How she campaigned is why she lost. Without understanding why she lost, the party cannot pull itself from the ashes. That Presidential election was not lost due to the Russians or Wikileaks or Bernie Bros or even Trump – the worst candidate ever (except one) / Adolf Hitler reincarnate – it was lost due to a poor campaign and a terrible candidate.
If the Democratic Party is to be reformed, and I am on the fence whether it’s even possible, there needs to be a public outcry towards the leadership and tactics of the party. The house needs to be torn down to the foundation and rebuilt from the grass roots. Or another party needs to arise in its place. Instead what we see is a former CIA agent (Steinem) on a podium next to thoroughly disgraced former DNC chair in front of a seething mass of understandably discontented people. Who should first focus their discontent towards the fuckers on that podium, or we’ve learned nothing.
Cory Booker is more of the same neoliberalism, govern from the coasts for the corporations, that got us into this mess. The one shining light in the Democratic Party I see is Tulsi Gabbard.
I’m not condoning physical violence. I’m just saying it’s damn near impossible to keep a smile off my face when I see it happen to the likes of Richard Spencer.
Can you shoot someone if you suspect that they are a White supremacist?
" Law-enforcement officials said the man who fired the gun claimed he had been assaulted before shooting the other man, whom he believed to be some type of white supremacist. "
Depends on if they are actively threatening you or someone else, much like anyone else.
And for the record, although I’m not much of a puncher, I’d go to jail for assault for punching a nazi. I’m not saying it should be legal, just understandable. These people actively make our world a worse place to be. I’m happy to disagree with someone on any number of political and social issues, and not have hard feelings for them. This is not one of those cases. If you feel this makes me a bad person, then so be it. On this topic, I do not care.
If there is a time to punch a Nazi, it’s when he is on camera explaining how technically he’s not a Nazi - or at least in the way the general public understands modern Nazis. This punch disrupted the further normalization of Spencer on television and the message he was gleefully delivering is now gone forever.
Bear in mind that dear sweet Max is very much in favour of torturing anybody under practically all circumstances, but completely opposed to punching nazis under any circumstances.
What’s the difference between WW2 and punching nazis today? Do you not support both of my grandfathers? Why is state-sponsored violence okay, but individual violence aimed at not allowing these ideas to become normalized not? Why is the state allowed to make these judgements, but we’re not? What precisely makes the state a better judge of our morality in cases of advocates for white supremacy and mass violence, if not murder, against minorities, your fellow human beings on this planet?
Question: Given how many Nazis have threatened to make a lampshade out of my skin, am I allowed to treat them as a threat on that basis and respond accordingly to the threats to my life, or should I wait until they actually get out the skinning knife?
I don’t believe it is in the case of torture and the inhumane way our justice system works. Nor in the use of pepper spray and stun guns as torture methods in the field. I certainly don’t think the state should be allowed to punch people based on their politics any more than I think you should.
I don’t know the motivation of the one committing the assault, but simple people are going to find simple solutions. I chuckled without wanting to be a movie star, though I would not likely chuckle at a second blow.
So, are you George Zimmerman now? You going to shoot people and tell the cops they looked like Nazis, and Nazis will eventually want to make lamp shades out of you, so murdering them in advance is self-defense?
Remember, any legal hole you open for yourself to use pro-active “self-defense” (aka per-meditated murder) will be used against you and/or people like you.
Cool, and when that happens they should be reviled and arrested. This was a guy suckerpunching another guy to end his hate-speech monologue, there was never anything close to “beating the hell out of” involved in it.
In any discussion of violence intent and magnitude are what often gets ignored in favor of blanket statements like “any violent action is wrong” and “kill all muslim extremists.” This is also why stand your ground type laws are so wrong, but I can appreciate punching a Nazi.
Again, this is the same as gay bashing. “Hey, I don’t like those gays acting all normal. I’m gonna go punch one.” Using physical violence to shut speech you don’t like is unacceptable, and if you set it as a standard, the Trump Brown Shits will love it, and use it, a lot, against you and people you love.
So just going to steamroll right on with your dichotomies, gotcha.
EDIT
[quote=“Skeptic, post:349, topic:93289”]
So, are you George Zimmerman now? You going to shoot people and tell the cops they looked like Nazis, and Nazis will eventually want to make lamp shades out of you, so murdering them in advance is self-defense?
Remember, any legal hole you open for yourself to use pro-active “self-defense” (aka per-meditated murder) will be used against you and/or people like you.
[/quote]Had I seen this instead of posting as you posted it, I would not have bothered to respond. This is the exact kind of ridiculous logic I was talking about when I referenced this exact case. Intent and magnitude are critical to discuss violence in society.
But we give them wide latitude to wage war, which is the nation-state equivalent of doing so. I don’t want to pretend like I know the answers to the right of the nation to wage war (as this has a deep history in just war theory), but I do think it bears discussing why we give them wide latitude to both wage war and as you point out brutalize who they deem criminals (which has a very racialized history, as we’re all well aware). We are literally only about a generation away from when white supremacy was the law of the land and could be employed violently against people who crossed racial divisions, with impunity by white christian men, with literally no consequence to themselves (with maybe some having the inconvenience of going through a trial they knew they’d win).
I’m not advocating for a legalization of nazi-punching. As I stated above, I’ll gladly go to jail if I punch a nazi. But pretending as if they are part of polite society is a dangerous mistake. Let’s not allow them to be normalized in anyway, because, as @bibliophile20 notes above, they are a real world threat to some people.
I’ve wondered about this too. Much is being made about the fact that there was no violence in the women’s marches. But, I’m not sure I see that as a good thing. So many women are conditioned to behave well. Maybe a little rabble raising would have been a good thing for us women to own.
