fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3896 ]

[ SECRET POST #3896 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3896 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

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02.

[Me Before You (film/novel)]

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03.

[Star Trek TOS]

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04.

[Persona 5]

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05.

[Andy Brennan and Lucy Moran from Twin Peaks]

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06.

[David Bowie, "The Man Who Fell to Earth"]

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07.

[Broadchurch]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 35 secrets from Secret Submission Post #557.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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I am, but only because I'd expect the WaPo to be on the side of a bunch of masked thugs hitting people with bike locks and setting things on fire in response to words they don't like.

That is not an accurate summation of what is going on here, though

So, wait, they didn't descend on Berkeley, throw a riot, and set things on fire in response to a Milo talk? One of them (a professor, no less) has not been arrested for beating on someone with a bike lock?

If your critique was "their tactics are occasionally more aggressive than they need to be", I would think that was a fair response and criticism.

I don't think that saying that they're a bunch of masked violent thugs animated by a desire for violence against innocents is a fair summation of the situation.

Do you really think a mild "more aggressive than they need to be" is an accurate summation of smashing windows, setting fires, and beating people?

These are not peaceful protesters who get out of hand. These are people showing up intending violence.

smashing windows, setting fires, and beating people?

First of all, whatever you may think of these three things, they are not actually morally comparable to each other. Smashing windows is not actually as bad as beating people up. And classing them together like that is misleading because it allows you to pretend that antifa does all three equally and without provocation which is simply not the case. They shouldn't break windows either but if the worse you have to say about how they threaten free speech is that they break windows, that's a real different narrative.

These are not peaceful protesters who get out of hand. These are people showing up intending violence.

They're radical protesters. Some of them probably show up intending violence. That's, again, not the same as saying that they're all thugs who show up to beat innocent protesters. Again, I'm not defending everything that antifa has ever done. But I don't think it's accurate to pretend that they're thugs inciting violence when that's not the case.

Sooo... property damage in response to words we disagree with is okay? Because it's not okay in my world. Just because it's a "lesser crime" does not excuse it in any way. It's still violent thuggery. It's still them saying "shut these people up we don't like, or we will throw a riot that will cost your city hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage."

Nayart

To be fair, there are a few plain old anarchists who show up to these things with the sole purpose of causing trouble. They show up any time there's a big rally of any kind and break windows, start fires, and commit other crimes. They don't discriminate between say, small locally owned businesses and corporations, or types of demonstrators. They will break the windows of a mom and pop neighborhood shop like they break the windows of a Starbucks, and they'll suckerpunch a cop like they suckerpunch someone on the opposing side. I've seen it happen. (And when they do get caught and arrested, they're usually bored kids from he suburbs.)

DA - That's how the international press paints them. All I know about Antifa concerns them acting violently. I get that in an umbrella group you're going to have people who don't reflect the values of the majority but it's up to the group to keep those people out of their ranks if they don't want the world to think they're all like that.

And Neo-Nazis just want to march peacefully and be friends with everyone ever

No one is saying that. Who in the ever-livin' fuck is saying that?

What I am saying is that if all they're doing is marching down the street chanting slogans, this does not merit window-smashing, setting things alight, and assaulting police officers with urine-filled bottles.

We should not be responding to words with violence. I thought we taught that lesson in kindergarten.

What I am saying is that if all they're doing is marching down the street chanting slogans

It's not

And if it's not, then the police should be taking care of it.

They are using their words to incite hatred and violence, though. They're not, say, the Flat Earth Society, marching and saying silly things about the earth being flat, which we can just roll our eyes at and ignore. They're literally chanting "Seig Heil" and "The Jews will not replace us." They are trying to start a race war. They are literal fucking Nazis who want to make the US a white homeland and purge all other races and immigrants and whomever they deem inferior. Their words are weapons; if it takes violent opposition to defeat them, so be it.

Also, they are violent.

Also, if you want to talk about Milo, Milo, when speaking in college settings, literally uses his speeches on campus to out transgender students and illegal immigrant students. That's not "just words that we don't like". That is using your speech to do real and concrete harm to vulnerable populations. Preventing him from speaking is a legitimate and valid aim for protests, although I do not think that violence is justified towards that end.

Re: Washington Post again

(Anonymous) - 2017-09-04 16:54 (UTC) - Expand

And so what? They are fringe nutbars no one is listening to. They can "try" all they want, but their success is by no means assured in the Land of the Free.

And no. Words are not weapons. Weapons are weapons. And the side that brings actual weapons to a word fight is in the wrong.

Re: Washington Post again

(Anonymous) - 2017-09-04 17:24 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Washington Post again

(Anonymous) - 2017-09-04 17:53 (UTC) - Expand

the thing about this is antifa isn't a group so much as an ideology. There is no central organization or leadership. This is like saying feminism is invalid because of radfems (and maybe you believe that, it's annoyingly common stance, but it's not correct)

Found the Neo-Nazi.

Found the Communist.

I like how this word is still being used as an insult; do you realize how many self-identified communists there are right now in the US? it's a rapidly growing number

That's dumb as hell as well though because communism cannot and does not work and most communist regimes in history and today turned into oppressive dictatorships.

Ok, I mean, that's a whole nother discussion. I'm personally not a communist, but I know a lot of people who are, and they aren't authoritarians. (Some of them are but not the ones I'm friends with. We don't like authcoms lol.)

But the point is, firing back to "found the neo-Nazi" with "found the communist" is really really stupid because those two things aren't even close to morally equivalent or equivalent in terms of insults, and it kinda makes you look like a far-right-winger to even take that approach (a la "those damn commies!!").

Well, and that was kind of my point when I fired that back. Calling someone a Neo-Nazi just because they take the principle "I do not agree with the stupid, stupid shit you say, but I will defend to the death your right to be an ass in front of God and everyone" seriously is remarkably dumb on the face of it.

Also, yeah, Communism is horrible. It's lovely in theory, but it completely ignores human nature, always always always turns into authoritarianism, and ends up with millions of people dead and in Gulags.

Being sympathetic to neo-Nazis tends to make other people side-eye you, and it's not a total non-sequitur - on the other hand calling the person who said that a communist is totally out of left field and not at all equivalent. You're arguing about the end results of large-scale communism and I don't disagree, but 1. being a communist doesn't mean you support authoritarianism, it just means you believe in a different economic model; being a neo-Nazi literally means you support genocide, so the comparison is completely fucking asinine and 2. not all communists support implementing it on a large scale, and as such I think your analysis of it misses a lot.

Oh, for fuck's sake. I am not "sympathetic" to Neo-Nazis just because I think that, in America, they have the right to spout their stupid, stupid bullshit so the rest of us can point and laugh at them.

Maybe I should have said "Found the Stalinist" instead. Duly noted.

Re: Washington Post again

diet_poison - 2017-09-06 14:03 (UTC) - Expand

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