US Politics Mega-thread - Page 8571

On August 28 2017 13:17 Plansix wrote:

Your surprises pales in comparison to mine. And why, who is in office is on me and the country. And that is the part a lot of people are missing. This is what people voted for. This strife is what people were sold and they were cool with it. I hear it from my brother, how the country should come together, but only on the terms he is comfortable with.

Divided countries fight and we didn't know how divided we were until recently. So now we know and all that is left is the conflict. And that conflict isn't always going to be peaceful.

Edit: The reason people are taking you to task in the thread is that you came off as an arrogant kid from the UK wagging his finger at us. Which might have been your goal, I don't know.

On August 28 2017 13:22 Sermokala wrote:

Don't be obtuse. There are a hundred ways GH could have asked danglers to separate himself from White supremacists or he could just be a decent person and assume that hes not. He purposely proposed that he wasn't sure if Danglers wanted the nazies to win or not. Its on everyone to not assume the people you don't agree with are not literally Hitler in order to have a decent conversation. Thats the basis of what people call "arguing in good faith". And this wasn't just Danglers he was throwing me and xdaunt into the "basket of deplorables" that he wasn't sure weren't nazies.

GH literaly expressed doubt that the people arguing in support of free speech didn't want the nazies to win. If thats not over the line then there is no line.

On August 28 2017 13:30 m4ini wrote:


I'm actually from germany, and far off from a kid. I also don't wag my fingers, if anything i wave fists, due to my temper.

If i get pointed out wrong, i accept it. So far that hasn't happened. Nothing i said on the last two(?) pages was wrong. On the other hand, i got told by a US marine that i went to war because, ahm, i don't know. Germany is so hungry for war that we just send people everywhere, to play war, i guess.

Fact of the matter is: it's a loaded question, especially the way said marine is phrasing it. It doesn't matter to me that it's Nazis. I despite Nazis. Like most germans, since we have mandatory history lessons over multiple years covering everything and know what actually happened. For the most part, anyway.

See that? I can tell you ezpz that i despite Nazis. And i'm still not gonna answer a retarded question like Zeros. I guess, that makes me look racist even though i have just said what i actually feel towards Nazis.

Btw: no. I'm fine with stripping the rights of Nazis. And BLM. And Antifa. And in fact any other potentially violent anti-government/anarchist movement. Equality: either all have it, or none. If you start cherry picking, you'll have a rude awakening.

On August 28 2017 13:32 Kyadytim wrote:

Please avoid ad-hominems. I'm not being obtuse.

Anyway, sorry, but no. When there are actual nazis marching in the streets, asking people if they support the nazis becomes a valid question. GH could definitely have gone about this better, but Danglars has voiced suspicion of the cause of Black Lives Matter and pushed racist explanations for problems facing black people. It is entirely reasonable for GH to come to the conclusion that Danglars and anyone supporting him might actually just be racist. Again, I'm not saying that Danglars is racist, but his response to being asked "Are you maybe sort of okay with Nazis?" wasn't "No," but dodges such as "You have no grounds for asking me that," and that invites people do double down on "Why aren't you just saying that you're not okay with Nazis?"

On August 28 2017 13:23 Danglars wrote:You don't really think I'm a white supremacist at the moment.
But you say somebody's reasonably suspicious that I'm using free speech as coded language and I can't be bothered to use language that isn't white supremacist language.

If you keep spouting bullshit like the way I talk is in code, you guarantee that nobody of any self respect will answer you.

On August 28 2017 13:50 Sermokala wrote:

You are being obtuse. You're posting meta observations that are either obvious or ilrelevent while presenting your opinions as facts and trying to muddle the difference. Its not that Danglers is a racist or not its that GH doesn't assume that the people he disagrees with arn't nazies. If you belive that asking people if they're not nazies isn't a valid question why are you asking someone if they're not a nazi? Why are you supporting someone whos asking others if they are a nazi. GH comes to the conclusion that everyones a nazi at one point or another its nothing new. Its not a dodge to not answer an ilrelevent or loaded question its refusing the concept that its a legitimate question to begin with.

On August 28 2017 13:50 Sermokala wrote:

You are being obtuse. You're posting meta observations that are either obvious or ilrelevent while presenting your opinions as facts and trying to muddle the difference. Its not that Danglers is a racist or not its that GH doesn't assume that the people he disagrees with arn't nazies. If you belive that asking people if they're not nazies isn't a valid question why are you asking someone if they're not a nazi? Why are you supporting someone whos asking others if they are a nazi. GH comes to the conclusion that everyones a nazi at one point or another its nothing new. Its not a dodge to not answer an ilrelevent or loaded question its refusing the concept that its a legitimate question to begin with.

On August 28 2017 13:44 Plansix wrote:

I completely agree. And until we pass laws that stop all pro-violence rhetoric, I'm going to be worried abut the group who has a history of racial violence and supports the man in the White House. And if Antifa becomes this super scary terrorist group and not a bunch of people fighting the police at protests, I'll be concerned about them too. But I know the false equivalency game being played Trump and his goons. It is an old trick that dates back to well before the civil rights movement.

And you got called out because you sounded like an asshole.

Because of whatever lies Bush sold your PM that made you join that bullshit war. That's why Germany went to war. You're a smart person.

You despise Nazis. We all do (I think). We simply don't want people waffling in this thread about it. You admit it. Multiple people admit it. Danglars can't. That's what the discussion is centered on.

And as I've said before, I'm fine with stripping Nazis, BLM, and antifa of civil liberties. As soon as they prove (which antifa and nazis have) that they don't deserve them.

So it's absolutely right to condemn the white nationalists and neonazis there, full stop.

On August 28 2017 13:57 Aquanim wrote:

As far as you're concerned, am I allowed to ask the question "Comparing the two protesting sides at Charlottesille, ignoring the actual outcomes of the actions of both sides, which side's goals do you sympathise with more?"?

On August 28 2017 14:12 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:
He condemned Nazis. Now, I think, people are trying to get him to admit being a white supremacist. It's fucked up, honestly. He can either betray himself or confess. I don't like either option.

In a similar analogy, if you're wearing a brown shirt and don't want to mistaken for a Nazi, don't goose step, and certainly don't hold your right arm in the Nazi salute while goosestepping.

On August 28 2017 14:16 m4ini wrote:


Is white supremacist different from white nationalist?

I actually don't know, that's why i'm asking.



Ahh.. The "most german way of motion", as we call it. Sorry, couldn't resist.

Sidenote, whatever you guys do over there, make Nazis dress differently. I wear white polo/khaki sometimes (without the tiki torch, although we have some in the garden). Show them the german neo nazi clothing, "Springerstiefel und Bomberjacke". Makes them easier to spot too.

On August 28 2017 14:44 Falling wrote:
Oh, I thought this Berkeley riot was over another Milo or Shapiro event because I know they were going to have another go at it; Berkeley's having a year of free speech. But I guess it isn't? Who exactly was marching and counter-marching against whom?

As for the white supremacy thing, when they show up on TL, while I suspect some would disagree with me, I find they tend to be rather obvious because they really can't help themselves. Ideologically possessed- I think that's a good term for most of them- you can start predicting ideological talking points, not too dissimilar from conspiracy theorists because there is an actual element of white supremacy that is conspiratorial.

I'm not overly fond of the false dilemma. I'm against Nazis. I don't like them. I will always be against Nazis. That's easy. But when asked am I for BLM, I think it's fair to ask 'what part?' Because it's not so clear to me that what it stands for is very cohesive. I am for ending racism and systematic racism. But there's a certain branch of argumentation that I'm not sure what they mean by it- the 'police system was originated as slave catchers' line. If you are talking about the northern police, I don't really think that's true, nor really that the entire concept of policing is inherently about slave catching (look to Britain's professionalization of the police force in the 1700's and on).

So then I wonder what this line of argument (that the police is an inherently racist institution) proposes as its solution? Abolition of the police? I am also very much against anarchy, and so while I am a priori against Nazis, I'm not for anarchy on the other end (if that's what they mean by it.) And so I think it's fair to buck against an unnecessary false dilemma, and find a genuine discussion of when asked 'do you support BLM', what do mean that to mean? (If, it's simply- do you agree with the literal phrase "black lives matter", then yes. Yes I do agree, very much so.)

On August 28 2017 13:08 Kyadytim wrote:
Hmm. Something that's probably worth bringing up here is branding. Both right and left do it. It's why the abortion argument is between pro life and pro choice. No one is stupid enough to try to encourage people to be anti-life or anti-choice. At the same time, pro-lifers try to cast pro-choice people as anti-life, and pro-choice people try to cast pro-life people as anti-choice. I'm personally of the opinion that the right is a bit better at this than the left. Why the fuck aren't abortion rights activists pro-freedom?

Anyway, where this is relevant to the conversation at hand is that the alt-right is having all of these rallies. Charlottesville was nominally about the statue. Since then, they've tried to have a number of "free speech" rallies, because that forces people protesting against the white supremacists to deflect accusations that they're opposed to free speech. That's branding in action. White supremacists brand their rallies as free speech rallies, and exercise that free speech by pushing hate, racist ideas about white superiority, a white ethnostate, and genocide or whatever peaceful alternative they have to get rid of all the non-white people.

Unfortunately, branding can work both ways. White supremacists have used "free speech" as a brand for white supremacist rallies, but it's had a side effect. People on the left are now justified in looking at anyone on the right talking about protecting free speech as trying to engage in the same sort of branding. White supremacists have sort of poisoned the well of defending free speech for everyone else on the right, because people opposed to Nazis are now justified in saying "You're just using that phrase to try to make people who oppose Nazis look bad. You aren't really talking about free speech, you're talking about white supremacy."

On August 28 2017 16:20 r.Evo wrote:

I think this needs a bit more highlighting because it very precisely explains how effective and dangerous this approach is.

These types of rallies aren't aimed at people opposing them, they're aimed at people in the grey, the zone in which people aren't 100% convinced of one the positions. Just like any extremist movement (even the so-called IS comes to mind) the intentions are mobilizing supporters and dragging in people who aren't currently related to the 'cause' by any means necessary - this includes installing false ideas about them in the population that will later be adjusted ("we're against capitalists! - Just kidding, we're against Jewish capitalists!") or riling up the opposition in an irrelevant direction.

The danger here lies in how incredibly effective this is, since the people openly opposing these movements oppose the movement itself and aim to show the public their resistance against this movement since they assume they're representative of the majority opinion. 'The left' (note how most just silently accept that 'the left' is against 'the Neo-Nazis' and very few people mentioning society being against them) in this case is obviously fully correct with this assumption at this point in time, but this leads to them not directing their messages at the same target audience - they're much more prone to ignoring the people in the middle, the grey, than the extremists they're opposed to.

What happens now is that his causes a rift across the part of the population that is technically opposed to the new movement. Some people aren't sure how to oppose their movement because after all these people are just voicing their opinion. Some people oppose them but (obviously) disagree with the methods of the extremists on the same side as they are which again leads to infighting. Some people take the stance that they feel the need to actually defend the new movement because of their interpretation of core values of the nation which they believe in (an absolute version of free speech in this case). The new movement is gunning for this specific framing since, in the US, it's safe to assume that this is one of the largest parts of the population if it comes down to it.

All of this boils down to a "bourgeois ", a civil type of resistance that will never be able to actually act (here the obligatory relevant Adolf quote on this). The new movement on the contrary isn't busy condemning those who commit extremist acts, it will celebrate them or push the narrative away. They're infighting to a much smaller degree because they frame themselves as surrounded from all sides and have a stronger ideological foundation. They can freely morph their position between "I'm just voicing my opinion" and "I don't want these other people to voice theirs" because the former is their best defense until the latter can be achieved.