjective experiences and speculations, correct?