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 _SeeD_ wrote:
Was he booted?
I would have not played with such a person, loss or not.

Apparently they were not according to previous posters. TO asked a police officer who was playing and it would open them to lawsuits etc.

This thread is off the rails...

but anyway, fascism is antithetical to democracy. Fascism actively seeks to overthrow democracy. You cannot allow fascism to exist withon a democracy if you wish to keep your democracy. Trying to do so is a lot like inviting a serial killer into your home and hoping/expecting they won't try to kill anyone. This is the concept of "the paradox of tolerance" - I suggest some of you familiarize yourselves with it.

This whole "but mah free speech" thing is a failure to understand or comprehend what the concept of free speech actually means and seeks to reduce the entire concept down to a literal interpretation of the words themselves. Its not exactly valid or intelligent to take a stance in this debate on that basis.

 stonehorse wrote:

It truly baffles me how we have a growing vocal group saying something which is just as bad as Nazisim (because both are horrid ideologies that treat people like dog excrement to achieve their goals) gets a pass, and also if you call out Communism, then you are a Neo-Nazi? For real...

Because bolshevism is not a problem in western countries in the present day. Fascism is. We do not have "communists" committing massacres in churches and schools. Communists are not being elected to state and national office; fascists are. Stalinists and Maoists aren't attacking tolerance and democracy in our countries. If they were, we would have a problem with it.

And that's why, yes, we make a bigger deal over a young gak with Nazi paraphanelia than we do, say, an edgelord with Communist party badge, or a Mao cap, or whatever. Because whatever equivalence you can point to among various historical tyrannies, only one of these factions is an active and (literally) deadly problem in American and European democracies.

To a straight, white-passing man the n*zis and their views are just another voice in the great theater of democracy.
To anyone else, it's a threat of violence based on history.

That much is clear from the thread.

Im straight and white passing, im smart enough to recognize the threat of violence regardless because i can think more than 5 minutes into the future and can process empathy for others who aren't as privileged as myself.

 Togusa wrote:

 bullyboy wrote:
I swear, the whole anti fascist movement has gone off the rails in the US. But then again, its America, they aren't going to half ass anything.
Steering away from BT and other marine chapters based on some weird, and very weak, fascist association exemplifies the ridiculousness of it all.

It's because our entire view of politics is currently a raging dumpster fire. People think and act emotionally, and will lash out at anyone who might just be trying to learn more about what is happening. In this case, there has been a lot of information in the threads that didn't exist in the original OP article, which itself is far more focused on outrage than actually telling us what happened, when and how.

I've been playing Warhammer for 7 years now and I've yet to meet one person that expressed fascist ideology or love for Nazism. I know tons of men and women who do play DKoK or BT (myself, I play BT) and none of us have any interest in Nazism. It's pretty silly, but identity politics has become huge, left or right, in the US in the past decade. I fear it's only going to get worse and worse as people continue to talk over each other instead of talking to each other.

Couple this with the American tendency towards tribalism, and the past few years of people having less in person contact and spending more times communicating in online circles which are highly insular, their news feeds essentially group think by targeted AI and algorithm, and we basically have a situation where the American antifascist movement has become actually fascist in many groups.

One of the big problems is the current weaponization of words and meaning. I will show you this light that is green but you will say it is blue. People have begun labelling things as fascist, racist, communist, far left, far right- which in many cases are not those things but we have entered a social order where for some people a rose by any other name is to them is indeed not a rose is different and racist.

This is off topic from the OP, the person in the tournament is obviously pro fascism, but calling a templar cross fascist because some miniscule group of pro fascist people use it does not make it fascist. If a new fascist group that was based on Nazi ideology rose up and used the LGBT flag as their icon would that icon become a Nazi fascist icon?

In Germany, we have very clear laws delineating what is and what isn't covered by freedom of speech/expression/religion. Trying to undermine the constitution or the democratic process is a criminal offense, as is sedition (I hope that's the right term). In Germany, again, the display of a swastika would be deemed indicative of a system in which the undermining of democracy and the constitutional state is tolerated, which is considered to be a criminal offense. The crucial part of this law is that you don't even need to make a scene or openly declare your support by making certain gestures or spouting slogans, the display of the image in itself is enough, no matter the (lack of) intent.

So the TO would have been well within their right to exclude the person wearing this shirt (in Germany). Even if this guy is the nicest dude around, he is not operating within the legal framework we'd consider covered by freedom of speech/expression.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Im straight and white passing, im smart enough to recognize the threat of violence regardless because i can think more than 5 minutes into the future and can process empathy for others who aren't as privileged as myself.

True, I should've said "can be" instead of "is".

 SlaveToDorkness wrote:
I have a hard time punishing people for their beliefs and opinions. Too close to thought police for my taste.
Was he handing out propaganda?was his army painted or modelled offensively? Did he even espouse any beliefs? Was he in any way a jerk?

The idea is to stop the mindset I would think acting like his silly ideas don't matter at all would go further than giving them the power to make everyone lose their gak over lines printed on a shirt.

He was identifying as a supporter of nazis. Wearing fascist iconography is espousing those beliefs. Nobody wears that stuff ironically. That means he believes it's OK to kill people from any number of ethnic or religious groups simply for being from those groups. Why should anyone have to put up with that in a tournament for goddamn toy soldiers?

I have no problem excluding from society people whose views include the belief that my wife should be killed for being the wrong race. Why should anyone have to deal with that at a wargaming tournament? Freedom of expression does not mean freedom from consequences. He has no intrinsic right to play in the tournament and it's hardly an infringement of his human rights to kick him out. It's probably also worth pointing out that Europe tends to have a slightly different approach to freedom of speech than the US. In western Europe, at least, there are certain restrictions on free speech/expression, usually around hate speech.

 SlaveToDorkness wrote:
I have a hard time punishing people for their beliefs and opinions. Too close to thought police for my taste.
Was he handing out propaganda?was his army painted or modelled offensively? Did he even espouse any beliefs? Was he in any way a jerk?

The idea is to stop the mindset I would think acting like his silly ideas don't matter at all would go further than giving them the power to make everyone lose their gak over lines printed on a shirt.

People absolutely should be punished for advertising their belief in a philosophy based around violence, dehumanisation and ultimately genocide. Pile on the shame, drive them from public spaces and polite society, drive home the notion that in the real world, that stuff makes you a bad person who should feel bad. No excuses, no whataboutism, no apologies, and absolutely no normalisation.

 SlaveToDorkness wrote:
I believe the only threat to the health of a democracy is dismissing people based on their beliefs. That's literally what democracy is for, to hear the opinions of the entire population. The least democratic thing I can think of is silencing people for their beliefs, which is kinda Facist.

N: "Well, I just think that particular white people are better, and Jews should all be murdered, and political beliefs by those people are communist propaganda and should be silenced, it's just my opinion, just my belief, no need to get triggered"

P1: "I think we know all we need to, to disregard this guy and throw him out"

P2: "No no, if we exclude someone just because they want to murder Jews, that's almost as bad as if WE were the Nazis! Maybe even worse!"

I have just removed a bunch of off topic chatter from the last page of so. As a reminder, this thread is not the place to discuss the mechanics of communist theory.

 ph34r wrote:

 SlaveToDorkness wrote:
I believe the only threat to the health of a democracy is dismissing people based on their beliefs. That's literally what democracy is for, to hear the opinions of the entire population. The least democratic thing I can think of is silencing people for their beliefs, which is kinda Facist.

N: "Well, I just think that particular white people are better, and Jews should all be murdered, and political beliefs by those people are communist propaganda and should be silenced, it's just my opinion, just my belief, no need to get triggered"

P1: "I think we know all we need to, to disregard this guy and throw him out"

P2: "No no, if we exclude someone just because they want to murder Jews, that's almost as bad as if WE were the Nazis! Maybe even worse!"

A certain mercenary thought we should get rid of both the communist and fascist.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

 kurhanik wrote:
Crusader imagery is popular in far right circles, and some has been co-opted by white supremacists and nazis. If one views the Crusades as an "us vs them" mentality rather than a complex mess of bloody wars, its a convenient message - look at us strong great people protecting our virtues from "them".

And nothing in this paragraph in any way means that Black Templars are inspired by, promote, display or otherwise show "Nazi symbolism" or are "fascist". Something being co-oped by another group doesn't make the original thing into that thing. Similarly, a fictional thing that is inspired by said original thing doesn't suddenly become bad because of a third party's co-opting of something from that original thing.

This reminds me of all those people who says "You like Darth Vader? Well that means you're a fascist and support the things the Empire did!". It's absurd.

I was just explaining how some of the imagery was co-opted. Black Templars to me personally are no more or less fascist than the rest of the Imperium - I'd personally be more worried about meeting someone who built an Imperial Guard army out of panzers and WWII German infantry. Or if the player themself was wearing Iron Crosses etc. Still, in the context of "living in an area with an active KKK" where one of the posters noted why they might avoid strangers playing those armies, it seems reasonable.

As a white man it gets tiring enough when another white person of that mindset, on the assumption of shared beliefs, starts saying the quiet part out loud. I can only imagine how it would feel if they were saying it to one of the groups they actively target.

chaos0xomega wrote:This thread is off the rails...

but anyway, fascism is antithetical to democracy. Fascism actively seeks to overthrow democracy. You cannot allow fascism to exist withon a democracy if you wish to keep your democracy. Trying to do so is a lot like inviting a serial killer into your home and hoping/expecting they won't try to kill anyone. This is the concept of "the paradox of tolerance" - I suggest some of you familiarize yourselves with it.

This whole "but mah free speech" thing is a failure to understand or comprehend what the concept of free speech actually means and seeks to reduce the entire concept down to a literal interpretation of the words themselves. Its not exactly valid or intelligent to take a stance in this debate on that basis.

The Paradox of Tolerance is one of those unfortunate truths. If you give literal fascists a free pass because they are entitled to their opinions, they can, and will, work their hardest to drown out all other talk while simultaneously blaming their chosen "other" to blame for everything. In the 1920s and 30s the nazis blamed Communists and Jews for everything, past few years the neo-nazi camp has been blaming an "extreme left" and antifa while they literally run people over with cars and shoot up churches filled with minorities.

Right, Left, Center or whatever, stamping out literal neo-nazis is important because they will hijack what they can and continue to profess the murder and Othering of their chosen targets.

ph34r wrote:

 SlaveToDorkness wrote:
I believe the only threat to the health of a democracy is dismissing people based on their beliefs. That's literally what democracy is for, to hear the opinions of the entire population. The least democratic thing I can think of is silencing people for their beliefs, which is kinda Facist.

N: "Well, I just think that particular white people are better, and Jews should all be murdered, and political beliefs by those people are communist propaganda and should be silenced, it's just my opinion, just my belief, no need to get triggered"

P1: "I think we know all we need to, to disregard this guy and throw him out"

P2: "No no, if we exclude someone just because they want to murder Jews, that's almost as bad as if WE were the Nazis! Maybe even worse!"

Yeah basically this. When someone actively shows off their personal belief that all "others" must be murdered, and that we are big strong men making hard choices by...silencing all opposition, murdering people, and in the case of the historical nazis industrializing murder. Yeah, exclude that person, they are poisoning the well.

 kurhanik wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:

 kurhanik wrote:
Crusader imagery is popular in far right circles, and some has been co-opted by white supremacists and nazis. If one views the Crusades as an "us vs them" mentality rather than a complex mess of bloody wars, its a convenient message - look at us strong great people protecting our virtues from "them".

And nothing in this paragraph in any way means that Black Templars are inspired by, promote, display or otherwise show "Nazi symbolism" or are "fascist". Something being co-oped by another group doesn't make the original thing into that thing. Similarly, a fictional thing that is inspired by said original thing doesn't suddenly become bad because of a third party's co-opting of something from that original thing.

This reminds me of all those people who says "You like Darth Vader? Well that means you're a fascist and support the things the Empire did!". It's absurd.

I was just explaining how some of the imagery was co-opted. Black Templars to me personally are no more or less fascist than the rest of the Imperium - I'd personally be more worried about meeting someone who built an Imperial Guard army out of panzers and WWII German infantry. Or if the player themself was wearing Iron Crosses etc. Still, in the context of "living in an area with an active KKK" where one of the posters noted why they might avoid strangers playing those armies, it seems reasonable.

As a white man it gets tiring enough when another white person of that mindset, on the assumption of shared beliefs, starts saying the quiet part out loud. I can only imagine how it would feel if they were saying it to one of the groups they actively target.

chaos0xomega wrote:This thread is off the rails...

but anyway, fascism is antithetical to democracy. Fascism actively seeks to overthrow democracy. You cannot allow fascism to exist withon a democracy if you wish to keep your democracy. Trying to do so is a lot like inviting a serial killer into your home and hoping/expecting they won't try to kill anyone. This is the concept of "the paradox of tolerance" - I suggest some of you familiarize yourselves with it.

This whole "but mah free speech" thing is a failure to understand or comprehend what the concept of free speech actually means and seeks to reduce the entire concept down to a literal interpretation of the words themselves. Its not exactly valid or intelligent to take a stance in this debate on that basis.

The Paradox of Tolerance is one of those unfortunate truths. If you give literal fascists a free pass because they are entitled to their opinions, they can, and will, work their hardest to drown out all other talk while simultaneously blaming their chosen "other" to blame for everything. In the 1920s and 30s the nazis blamed Communists and Jews for everything, past few years the neo-nazi camp has been blaming an "extreme left" and antifa while they literally run people over with cars and shoot up churches filled with minorities.

Right, Left, Center or whatever, stamping out literal neo-nazis is important because they will hijack what they can and continue to profess the murder and Othering of their chosen targets.

ph34r wrote:

 SlaveToDorkness wrote:
I believe the only threat to the health of a democracy is dismissing people based on their beliefs. That's literally what democracy is for, to hear the opinions of the entire population. The least democratic thing I can think of is silencing people for their beliefs, which is kinda Facist.

N: "Well, I just think that particular white people are better, and Jews should all be murdered, and political beliefs by those people are communist propaganda and should be silenced, it's just my opinion, just my belief, no need to get triggered"

P1: "I think we know all we need to, to disregard this guy and throw him out"

P2: "No no, if we exclude someone just because they want to murder Jews, that's almost as bad as if WE were the Nazis! Maybe even worse!"

Yeah basically this. When someone actively shows off their personal belief that all "others" must be murdered, and that we are big strong men making hard choices by...silencing all opposition, murdering people, and in the case of the historical nazis industrializing murder. Yeah, exclude that person, they are poisoning the well.

Good that you agree we should get rid of antisemitic Marxists as well and while we are at it, Antifa.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, if we are going be using the dam Paradox of Tolerance, at least use the whole thing:

"Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.

— In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise."

The event organisers should have had asked the guy to either change their clothes, or leave the event with a refund. It is their event, they can enforce R.O.A.R.

Anarchism, Capitalism, Communism, and Facisim are brutal horrid ideologies die to being very extreme.

Socialism on the other hand is a more reasonable approach as it aims to find a happy medium.

We need more finding common ground to stop extremism. I think social media and smart phones are a big player in the recent polarisation

I think the real issue is 40k is not a space for real world politics, especially at an event. If you want to support communism, fascism, anarchy, democracy, whatever- a gaming event is not the space for that.

GW realizes this and excludes real world political groups etc as paint and iconography schemes from their events. Independent events should take this up as well.

This is all in the context that none of these real world groups officially exist on GW game lore, this isn't bolt action or some other historical game that is recreating real world fighting forces connected to a political group.

so as the person who posted this topic please pay attention

While I appreciate your deep dives into the fascist nature of 40K and the intricacies of communist governments vs. fascists ones or the hypocrisy of showing one symbol and not another - that conversation should be had elsewhere as that was neither the purpose nor the reason I posted this.

I posted this to one: discuss how we as a community can prevent filth like this from coming to events (which can very depending on country), would you have played a player or taken the DQ.

I’m not trying to censor your topics - as they are all fascinating - but it does not pertain to the original reason why I posted this.

As I said before - I do not think there needs to be a rule that says “no hate symbols” as common sense applies, and at least in the US I can remove you from a private location or event for whatever reason I want. Apparently, because this happened in Spain, the neo nazi team could have sued the event for discrimination - which is why they catered to their whims as disgusting as they are as people.

I personally would not have played them and taken the DQ - however I would have video recorded the conversation with the TO and the opposing team and blasted it on the forum of public opinion (Internet).

Please stay on topic because we started off strong and it was super interesting - but some people want to debate other topics that don’t belong in this post.

Thank you

Ban the symbolism from tournaments otherwise leave them alone. Unless they start spouting off racist language or break out some Nazi memorabilia they are within their right to play. I’d let them play as long as they don’t provoke anything or be disruptive. You can’t get anymore restrictive than that without infringing on peoples rights and freedom of expression, at least in America (not trying to put us above anyone I’m just saying it’s in the constitution). Hell I’m a Marxist and I would rather they allowed to play so long as they aren’t wearing any symbolism that kicking out everyone because we think they might be harboring ideas we disagree with.

 insaniak wrote:
I have just removed a bunch of off topic chatter from the last page of so. As a reminder, this thread is not the place to discuss the mechanics of communist theory.

You also removed my critique of the gakky article the OP posted.

I didn’t think “Nazis are bad” would be considered a hot take.

fidel wrote:
Apparently, because this happened in Spain, the neo nazi team could have sued the event for discrimination - which is why they catered to their whims as disgusting as they are as people.

I would be *intensely* skeptical of this take, not least of all because it fell from the lips of the nazis in question, but with a side of familiarity with EU law (I had to take a module in it, at any rate.)

 GoldenHorde wrote:

 insaniak wrote:
I have just removed a bunch of off topic chatter from the last page of so. As a reminder, this thread is not the place to discuss the mechanics of communist theory.

You also removed my critique of the gakky article the OP posted.

Which should have been a clue that it weas inappropriate, rather than an invitation to repost something that was removed for being off topic.

The fact that the linked article in turn links to something that you find questionable is irrelevant to the actual topic under discussion.

Catulle wrote:

fidel wrote:
Apparently, because this happened in Spain, the neo nazi team could have sued the event for discrimination - which is why they catered to their whims as disgusting as they are as people.

I would be *intensely* skeptical of this take, not least of all because it fell from the lips of the nazis in question, but with a side of familiarity with EU law (I had to take a module in it, at any rate.)
.

Let me rephrase/be more specific. Whether the lawsuit was credible or not according to EU law, the tournament organizers thought it was enough of a threat to not deal with the nazis. It’s one of those “ugh if I leave them alone it will be less of a hassle then engaging them.”

The problem is that they were nazis - you don’t leave them alone. You attack them, always.

Final warning for the thread - please keep it on topic, and keep it civil. If you're not interested in discussing the topic, or just interested in stirring the pot, please move on. If you think someone is just trolling, please refrain from responding to them. The thread started out well, and is a worthwhile discussion provided it stays on track.

 SlaveToDorkness wrote:


I believe the only threat to the health of a democracy is dismissing people based on their beliefs. That's literally what democracy is for, to hear the opinions of the entire population. The least democratic thing I can think of is silencing people for their beliefs, which is kinda Facist.

Democracy doesn't mean people are free to do whatever they want and even to say whatever they want. There are boundaries. Silencing people that defend/advocate a culture that promotes racism and even genocide is 100% within the boundaries of a democracy.

For things like KKK, nazism, islamic fondamentalism, etc... there is no room for them in a democracy. If a democratic society fails, let alone refuses, to silence them is because that society is full of flaws (which should be fixed) or complicit. Any form of freedom has boundaries, even in a democracy, including freedom of speech.

What about a guy wearing a t-shirt celebrating Bin Laden showing up at a US tournament?

Unfortunately laws can be flawed and in fact t-shirt like these ones are not illegal, in Italy there are shops that sell fascist merchandising (including batons) and they're 100% legal. A TO can clarify in advance that no political symbols are allowed to avoid the incident, and players can definitely refuse to play against a guy wearing those.

 insaniak wrote:

The fact that the linked article in turn links to something that you find questionable is irrelevant to the actual topic under discussion.

You're being grossly disingenuous. It was on topic.
It wasn't a link in a link. It was in the article which was in the original post.

I don't need to parse threads according to your irrational shifting goalposts. The article was presented by OP. It's the same damn subject. I'll discuss it.

Nazis want to kill people like me.
How could I possibly respect that?

I am totally fine with banning Nazis, also want Commies, fascists, Pinkos and Tankies banned and all derivatives removed from polite society.

which has some far reaching consequences, or, we can live in this liberal society and try to tolerate the evil scum that support the above so long as they do not harm people, after all that is what tolerance means even if we find it hard.

Anyways, back on topic. Who here things GW will make a statement about this in the coming week? Any chance that the TOs will lose GW support?