Charlottesville: State of emergency over US far-right rally

[aerius]

Or maybe its okay when our side does it?

Principles count for very little when the government tacitly supports people who want you gassed.

If the State will not provide justice for the people, the people will seek to right the wrongs themselves.

Finally, someone gets it. For large parts of the population the rule of law is dead, there is no justice, there is no legal redress for grievances. You can talk about peaceful protests and non-violent resolutions all you want but when it's your ass on the chopping block that shit don't matter. At that point you have 2 choices, die on your knees, or take as many of the fuckers with you as you can.

Some folks like TRR have the luxury of belonging to a privileged group where they can discuss moral ideals and so forth from the safety of wherever they are. Others aren't so fortunate, for them, the shit has hit the fan and their choice is literally life or death, right here & now.

[Flagg]

Or maybe its okay when our side does it?

Principles count for very little when the government tacitly supports people who want you gassed.

If the State will not provide justice for the people, the people will seek to right the wrongs themselves.

Finally, someone gets it. For large parts of the population the rule of law is dead, there is no justice, there is no legal redress for grievances. You can talk about peaceful protests and non-violent resolutions all you want but when it's your ass on the chopping block that shit don't matter. At that point you have 2 choices, die on your knees, or take as many of the fuckers with you as you can.

Some folks like TRR have the luxury of belonging to a privileged group where they can discuss moral ideals and so forth from the safety of wherever they are. Others aren't so fortunate, for them, the shit has hit the fan and their choice is literally life or death, right here & now.

Pretty much. I'm lucky in that I'm at least a southern born honky and know how to pretend to be perceived as a good old boy. I like to think that at least being aware of that gets me some insight into the plight of those who don't have that luxury. Granted, being disabled and mentally ill likely means the ovens await me too in the Nazi shits game plan but I also live 2 hours drive from the Canadian border. So I have options. Others don't.

[Flagg]

Varied Confederate memorials are coming down across the US. Fantastic!

(CNN)More than 150 years after the Civil War ended, the Confederacy is memorialized with statues, monuments and historical markers across the United States.

Some say they mark history and honor heritage. Others argue they are racist symbols of America's dark legacy of slavery.

A nationwide debate surrounding this issue has been underway since Dylann Roof killed nine African-Americans in a Charleston, South Carolina, church in 2015 in an effort to "start a race war." And it flared up again after white nationalists marched last weekend to protest the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville, Virginia, where a counterprotester was killed amid violent clashes between demonstrators.

The National Register of Historic Places does not keep a detailed list of Confederate memorials. In 2016, the Southern Poverty Law Center identified 1,503 Confederate "place names and other symbols in public spaces" across the nation but admitted the study was "far from comprehensive." Some Civil War monuments in the South, such as at battlefields, do not have pro-Confederate symbolism.

Many local government officials are now weighing whether to keep Confederate memorials in their cities and towns. Here's a state-by-state breakdown:

California

The Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles removed a Confederate monument Wednesday morning, spokesman Theodore Hovey told CNN. The monument memorialized more than 30 Confederate veterans and their families who are buried in the cemetery. It was erected in 1925.

The Long Beach chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the owners of the monument, asked the cemetery to remove it after it was featured in an August 4 op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, Hovey said. A CNN request for comment from that group was not immediately answered. "It was a mutual decision on the part of the cemetery and the monument's owner that it is best for it to be removed," Hovey said. The graves around the monument were not affected, he said.

In San Diego, a Confederate marker commemorating the Jefferson Davis Highway was removed Wednesday, according to CNN affiliate KGTV. The marker was installed in Horton Plaza in 1927.

An online petition asking Mayor Kevin Faulconer, City Councilman Chris Ward and Scarlett Stahl, president of the California division of United Daughters of the Confederacy, to remove the monument was started earlier Wednesday. It had received more than 160 signatures by Thursday morning.

In a Facebook statement, Ward praised the decision to remove the marker, saying, "Monuments to bigotry have no place in San Diego."

Florida

A Confederate statue called "Old Joe" was removed Monday in Gainesville, Florida. The statue sat outside the Alachua County Administration Building for more than 100 years. The Alachua County Board of Commissioners made the decision to remove the statue in May after two years of debate. It will be relocated by the Daughters of the Confederacy.

The Hillsborough County Board of Commissioners voted in July to remove the Memoria In Aeterna monument, which honors Confederate soldiers, from a county courthouse. The county commission voted Wednesday that the monument will only be removed if donations can be raised to cover the cost, estimated to be as high as $280,000. The money must be raised by September 16, the commission said.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Lightning and Rays donated an undisclosed amount of money to help move the statue, the teams said in a joint statement Thursday. The teams said the monument "does not reflect the values of our community."

"Now more than ever before, we must stand united and committed to diversity and inclusion as we all attempt to heal from the tragedy in Charlottesville," the statement read.

The board is also expected to relocate the Hillsborough County Civil War Veterans Monument.

Kentucky

Lexington will relocate the statues of John Hunt Morgan and John C. Brackenridge after the City Council unanimously approved their removal.

"By relocating these statues we are not destroying, hiding or sanitizing history. We are honoring and learning our history through this relocation," Lexington Mayor Jim Gray wrote on Twitter.

Gray had announced his intent to relocate the statues in a series of tweets just after the Charlottesville attack.

Maryland

Baltimore removed four Confederate statues early Wednesday after the City Council voted unanimously to take down the monuments immediately, CNN affiliate WBAL reported. Mayor Catherine Pugh defended her decision to remove the monuments "quickly and quietly" overnight, saying it was the best thing for Baltimore.

"The city charter says, according to our city attorney, if the mayor wants to protect or feels like she needs to protect the public or keep her community safe, she has the right to keep her community safe. I felt the best way to remove the monuments was to remove them overnight," Pugh said.

New York

Busts of Lee and Confederate Lt. Gen. Stonewall Jackson will be removed from the City University of New York's Hall of Fame for Great Americans because "New York stands against racism," Gov. Andrew Cuomo tweeted Wednesday. "There are many great Americans, many of them New Yorkers worthy of a spot in this great hall," Cuomo tweeted. "These two Confederates are not among them."

Also Wednesday, Cuomo requested that the acting US secretary of the Army, Ryan McCarthy, reconsider his refusal to rename General Lee Avenue and Stonewall Jackson Drive at Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn.

North Carolina

Protesters toppled over a Confederate statue Monday in front of the old Durham County Courthouse. The monument depicted a soldier holding a gun and had an engraving that said "in memory of the boys who wore gray." The protest was held in response to the Charlottesville violence.

Virginia

The Charlottesville City Council voted in April to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee at the newly renamed Emancipation Park, CNN affiliate WVIR reported. The violence there over the weekend came after this decision. The removal is on hold pending litigation.

Wisconsin

Madison Mayor Paul Soglin announced Thursday that two Confederate memorials at the Forest Hill Cemetery will be removed. In a statement, Soglin said taking down the "monuments will not erase our shared history. The Confederacy's legacy will be with us, whether we memorialize it in marble or not."

"There should be no place in our country for bigotry, hatred or violence against those who seek to unite our communities and our country," the mayor's statement said.

The removal had "minimal or no disruption to the cemetery itself."

Considering removing

Alabama

Birmingham Mayor William Bell ordered plastic draped over a Confederate monument at Linn Park and a plywood structure built around it while officials decide what to do. State law prohibits a city from taking down the monument, he said, but not covering it up. "This country should in no way tolerate the hatred that the KKK, neo-Nazis, fascists and other hate groups spew," he said. "The God I know doesn't put one race over another."

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said he will sue Bell and the city, citing state law that prohibits the "relocation, removal, alteration, or other disturbance of any monument on public property that has been in place for 40 years or more."

Florida

Jacksonville City Council President Anna Lopez Brosche said she asked city officials for an inventory of all Confederate monuments and markers. Brosche said in a statement that she plans to submit legislation to relocate the monuments to museums for "appropriate historical context."

Georgia

The city of Atlanta said it is currently reviewing options for the Peace Monument in Piedmont Park. Mayor Kasim Reed asked the public art commission to review the city's art and determine which pieces have ties to racism and slavery, but hasn't asked to remove any.

Maryland

Gov. Larry Hogan has called for the removal of the Roger B. Taney statue at the Maryland State House. In a statement Tuesday, Hogan said he believes removing the statue is the "right thing to do" and asked the State House Trust to "take that action immediately."

"While we cannot hide from our history -- nor should we -- the time has come to make clear the difference between properly acknowledging our past and glorifying the darkest chapters of our history," he said.

As chief justice, Taney wrote the US Supreme Court's majority opinion in the infamous Dred Scott decision shortly before the Civil War. The 1857 ruling found that slaves were not citizens of the United States and therefore were not protected under the US Constitution.

Texas

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings called for the formation of a task force Tuesday to determine the fate of Confederate statues in city parks during the next 90 days, including the Robert E. Lee statue in Lee Park and the Confederate War Memorial in downtown Dallas, CNN affiliate KTVT reported. "This is simple. We could remove them, the question is, how do we heal on this issue? To do that we have to talk and listen to one another," Rawlings said.

In San Antonio, two City Council members have pushed for the removal of a Confederate monument at Travis Park, CNN affiliate KSAT reported. Councilmen Roberto Treviño and William "Cruz" Shaw jointly filed a consideration to relocate the monument where it could be used in an "educational context."

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner asked city staff to compile an inventory of Confederate statues and make recommendations about whether they should be removed from city property. Members of the public urged the council to take down the statues. "It is my hope that we can, in a very positive and constructive way, move forward," Turner said.

Virginia

Officials in Richmond, the one-time capital of the Confederacy, have started to hold public meetings for community input on the future of the city's many Civil War monuments and statues. According to local reports, the first meeting was civil, with spirited debate on both sides. The city hopes to have a plan in place later this fall.

Washington

Seattle Mayor Ed Murray wants to remove a monument to Confederate soldiers in Lake View Cemetery. The cemetery is on private property, but Murray said in a statement that his office called the cemetery operator to express his concerns about the monument. Murray said the move would send a "strong message by taking these archaic symbols down."

"We must remove statues and flags that represent this country's abhorrent history of slavery and oppression based on the color of people's skin. It is the right thing to do," Murray's statement said.

Not removing

Arizona

Gov. Doug Ducey told CNN affiliate KTVK that he will not remove any Confederate monuments or memorials and will instead leave that decision up to the public.

"It's not my desire or mission to tear down any monuments or memorials. We have a public process for this. If the public wants to be engaged on this, I'd invite them to get engaged in it," Ducey said.

Pennsylvania

Officials with Gettysburg National Military Park said they have no plans to remove any of the park's 1,300-plus monuments, markers or plaques.

Good stuff. Way to go, several parts of the US.

The mayor of Seattle is an admitted pedophile and child rapist who refuses to vacate his office before his term is up. And he's bought into the "both sides, waa waa waa!" bullshit because he's calling for the Vladimir Lenin statue in Seattle to come down as well. I don't have any objection to getting rid of a Lenin statue, but at the same time having it play into the Trumpzi narrative rankles me. Plus, Mayor Pedophile.

[Flagg]

See, this is the standard mouth noise to make regarding freedom of speech, and I get that...

But it's kind of beside the point. What's at stake really, really is not their right to have discourse and a voice. What's at stake is their ability to win the argument. The reason letting Nazis win the arguments is bad is because Nazis don't win arguments the way normal political movements do.

See, you're talking about discourse and voices. But Nazis don't actually do 'win arguments' by participating in discourse and having a voice. Nazis win arguments by using the discourse and voice to quietly organize 5% of the population or so into a violent corps of malcontents, and then using this paramilitary army to bust the heads of anyone who tries to argue with them. This is basically the same way the Klan works, because the difference between the Klan and the Nazis is that nobody thought it was cool to bend the Stars and Bars into a swirly pattern and make a swastika out of it.

I don't really disagree with any of what you said but it still comes to the problem of targeting a single group and more or less repressing them because you don't like them (I wonder if their mothers even like them). Yeah Nazis are going to abuse the system and even be violent but they aren't the only ones. Substitute any political group who can be violent or has had violent members and abuse the system like Black Panthers, Occupy Wall Street, BLM, the Tea Party and wonder if it sounds quite so okay to restrict their rights.

Nazis are bad people but are not part of some criminal organization, are not some banned political group, so what reason other then the fact they are Nazis should they be treated differently?

So the problem is, you have to draw a line between "Nazis have a voice" and "Nazis have ENOUGH of a voice that they can actually pull together this critical mass of head-breakers, at which point NOBODY has a voice, except Nazis."

The transition can be pretty goddamn abrupt, as the Germans learned between 1923 and 1933. Ten years. Not that long a span of time between "Nazis are a bunch of sad-sack idiots who can't take over a Bavarian beer hall" to "Nazis are all-powerful."

A similar span of time passed between "Confederates are getting their asses kicked, blacks freed from slavery" to "neo-Confederate Klansmen terrorists are killing all the 'uppity' blacks and forcing the rest back into sharecropping that is basically slavery under another name with juuuust enough of the overt legal stuff removed that the North doesn't step on it."

Thats is part of the price of living in a free society that sometimes bad people might get in charge (not that we'd know anything about that, not a thing). Its a catch 22 of sorts, a free society gives everyone a voice but some people might use that voice to make society no longer free.

We don't guard against this threat by becoming less free, by stopping to the level of the people who would destroy our society and rights by destroying our society and rights. We be vigilant against such groups and hope to hell enough people will stand against them.

Now, before I even go on about this, do you or do you not understand what I am saying? Yes, or no. No mealymouthing, just yes, or no. No "well having Nazis bust everyone's heads would be bad BUUUT." There is no need for buts. Butt me no buts here, on this specific proposition. It's not worth my time to go on, until I know whether or not you perceive that yes, Nazis and Nazi-oid movements actually behave this way.

Hey, I like butts. But anyway I do understand what you are saying (typing) BUT I think your conclusion while good intentioned is the incorrect choice. I think there is the possibility of Nazis busting heads BUT there is the possibility of anyone doing the same with the right motivation. Nazism is not unique or some unholy talisman that drives men and women in committing acts of inhumanity. Its an excuse, a shaw for people who want to do bad things to hide behind. BUT there are a great many shaws, many excuses for people to be bastards. Christianity, atheism, liberalism, conservatism, fucking football, skin color, location, even what shoes you wear can all be used as excuses for do evil. Should be restrict the rights of all those people under those umbrellas too? Butt.

You dodge my question.

Which would you rather have to deal with as the Great Political Threat of the 21st century American political order? Tumblr feminists, or Nazis? Do you think that Tumblr feminists are a bigger threat than Nazis would be, as the dominant antagonistic political problem you might face? Me, I'd rather be dealing with the Tumblr feminists.

I'd rather deal with neither but then I'm, atleast in this case, not so predisposed to histrionics as to think a bunch of morons in probably cheap Chinese vinyl jackboots and morons wearing greasy bandanas and even greasier hair are even the greatest political threat of the decade. Cletus Cousinfucker and his band of merry mein have been around strutting their stuff FAR longer then you or I have been alive but we aren't all speaking German unless you want to.

No, they're real Nazis, they're just the kind of real Nazis you get in a country where no one with a college degree is stupid enough to join the Nazis. Namely, the dumbass Nazis. The real Nazi party had plenty of dumbass Nazis, whom it routinely called on for all its goon-squadding, Jew-brutalizing, and "SCHNELL-"yelling needs.

It didn't put the dumbass Nazis in charge of anything important, that was for the disciplined, brainy bastards... but that's because it had disciplined brainy bastards. In America, all our disciplined, brainy bastards are too busy milking everybody dry on Wall Street to have time to waste trying to organize a bunch of dumbass Nazis.

Conversely, the American dumbass Nazis look like dumbasses instead of looking menacing and sleek, because they don't have disciplined, brainy bastards organizing them and procuring Hugo Boss uniforms and planning their rallies. All they have are each other. The dumbass leading the dumbass. In Trump, they have tried to identify a sort of... uber-dumbass-fuhrer, the supreme maximum leader of dumbassery... but it isn't getting them very far because the ultimate maximum dumbass is still a dumbass. And is, therefore, unfit to organize a drinking party in a brewery

While they are dumbasses (the Swastika is helpful indicator of that) they still aren't actual Nazis. They still aren't enemy soldiers or anything like that. They are dumbass American citizens exercising their rights to be dumbasses (and thats apparently the only exercise some are getting judging from Charlotte) as the law says they can.

Also if they aren't getting very far with the fucking President being in their corner who exactly are they this great existential threat you are making them out to be? How can they be failing but still a serious, OMG tear up the Constitution level threat butt clencher of a threat?

The thing about Nazis is that they will cheerfully make a direct transition from being your fellow citizens to being the enemy soldiers who splatter my brains all over the concrete for disagreeing with them. They will not pass GO and will only collect $200 if they goddamn well feel like it. You do not get a warning signal between the time when Nazis feel weak enough to continue practicing politics as usual, and the time when Nazis feel strong enough to wage systematic domestic terror campaigns that cause entire regions to flip to them, for fear of what they'll do next plus the quiet assholes who secretly agree with them finally having the balls to admit it.

To echo an earlier point, does that make Nazis unique? Plenty of other groups are more then happy to splatter your brains against the concrete for disagreeing with them. And even when they get violent that still doesn't make them enemy soldiers, it makes them criminals. The guy who ran down the lady, not a soldier, not some fucker covered under the Geneva convention, some terroristic piece of shit criminal who is going to be tried and hopefully sentenced very VERY harshly by our laws.

Or rather, something like Charlottesville is itself the warning signal. When hundreds or thousands of Nazis are staging torchlight rallies in one of your cities because you just took down a statue honoring a White Power symbol, and when the counterprotestors are getting rammed and run over with cars, and the president is going "um, er, bad things happened on both sides," that is your warning signal. Beyond this point, shit gets exponentially worse, very very fast, so the point at which you flip the hell out and ask "we shitting our pants yet? Because we should be" is pretty much 'right the hell now.'

Even this is not enough grounds to recommend, say, rounding up all the neo-Nazis and shoving them in in internment camps (though the irony would have its charms). But it is enough grounds to recommend recognizing that when you have a small Nazi movement, it really is time to react intensely to keep it from becoming a bigger one. To talk about it a lot, to emphasize how grotesque it is, to denounce anyone who does not themselves denounce it.

It is a warning signal, yeah, just like the dozens of other times when Nazis, the KKK, and various other ivory power shitbags walked around in our cities sometimes with torches though probably not of the tiki variety. It was a warning back when literally thousands of members of the KKK held public rallies that made this one look like a Democrats for Trump meeting in size and even had Klansmen holding public office. It was a warning when the American Nazi Party was a public legitimate political organization. They were all warnings to be vigilant and people were.

There was violence, never got exponentially worse even though for the most part the response was not more violence. Violence that was far worse then anything we've even came close to experiencing with this current generation of mental midget messerschmitts. Numbers of card carrying KKK and Nazis high enough to fill up a college football stadium. And yet we magically survived all that as a society..

How is this warning any different from all those other warnings?

The correct response to Nazis in a democratic society is "EWWWW." The response of "well, they're bad but they do have reasons to think the way they do and bad things are being done by both sides and they're bad buuuut..." ends in everyone to the left of Benito Mussolini getting beaten with clubs until they move to the right of Benito Mussolini.

No the correct response is not the flip the fuck out anytime you see a Swastika and start acting its something we should all be shitting our pants over when in fact we should be disgusted and weary but not become wannabe thugs ourselves and go beat some fucking Nazis with clubs. You know, act like a rational human being.

Simon, you are a smart person but are apparently blind to fucking history in a manner that seems almost willful. History has shown time and time again that people can stop the Nazis, the KKK, and all the other various sstupid as fuck, inbred sheep shagging pieces of hate filled fucking shits without resorting to violence. History has shown they can exist without them committing massive violence. History has beat it over our heads that we don't need to nor should we restrict the rights of others even the most foul and disgusting of us to protect our society.

Nazis are bastards but legal bastards who are free to express themselves legally same as everyone else. There is a reason even the much "hated" ACLU who is supposedly a wing of the Democrat Party will even defend Nazis. Look up National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie if you don't believe me.

Also butt.

Ok Shit_Lord, you lying weasely little cunt. You have refused to respond to my correcting your totally wrong statements that Ruby Ridge and Waco "prove that both sides are bad" for long enough. Now the moderators get to deal with your stupid lying ass. You are the epitome of a shit weasel.

[Flagg]

Oh, and Shit_Lord, it's Charlottesville, not Charlotte. If you're going to defend the "rights" of terrorists at least have the decency (like you even know what that word means, you despicable cunt) to get the name of the city (And state. I mean I'm sure there is probably a "Charlotte" in VA but we all know you're stupid and ignorant enough to think it was the capital of NC.) the terrorists attacked right.

[Civil War Man]

I can understand how these statues could get erected in Southern states, but what baffles me is how they get erected in Union states like New York and Wisconsin (Gettysburg National Park gets a pass from me), which fought against the Confederacy. What baffles me even more is how they get erected in places that did not even fight the Confederacy, like Seattle.

In many cases, it's because they were put up by the descendants of Confederate soldiers who migrated sometime after the war.

It was long ago decided by the courts that "freedom of speech" does not include yelling FIRE! in a crowded theater. Your freedoms end when you start to harm others or deprive them of their freedoms. If Nazis are using "free speech" rules to cause harm to others then they can be constrained.

I was actually thinking of this comparison not too long ago. I definitely consider Nazis to be the "Yelling FIRE in a crowded theater" of political factions. Allowing them a platform with which to spread their poisonous ideology leads directly to people being injured or killed.

Honestly, I've gotten pretty jaded about people trotting out "muh free speech" arguments whenever there's a backlash against something racist, as if it were a +5 Talisman of Protection from Criticism. And whenever it happens, it seems to always be done to provide cover for far right racist shit, with the concerns over people being silenced suddenly vanishing once it is one of the far right's punching bags that's getting silenced. So we'll see people saying that people like Richard Spencer should be allowed to speak at colleges because free speech, but students at those same colleges should not be allowed to voice their opposition to him because their rights to free speech and free association are somehow trumped by Spencer's. Or just imagine how many people would be defending the hate mongers in Charlottesville if instead of being Neo-Nazi white supremacists they were extremist Muslims voicing their support for ISIS (hint: it would be the same number of people that should have been defending the Nazis, ie zero).

With what happened in Charlottesville, it's pretty much gotten to "Fuck that noise" levels. People were beaten and killed at that shitshow. Continuing to defend them is saying that the right of the Neo-Nazis to speak trumped the right of Heather Heyer to not be murdered.

[Flagg]

I can understand how these statues could get erected in Southern states, but what baffles me is how they get erected in Union states like New York and Wisconsin (Gettysburg National Park gets a pass from me), which fought against the Confederacy. What baffles me even more is how they get erected in places that did not even fight the Confederacy, like Seattle.

In many cases, it's because they were put up by the descendants of Confederate soldiers who migrated sometime after the war.

It was long ago decided by the courts that "freedom of speech" does not include yelling FIRE! in a crowded theater. Your freedoms end when you start to harm others or deprive them of their freedoms. If Nazis are using "free speech" rules to cause harm to others then they can be constrained.

I was actually thinking of this comparison not too long ago. I definitely consider Nazis to be the "Yelling FIRE in a crowded theater" of political factions. Allowing them a platform with which to spread their poisonous ideology leads directly to people being injured or killed.

Honestly, I've gotten pretty jaded about people trotting out "muh free speech" arguments whenever there's a backlash against something racist, as if it were a +5 Talisman of Protection from Criticism. And whenever it happens, it seems to always be done to provide cover for far right racist shit, with the concerns over people being silenced suddenly vanishing once it is one of the far right's punching bags that's getting silenced. So we'll see people saying that people like Richard Spencer should be allowed to speak at colleges because free speech, but students at those same colleges should not be allowed to voice their opposition to him because their rights to free speech and free association are somehow trumped by Spencer's. Or just imagine how many people would be defending the hate mongers in Charlottesville if instead of being Neo-Nazi white supremacists they were extremist Muslims voicing their support for ISIS (hint: it would be the same number of people that should have been defending the Nazis, ie zero).

With what happened in Charlottesville, it's pretty much gotten to "Fuck that noise" levels. People were beaten and killed at that shitshow. Continuing to defend them is saying that the right of the Neo-Nazis to speak trumped the right of Heather Heyer to not be murdered.

It's exactly that. And to be frank, Nazi ideology is hands down worse than ISIS. At least ISIS will accept capitulation and conversion over cutting off your head (barring those they choose to brutally murder because it serves their agenda, in not defending those shits), with Nazis if you're not a white Christian you deserve to die or if "white enough, but not enough to be treated as a human" be sterilized and/or enslaved. And they are just as misogynistic, with women to be baby factories only given marginally more freedom.

And if anyone wants to say I'm going easy on ISIS: Fuck you in advance. I'm not. I'm using them to show how bad Nazism is. There is no place for either in the civilized world, but one wants to murder most of the people on Earth simply for existing.

[Thanas]

One addition I will make to this is that even if the act of Britain abolishing slavery was relatively bloodless, the enforcement and expansion of that abolition was not. The UK shed a lot of blood and treasure over the course of decades working to shut down the transatlantic slave trade. One of the reasons they refused to intervene in the American Civil War was that many Confederate officials were openly advocating reopening the slave trade because it was cheaper to kidnap Africans and work them to death than it was to purchase slaves from the breeding plantations in states like Virginia and Maryland.

Hence the "externally imposed" bit.

A bit from Amistad. I find the last portion... therapeutic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmRyIrkDy40

I am always of two minds about this - the British after all basically invented and perfected the slave triangle trade. So I view this as them cleaning up a mess they created in the first place. Nevermind that old saying about Liverpool's streets....

[Thanas]

Also: Joun_Lord gets a period of 72 hours to respond to the arguments raised against him in cogent fashion.

I hope he does so to my satisfaction.

Otherwise, I will get very cross.

[Lonestar]

Otherwise, I will get very cross.

What are you crossing?

[Alyrium Denryle]

Major quotations are going to use quote tags. Particular things I want to pick out will use code tags.

Yeah. What I am astounded by is how many Americans in this thread seems to accept political violence as a part of progress.

It is the tradeoff we make for being able to say almost literally anything, and being able to express unpopular (but not rancid) views. The first amendment protects Nazis from interference by the state, but it also protected the formation of a Gay/Straight Alliance at my highschool in 2001, over the protestations of religious conservatives and school administration. There was nothing they could do to stop us legally. If we were to open that up so that the state and its agencies COULD shut Nazis down, there is a good chance whatever legislation enabled that would not be narrowly tailored enough for the task, and other groups would be caught in the backwash.

The tradeoff is that sometimes... the discourse that arises becomes violent, particularly when one side of the "debate" wants to round up their opposition and put them into death camps.

Violence may occur on occasion, but I would not describe it as "necessary" in order to have free speech.

It really should be quite simple to say "You can believe and say whatever you want, as long as you don't call for/threaten/commit violent acts". And when you cross that line, the law comes down on you like the fist of God.

Note: In this post, you end up contradicting yourself. So I am responding to things as I see them, I will deal with the contradiction later in the text.

That would be nice, but that is not how the world works. In the US (and you SHOULD know this, because you are not completely devoid of knowledge of history), it has never been safe to restrict freedom of speech with the law because the minorities WOULD be fucked. Name a time period for me. Name a time period in the history of the US when freedom of speech could be legally restricted without congress writing in a way for them to fuck black people, gay people, or native americans. Do it. Just try. You will not find such a fucking time.

You do this fucking constantly. You bandy about high principle with no regard for that empirical reality or practical application actually look like. You can do this with the US, because you are a straight white boy who lives in British Columbia. There will never be a point when your freedom of speech would be restricted by such legislation. Mine would be.

Between the way our legal system is bound in precedent and the way the enabling constitutional amendment and subsequent legislation would be written, it would fuck over the likes of BLM, to say nothing of Muslims etc etc etc. The republicans have been jerking off at the prospect of annihilating the right to protest since at least the Nixon administration, and if you think it would have been safe to restrict free speech in the post-war period Oh Boy! Does the term "House Un-American Activities Committee" ring any bells in the hollow space that is your brain? Then there is the Sedition Act of 1918.

Even right now in the state in which I live, it is illegal for teachers to say that being gay is acceptable. It has been an uphill battle ever since this country's founding to keep freedom of expression. I would LOVE to have hate-speech laws, and laws prohibiting Nazism, but this is America. I don't get to have nice things.

The alternative is for the population to literally fight it out sometimes. It is the natural consequence of not being politically able to keep the racist filth off our streets.

The problem with that comes when you have people in positions of political power tacitly (or even explicitly) condoning and supporting the violent extremists. Hence the increased threat of white supremacist violence under a Trump Presidency, for example. Which is why we need to vote out (or preferably impeach) Trump and his allies, and restore a government that works to impose limits on, not provide political cover for, violent extremists. And until then, state and local authorities need to pick up the slack, as much as the law permits them to do so.

See above regarding history of free speech in the united states.

That said, (and I'm addressing this part generally, not to you Alyrium), I am disappointed to see people responding to the terrorism in Charlottsville by saying things like "We need more hate speech laws", or even worse "We need more violent Left-wing militias". Its an understandable response, a predictable response. When something horrible happens people want payback, or they want to do whatever it takes to make sure that it never happens again, whatever the price. But...

When people start calling for restrictions on civil liberties, its usually done in the name of some pressing need. There often is a legitimate concern behind it. But that doesn't make it right.

MAKE UP YOUR FUCKING MIND!

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You can believe and say whatever you want, as long as you don't call for/threaten/commit violent acts".  And when you cross that line, the law comes down on you like the fist of God

That describes a hate-speech law you ignoramus. As it stands in the US, you have to incite imminent violence in order to face legal censure, as in, it is insufficient to say "We must exterminate the jews as a matter of state policy", you have to be like "alright boys, now lets go find us some jews to lynch, who's with me!?". Even permitting the former would require that we amend our constitution, which I do not in principle oppose, but in practice...well... see above regarding the history of free speech in the US.

That leaves dealing with it up to the citizenry, because the government (even under an administration that is not run by Orange Quisling) is powerless, and for other reasons must remain powerless, to crush the nazis like cockroaches (that is an insult to cockroaches, which are noble creatures).

Then there is that last bit

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When something horrible happens people want payback, or they want to do whatever it takes to make sure that it never happens again, whatever the price.  But...

You know what, short of ripping up our social contract, yes. We SHOULD do whatever it takes to make sure the fucking holocaust never happens again. I really really don't want to die in a Konzentrationslager, or be forced by a fucking Einsatzkommando to dig my own mass grave. I want to be very clear here TRR, that is what we are talking about. That is what Nazis want to do. They're here. Now. Marching in the streets with--not just the silence of the president--the support of the president. They have been infiltrating law enforcement for years, and whatever we might think of BLM (I tend to like them), conditions are right for Nazis to recruit in local police departments on a large scale rather than just slipping in or converting a random officer here or there. We have what happened with the police in Charlottesville, where the Nazis had a weapons cache sufficient to fight it out with the local police--local police who were not too keen on interfering with Nazis beating up clergy. You want to know what the antifascists did? They shielded pastors and rabbis with their own bodies and fought back.

So tell me, TRR, at what point is it acceptable for fight back and prevent the Shoah from ever happening again? Do we have to wait until they have taken over Montana or Idaho before we nip that problem in the bud, or would you prefer to wait until they have enough sympathizers (and dupes, to be fair) to get people (Nazis and Nazi Symps) elected to federal office? Oh...wait. That's already happened.

The Nazis have never gone away. This is not a new thing. They have been watched by the feds for decades, but shielded by the nation's fairly uncompromising position on freedom of speech and association. But they were like a dormant virus, waiting for the right conditions. Now they are in an amplification cycle, and we are immunocompromised. The FBI saw Trump slash the programs that were used to track, monitor, and combat them. The internet lets them gather in secret and coordinate between different otherwise isolated Nazi groups. They have allied with the alt-right and KKK (which are almost as bad), and use them as a recruiting pool. Between them all they have murdered 30 people this year that we know about, and caused injury to many more, and they have political power in some measure.

You know how to stop this? You can't let them recruit in peace, you can't let them seem strong in public by letting them achieve operational objectives however small or intimidate local governments and populations, and you have to make life as a Nazi a living hell.

You can't let them march upon an objective and get there unopposed. If they march unopposed they appear strong and any authoritarian-minded shitheel will feel like they can join up and be powerful. You can't let them win that confrontation either (for the same reason), which means you MUST meet violence with violence and break them. A pacifist protest will always lose to one that is willing to use force, so you can't be pacifist. At a bare minimum, you have to be prepared to stand your ground and fight back. Not just with a passively resisting human chain, a Nazi shield wall armed with clubs will crush that like an insect, but to actually fight for your lives because there is a good chance that is exactly what you will end up doing. In Charlottesville, Nazis were prepared--and I do mean literally prepared with weapons caches--to get into an armed shootout with the police and win.

(This isn't like the 1960s Civil Rights Protests where people developed sympathy for the protesters and put pressure on government to change laws and policies and then send in troops to enforce compliance. MLK was very calculated in his approach here, he knowingly and intentionally got children attacked by dogs. There is no constitutional way to change the laws here.

You have to make their lives hell, you have to make them lose their jobs, lose their families, lose their friends, and socially isolate them. They have to be *afraid* to operate, and not feel like they are strong enough to succeed. And they have to be seen as such in order to prevent their efforts to recruit.

This can be done by small groups of independent citizens so long as the groups of Nazis are relatively small. When a Nazi group has 50 people in it, you have options. You can shame them, you can tear down their fliers, throw them out the door of a concert they are passing our fliers in, and yes... you can go after them with mace and brass knuckles when they are charging unarmed hand-holding-and-terrified clergy like they did last week.

If they manage to recruit enough (consider that Trump is still approved of by 35% of the population) and actually unite (which was the title of that rally, if you recall), they can get up to business that we really don't want. Organized voter intimidation, laws or no laws they will engage in it, there are only so many police and the police will only be so willing to stop them. Voting as a block to take over a local government... voting as a block in primary elections where they have influence... If they can get the latter two done, the norms of our democratic process will shield them.

They wont ever have an actual majority of people in their camp. Even Nazi Germany never actually had that. But they CAN get local majorities, and form a potent voting block that, if the tea party is any indication, will be able to affect federal elections and get candidates sympathetic to their agenda into office.

I remember how America reacted after 911. That was a real attack, far worse in terms of destruction and loss of life than Charlottsville, committed by a genuine and continuing threat. But the response was disproportionate, and overly-broad, and ended up doing more harm that good, and sacrificing some of our civil rights in the process. Many people on the Left rightly criticized Republican-backed suppression of civil rights, and acts of pre-emptive war and assassination, in the name of "national security" and fighting terrorism.

How quickly we forget, huh?

Or maybe its okay when our side does it?

Or in this case, the situation is different, and the response is different. We are not talking about abrogating personal privacy (against the government) in exchange for security. We are not talking about a military deployment overseas that kills hundreds of thousands if not millions of people. We are talking about using one of two options:

Hate-speech laws (which I reject because they DO damage our social contract)
Citizen resistance against Nazi aggression. Actual resistance.

These are the only options I can see that do not risk Nazis gaining political power. Your method of "impeaching trump" is going to take years. See above about why that is non-viable.

I despise Nazism. I consider white supremacy and Right-wing extremism potential existential threats to our country, and our democracy. But I am deeply suspicious of anyone who says that we need to suppress free speech in order to fight them. There's always a reason. There's always something terrible that we're told we could prevent, if only we're willing to make a few little sacrifices. But that's a very dangerous road to go down. Part of the price for having a democracy is that people get to say horrible things, just as part of the price for having due process is that sometimes a criminal goes free for lack of evidence or judicial incompetence. Changing that won't make us safe. It will simply make us unsafe in a different way.

Don't forget people's lives.

You know what... I have tried so damn hard to be mostly polite with you... but I'm done. The mod staff has been informed of my intention to pointedly not moderate this thread and unload on you.

You need to check your fucking privilege and listen to yourself talk. You are a straight white gentile dude sitting north of the Canadian border with actual functioning healthcare, sanctimoniously lecturing a person who is literally in the crosshairs of Nazis about the dangers of throwing out all the stops to prevent his own genocide.

Fuck you, you piece of shit pearl-clutching Quislingesque moron.

You know what you do to existential threats? You destroy them. You can minimize collateral damage and do so from a defensive posture, but you destroy them. If you seriously thought that Nazis were an existential threat, you would be advocating for something more than passive resistance and hope. But you don't.

Gonna continue in your other piles of rhetorical vomit.

But I oppose the use of violence on the Left, and will continue to do so, because, in addition to whatever moral objections I have, I don't think it would do a damn bit of good.

You think your rag-tag band of Left-wing militiamen will deter Neo-Nazis with assault rifles? It won't. What it will most likely do is lead to a series of bloody shootouts in the street, which will cause more people to sympathize with Trump's "both sides are equally guilty" rhetoric, and possibly even give Trump the excuse he needs to turn the National Guard loose on Left-wing activists.

So... you would prefer that the Nazis simply shoot people who are not shooting back? Because that is how this shit is already going. They want to kill people anyway, and last week they did so.

The less they are resisted (with actual force), the more they think they can get away with. We're not talking about bringing guns to a political rally, that is something the Nazis do. We are talking about hitting them with our fists (and maybe improvised clubs). It would be nice if police themselves would intervene, but they don't. They are all too willing to throw teargas into black protesters, but suddenly Nazis show up with guns and start beating up passively resisting preachers and they are nowhere to be seen. For fuck's sake the police would not even commit to protecting the local synagogue.

So don't worry. If anyone gets killed, it will be jews, people of color, and gay people. You can sleep easy. Your precious optics will be maintained.

I do, as always, respect the right to use force if necessary to defend oneself or others against an attacker. If someone had, for example, pulled a gun on the white supremacists who were caught on video brutally beating a black man, I doubt I'd have objected.

And here you are, objecting to people organizing to do exactly that, and if that Nazi had died... I don't believe you. I am pretty sure you would have objected because it would "throw fuel on the fire".

Let us be perfectly blunt. It almost does not matter who throws the first punch, or whether we organize violence. The Nazis will claim we are bad actors anyway, and Orange Quisling will do so as well.

But there is a difference between self-defence and "I want to form my own militia to go bash in the heads of/shoot the other side." That is not defensive violence. That is retaliatory violence and terrorism. And even if its intended as a purely defensive militia, it will attract people who are looking to start a fight, not prevent one.

That is why I don't believe you.

If you want to disagree with me, that's your right. But if you try to suggest that I am sympathetic to or supportive of Neo-Nazis because I believe in the First Amendment, I will report you for libel. Which is a restriction on free speech I do support.

Oh shut your fucking trap. You just suggested she wanted this:

Or maybe you don't want to deter violence and terrorism, and restore democratic norms and the rule of law. Maybe you just want to throw fuel on the fire, so you can have a civil war and shoot people you think deserve to be shot. A war your side would probably lose.

You know, I have it on good authority that hypocrisy makes great lube. So I have a suggestion for you. Take the pearls you clutch to your chest in outrage over any deviation from your milquetoast sanctimonious excuse for progressive ideals, coat them liberally (pun intended), then shove them up your ass.

In a sense, principles count for everything. Because without them, democracy and the rule of law are dead regardless of who wins, along with a large number of mostly innocent people. Remember, if you start having shootouts in the street, its not just Nazis who will get shot. And if you start encouraging violent extremism, it won't be just actual Nazis who they end up targeting.

You know, antifascists are nothing new. In the US at least they've never really gone after anyone who is not a fascist in an organized way (mistakes/accidents do get made/happen from time to time because crowd dynamics) that I am aware.

That said, violence is going to happen. It is inevitable. The only difference is that without organized groups of antifascists who have prepared for it, the leftists get crushed like bugs.

Right now, this is blowing up in Trump and the Nazis faces, without the need for Left-wing militias. But you seem to want to escalate the use of force regardless, in a manner that plays into Trump's and the "Alt. Right's" rhetoric.

Just ignore the left-wing militia that did show up and did prevent harm to our people, and how Trump's "both sides are bad" rhetoric is getting him nowhere.

Even if we did not have a left-wing militia, the Nazis and Trump will lie. They will have video evidence of *someone* punching a Nazi in the face, even if they have to use photoshop, even if it is just one person losing their cool or defending themselves against a bunch of Nazis with shields bearing the words "Blood and Soil" slamming into their picket line. Those who are already inclined to believe that Nazis can even existentially be an aggrieved party are going to believe it no matter what happens. The rest of the country has, by and large, concluded that "Nazis have it coming by existing", which is as it should be.

This is a good thing. It means this country is not so far gone that I have to flee to Germany while muttering the definition of Irony under my breath.

[The Romulan Republic]

Or maybe its okay when our side does it?

Principles count for very little when the government tacitly supports people who want you gassed.

If the State will not provide justice for the people, the people will seek to right the wrongs themselves.

Finally, someone gets it. For large parts of the population the rule of law is dead, there is no justice, there is no legal redress for grievances. You can talk about peaceful protests and non-violent resolutions all you want but when it's your ass on the chopping block that shit don't matter. At that point you have 2 choices, die on your knees, or take as many of the fuckers with you as you can.

I know you're probably trying to bait me again, so I'm going to do my very best to keep this conversation civil, even if you don't deserve it.

That last sentence is very telling, however. It honestly reminds me of the stereotypical school shooter: "I'm going to commit suicide and take as many people with me as I can." Its basically an admission that you believe violence to be futile, a suicidal course of action, but that you are supporting it not out of the hope of accomplishing anything, but out of pride and spite.

Its one thing to support violence out of perceived necessity, however misguided. But what you said is simply evil.

Its also interesting to see this sudden sympathy for Left-wing violence from one of our board's foremost Trump/Putin apologists. It leads me to suspect one of three things to be the case:

1. You simply support anything that will undermine America, regardless of side.

2. You are a closet Trump/Putin supporter, who is trying to encourage Left-wing violence because you know that it will discredit the Left and play into Trump's narrative. It would not be the first time that Trumpers and Putinites have actively tried to encourage extremist splinter movements on the Left- Trump and Russia pandered to and fed the Bernie or Bust movement during the election, doubtless for precisely this purpose.

3. You are just trolling.

(Note: In case its not absolutely clear, I am addressing this to aerius, not Dragon Angel- I may disagree with you, emphatically, but I don't think that you are this morally bankrupt. I would however suggest that, as a progressive, you think twice before taking political strategy advice from Putin apologists.

Some folks like TRR have the luxury of belonging to a privileged group where they can discuss moral ideals and so forth from the safety of wherever they are.

I thought we'd get to this sooner or later. I'm "priviledged", therefore my position is automatically invalid on the basis of my identity.

I do acknowledge that one's personal experiences, including what demographics they belong to, can, obviously, bias their outlook. However, simply saying "You belong to X group, therefore you are wrong" is an ad hominem (attacking the speaker rather than the argument). I'm obviously not a moderator, but I thought this board took a dim view of debating by ad hominem?

I also find the implication that only a "privileged" person would oppose murder and terrorism deeply offensive. At least I do not presume to speak for others on the basis of what group they belong to.

And as to the notion that I feel "safe" because of my status in life-

I don't feel safe. A rising tide of political violence will endanger everybody. I may be less at risk than some, but, and this may surprise you, having a white dick does not make me immune to bullets and bombs. Nor does the fact that I am currently in Canada- there were white supremacist rallies planned here following Charlottsville, and major conservative politicians here court far Right, racist media. Nor does it make my friends and family who live in the US, and some of whom are members of vulnerable minority groups, immune.

The US collapsing into a cesspit of political violence would endanger everyone.

Others aren't so fortunate, for them, the shit has hit the fan and their choice is literally life or death, right here & now.

And you think fewer vulnerable minorities will die in the streets if political violence becomes the new norm? In a civil war-type situation, it is not just the "bad guys" who get killed. Its innocent people- probably disproportionately from the most vulnerable groups.

Now, if its a choice between fighting and genocide, sure. Sign me up. But we're not there yet. Not even close. Have you, or any of the people advocating violence, actually paid attention to how the country is responding to Charlottsville? Overwhelmingly, it is with condemnation of white supremacists and Trump, and support for the victims.

Charlottsville is not turning into a win for the Neo-Nazis. Its turning into a major loss, and may yet lead to the impeachment of Donald Trump (a Democratic Congressman has just announced that he will introduce articles of impeachment).

Turning to violence now will muddy the issue in the minds of many of the hundreds of millions of Americans who are neither radical progressives nor white supremacists, lending credence to Trump's false equivalency and costing us support and momentum.

Now, I will never deny the right of individuals to use defensive force, to the extent that it is necessary to protect themselves or others from an attacker. But if you support preemptive violence, or organized violence, or retaliatory violence, or violence for intimidation...

Then you need to ask yourself: Do you support it because you believe that it is truly necessary, or because you want violence? And if its because you believe its necessary, then you have to ask yourself: Is it really necessary?

That is your moral duty, and your duty to your cause, if you do not want to end up doing more harm than good.

[The Romulan Republic]

snip misrepresentation, deluded ranting, and defamation

I was going to try to slog through your massive wall of text and do a line-by-line reply. But you know what? Fuck it. It doesn't deserve it.

I'll try to hit some of the main points, in brief.

As far as the reasons for not restricting political speech in America, I believe that largely agree with you, and said as much previously. What I disagree with is that it is therefore necessary to suppress Neo-Nazi views by vigilantism and terrorism. That has no less a cost, and is no less likely to backfire on the most vulnerable groups, than expanding hate speech laws. See my previous reply to aerius.

I am of the view that, as much as I loath Nazism, the price of living in a free society is that sometimes horrible people get to say horrible things, just as the price of having rule of law is that sometimes a guilty man gets off for lack of evidence or improper procedure. It is not then justifiable to start assaulting, terrorizing, or killing those who say vile things, any more than it is acceptable to go out and murder someone as a vigilante because the court acquitted them.

It is interesting, in light of that, that you mention not dissolving the social contract as a line you would be unwilling to cross. Because to me, an implicit part of the social contract is that you don't get to act outside the law just because the law isn't perfect, or doesn't go your way.

So white supremacists are allowed to exist, and speak, even as I condemn them for it. If Neo-Nazis or anyone else cross the line into actual violence, or direct threats/direct incitement of violence, then you bring the hammer down on them. Simple.

Existing law covers that. It has served well enough for many years. No, it didn't stop every hate crime or act of bigotry, but it is impossible to prevent every act of violence or corruption, no matter how draconian your laws or how heavy-handed your response. It did serve to keep Neo-Nazism from being a major political force, for decades.

The only difference now is that these people have "their man" in the White House. That is not something that can be altered by militia violence at this point, because the Left has neither the will or the means to overthrow the US government by force of arms, nor is it necessary, because Trump's administration is crumbling by the day. See, again, my reply to aerius.

You see a contradiction- that one cannot oppose hate speech laws, and also oppose political violence.

I simply see a different conclusion.

I'm used to people reading my posts in the worst possible light and then attacking me personally rather than my arguments (which becomes self-perpetuating, as every time it happens, people on this board become more inclined to view everything I post in the most negative possible light), but I might have hoped that a moderator would demonstrate better conduct. Apparently, I was mistaken.

My opposition to political violence is not born only out of moral opposition, though there certainly is that (and I am immediately wary of anyone who scoffs at morals as a luxury that only the privileged can afford, because "necessity" has been used to justify a great many terrible and unnecessary things).

I oppose it because I do not want to see the Nazis triumph.

Rather than accept that we simply have a different view on the most effective way of combatting Neo-Nazism, however, you chose to brand me a supporter of Neo-Nazism, as a collaborator, with your despicable referral to me as "Quislingesque" (the term "Quisling", originally, literally means "Nazi collaborator"), and your insinuation that I do not care if minorities are murdered because I am safe due to my "privilege".

You can disagree with my views on the most effective way of combatting Right-wing extremism and Neo-Nazism. But you do not get to call me a Nazi collaborator.

I regard this as libel.

I will also add that, while I am aware that ones' experience, which include but are not limited to the demographics one belongs to, can bias ones' perspective, the use of "privilege" in this manner, as a way of saying "You belong to X-demographic, therefore your argument can be dismissed" is by definition text-book ad hominem, attacking the speaker rather than the argument.

[The Romulan Republic]

So this is where we're at?

"You're with us, or you're with the terrorists", all over again. Only now, we are directing that at our own country, at the people who should be our allies.

Is that the choice now? Have we really come to this? Either you support Left-wing militias and murder in the streets, or you are yourself a Nazi?

I don't believe so. I believe that the majority of Americans support neither Nazis nor Left-wing militias, and that you will only undermine your own cause, and the cause of others who fight for progressivism and social justice, if you embrace offensive violence and terrorism.

But if that really is the choice we're to be given, then I expect that we'll be fighting a civil war within the next few years. Thousands, perhaps millions of my fellow Americans will die. Maybe you will die. Maybe I will die. Most of the dead will likely be members of vulnerable groups, and our country will most likely be less free, and less safe, when it is over. But at least you can console yourself with the belief that it was "necessary".

For my part, I will be against both the Nazis, and those on the Left who threw away a chance, perhaps our last chance, to unite the country in opposition to bigotry and despotism.

Edit:

And in answer to the contemptible and absurd insinuation that my views are a result of privilege, because I am "safe" from the consequences of Neo-Nazism:

In the event that America, God forbid, ever finds itself in a state of civil war, I pledge that I will return as swiftly as I can to the United States, and offer my services to whichever side best represents and fights for the restoration of a united America, based on democracy and the rule of law.

God grant me the strength and fortune to keep this promise, and God grant that it is never necessary for me to do so.

[Flagg]

[The Romulan Republic]

Apologies for triple-posting. I didn't realize I had done so until after I had already done so. My mistake.

[ray245]

I am of the view that, as much as I loath Nazism, the price of living in a free society is that sometimes horrible people get to say horrible things, just as the price of having rule of law is that sometimes a guilty man gets off for lack of evidence or improper procedure. It is not then justifiable to start assaulting, terrorizing, or killing those who say vile things, any more than it is acceptable to go out and murder someone as a vigilante because the court acquitted them.

That only works if you have sufficient protection for minorities. Do we define harm merely by physical harm? Because that's clearly a problem as we understand how people can be emotionally and mentally damaged.

It is interesting, in light of that, that you mention not dissolving the social contract as a line you would be unwilling to cross. Because to me, an implicit part of the social contract is that you don't get to act outside the law just because the law isn't perfect, or doesn't go your way.

So white supremacists are allowed to exist, and speak, even as I condemn them for it. If Neo-Nazis or anyone else cross the line into actual violence, or direct threats/direct incitement of violence, then you bring the hammer down on them. Simple.

Is violence merely about physicality?

Existing law covers that. It has served well enough for many years. No, it didn't stop every hate crime or act of bigotry, but it is impossible to prevent every act of violence or corruption, no matter how draconian your laws or how heavy-handed your response. It did serve to keep Neo-Nazism from being a major political force, for decades.

Did it? What we saw today is a case of most Americans generally disliking neo-nazis and they outnumber them. Counter-protests works when you outnumber the neo-nazis.

So what happens to the more isolated towns where it's much harder to get counter-protests going?

[The Romulan Republic]

I am of the view that, as much as I loath Nazism, the price of living in a free society is that sometimes horrible people get to say horrible things, just as the price of having rule of law is that sometimes a guilty man gets off for lack of evidence or improper procedure. It is not then justifiable to start assaulting, terrorizing, or killing those who say vile things, any more than it is acceptable to go out and murder someone as a vigilante because the court acquitted them.

That only works if you have sufficient protection for minorities. Do we define harm merely by physical harm? Because that's clearly a problem as we understand how people can be emotionally and mentally damaged.

It is interesting, in light of that, that you mention not dissolving the social contract as a line you would be unwilling to cross. Because to me, an implicit part of the social contract is that you don't get to act outside the law just because the law isn't perfect, or doesn't go your way.

So white supremacists are allowed to exist, and speak, even as I condemn them for it. If Neo-Nazis or anyone else cross the line into actual violence, or direct threats/direct incitement of violence, then you bring the hammer down on them. Simple.

Is violence merely about physicality?

Existing law covers that. It has served well enough for many years. No, it didn't stop every hate crime or act of bigotry, but it is impossible to prevent every act of violence or corruption, no matter how draconian your laws or how heavy-handed your response. It did serve to keep Neo-Nazism from being a major political force, for decades.

Did it? What we saw today is a case of most Americans generally disliking neo-nazis and they outnumber them. Counter-protests works when you outnumber the neo-nazis.

So what happens to the more isolated towns where it's much harder to get counter-protests going?

Those are all valid points, worth discussing. And I appreciate that at least one person here is actually willing to raise valid points of discussion without lacing them with misrepresentation or personal attacks/defamation.

It is certainly true that non-physical acts can still cause profound emotional and psychological harm. However, that is a very difficult problem to legislate against, because, while some things are fairly clear cut (and Nazism is certainly one of them), there are a lot of situations where what is profoundly offensive or even emotionally painful to someone is highly subjective and variable. Dealing with the problem via extra-judicial violence is even more problematic, partly for the same reason.

The point about the difficulty in organizing the numerical superiority of the anti-Nazis, particularly in remote areas, strikes me as very apt as well.

I do not believe that this is a problem that can be contained only by vigilante violence, but I do believe that the Anti-Nazis' (I won't say "the Lefts'" because this is a point on which some of the Right, finally, stand with us) existing tactics are inadequate. Part of the problem is that the far Right has long been better organized. They can get hundreds or thousands of white nationalists into some small town, to the point where they reportedly outnumber and outgun the local police.

They tend to have more motivated turnout in midterm elections, too.

We do need greater organization, greater mobilization. And we need to stop taking potshots at each other for not being sufficiently "pure" or hardline in our positions. Which is part of why Alyrium's attack on me pisses me off so much. We should be on the same side. And yet he's calling me, essentially, a Nazi collaborator because I'm not hard line enough.

Adopting extremist tactics won't do any good if it costs you the support of millions of people who would otherwise be on your side, and you then respond by attacking anyone who isn't part of your small militant wing as a collaborator. That's like half of my fucking point in this thread.

I mean, Abraham Lincoln fought an actual civil war against violent white supremacists in America, and he was often accused (by contemporary Republicans and abolitionists) of being too slow, too conservative on abolition, on restricting the speech of Confederate sympathizers, on punishing the South.

But if he hadn't been, he would have most likely lost the support of the moderates, and the border states, and most likely the war. And while nobody's right all the time, and the circumstances are certainly not identical, personally, I'm more inclined to trust the wisdom of Abraham Lincoln than some random angry progressives on the internet.

Apparently, that makes me a collaborator.

[Ralin]

Which is part of why Alyrium's attack on me pisses me off so much. We should be on the same side. And yet he's calling me, essentially, a Nazi collaborator because I'm not hard line enough.

Idiot, let me break this down for you. We aren't angry at you for not being hard line enough. We don't mock you for supporting non-violent ways of organizing and acting against right-wingers. We think you're a fucking worthless shit because you will not shut up about how terrible the leftists who do consider violence on the table and condemning activists who do break the law and do strike back against fascists, white supremacists and Trumpists in general. Working within the system, trying to get the vote out, organizing fund raisers and canvassing and all that is good and beneficial. It's supporting all that along with your goddamn Little Lord Fauntleroy routine that makes you less than useless.

If you're not willing to support people's right to fight back against this shit then you can damned well shut up and stay out of the way of the folks who do. Otherwise you're exactly the sort of moderate liberal shithead Martin Luther King complained about.

[Jub]

Idiot, let me break this down for you. We aren't angry at you for not being hard line enough. We don't mock you for supporting non-violent ways of organizing and acting against right-wingers. We think you're a fucking worthless shit because you will not shut up about how terrible the leftists who do consider violence on the table and condemning activists who do break the law and do strike back against fascists, white supremacists and Trumpists in general. Working within the system, trying to get the vote out, organizing fund raisers and canvassing and all that is good and beneficial. It's supporting all that along with your goddamn Little Lord Fauntleroy routine that makes you less than useless.

If you're not willing to support people's right to fight back against this shit then you can damned well shut up and stay out of the way of the folks who do. Otherwise you're exactly the sort of moderate liberal shithead Martin Luther King complained about.

How do you ever stop the violence if both sides insist that it's the only way to get things done? The US is so fucked precisely because of this cycle of violence, this fear that leads to wanting to be armed, and the next wave of violence that is inevitably lurking just beneath the surface waiting for the next cause. You can't get to the level of social stability that Canada or most of Europe enjoys unless you're actually willing to step back, realize that violence begets violence, and find another way to fix shit.

Now, at the current time, with the current President, I don't think that this is actually an option. However, I think your time is better spent by focusing your efforts on the issue at the top rather than going out and punching people at street level. You can't fix an issue by attacking the symptoms, you have to attack the cause. In this case, people need to write to their representatives letting them know that you never want a President that lets this shit happen ever again and that it's their ass if they don't take steps to fix this. If you've already done that, then you can go out and counter-protest if you haven't I'm not sure that I can take your righteous anger as anything more than you being another internet tough guy.

[ray245]

Those are all valid points, worth discussing. And I appreciate that at least one person here is actually willing to raise valid points of discussion without lacing them with misrepresentation or personal attacks/defamation.

Others have commented on this, so I leave this discussion to you and them to avoid dogpiling.

It is certainly true that non-physical acts can still cause profound emotional and psychological harm. However, that is a very difficult problem to legislate against, because, while some things are fairly clear cut (and Nazism is certainly one of them), there are a lot of situations where what is profoundly offensive or even emotionally painful to someone is highly subjective and variable. Dealing with the problem via extra-judicial violence is even more problematic, partly for the same reason.

Why is emotional and psychological harm difficult to legislate? The Germans did with quite effectively. A valid debate is dependent on being able to form arguments against one another. That it is something that is disputable.

The point of hate speech is it offers nothing productive and attacks a person for who they are. Hate speech doesn't attack the opinions, or the actions of a person, it directly attacks the person for existing.

The point about the difficulty in organizing the numerical superiority of the anti-Nazis, particularly in remote areas, strikes me as very apt as well.

Which I why I disagree with your opinion that existing laws are sufficient. The rise of the Nazis in Germany showed how they took advantage of the weakness in German's system in the 30s. Your existing free speech laws are clearly being taken advantage of by neo-nazis. They bolster their ranks with every successful intimidation effort. Your hate speech laws are mostly aimed at protecting people from physical harm and were created at a time where our understanding of how humans can be hurt is less advanced than what it is today.

[The Romulan Republic]

In theory, I could probably accept something akin to Germany's hate speech laws.

In practice, it would be unConstitutional in the US, and we really don't want that to change Constitutional law on censoring political speech because, as various people have noted, if that changes in the US (particularly, I think, under the current government)... well, its probably not the Nazis who would be getting censored.

Also, unrelated to ray's post, but to the previous discussion:

Alyrium, can I ask you a question?

You say that you support political violence to suppress Nazi views, right?

You also characterized me as akin to a Nazi collaborator because of how I oppose that view.

Does it also, therefore, follow that you believe that my views should be forcibly suppressed? After all, there's not that much difference between a Nazi and a collaborator, right?

So, should I be beaten to a bloody pulp, or murdered, because I'm a "straight white boy" who holds a different view than you on this issue?

And what about the other millions of Americans who are not Nazis or Nazi sympathizers, but disagree with you on this issue? Should they be forcibly silenced as collaborators?

What about the leadership of the Democratic Party, which does not condone Left-wing militia violence?

What about the mother of Heather Heyer, who asked people to not respond to her daughter's murder with hatred?

I ask this not because I think that you support violence against all those people, but to make a point: when you condone the use of violence, not only as a defensive tactic but as a retaliatory or intimidation tactic, when you open those flood gates, you tend to end up with an "us vs. them" mindset, which is not terribly selective in its targets. You start legitimizing Left-wing militias as the only means of protecting us from Nazis, and before long, I fucking guarantee that you will have people being threatened, or beaten, or killed because they're part of the wrong faction of the Left- because they're not Democrats, or because the are Democrats, or because they're not Bernie or Bust, or because they are Bernie or Bust, or because they're a straight white man, or because they voted Republican once twenty years ago, or because they said maybe we shouldn't turn to vigilantes and terrorists to protect us.

First it'll be "Fight the Nazis". Okay, I can sympathize, even if I don't agree.

Then it'll be "Fight the Nazis, and anyone who ever supports them." Okay...

Then it'll be "Fight the Nazis, and anyone who isn't supportive enough of violently suppressing them."

And then it'll ultimately be "Fight the Nazis, and anyone who disagrees with us, because we're against the Nazis and you're either with us or you're with them."

So you question weather I'm scared? Hell yes, I'm scared. I'm scared of the Nazis, but I'm also scared of people like you. Because if enough people start thinking in this way, that is how Reigns of Terror get started.

If that's not the outcome you want, then maybe you need to reconsider your position, or at least your rhetoric.

[ray245]

In theory, I could probably accept something akin to Germany's hate speech laws.

In practice, it would be unConstitutional in the US, and we really don't want that to change Constitutional law on censoring political speech because, as various people have noted, if that changes in the US (particularly, I think, under the current government)... well, its probably not the Nazis who would be getting censored.

I think it's about time you guys considering making an amendment that actually protects minorities in the modern context. Is hate speech really political speech?

[The Romulan Republic]

You'd have to very carefully word such an amendment to keep it from being overly-broad and open to abuse, but I wouldn't, in theory, be opposed to a tightening of restrictions on speech that could be seen as inciting violence, for example.

The problem is that if such a change were made in the US, if it were even politically feasible, there is ever risk that the precedent would be abused in favour of people like Neo-Nazis.

Perhaps in a generation, if we can remove the current cabal from office.

[ray245]

You'd have to very carefully word such an amendment to keep it from being overly-broad and open to abuse, but I wouldn't, in theory, be opposed to a tightening of restrictions on speech that could be seen as inciting violence, for example.

The problem is that if such a change were made in the US, if it were even politically feasible, there is ever risk that the precedent would be abused in favour of people like Neo-Nazis.

Perhaps in a generation, if we can remove the current cabal from office.

The law should be explicit in protecting minorities. It's about understanding that minorities are generally more affected, especially in a democratic system. You can define minorities based on their ethnicity/gender ( things that aren't based on a person's mere opinions).