Charlottesville and Antifa

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

So I'm going to ask you a question.

If there is an interfaith group of clerics peacefully protesting, say, a couple dozen of them, and they are surrounded by self-identified Nazis, armed with torches and oil, flinging fire at people, and the Nazis start to converge on the clerics with apparent hostile intent...

What is the morally correct thing to do? Not legal, not Politik, but moral?

[LittleRaven]

Assuming you're talking to me...

I have repeatedly defended Antifa's actions at Charlottesville. I'm no pacifist. Violence is always the last resort, but you know, when you have a large group of angry men doing a freakin' torch march, well, it's safe to say that you're just about out of options. Both the law and morality recognize the right of self-defense and the defense of others, and pretty much everyone agrees that in Charlottesville, Antifa was on the right side of that line.

[TGLS]

So I'm going to ask you a question.

If there is an interfaith group of clerics peacefully protesting, say, a couple dozen of them, and they are surrounded by self-identified Nazis, armed with torches and oil, flinging fire at people, and the Nazis start to converge on the clerics with apparent hostile intent...

What is the morally correct thing to do? Not legal, not Politik, but moral?

Interesting question. The best answer is to call emergency services. Two reasons:

1) I am totally ill-equiped to personally deal with Nazis lobbing fire around like they're some kind of fire mage. I have no ability to put out all the fires they are starting, no ability to aid the wounded, and no way to deal with the hooligans. The fire department could handle the fire, the paramedics could aid the wounded, and the police could deal with the hooligans.

2) As the only person I am absolutely sure will continue to act in a moral way. If I were to die, I wouldn't be able to continue to act morally, thus resulting in a moral net loss. Thus, I am morally obligated to not risk my life unnecessarily, so I can't engage in (likely foolish) fisticuffs with the Nazis.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

LittleRaven, the question was aimed at the thread at large.

and pretty much everyone agrees that in Charlottesville, Antifa was on the right side of that line.

I wish that was true in America, or at least in this forum. I really do...

TGLS: The police are doing nothing. What's the good of calling emergency services when the people who are supposed to answer 911 are already there?

[LittleRaven]

I wish that was true in America, or at least in this forum. I really do...

But it is. All of the people being arrested in connection with Chartlottesville are associated with Alt-Right. Not one member of Antifa has been charged with anything based on what happened that night. Where are you getting the idea that Antifa is being made into the bad boy of Charlottesville?

Antifa is getting lots of deserved criticism for what it's doing in Berkeley, but that's 3000 miles away and consists of completely different people on both sides.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Admiral X.

[Admiral X]

What?

[TGLS]

TGLS: The police are doing nothing. What's the good of calling emergency services when the people who are supposed to answer 911 are already there?

Still doesn't change the fact that the best I can hope for in a confrontation with a few Nazis armed with fire is at best a beating and at worst death. While the police might not be doing anything, there are probably fires to fight and injured to help, unless they are there too and twiddling their thumbs. Failing that, simply recording what happened and distributing it may make change, perhaps slowly.

[Fixer]

With the previous Berkeley riots there had been no police intervention either. There was video footage of Police who said they had orders from above not to interfere.

Some investigation later found the mayor was a member of an antifa facebook group called "by any means necessary", whose violent leader was also filmed attacking a man while nearby police looked on doing nothing.

Apparently the Berkeley Mayor is now opposing antifa having classified them as a gang, along with a large swathe of the media that had previously tacitly supported them who are now mocking and opposing them. The recent attacks on journalists for simply having recorded their actions and attacks on peaceful protesters probably shifted their opinion. That and antifa/their supporters being the biggest recruiters for the far right these days.

In any case I think the realisation has finally dawned that antifa are just in fact, a bunch of violent anti-capitalist vigilantes that just want an excuse to go beat people up and break things and at last we can see people properly distancing themselves from them.

It still leaves the problem that the police should be placing themselves between any violent protest and inaction in these previous cases has only emboldened the extremes of both sides to greater acts of violence.

[Admiral X]

It still leaves the problem that the police should be placing themselves between any violent protest and inaction in these previous cases has only emboldened the extremes of both sides to greater acts of violence.

Ayup. That's a big part of what they're supposed to be at protests for - to discourage violence by their presence, or, failing that, to break any violence up and make arrests as necessary. I actually find it rather hard to believe that the police didn't really do anything considering the governor's stance on the protests, which contrasted him quite a bit from Berkley's mayor.