A pacifist minister reflects on the antifa who protected protesters from Charlottesville's armed Nazis

I hate to tell you this, but I’m far less concerned about “winning you” or any arguments than I am with my own well being and survival; sorry.

‘Victory’ only happens when every person who is ‘Other’ is safe to live their lives as they see fit without the threat of being harmed, exploited, dehumanized and/or eradicated looming over them.

Perhaps this is just an esoteric discussion of philosophy to you, but to the borderer and myself, it’s all too real, with potentially detrimental consequences.

Consider yourself privileged enough to not have to worry as we do; must be nice.

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The only trouble is that the country has swung SO far to the right that someone who proudly claims to be a “moderate” nowadays I suspect of being pretty far to the right by say 1970’s standards. By claiming to be “moderate” often (not always) such persons are trying to normalize the rightward shift of the country.

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you can also win the moral argument and lose the legal one, this happened to martin luther king jr. many times along the way and despite the nonviolent resistance he practiced his movement was often denounced in the press as an invitation to violence, and denounced even more by law enforcement officers and agencies as a danger to society. it is also possible to lose the day and find the backlash even worse still. that would describe pretty much any day before mid-1945 for anyone of jewish, gypsy, or slavic descent anywhere in the third reich from the time hitler and the nazis took power in 1933.

i would greatly prefer to resolve all issues and settle all confrontations without resort to violence. my race, gender, and social class all conspire to make that virtually trivial for me, yet i understand that others, many others, with whom i share this journey called life are not nearly so privileged, their physical and moral integrity are not nearly so assured.

all i ask is that you use your intellect guided by your experience to answer the following question–if you were with three of your nearest and dearest relatives, your partner and children, your mother and siblings, your three closest friends and a group of 30 torch-carrying alt-right bullies were bearing down on you with the apparent intent to cause all of you harm, what would you do?

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where is the nra?

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Same place they were when the Black Panthers were being murdered.

Philando Castile, Dana Loesch’s ads, etc. The NRA, unsurprisingly, are all-in for team Fash.

They’re gonna sell a fuckton of guns if American fascism is allowed to fully express itself. For use both at home and abroad.

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Same place they were in the Castile case, quietly supporting our brave law enforcement officers* as they carry out a difficult job. /s

[* disclaimer: does not include evil NWO Agenda 21 UN black helicopter troops the liberals and Dems will send for the weapons of Real Muricans**]

[** disclaimer: does not include liberals, progressives, people of colour, non-Christians, immigrants, Coastal Elites]

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“Ahimsa” (in ironic quotes) was the title of a pen-and-wash study created by my grandfather in 1947.

His sienna-faded drawing depicts Ghandi hunkered down before his famous spinning wheel, the image of harmless non-violent Hindu civil resistance. In the background, two violent mobs are tearing each other to pieces. His point was precisely that Ghandi refused to confront the terrible things his people would do in pursuit of their objectives.

The British soldiers had and used numerous non-violent ways of suppressing civil unrest; I suggest you read Masters’ book, “Bhowani Junction”, depicting Partition and Independence struggles from the point of view of a Eurasian with a foot in both camps. Just one example: Nepalese soldiers pissing on Hindu protesters, thereby very effectively causing the crowds to scatter. Not only was such liquid disgusting, it comes from out-caste mercenaries. Better than CS gas for crowd control.

Only rarely did the Raj have to resort to Reading the Riot Act followed by gunfire, as at Allahabad; and the Indians have found to their cost that their own Indian army has had to resort to similar methods, or worse, when a lathi-charge fails.

Grandfather admired Ghandi, though he was a railway engineer for the Raj (also a Lieutenant Colonel in the British Army). He was awarded the OBE for service to the empire. And yet his “Ahimsa” cartoon was a protest work, if you can imagine such a thing from a member of the elite. That drawing reflected his view of Ghandi’s responsibility for the deaths of millions during the Partition riots.

Like a great many Raj officers, Grandfather took the view that although Indian independence was inevitable, no good could come from an early breakup of the empire; that the non-violence principles of Ghandi would always fail in the face of political violence sanctioned by religious leaders and other would-be asiatic fuhrers; and that only the disinterested civil administration of the Raj could effectively oppose those who would use violence for political ends.

Time has shown that Grandfather was only partly right; the continued existence of democratic processes like the Lok Sabha in India (but not Pakistan!) shows that for the Hindu portion of India, at least, the time was propitious for independence.

However, it came with extreme sectarian violence between islamic and hindu faithful, encouraged by the largely atheistic intellectual leadership of the Muslim majority in the Punjab, to help persuade the Brits to partition India.

That secession worked: but today, the existence of Pakistan as a nation is in doubt. The most plangent irony? Jinnah and his associates would long since have been put to death either by what passes for government there, or the criminal warlords who really rule the major port of Karachi, or any of various flavours of islamic extremist.

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No one has lost you. You came here with a position:

Nazis are bad
Violent resistance is only justified when met with immanent threat (or not at all, I’m not sure)

You are leaving with the same position. No one was ever going to convince you of anything. You have not been “lost” you have remained where you were; ungettable as an audience for people who think active and even violent resistance to Nazis is necessary.

By “you lost me” you mean, “you failed to agree with me.”

Unless somehow the conversation here has convinced you to be more sympathetic towards Nazis because you don’t like the way their targets and victims behave. In that case I’d still say you weren’t really “lost” by these arguments, but that you were merely looking for an excuse to justify your existing Nazi-sympathizer tendencies. I think it’s safe to assume this is a moot point anyway, since I really, really doubt that anything said here has made you think, “You know what, maybe the Nazis have a point.”

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I agree with this completely.

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No, I mean that you lost my support for your position, and for any organization with a similar position. I no longer consider myself on the same side as almost anyone on the progressive side of things. I felt that way not too long ago.

If some group were coming to my area, planning to be armed for “self-defense,” I would do everything that I could peacefully do to prevent their success. I am part of several organizations that are strongly left-leaning but would also be working against a group like that.

Cool story, bro…

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If someone’s position is that Nazis need to be punched, you came here not supporting that position, no one convinced you to support that position and you left without supporting that position. That’s not “losing” you, that’s nothing changing.

You’ve got an orthodox moral position on violence (i.e., violence is bad and very hard to justify). I think that position is an awfully justifiable one to have. But the “you lose me and might lose others like me” point is not really relevant to the conversation. You, by your position, lost people who disagree with you as well. Why aren’t you concerned about losing them by failing to endorse or even advocate for violence? Choosing to do that might avoid losing the people you are arguing with, but it would be losing the entire point of having the argument to begin with.

If you tell people they lose you with their central thesis, you are telling them you think they are wrong. This not about using the right tactic to engage moderates, it’s about a fundamental disagreement on what is right and what is wrong.

But if you find yourself alienated from “progressives” such as people advocating for better health care or trying to ensure public schools are adequately funded because of conversations like this one, please get some perspective on how marginal the punch-a-Nazi movement is. Disdain for people who are using their own bodies as shields to protect people from violent Nazis is the norm, and it is very unlikely that the philosophy of using violence to intervene to protect other people will actually catch on or permeate much of anything.

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I see the relevance this way: yes, I disagree on the use of violence, but even if you are right about that thesis, you may be making a strategic mistake by alienating people who would otherwise align with you. The support of those people may be important in the future.

You may disagree. You may not feel that such as alliance is useful, or that there are very many people like me. Plenty of people have made that point already. I disagree.

But then why aren’t you employing your own strategic advice? Why don’t you present your point in a way that could make allies of the people you disagree with?

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The conceit therein is that such a person was ever any kind of ally in the first place; you can’t ‘lose’ what you never actually had.

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That’s a fair enough point.

This is sincere:
Advocating violence, even in response, distances me from your position. What am I saying (or how am I saying it) that distances you from mine?