Problematic Stuff

[Brian Peacock]

At the ballot box, or on the streets?

[Hermit]

I'm not a fan of the slippery slope argument

Neither were the Jews when they saw it in action. You realise that the initial proposals coming from the NSDAP were to simply drive them out of Germany, don't you? Nothing dramatic happened to them until the evening of the 9th of November 1938, five years after the Nazis came to power and the concerted campaign to kill them all was not initiated until it was initiated at the Wannsee Conference in January 1942.

I don't think the US is quite at the stage of aping the Weimar Republic, nor is Trump, for all his personal, intellectual, cognitive and political failings a Hindeburg.

Analogies are not byte-perfect duplicates of whatever they are used to compare them with. This does not make their use invalid, and I put it to you that undeniable and serious parallels exist in this case. You have a ragtag mob of bovver-boys, a leader nobody takes seriously, a promise to make a nation great again, a dysfunctional democracy, a campaign to discredit the mainstream media threatening to become as successful as the campaign to discredit the so called Lügenpresse of the past and a heap of human scapegoats. Looks like a familiar cocktail to me.

Trump only vaguely resembles Hindenburg, I admit, but he may be morphing into a Führer. His enthusiastic use of executive orders already bypasses a fair bit of Congress's law and policy making roles. All we need now is an economic crisis, perhaps ignited by tariff walls causing inflation and throttling trade. Emergency right there. Stronger leadership needed, stat. If perchance a Reichstag fire type incident can be engineered, and/or a war with an outside power, Trump will seize the opportunity to volunteer as the saviour. There'll be enough morons in Congress to oblige faster than you can say Ermächtigungsgesetz. Not long after that comes Gleichschaltung. And if this chain of events happens people will be stunned, for they never saw this coming until it was too late to prevent it. Why not? Well, it may have happened in the past, but how could it ever be repeated in the land of the free? The USA is too different to make it possible.

do you think the Jew haters at Charlottesville should have had their limbs rearrange with pickaxe handles?

The more I think about it, the more I am inclined to say "Yes!" Metaphorically anyway. Don't rearrange their limbs. Crush them. Crush them all. Kill the germ of that movement. Destroy the alt-right before it becomes powerful enough to kill us and install another instance of an utterly inhumane, monstrous, deadly regime. The alt-right is undoubtedly as pure of heart and well intentioned as anybody else. So what? It needs to be nipped in the bud.

Advocates and supporters of inhumanity have no ethical standing. They deserve no ethical considerations. Don't let them paralyse you. And beware of enablers.

[pErvinalia]

At the ballot box, or on the streets?

If the ballot box doesn't work, then you have to do something else.

[pErvinalia]

There'll be enough morons in Congress to oblige faster than you can say Ermächtigungsgesetz.

I can't even say it, let alone quickly!

[Seabass]

[pErvinalia]

@Brian, I don't think Trump is a real fascist (I don't think he's knowledgeable enough to even identify as one) or on the path to Nazi style fascism. But that's not really the point. The potential is definitely there, and the consequence in case it should happen is too devastating to ignore. This shit has been escalating ever since Trump came on the scene. Better to face it now than later on when it could be potentially a hell of a lot worse.

[Brian Peacock]

I hear what you and Hermit are saying, but I'm still talking about the use of violent means for political ends, and while you're both turning the screw on 'their politics justifies our action' we're clearly still at the beginning of that conversation.

[pErvinalia]

Well as I said, realistically there isn't a distinct line where on one side political violence is warranted and on the other side it isn't.

Anti-social people (racists and white supremacists) aren't equivalent to the people who fight that anti-social behaviour. And I wouldn't expect any rational thinking person to conclude that they are. Ideological liberals probably would, but they are ideological not rational.

[Hermit]

I hear what you and Hermit are saying, but I'm still talking about the use of violent means for political ends...

That is what we are talking about as well. You have not noticed?

[Brian Peacock]

Ok, we're talking about justification and how other people's politics defines action - specifically, how 'their' opinions warrant 'our' use of violence. Whatifisms don't apply here, we remain responsible for our actions in the present, and going to war for peace as it were (doing bad for good, ends justifying means) is an initiative, not a reactive action - and I don't include simply having an adverse reaction to someone's point of view there. I feel a better case has to be made for bringing violence into political discourse than applying the past to the future or downgrading a political standpoint to the status of 'by their views they've brought it on themselves'. Without that case, our use of political violence is indistinguishable from its use by those we oppose - we're just adding violence upon violence to create more violence in a discourse already predisposed to violent, unreasonable action.

[Jason]

Are people still arguing that Antifa is the first line of defense against the rise of racism? Really?

Antifa is a group of communists and anarchists that wish to be 'ungovernable' and to render their nation(s) 'ungovernable.' They wish for the breakdown of Capitalism and Democracy so they can play out their fantasies.

They are often the aggressor/instigator in violent encounters with opposing marches/rallies/whatever and also with law enforcement - so the defensive argument (pretending they're only stemming the violence from the other side) doesn't fly.

The use of violence to curb odious opinions and their expression is a tool of those who wish to destabilize and sabotage our government, culture, and complete way of life. These are violent revolutionaries, not the guardians of democracy.

[laklak]

There have always been punkass bitches throwing rocks and Molotovs, at least since I've been around. Some, like the Weathermen and the Red Army Faction, took more direct action and ended up on Interpol posters. Eventually most of them grow up, cut their hair, put on a suit, join the country club, and start voting Republican. Others become sad parodies of themselves and put Bernie stickers on their Volvos. They think they're part of the "Resistance" by posting FB memes about Trump and drinking non-GMO, fair trade kombucha.

[Hermit]

I feel a better case has to be made for bringing violence into political discourse than applying the past to the future or downgrading a political standpoint to the status of 'by their views they've brought it on themselves'. Without that case, our use of political violence is indistinguishable from its use by those we oppose - we're just adding violence upon violence to create more violence in a discourse already predisposed to violent, unreasonable action.

The reference to the past is not meant to serve as a justification for bringing violence into political discourse. The aims of the alt-right suffice. I only brought up the past in order to point out what those aims are apt to lead to, but not even that ought to be unnecessary. Again, the aims of the alt-right suffice as a justification of violence against the movement. We are not "just adding violence upon violence to create more violence in a discourse already predisposed to violent, unreasonable action". We are using violence to destroy an utterly inhumane political and social cancerous growth. As with all cancers, the sooner the better. Nip it in the bud.

[Hermit]

Are people still arguing that Antifa is the first line of defense against the rise of racism? Really?

Really not. At least not I. In fact, I have never taken that line to begin with. I checked. It was easy. There is a grand total of three posts where I even used the word "antifa", and none of them were made in their defence.

[pErvinalia]

Are people still arguing that Antifa is the first line of defense against the rise of racism? Really?

Well are you out there?

Antifa is a group of communists and anarchists that wish to be 'ungovernable' and to render their nation(s) 'ungovernable.' They wish for the breakdown of Capitalism and Democracy so they can play out their fantasies.

Oh look, another one confusing Black Bloc and Antifa. Antifa are anti-fascist, not necessarily anti-capitalism.