It’s hard to imagine much worse than a fascist white supremacist and nazi sympathizer in the highest elected office of government, with a sympathetic and obedient congress, who also managed to steal a judicial nomination.
It seems to me we kind of are already at war with them. It just hasn’t dawned on the pacifists yet that they’re next.
The white supremacists are out killing people. Non-metaphorically. Killing people. I think violence may well be an appropriate response to that.
We have laws.
We prosecute criminals. We don’t go out an trash a city and burn cars because we’re mad.
As for your notions about Trump, you really, really need to go back and look throughout history, there have been some awful President’s sympathetic to horrible, horrible causes… you might be surprised at what you find.
This doesn’t make it RIGHT. It just means we can get through without resorting to burning cities.
Who said anything about burning cities? I think targeting violence at white supremacists and their genocidal ilk can be very narrow.
Yes, it is. I’ve participated in non-violent protests of Scientology several times each year for several years, in the face of provocation and physical violence in return.
How many nonviolent protests in the face of violence have you participated in?
Incidentally, there’s someone literally blowing up bombs and killing people in Austin, and I’ll bet you $100 it’s not antifa.
Oh, zero.
C’mon, what do you think? Many. Not just non-violent protest, legal actions, etc.
Also, the Scientology one is a great, great example – they have given up all moral ground, they acted violently, they snooped on and harassed those exiting their cult, and as word spread, public pressure grew, there were protests and documentaries, and they have really, really dwindled.
Now it’s just Tom Cruise and a handful of others propping them up… 
The problem is you have to bear the frustration of it being a long, slow fight. But you focus on the long game…
And they will be arrested and prosecuted.
These people are not pacifists. I’m actually surprised there haven’t been any real handwringing liberals speaking up. The way they talk about Marxists and “antifa types” it’s pretty obvious they’re just here to cheer for their own team.
An interesting discussion on Twitter between Tom Ricks and Daniel Rogers, about MLK, Malcolm X, self defence and nonviolence:
That’s a pretty long read, so here’s the key passage:
As Daniel says: does that look like “won” to you?
No, I am not. Quote me where I say that if you think otherwise. The point is humans have always and will always want to target other groups with violence to prevent them from speaking. Those who advocate the violence are always convinced that they are righteous and that the targeted group is evil and dangerous. Always.
Obviously, some of the targeted groups are less deserving than others, but the hate the group feels towards their target is equally strong. They feel equally righteous in their anger.
That’s why the law is the way it is. Everybody gets their free speech rights protected. That is what protects you when some other group decides that you are a member of a group they hate. And if you think that can’t happen, try posting about Islam or feminism at some right-wing sites. And they believe their anger to be every bit as righteous as you do yours. The law is content-neutral so that we are all protected.
If you are not willing to protect the rights of people to make bad, offensive speech, you can’t claim to be in favor of free speech.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
On one side, you have the Nazis, who “BEHAVE as kind, gentle souls” by threatening all who are unlike them with violence and genocide; who “BEHAVE as kind, gentle souls” by driving cars through protest rallies, injuring and killing those who disagree; who “BEHAVE as kind, gentle souls” by shooting guns into crowds of their opponents; who “BEHAVE as kind, gentle souls” by ganging up to beat the targets of their ire within an inch of their lives.
On the other side, you have the Antifa, who put their very lives between the Nazis and their would-be victims, as cited in the essay repeatedly posted upthread; who proclaim by their actions, “you can say what you like with words, but if you throw the first punch to start a fight, we will finish it.”
To say that somehow, both types of “speech” and violence bear the same moral weight is indeed equivocation, by any meaning of the word.
I am so over listening to white guys claim to speak for Martin Luther King
And some people have actual evidence to make that claim from, while others are motivated purely by irrational animus. It is entirely rational to hate Nazis and want to punch them in the face. It is completely proper to base that impulse on the history of the Nazi movement’s words and actions. It is not logical or rational to want to assault a black person or a muslim because of who they are. You are assigning equal moral and ethical weight to those actions by willfully ignoring the reality that empirical, knowable facts exist in the universe.
Thank you for reminding me it’s less than 3 years away!
Based on your performance here, I don’t believe you would protect my rights. Not for one second. You’d have to dismount your high horse for that, and I have my doubts.
we’d only get into a pissing match over the definition of violence, and ultimately the definition of where and I and think.
If there is a wall that some of us will be up against first, SEE YOU THERE COMRADE
Father John Geoghan sexually assaulted many boys; but he did not have a pedophiles union membership card. He is therefore not a pedo.
