Donald Trump's Guide to Very Fine People

[Mangochin]

I can think of no greater form of "forcible suppression of opposition” than committing murders. It is certainly more significant than some random broken windows and superficial injuries.

Boston Red Sox fans are a greater threat to society.

[smulder]

@Dustin_Dopps

people on either end telling me what is good to think or what I should be punished for thinking

Antifa can’t read your mind.

What thoughts have you been expressing publicly that might make anti-fascists upset?

[DukeTrout]

@Dustin_Dopps

Nope

Then you’re not at risk of getting hit by antifa. Unless you’re one of those “centrists” who likes wearing swastikas or confederate flags. They really have only been hitting back against violent bigots.

Did you read the link, or just what you felt like? Fascists are right wing, ultranationalist, authoritarians. By definition. Antifa, even if yo don’t like their methods, are the opposite of each of those things.

[Melizmatic]

We’ve had this whole bullshit ‘false equiv’ argument before, repeatedly; and it never changes.

The broken record is still broken, no matter what turn-table it’s played on.

[wait_really]

@Dustin_Dopps

A fascist wants to tell you how you have to live

No, a fascist wants to kill you because you are not like them.

FFS Joey and his shithead jackboots attacked a peaceful post May Day celebration tonight at Cider Riot, actually literally beating people with boards and siccing dogs on them.

Bullshit equivocation is causing actual harm to real fucking people. Come and tell me what’s the proper solution when you’re in the crosshairs.

[LDoBe]

He already said:

@Dustin_Dopps

I would also argue that the best way to deal with alt-right idiots is through public shaming and discourse, not through hitting them in the head with a piece of wood.

When they’re coming at you shooting, and siccing dogs, and hitting you with boards and killing you and your friends you gotta say:

“I hope you’re really embarrassed by this bad behavior. It reflects really poorly on you”

And then all the fascists will leave you alone.

[the_borderer]

@Dustin_Dopps

I would also argue that the best way to deal with alt-right idiots is through public shaming and discourse

@Dustin_Dopps

I’m a moderate centrist. I don’t align with either side.

I remember my history lessons about the German centrists who thought they could negotiate with and restrain the Nazis. Do you?

[peregrinus_bis]

Because to be frank, they support Hitler and other totalitarians. They admire them.

It’s really simple!

[fnordius]

@Dustin_Dopps

You could try to claim that every one of these people deserved it. You could say you investigated them all individually and know for a fact that they are dyed-in-the-wool Nazis. They are scum. They are evil. But, for me, that’s no excuse. Violence is violence, no matter who is wielding the club.

I would argue that you cannot excuse the violent mob tactics of many Antifa members any more than you can excuse the violence of neo-Nazis. I would also argue that the best way to deal with alt-right idiots is through public shaming and discourse, not through hitting them in the head with a piece of wood.

So you’re an absolute pacifist. Good for you. I would counter that the Antifaschistische Aktion follows the strategy most famously stated by Master Kan in the old series Kung Fu: “Avoid rather than check. Check rather than hurt. Hurt rather than maim. Maim rather than kill. For all life is precious and cannot be replaced.”

[docosc]

@Dustin_Dopps

“Antifa” are just as fascist as those they oppose. Their beliefs just fall on the opposite end of the spectrum.

Words have meanings. It would be good if you could accept this fact. “They are just the same except they are opposite” is a nonsensical sentence on its face, and inserting the antifa/fascist part makes it worse.

[jarnsaxa]

@milliefink

Thanks for that. Well put!

You’re welcome!

Rhetoric has had a huge role to play in facilitating this damn mess - I’m convinced that good, simple counter-rhetoric has an equally huge role to play in getting us PAST the damn mess.

Plus, as a technical writer, my favorite thing to do is taking complex jargon and boiling it down to the simplest, most easily digestible form. It’s like my secret super power.

[Tim_Carpenter]

It’s hard to miss your Reason link at the top, as if that’s anything resembling a reliable source. Out of curiosity, are you the type of right-libertarian who fantasizes about righteous armed citizens violently resisting a tyrannical power structure with their AR-15s? If so, could you please tell me when tyranny has reached the point where violence becomes necessary? I’m seeing a lot of progressively-worse state-sanctioned and state-initiated economic and civil violence going on right now, just curious at which point it’s okay with you for desperate people to start trying to disrupt that progression.

[Quinquennial]

@Dustin_Dopps

Nope. I’m a moderate centrist. I don’t align with either side. But I see the harm that the fringes of both sides do to those of us who want to live peacefully.

A true centrist believes in classic liberalism: a balance of free market capitalism, representative democracy, and guaranteed individual freedoms and that these forces balance the others out. Fascists believe in none of those things (expansionist economics, autocratic government, and revocable rights). They are the antithesis of centrism.

[Mangochin]

I always figured self styled “centrists” are just people who want to play coy about what political ideas they believe in.

[milliefink]

I can see that. They usually strike me instead as individualists, who like to think they’re being fair and rational to both sides. And thus, they often lean further to the right then they think they’re leaning.

[Brainspore]

@Dustin_Dopps

I don’t care what your “body count” is when you hit me in the head with a bat.

When did Antifa hit you in the head with a bat?

[Dustin_Dopps]

Seriously, Brainspore? That’s your question?

When has a white supremacist killed you? Or your family? Have they shot up someone you know?

If it takes a direct confrontation to cause a value judgment, we are all screwed.

[LDoBe]

White supremacists have threatened to kill my brother and his wife for being a mixed race couple.

That’s their goal. That’s the thing these fascists want to do in general. It’s not incidental. Or just an ugly byproduct of loftier goals, or some kind of terrible accident.

They want to kill people for not conforming to their desire for racial and ethnic purity. It’s really simple.

There’s a very obvious distinction between antifa and white supremacist fascists.

I don’t know about you, but I want to side with the people who intimidate, bully, and harass nazi scum. I’d rather side with them over the do-nothing “I have the only true knowledge” centrists who are just a tool of the alt-right by their own passivity.

ETA: Just keep in mind that not siding is also a moral choice. Nobody gets to sit on the sidelines of society.