Berkely Riots

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**jasper76**

Vaktathi wrote:
None of these are stricly Fascist in and of themselves. They can be attibuted to many forms of government

Likewise, most of this is rather selective interpretations of actions based on a rather extreme fringe group.

/pedantic

I'll meet you halfway on your first point.

As to your second, yes, Antifa is an extreme fringe group. But that's who we've been discussing. They're the ones hiding behind masks, dressed in black and red, assaulting people, tossing firecrackers at people, and destroying property. I don't see how I'm being selective when these are clear patterns of behavior that Antifa is establishing. Care to elaborate? Have I missed your second point?

**Frazzled**

Arrest them. Learn their identity. Hit them with the RICO organized crime statutes.

Same for the Trumpsters that violate the law.

"What is the "Law?"
"He who breaks the Law must go to the House of Pain!"

**whembly**

Seems germane to the topic on hand...

Editorial | We shouldn't need to say it — but free speech matters

At Penn, it is not particularly dangerous to be a journalist. We, the staff of Penn’s student newspaper, are grateful for that. We are grateful that our opinion columnists may assume that if they air an unpopular or controversial viewpoint, they will not be physically assaulted. We are grateful that, when our reporters publish unflattering truths, they are not threatened with sanction or harm.

We feel entitled to rely on these assumptions because we do not do our work in Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey or Vladimir Putin’s Russia, but on the campus of a prestigious American university, where, generally, liberal norms of peaceable dispute and nonviolence are, we believe, deeply ingrained.

It is therefore alarming to observe what seems to be the fraying of these norms on some American campuses. It is deeply concerning that, at least among some fellow students at peer schools, the academic norm of resolving our ideological disputes with words instead of fists seems to be weakening.

In recent weeks, at the University of California at Berkeley and Middlebury College, students turned to physical violence to prevent speeches by guests whom they found objectionable.

Given the extensive prior coverage of and commentary on these events in other publications, we would ordinarily see no need to chime in. However, we have been specifically disappointed that some other student newspapers’ editorial boards are not standing up for the principles of free speech and dialogue on which student newspapers depend.

Following the riot on Berkeley’s campus, its student paper’s editorial stopped short of condemning those who engaged in it outright. Middlebury’s student paper, The Middlebury Campus, said nothing after an attack on controversial scholar Charles Murray put the professor moderating his talk in the hospital. Faced with a controversy over the invitation of provocative Canadian scholar Jordan Peterson, whose positions on pronoun-usage many students view as hateful towards transgender individuals, to speak at Harvard University, The Crimson criticized what it characterized as “unqualified support of [free speech]” as “tone-deaf.”

Perhaps most alarmingly, The Wellesley News, with whom we collaborated on our election endorsement in November, went a step further, appearing, in a frankly disturbing editorial, to endorse “hostility” against those who “refuse to adapt their beliefs.” Following closely as it did upon the heels of the events at Berkeley and Middlebury, it requires an exceptionally charitable reading to interpret that remark as something other than a conditional endorsement of violence.

Amid these disappointments, we wish to clearly reaffirm some basic principles. Violence is never, under any circumstance whatsoever, an appropriate or acceptable response to the peaceable exchange of ideas, however hateful or otherwise reprehensible they might be. A speaker’s freedom from violence must be absolute. If individuals choose, as they did at Middlebury and Berkeley, to respond to speech with violence, the moral fault is theirs and theirs alone. Speech is not violence. No misguided notion of self-defense can justify responding to the former with the latter.

The willingness to let someone speak on a college campus must not be confused with endorsement of the views expressed. Penn students have exemplified this in their reactions to the homophobic “preachers” whose appearance on campus has now become something of a routine.

The term “hate speech” can be useful for the purpose of arguing that some speech ought not to be taken seriously. Subjectively applying the label, however, does not render the speech in question legally or ethically subject to violent or coercive suppression. “Hate speech” is too flexible a concept to be used in this way. Even when we are firmly convinced that a speaker’s positions are motivated by hatred, to threaten or carry out physical aggression remains, always, an unacceptable response.

And so we say what we wish our peers would have the conviction to: Never perpetrate violence in the name of attacking hate speech, and shame on those who fail to condemn such violence. You do yourselves and the rest of us a great disservice.

Spoiler:

**Vaktathi**

jasper76 wrote:
Vaktathi wrote:
None of these are stricly Fascist in and of themselves. They can be attibuted to many forms of government

Likewise, most of this is rather selective interpretations of actions based on a rather extreme fringe group.

/pedantic

I'll meet you halfway on your first point.

As to your second, yes, Antifa is an extreme fringe group. But that's who I'm discussing. I don't see how I'm being selective when there are clear patterns of behavior that Antifa is establishing. Care to elaborate?

there's lots of people showing up to these events. Most arent interested in violence on either side and most dont get involved in such acts. "Antifa" is a very wide label used across many nations to mean a multitude of things from a broader spectrum than is traditionally applied to Facism. While Fascism basically inherently involves the use of force on some level (and the term is often used inappropriately), "antifa" doesnt have anything near the same political cohesion in terms of doctrine and approach and encompasses a much wider variety of political viewpoints and choice of methods, from radical revolutionary anarchism/communism (e.g. the old spanish POUM of the 1930's) to nonviolent blocking of neonazi marches (such as in Germany) to simple weekend protesting.

Unless we're using "antifa" in a very narrow range to refer to just the people doing stupid gak in Berkely, in which case, I'll concede the point.

**jasper76**

Thanks for sharing the article Whembley. I'm glad these students have the gonads to stand up for basic liberal principles.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Vaktathi wrote:

Unless we're using "antifa" in a very narrow range to refer to just the people doing stupid gak in Berkely, in which case, I'll concede the point.

Thanks for the clarification, Vaktathi. I am probably doing a little of the above, bit I'm not sure this is limited to Berkeley. I've seen vids of antifa dressed people playing at thugs in multiple cities. Portland seems to be a big one. I'd suggest to you that this kind of behavior may not be as limited as you perceive.

**Vaktathi**

jasper76 wrote:
Thanks for sharing the article Whembley. I'm glad these students have the gonads to stand up for basic liberal principles.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Vaktathi wrote:

Unless we're using "antifa" in a very narrow range to refer to just the people doing stupid gak in Berkely, in which case, I'll concede the point.

Thanks for the clarification, Vaktathi. I am probably doing a little of the above, bit I'm not sure this is limited to Berkeley. I've seen vids of antifa dressed people playing at thugs in multiple cities. Portland seems to be a big one. I'd suggest to you that this kind of behavior may not be as limited as you perceive.

perhaps, thats always possible, we all live in our own bubbles of perception and I'm certainly not immune to that, but at least in Portland, from my experience, most of these are extremely young types that are more into "row row fight the powah" than anything else, and would take advantage of any large "fight the man" event to just run amok. I dont think there is any clear ideology or intent beyond that with most of them. As I've noted elsewhere, the types rioting in Portland and causing damage did so to the area of town that is an enclave for HRC's donor class

Edit: that said, upon somr reflection, he local ruffians are also likely different from the types actively travelling to these locations as well, those are the types that seem to be causing issues at Berkely

**Kilkrazy**

Personally I am glad to see the young left getting jiggy with it. It's about time the SJWs stopped talking and started acting.

Bring back the spirit of 1968!

**jasper76**

Kilkrazy wrote:
Personally I am glad to see the young left getting jiggy with it. It's about time the SJWs stopped talking and started acting.

Bring back the spirit of 1968!

I wasn't alive then. Did the hippies assault the people they disagreed with? Did they throw explosives at the squares?

**kronk**

Militant hippyism doesn't work!

See also: PETA, Greenpeace.

**Frazzled**

Kilkrazy wrote:
Personally I am glad to see the young left getting jiggy with it. It's about time the SJWs stopped talking and started acting.

Bring back the spirit of 1968!

Except they are not protesting cops, they are fighting Trump supporters. Trump supporters will-as occurred-kick their ass.

**Bran Dawri**

jasper76 wrote:

and everyone else who didn't think like me was stupid. But I never had any desire to hurt people, shut them up, or take their stuff..

I still think that about myself.

**Galas**

I only want to say that speech can be in fact violence.

Psicological violence isn't violence? And I don't say this to justificate anything about this.

But is normal when, presented with a extremism, the opposed extremism do his move to normalize itself.

Speech shouldn't be responded with violence. I agree with that. But that doesn't means that words can't be in fact violence against a individual or a group. Thats work for the legal system althought, not to violent people in the street.

**Frazzled**

Galas wrote:
I only want to say that speech can be in fact violence.

Psicological violence isn't violence? And I don't say this to justificate anything about this.

But is normal when, presented with a extremism, the opposed extremism do his move to normalize itself.

Speech shouldn't be responded with violence. I aggre with that. But that doesn't means that words can't be in fact violence against a individual or a group. Thats work for the legislation system altought, not to violent people in the street.

We'll have to agree to disagree. We have the First Amendment here to help insure this view doesn't make it out of the university system (and Kalifornia).

Besides, sticks and stones break my bones but if you talk during the movie I will throw a pissed off wiener dog at your face!

**Galas**

Well. I was talking about people commiting suicide after 20 years of psicological violence from their wife/husband. Children ending his lives after years of bullying from their companions.

That phrase is a nice thing to say but reality is very different.

But yes. Here we don't have Free Spech as a fundamental right, so our mentality is very different in many things.

**Frazzled**

Galas wrote:
Well. I was talking about people commiting suicide after 20 years of psicological violence from their wife/husband. Children ending his lives after years of bullying from their companions.

Ok now I get where you are going. I'd categorize those a bit differently as abuse/harassment. I am referring more to political speech.

That phrase is a nice thing to say but reality is very different.

What phrase, you best not be dissin my wiener.

But yes. Here we don't have Free Spech as a fundamental right, so our mentality is very different in many things.

Yes it really is a fundamental difference to the US and many other countries. Alas I fear it is slipping. I blame disco.

**Vaktathi**

Even in the US, not all speech is protected, you cannot make imminent direct threats for instance. You can say "all X people should die" and be fine legally speaking, but not "hey you, X guy over there, I'm gonna come kill you because you're X".

Now, that line can get real fuzzy sometimes, as can the line between speech and action, and that's usually where we start to get issues like the ones we see now, particularly when coupled with echo chamber media that dramatically distorts the truth on both sides.

However the US does tolerate and allow stuff even other ostensibly "free" democratic nations do not in regards to speech, the US typically errs on the side of greater personal freedom in exchange for greater potential disruption/discomfort moreso than other nations.

**Kilkrazy**

jasper76 wrote:
Kilkrazy wrote:
Personally I am glad to see the young left getting jiggy with it. It's about time the SJWs stopped talking and started acting.

Bring back the spirit of 1968!

I wasn't alive then. Did the hippies assault the people they disagreed with? Did they throw explosives at the squares?

Explosives, bricks, barricades, petrol bombs. It was a glorious reminder of the riots of 1848.

**jmurph**

Yeah, it's why this kind of violence is insidious.
Think of it like dogs:
Group A can bark whatever they want. Group B can counterbark. They can bark at each other all day. But when A or B gets physical, party over and time to start making arrests. When A&B come to the location with weapons, it's clearly not barking any more, they are looking to bite. Supporting one or the other biting undermines the whole system- we don't protect biting! The whole goal is to have a system where everyone can bark and no biting!

To extend the analogy, we also don't protect snapping, because that is a provocation to bite.

Riots are right out. Riot if you want, but be prepared for the consequences.

**Stevefamine**

jmurph wrote:
Riots are right out. Riot if you want, but be prepared for the consequences.

I'll await the mass antifa/communist/anarchist arrests that won't happen

**feeder**

Stevefamine wrote:
jmurph wrote:
Riots are right out. Riot if you want, but be prepared for the consequences.

I'll await the mass antifa/communist/anarchist arrests that won't happen

Mass arrests are a hallmark of an oppressive government.

**Iron_Captain**

Rosebuddy wrote:
jasper76 wrote:
cuda1179 wrote:
Their group claims to be anti-facist, yet (ironically enough) states that they believe that not everyone should have the right to openly discuss their views and that most views should be legally banned.

And the irony here seems completely lost on them. The few people I've discussed this stuff with that are actually supportive of Antifa tactics and goals seem genuinely unaware that they are acting more like fascists than those they oppose.

Do they terrorise ethnic, sexual and religious minorities? Do they demand absolute deferral to the authorities? Do they strive towards the establishment of a supreme nation-state based on the spiritual connection between blood and soil? Are they overwhelmingly from the middle class and working in tandem with the owning class to protect capitalist interests from the workers' movement?

Their goals maybe different, but their tactics are eerily similar. Antifa is a classic example of gazing into the abyss for too long.

**Tactical_Spam**

feeder wrote:
Stevefamine wrote:
jmurph wrote:
Riots are right out. Riot if you want, but be prepared for the consequences.

I'll await the mass antifa/communist/anarchist arrests that won't happen

Mass arrests are a hallmark of an oppressive government.

So if there are a lot of people rioting, we shouldn't arrest them because it's oppressive?

**Easy E**

Wasn't this topic why the US Politics thread got locked? Then this thread starts?

I am so confused.

**Prestor Jon**

Kilkrazy wrote:
Personally I am glad to see the young left getting jiggy with it. It's about time the SJWs stopped talking and started acting.

Bring back the spirit of 1968!

Do any of these riots even have a point?

The footage from the Berkley shenanigans makes it look like half the people are there just to record videos on their smartphones or talk selfies hoping that somebody else does something noteworthy, a third of the people are there just because they think its a cool thing to do, a quarter of the people there are trying to make some sort of inarticulate political point and a small minority are there just to break stuff because breaking stuff is fun.

There was widespread domestic terrorism and bombings in the 1960s and 1970s but at least they tried to cloak most of it with some kind of semi coherent agenda.

**BobtheInquisitor**

whembly wrote:
Simply stated, it's an event where multiple groups are looking for trouble.

If it were me, once the riot starts... start arresting everyone and put 'em on the bus.

I agree with everything but the bus part because I don't know which bus you are talking about.

The bus to Oakland? Seems a bit harsh.

**Prestor Jon**

Easy E wrote:
Wasn't this topic why the US Politics thread got locked? Then this thread starts?

I am so confused.

Everybody in the "riot" at Berkley seemed confused too so you're not alone.

**BobtheInquisitor**

Man, I just don't know what's going on in the Bay Area anymore. Back in my day, the serious protestors used to escalate by removing some clothing.

**Dreadclaw69**

Kilkrazy wrote:
Personally I am glad to see the young left getting jiggy with it. It's about time the SJWs stopped talking and started acting.

Bring back the spirit of 1968!

You're "glad to see the young left getting jiggy with" black bloc tactics, shutting down free speech, the assaults on others, the launching of bottles, and the use of fireworks on people that they disagree with?

Automatically Appended Next Post:

feeder wrote:
Mass arrests are a hallmark of an oppressive government.

So would mass arrests during massive public disturbance be the hallmark of an oppressive government?

**JohnHwangDD**

Frazzled wrote:
cuda1179 wrote:
A while back I bought a full suit of surplus police riot gear. It would be fun to see how much of a beating that stuff could hold up to.

Wait, from where? Daddy Needs him his Zombie Games uniform...and pronto!

Ha! Back in the day, I saw an actual flak jacket in a surplus store. Decided I didn't need it. Now, kinda wish I'd have gotten it, just to have.

**Vaktathi**

Prestor Jon wrote:
Kilkrazy wrote:
Personally I am glad to see the young left getting jiggy with it. It's about time the SJWs stopped talking and started acting.

Bring back the spirit of 1968!

Do any of these riots even have a point?

The footage from the Berkley shenanigans makes it look like half the people are there just to record videos on their smartphones or talk selfies hoping that somebody else does something noteworthy, a third of the people are there just because they think its a cool thing to do, a quarter of the people there are trying to make some sort of inarticulate political point and a small minority are there just to break stuff because breaking stuff is fun.

That's pretty much it. Crazy people go somewhere to stir up trouble that other people are too willing to oblige while different media push their own narratives to advance their own agenda or for profit, driving the crazies even crazier to set up for the next cycle.

There was widespread domestic terrorism and bombings in the 1960s and 1970s but at least they tried to cloak most of it with some kind of semi coherent agenda.

the big key here is that in general this stuff is not widespread, it's localized to a handful of areas that most people already see as political hotspots, and the actual violence is rather limited and tame by the standards of political violence, nobody is being killed or maimed or crippled for life, buildings arent burning down, law enforcement is neither fleeing nor overreacting in most cases thus far, etc. Many a sporting event has seen more violence than this.

Hopefully that remains the case.