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Bran Dawri wrote:
Then again, National socialist, so technically, y'know, left. And fascist.

Oh christ not this rubbish again.

The Supreme Court has also ruled that incitement isnt protected speech, and if a rally openly brandishing the swastika and chanting anti-jewish slogans is not incitement to violence, i cant imagine what is...

Also, private businesses and individuals arent restricted by the first ammendment - the government is. You can carry a swastika flag around all you want and wont be arrested, but your employer is also allowed to take exception and fire you.

 Crazyterran wrote:
The Supreme Court has also ruled that incitement isnt protected speech, and if a rally openly brandishing the swastika and chanting anti-jewish slogans is not incitement to violence, i cant imagine what is...

Brandishing swastika and chanting anti-jewish slogans by definition is protected speech.

It takes quite a bit to be ding'ed for incitement.... for instance, this did not reach that incitement qualifier.

Also, private businesses and individuals arent restricted by the first ammendment - the government is. You can carry a swastika flag around all you want and wont be arrested, but your employer is also allowed to take exception and fire you.

Yup.

I think it's pretty chilling to watch people get fired and villified because they made political arguments. If we value open, public debate then we need to make sure that people are comfortable making their point without fear of losing their jobs and being declared pariahs. That said, there are still basic practicalities that every person has to acknowledge. If you're going to make controversial political claims, don't do it while publicly affiliated with your company. Companies are extremely brand conscious, extremely scared of boycott, and odds are you're an at will employee.

We're nowhere near understanding how those two things interact

As to the ridiculous points the employee was trying to make;

The marchers in Charlottesville were nazis. Of course they were nazis. People who march with swastikas and chant 'blood and soil' are nazis. It is absurd that this nutter tried to argue otherwise, and downright depressing that some on dakka are attempting some kind of defense of the claim.

The other thing attempted by the employee is that what happened in Charlottesville should only be assessed in terms of violence. Everyone who used violence was bad, and that's that. This is ridiculous. Obviously motive matters. It doesn't excuse violence done by the other side, but it provides a very important context. Sure, antifa and other affiliated groups who went to fight were bad, but the nazis and affiliates went there to fight to further their white supremacist values - obviously that's way worse.

 Crazyterran wrote:
The Supreme Court has also ruled that incitement isnt protected speech, and if a rally openly brandishing the swastika and chanting anti-jewish slogans is not incitement to violence, i cant imagine what is...

The phrase you're looking for is imminent lawless action. Anti-Jewish slogans are not legally considered incitement to violence unless you're actually telling people to go beat up Jews. Saying you don't like Jews, why you don't like Jews or even that you'll beat up Jews in the indeterminate future is not.

 whembly wrote:

 Crazyterran wrote:
The Supreme Court has also ruled that incitement isnt protected speech, and if a rally openly brandishing the swastika and chanting anti-jewish slogans is not incitement to violence, i cant imagine what is...

Brandishing swastika and chanting anti-jewish slogans by definition is protected speech.

It takes quite a bit to be ding'ed for incitement.... for instance, this did not reach that incitement qualifier.

Also, private businesses and individuals arent restricted by the first ammendment - the government is. You can carry a swastika flag around all you want and wont be arrested, but your employer is also allowed to take exception and fire you.

Yup.

This seems to be one of the major causes of contention and lack of understanding.

How often do we see this scenario:

Person A: I don't like donuts! Ban donuts and their evil ways!
Person B: I disagree with you! Donuts are the best! Don't bad mouth donuts!
Person A: You can't say that! Your restricting my freedom of speech!

Freedom of speech is not the right to say what you wish without criticism or consequence.

Bran Dawri wrote:
Then again, I'm pretty sure that Nazi is a contraction of National-Sozialist, so when he says nationalism isn't inextricably tied to nazism, he's wrong. Then again, National socialist, so technically, y'know, left. And fascist.

No. There were socialist elements to Nazism in the beginning, and that was when the party was named. There was a brand of national socialism that was socialist. It's three key figures, Ernst Rohm leader of the SA, and the Strasser brothers, were powerful at the beginning of the movement, when they got 'socialist' included in the name of the party.

But this socialist element of nazism was a weird kind of socialism. They weren't internationalist, and they still really, really hated Jews and communists. So while they argued for stuff like bank nationalisation, they were still radical right wing in a lot of ways. One of the Strasser brothers was a founding member of the Freikorps, army vets that used to attack communist uprisings and strikes - they killed thousands of communists. And that bank nationalisation - it's because they argued all the banks were owned by Jews.

The bigger point is that as the nazi party got bigger the left wing element got swamped. A lot of working class people were drawn to the socialist elements, this was particularly true in the SA, but they were a minority, and the money and industrial power Hitler allied with were staunchly conservative. The left wing element got smashed by Hitler's conservative faction in the 1926 party conference. The Strasser brothers were exiled from the party in 1930, and both attempted to start new socialist themed nazi parties that went nowhere. Eventually Otto fled the country, while Gregor was rounded up on the night of the long knives, that night he shot in the neck and left to bleed out in his jail cell. Ernst Rohm maintained a close relationship with Hitler, but eventually tensions between Rohm and the military and wealthy elites forced Hitler to pick a side - Rohm was also murdered on the Night of the Long Knives.

tldr - there were some strange kind socialist ideas in nazism when it started. Hitler murdered the gak out of them.


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 Steve steveson wrote:
This seems to be one of the major causes of contention and lack of understanding.

How often do we see this scenario:

Person A: I don't like donuts! Ban donuts and their evil ways!
Person B: I disagree with you! Donuts are the best! Don't bad mouth donuts!
Person A: You can't say that! Your restricting my freedom of speech!

Freedom of speech is not the right to say what you wish without criticism or consequence.

There is another part to this, though, and one that is growing.

Person A: I don't like donuts! Ban donuts and their evil ways!
Person B: I disagree with you! Donuts are the best! Don't bad mouth donuts!
Person B then looks up the personal details of Person A, makes that person's public information available to other activists on-line, and contacts the person's employer, pressuring them to fire said individual.
Person B then says this is okay because he isn't the government, and free speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences.
People who agree with person A learn not to make their arguments in public. Debate suffers. Resentment grows.

That isn't quite what happened in this case, the guy had his employment details there publicly stated. But it is an increasing method of attacking people in debates, and it's potential effect on debates should be concerning to everyone.

 sebster wrote:

There is another part to this, though, and one that is growing.

Person A: I don't like donuts! Ban donuts and their evil ways!
Person B: I disagree with you! Donuts are the best! Don't bad mouth donuts!
Person B then looks up the personal details of Person A, makes that person's public information available to other activists on-line, and contacts the person's employer, pressuring them to fire said individual.
Person B then says this is okay because he isn't the government, and free speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences.
People who agree with person A learn not to make their arguments in public. Debate suffers. Resentment grows.

That isn't quite what happened in this case, the guy had his employment details there publicly stated. But it is an increasing method of attacking people in debates, and it's potential effect on debates should be concerning to everyone.

The logic of liberalism breaks down completely when dealing with nazis, tho. There is no reasonable debate when dealing with people who lie to buy time until they've grown strong enough to kill you. Terror is the inevitable goal of nazism. Whether those who fail standards of racial purity should be killed or allowed to live is not something that a democratic society can afford to accept as a normal topic of debate. The entire point of Antifa directly suppressing nazis is precisely so that those who agree with the nazis fear going public, so that they fear organising and making themselves known. This is to decrease the amount of terror attacks they carry out on minorities.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
Also in many ways antifa and the alt-right/nazis/KKK/racists (or whatever they are) both do really bad things. Don't understand why people can't condemn antifa vandalizing things in public (like stores, trash cans, etc.) or carrying assault weapons on a march (which strikes as being about intimidation) or threatening bystanders that follow or tape them as a good or just thing to do. Don't get me wrong i think Alt-right are more to blame in that virginia incident (since they killed someone) but why can't i say antifa is bad?

You're perfectly at liberty to say that antifa is bad (and I'd agree with you, for some values of "antifa") but there's a lot of people that don't give a hoot about antifa until people start being critical of the alt-right or, in this case, nazis. Complaints about the evils of antifa are used as deflection to prevent discussion of bad elements on the right, which (rightly) pisses people off. If you'd make your own thread discussing how violence on the left is bad I suspect you'd get a lot of people agreeing with you, but when people desperately try to shoehorn it into a thread about how a far-right gakker killed people it comes across as desperately trying to protect any sort of organization or movement that is right-wing at any cost, essentially being a mirror of the complaint that the left isn't condemning antifa enough.

Look at it like this: Let's say you make a thread about the best spicy food on the planet and want people's opinion on which spicy dish is most delicious. A bunch of people start complaining that they don't like spicy food and instead start discussing tiramisu, sponge cakes and other non-spicy desserts. What is such a commentary adding to the discourse on spicy food? The sweet-teeth could just as easily have made their own discussion about sweets, but instead they screw other people's discussion up with what is essentially a form of heckler's veto.

Repeat this every time you try to discuss spicy food. Further, a discussion on the merits of sweets rarely manifests on its own but rather as a reaction to people discussing spicy foods, calling into question whether people actually care about sweets or if they just don't want people they disagree with to discuss spicy food.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
Also in many ways antifa and the alt-right/nazis/KKK/racists (or whatever they are) both do really bad things. Don't understand why people can't condemn antifa vandalizing things in public (like stores, trash cans, etc.) or carrying assault weapons on a march (which strikes as being about intimidation) or threatening bystanders that follow or tape them as a good or just thing to do. Don't get me wrong i think Alt-right are more to blame in that virginia incident (since they killed someone) but why can't i say antifa is bad?

You're perfectly at liberty to say that antifa is bad (and I'd agree with you, for some values of "antifa") but there's a lot of people that don't give a hoot about antifa until people start being critical of the alt-right or, in this case, nazis. Complaints about the evils of antifa are used as deflection to prevent discussion of bad elements on the right, which (rightly) pisses people off. If you'd make your own thread discussing how violence on the left is bad I suspect you'd get a lot of people agreeing with you, but when people desperately try to shoehorn it into a thread about how a far-right gakker killed people it comes across as desperately trying to protect any sort of organization or movement that is right-wing at any cost, essentially being a mirror of the complaint that the left isn't condemning antifa enough.

I'm not sure that's what happened here though...

Saying following shouldn't be contraversial:

Nazis and their ideology are despicable human beings who should be condemned and rejected at every opportunity.

The Nazi/White Supremacist had a right to peacefully demonstrate.

Antifa are despicable human beings, whose ideology should be condemned and rejected

Antifa had a right to peacefully demonstrate.

No one should be making excuses for or defending either of these groups.

IMPORTANTLY: Defending their rights to peacefully demonstrate does NOT make you a Nazi or Antifa supporter, and any insinuation otherwise is simply toxic.

It simply makes you a First Amendment supporter. I dare anyone to reject this premise.

Both sides were engaged in violence in Charlottesville. This is unequivocally indefensible. Bringing up the fact that the "other side is worst" is beside the point.

However, an apparent Nazi rammed his car right into the protesting pedestrians, apparently purposely, killing someone.

At this point, we don't have all the facts... presumption of innocence, blah, blah, blah.... If proven guilty, I pray he gets the maximum sentence

Regardless, defending the Nazi's/Antifa's right to peacefully protest don't make you a supporter of either entity, nor does condemning the violence on both sides absolves them in anyway.

/fin

Doxxing is bad. It's something that bad people do because they don't want to engage in a public debate within the normal rules of discourse.

Another consideration, though, is that the normal rules of discourse require people not to hide their identity behind a shield of complete anonymity.

There needs to be some accountability for what we do and say.

I think we have different opinions as to what constitutes a "peaceful assembly" whembly. See the discussion on the inherent violence in Nazism in the previous thread for my take on it.

Also, I updated my previous post with an example.

 whembly wrote:

Antifa are despicable human beings, whose ideology should be condemned and rejected

And this is where is all falls apart. There is no such thing as "Antifa" as a single organized group or ideology. They are generally anti fascist, anti discrimination and anti capitalist. Groups that self identify and use the label Antifa tend to be on the more extreme, direct end of the scale, but there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the belief that fascism and racism is wrong.

There are extreme and violent elements within this that believe the only way to change the system is to meet it with violence. This is wrong and should be condemned and rejected, but you can't condemned and rejected the overall ideology. Their ideology has a lot in common with libertarians, if you swap anti capitalist with anti regulation.

On the other hand the other side believe in the supremacy of one race, and the oppression or total destruction of all others. They should be aloud to express those views in a peaceful way. Unfortunately neither side in has protested peacefully, but that does not make both sides equivalent.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
I think we have different opinions as to what constitutes a "peaceful assembly" whembly. See the discussion on the inherent violence in Nazism in the previous thread for my take on it.

Peaceful assembly has a very distinct, and legal, meaning here in the states.

As long as the demonstration falls within that "Peaceful Assembly" doctrine, these despicable groups does have that freedom.

gak man, the fething Westboro Baptists jackwagons can protest freely.

Also, I updated my previous post with an example.

If we're talking about Charlotteville, I'm not sure this applies.

Had antifa NOT shown up OR were explicitly a peaceful demonstration, then your example would most definitely apply.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Steve steveson wrote:

 whembly wrote:

Antifa are despicable human beings, whose ideology should be condemned and rejected

And this is where is all falls apart. There is no such thing as "Antifa" as a single organized group or ideology. They are generally anti fascist, anti discrimination and anti capitalist. Groups that self identify and use the label Antifa tend to be on the more extreme, direct end of the scale, but there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the belief that fascism and racism is wrong.

There are extreme and violent elements within this that believe the only way to change the system is to meet it with violence. This is wrong and should be condemned and rejected, but you can't condemned and rejected the overall ideology. Their ideology has a lot in common with libertarians, if you swap anti capitalist with anti regulation.

On the other hand the other side believe in the supremacy of one race, and the oppression or total destruction of all others. They should be aloud to express those views in a peaceful way. Unfortunately neither side in has protested peacefully, but that does not make both sides equivalent.

I wasn't making an equivocation argument.

Just simply saying the riotings and violent clashes on both sides are bad.

 whembly wrote:

Both sides were engaged in violence in Charlottesville. This is unequivocally indefensible. Bringing up the fact that the "other side is worst" is beside the point.

Is it beside the point when one side is actually murdering people?

You dont have to love antifa (god knows I dont), but you cant play the "They are equally bad" card when one side is actually killing people

 ulgurstasta wrote:

 whembly wrote:

Both sides were engaged in violence in Charlottesville. This is unequivocally indefensible. Bringing up the fact that the "other side is worst" is beside the point.

Is it beside the point when one side is actually murdering people?

You dont have to love antifa (god knows I dont), but you cant play the "They are equally bad" card when one side is actually killing people

No where did I argue "They are equally bad"...

Please read what I wrote.

Well you wrote that both sides were engaged in "violence" and that is "unequivocally indefensible", which I interpreted as both where equal in your eyes.

Both sides were engaged in violence in Charlottesville. This is unequivocally indefensible. Bringing up the fact that the "other side is worst" is beside the point.

*EDIT* My bad, I read "unequivocally" as a synonym for equal, rather then the definition "in a way that leaves no doubt.", I blame my inability to be born in a English speaking country

The New York Times wrote a piece after Trump's press conference yesterday on right versus left wing violence that seems to fit in the current direction of the thread: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/us/politics/trump-alt-left-fact-check.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=b-lede-package-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

Part lifted out

But overall, far-right extremist plots have been far more deadly than far-left plots (and Islamist plots eclipsed both) in the past 25 years, according to a breakdown of two terrorism databases by Alex Nowrasteh, an analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute.

White nationalists; militia movements; anti-Muslim attackers; I.R.S. building and abortion clinic bombers; and other right-wing groups were responsible for 12 times as many fatalities and 36 times as many injuries as communists; socialists; animal rights and environmental activists; anti-white- and Black Lives Matter-inspired attackers; and other left-wing groups.

Of the nearly 1,500 individuals in a University of Maryland study of radicalization from 1948 to 2013, 43 percent espoused far-right ideologies, compared to 21 percent for the far left. Far-right individuals were more likely to commit violence against people, while those on the far left were more likely to commit property damage.

 ulgurstasta wrote:
Is it beside the point when one side is actually murdering people?

You dont have to love antifa (god knows I dont), but you cant play the "They are equally bad" card when one side is actually killing people

Not for want of trying. When Antifa attacked the G20, hundreds of police were injured. They don't deserve any credit just because none of the people they've set on fire have died yet.

 AlexHolker wrote:

 ulgurstasta wrote:
Is it beside the point when one side is actually murdering people?

You dont have to love antifa (god knows I dont), but you cant play the "They are equally bad" card when one side is actually killing people

Not for want of trying. When Antifa attacked the G20, hundreds of police were injured. They don't deserve any credit just because none of the people they've set on fire have died yet.

How many of the Antifa people at the G20 were at Charlottesville? Is there any official link between the two groups?

None. But he asserts they are guilty by association.

However if we are to go down that track, how many people have nazis and KKK killed?

 AlexHolker wrote:

 ulgurstasta wrote:
Is it beside the point when one side is actually murdering people?

You dont have to love antifa (god knows I dont), but you cant play the "They are equally bad" card when one side is actually killing people

Not for want of trying. When Antifa attacked the G20, hundreds of police were injured. They don't deserve any credit just because none of the people they've set on fire have died yet.

In my eyes, People who engage in a protest and get into scuffles with the police are still better then people who go out an actively murder civilians, but each to his own.

And if they did injure hundreds, it sounds like they had plenty of opportunity to kill if they so wished

As I said, you dont have to like or even agree with Antifa, just acknowledge that they aren't the moral equivalent as murdering Nazis.

 ulgurstasta wrote:

 AlexHolker wrote:

 ulgurstasta wrote:
Is it beside the point when one side is actually murdering people?

You dont have to love antifa (god knows I dont), but you cant play the "They are equally bad" card when one side is actually killing people

Not for want of trying. When Antifa attacked the G20, hundreds of police were injured. They don't deserve any credit just because none of the people they've set on fire have died yet.

In my eyes, People who engage in a protest and get into scuffles with the police are still better then people who go out an actively murder civilians, but each to his own.

And if they did injure hundreds, it sounds like they had plenty of opportunity to kill if they so wished

As I said, you dont have to like or even agree with Antifa, just acknowledge that they aren't the moral equivalent as murdering Nazis.

There is no such thing as a peaceful nazi demonstration because the explicit aim of nazism is violence towards minorities. Nazi demonstrations intend to advertise this fact so that they can gather numbers in preparation for terror.

This is aside from the fact that the nazis at Charlottesville came prepared for street battles. They want to fight to rule the streets so that no one dares oppose them while they display their might.


Nobody would think I was peaceful if I showed up in front of your house and chanted "I want to kill you", which is precisely what nazi symbols mean.

Edit: Not getting involved in this.

To be frank, that is true. The whole purpose of white supremacism, nazism, KKK and so on is to deny human rights, which simply can't be done democratically and inherently involves the commission of violence.

That is why there is no morale equivalency between them and Antifa, even though both of them indulged in illegal acts of violence at the rally.

(That said, it being the USA it is astonishing that there was no gunfire involved. It shows that the violence was actually very restrained, except for the car attack.)

I wonder how much of the attempt to deflect blame from one group of extremists to another is down to people being unwilling to confront an uncomfortable issue. Namely, the further you get from middle ground politics, the more undesirables are going to agree with some of what you believe.

It's totally possible to believe in right wing economics with out that meaning you are also a racist, white supremacist or anti Semitic. However, if you are right wing economically speaking, then many racists, white supremacists and anti semites are going to agree with some of your views.

That's why it's so important that all of the perfectly reasonable people on the right denounce these unpleasant extremists instead of making excuses, deflecting blame or playing down the problem. It does the right no favours to allow themselves to be associated with these people.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
To be frank, that is true. The whole purpose of white supremacism, nazism, KKK and so on is to deny human rights, which simply can't be done democratically and inherently involves the commission of violence.

That is why there is no morale equivalency between them and Antifa, even though both of them indulged in illegal acts of violence at the rally.

(That said, it being the USA it is astonishing that there was no gunfire involved. It shows that the violence was actually very restrained, except for the car attack.)

Or that everyone's opinion about how rampant gun violence is in the USA, is just wrong.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 AlexHolker wrote:

 ulgurstasta wrote:
Is it beside the point when one side is actually murdering people?

You dont have to love antifa (god knows I dont), but you cant play the "They are equally bad" card when one side is actually killing people

Not for want of trying. When Antifa attacked the G20, hundreds of police were injured. They don't deserve any credit just because none of the people they've set on fire have died yet.

How many of the Antifa people at the G20 were at Charlottesville? Is there any official link between the two groups?

That's irrelevant. An organization shares responsibility for what members of that organization do in its name. Organizations get judged on their entire body of work it doesn't get parceled out on an individual member basis. Antifa wants to oppose Nazis in Charlottesville and throw Molotov cocktails as the G20 and light cops on fire they carry the weight of both actions, you can't credit them for opposing Nazis and write off their attacks on police. Same thing goes for the Nazis in Charlottesville, they're not the ones that invaded Poland and murdered millions of Jews but that doesn't mean that their Nazism is good or better than the German Nazis of the 1930s-40s. That's the whole point of this incident, Reaper gets held responsible for the actions of their employees because they willfully chose to make him a valued member of their company so they catch some of the heat if people get upset by something that employee does. Reaper doesn't just hire somebody's ability to analyze spreadsheets or whatever, they hire the whole person that includes whatever skillset he brings to the workplace along with whatever memes he puts on his twitter feed. Reaper then gets to decide if its worthwhile to keep him in the company. Antifa can try to beat up Nazis and try to light cops on fire and people can decide if they want to join or support Antifa.

 MonkeyBallistic wrote:
I wonder how much of the attempt to deflect blame from one group of extremists to another is down to people being unwilling to confront an uncomfortable issue. Namely, the further you get from middle ground politics, the more undesirables are going to agree with some of what you believe.

It's totally possible to believe in right wing economics with out that meaning you are also a racist, white supremacist or anti Semitic. However, if you are right wing economically speaking, then many racists, white supremacists and anti semites are going to agree with some of your views.

That's why it's so important that all of the perfectly reasonable people on the right denounce these unpleasant extremists instead of making excuses, deflecting blame or playing down the problem. It does the right no favours to allow themselves to be associated with these people.

The BBC wrote:Theresa May has said it is important to condemn far-right views "wherever we hear them" as she was asked about Donald Trump's response to clashes in the United States.
The PM said: "I see no equivalence between those who propound fascist views and those who oppose them."