Charlottesville and Antifa

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

With the exception of our president.
And the vice president.
And "fringe" news media outlets with thousands of loyal followers who are willing to send death threats to parents of kids killed in Sandy Hook.
And many mainstream news media outlets who still insist on calling them "alt right" instead of "Nazis".
And 67% of Republican voters in a recent poll.
And way more members of congress than I am comfortable with.
And your libertarian uncle on Facebook.
And the Free Speech Campaign group or whatever organization that sets up to protect the Nazis without taking sides, but somehow is conveniently absent from all left-wing protests.

Frankly, ANY amount of people in the United States of turtle-fucking America saying "Nazis aren't that bad!" is a distressingly large amount. It becomes even more distressing when those people wield vast amounts of financial and/or political and/or charismatic power.

[Admiral X]

Beating people up isn't protected by the first amendment.

[The Romulan Republic]

Beating people up isn't protected by the first amendment.

It makes me feel dirty to have to agree with you, but you're right, at least in this.

That said, I will maintain that it was not primarily the Left who brought us to this point- while I don't condone Left-wing violence for anything other than necessity to defend oneself or others against a direct and immediate physical threat (and even then, their are times when backing down is probably safer, like if you're in a confrontation with the police), I also know that most of the apparent increase in Left-wing violence of late, and the tolerating of said violence, is in response to a decade or more of mounting radicalism and aggression from the far Right, often tolerated, if not explicitly condoned, by Republican leaders.

If you play with fire... well, don't be surprised if you get burned. Along with a lot of innocent people, unfortunately.

[Admiral X]

Antifa has been beating up people in the street for a while now. These actions by either of the groups is unacceptable, and I hope these people get sent to jail for as long as the law provides.

[The Romulan Republic]

Antifa has been beating up people in the street for a while now. These actions by either of the groups is unacceptable, and I hope these people get sent to jail for as long as the law provides.

And violent Right-wing extremism is nothing new. It certainly predates Antifa, although their are older historical cases of rises in Left-wing extremism, albeit ones that have little connection to the present so far as I know. The Bundy militia occupations (including a threat to use women and children as human shields for PR)? Various shootings/mass shootings, including the church shooting by Dylan Roof a couple years back? Trump's repeated incitement of violence at rallies? "Second Amendment remedies"? Abortion clinic attacks? Campaigns of harassment/rape threats/death threats against feminist activists?

And of course, in Charlottesville itself, conducting an armed march, chanting Nazi slogans, which quickly violated the law and degenerated into violence. It is generally agreed upon that the group that had a car driven into them were peaceful, as well.

And if we go back far enough, we can add the Oklahoma City bombing, the worst terrorist attack in American history prior to 911.

Hell, if you want to take it back far enough, the very people that these Neo-Nazi fuckheads are defending the honouring of started a civil war that killed well over half a million Americans, in the name of preserving racial slavery and rejecting the result of a fair election when it didn't go their way. I think that tops anything the Left has ever done in America.

Edit: Simply put, I think that if the Right objects to political violence (as opposed to just when the Left does it), or hell, even if they want to stop the Left from doing it, then they need to call out the violent radicals on their own side. That's not meant as an excuse for Left-wing violence, but its the reality of the situation as I see it.

Democratic politics is based on certain rules and norms, one of which is that their are certain lines you don't cross in order to defeat the other side, and particularly that you don't try to impose your views on the populace by violence. Once those norms become eroded, and particularly once mainstream political figures begin to tolerate, condone, or even directly incite the violence, then you will likely start to see escalating violence from all sides.

The Republican Party and the extremist base it has increasingly catered to in recent decades opened Pandora's box. Not the Left.

[Admiral X]

:shrug: Everyone likes to blame the other.

[The Romulan Republic]

:shrug: Everyone likes to blame the other.

Can you actually present any factual evidence or logical argument to refute a single line of what I just posted?

[Admiral X]

Yes, but why bother? I've tried doing it before, but the ideological blinders in use here just see those points being swept aside.

[The Romulan Republic]

Yes, but why bother? I've tried doing it before, but the ideological blinders in use here just see those points being swept aside.

I'll take that as a no, then...

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

:shrug: Everyone likes to blame the other.

This is a very ironic statement.