US Politics: Locked, Loaded, Fired Up and Capitalized

[James Arryn]

16 minutes ago, Seli said:

That was an unclear reference to the large proportion of black men in the US prison system. It made sense in my head.

No, I got that. Or I mean, that was what I initially meant by disagreeing, was thinking you'd missed that somehow. Then I saw I'd misread you. 

[OldGimletEye]

On 8/13/2017 at 2:53 PM, dmc515 said:

However, when you start advocating for unprovoked violence, and label others "nazi apologists" just because they disagree on how to adjudicate the first amendment, then it becomes sad, part of the problem, and not worth responding to. 

The fact of the matter is I think there is a brewing confrontation on the scope of free speech rights on the left that needs to be hashed out.

I think is generally one between the old left and the newer left, with the older left being more supportive of free speech rights.

Part of the reason, I think, is the older left remembers there was a time when the left was jailed and persecuted for doing stuff like protesting the draft during WW1 and cases like Gitlow v. New York.

Me personally? I tend to be on the side of the older left on these issues.

[Fragile Bird]

I knew in the most basic terms what happened over the last two days, but being in Helsinki and then travelling to Belgium meant I had no time to sort everything out. I've now read through this thread and through a number of the stories that popped up on my facebook page, or linked here, and have watched a bit of CNN.

I think that one thing that has been glossed over by some people in this thread who complained about inaction by the police was how effing heavily armed the alt right were. I've seen reports that 80% were not only carrying arms but some pretty heavy duty weaponry. I think the governor himself was quoting as saying they were more heavily armed than the state police.

As far as I know, the black protestors who police moved against weren't armed the same way.  Which was probably why the police acted the way they did, of course. Does anyone think that if the police moved against the marchers shooting wasn't going to break out?  The guy who mowed down people with his car was beyond the fringe, he really was a terrorist and should be prosecuted as such.

Nobody else in the west allows citizens to march in the streets heavily armed like you guys do. Honestly, it's hard to comprehend for the rest of us.

[snowleper]

14 minutes ago, Mexal said:

A lot more then one demonstration where a single person was killed due to violence. 

Oh - I'm not calling for armed revolt or resistance. It just seemed as if you weren't even willing to frame the outcomes of the civil war as being acceptable enough to warrant the loss of half a million American citizens. So I was wondering where you would actually draw a line, and how much it would take before you actually decided to fight.

[James Arryn]

9 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

 

Nobody else in the west allows citizens to march in the streets heavily armed like you guys do. Honestly, it's hard to comprehend for the rest of us.

Yeah, not to shoot a dead horse, but I'd actually avoided making this comment because imo Americans are...kinda...nuts?...about guns and in gun-related discussions. And I knew the reflex would be 'don't turn this into a gun issue, it's much deeper than that!' And that's true, far as it goes, but do you ever stop and notice how many non-gun related issues manifest themselves in awful ways with guns involved? 

[James Arryn]

13 minutes ago, snowleper said:

Oh - I'm not calling for armed revolt or resistance. It just seemed as if you weren't even willing to frame the outcomes of the civil war as being acceptable enough to warrant the loss of half a million American citizens. So I was wondering where you would actually draw a line, and how much it would take before you actually decided to fight.

Otoh, the rest of us got rid of slavery...long before you, mostly...with like 0 deaths. I know, I know, American Exception. Still, something to consider. 

[DMC]

13 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

I think is generally one between the old left and the newer left, with the older left being more supportive of free speech rights.

Well, I think the "old left" as you frame it (although I like to think I'm not very old) remembers not just the Civil War and WWII but also the CRM, in which the Klan perpetrated far more heinous and terroristic acts and the police were far more openly brutal, yet the CRA and VRA were still achieved with leaders advocating non-violence and without taking away anybody's rights.

[James Arryn]

10 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Well, I think the "old left" as you frame it (although I like to think I'm not very old) remembers not just the Civil War and WWII but also the CRM, in which the Klan perpetrated far more heinous and terroristic acts and the police were far more openly brutal, yet the CRA and VRA were still achieved with leaders advocating non-violence and without taking away anybody's rights.

I agree with your point. However, if you 'remember' any of the CW, WWII or CRM, I'm sorry to say, you're probably old. 

[OldGimletEye]

On 8/13/2017 at 3:17 PM, dmc515 said:

Well, I think the "old left" as you frame it (although I like to think I'm not very old) remembers not just the Civil War and WWII but also the CRM, in which the Klan perpetrated far more heinous and terroristic acts and the police were far more openly brutal, yet the CRA and VRA were still achieved with leaders advocating non-violence and without taking away anybody's rights.

I don’t think I’m that old either, though I’m no spring chicken.

But, I think there is a bit a divide here with the older left or whatever you want to call it, having a more robust view of free speech rights.

Certainly there is a tension here on the left over these issues. And I’ll be frank here. There are some on left, when it comes to free speech issues, I’m not really comfortable with  ie mainly those that work in a post modernist methodology. With the epistemological stance, some of them take, I’m not too sure how committed they are to free speech rights.

[Mexal]

23 minutes ago, snowleper said:

Oh - I'm not calling for armed revolt or resistance. It just seemed as if you weren't even willing to frame the outcomes of the civil war as being acceptable enough to warrant the loss of half a million American citizens. So I was wondering where you would actually draw a line, and how much it would take before you actually decided to fight.

You aren't but others were and you were using the end result of the Civil War as a point for civil war without mention of the consequences of said war (death, destruction and many years of rebuilding).

Just feel all this talk is premature and those justifying violence are not thinking beyond the immediate satisfaction of killing nazi wannabes (and even then they'd get none of that because the people in this thread would not even be close to the violence).

[DMC]

9 minutes ago, James Arryn said:

I agree with your point. However, if you 'remember' any of the CW, WWII or CRM, I'm sorry to say, you're probably old. 

LOL, lucky for me I don't!

ETA:  @OldGimletEye

Quote

There are some on left, when it comes to free speech issues, I’m not really comfortable with  ie mainly those that work in a post modernist methodology. With the epistemological stance, some of them take, I’m not too sure how committed they are to free speech rights.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this (while I think I have an idea, I don't want to respond to something you did not intend to say).  Please specify.

[LongRider]

13 minutes ago, James Arryn said:

I agree with your point. However, if you 'remember' any of the CW, WWII or CRM, I'm sorry to say, you're probably old. 

Ageism now?  ffs, get over yourself.

[OldGimletEye]

On 8/13/2017 at 3:31 PM, dmc515 said:

LOL, lucky for me I don't!

ETA:  @OldGimletEye

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this (while I think I have an idea, I don't want to respond to something you did not intend to say).  Please specify.

Some of these folks work in a tradition that basically says language defines reality. Change the language and you change reality. There are no objective truths. So there is no point in having free speech to search for truth since reality is defined by language.

I don't think I'm down with that.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

9 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Certainly there is a tension here on the left over these issues. And I’ll be frank here. There are some on left, when it comes to free speech issues, I’m not really comfortable with  ie mainly those that work in a post modernist methodology. With the epistemological stance, some of them take, I’m not too sure how committed they are to free speech rights.

Yeah, there have been a couple of posts here referring to it as "Free Speech fetishism", which in my mind is basically equating it to 2nd Amendment gun-nuttery. I think this is a really foul and intellectually dishonest tactic.  

[all swedes are racist]

2 hours ago, larrytheimp said:

Oh, Trump hasn't doubled down on stirring up animosity towards Latinos, immigrants and undocumented workers?  Obama was shit on deportation too but Trump is jamming that xenophobia pedal to the floor.  He didn't start this fire but he's stoking it enthusiastically.  

 I'm not calling for a civil war.  I'm just saying let's get our priorities straight.  A alt-right, Proud Boys, or NeoNazi gets punched in the face or beaten by counter protesters?  I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.  There are bigger fish to fry than jumping to the defense of Nazis just to prove how balanced you are in applying the law.  In the meantime, these fuckers are killing people.  They seem to have , if not the tacit support of the POTUS, at least his refusal to call out their terrorism.  

 

well said

2 hours ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Yet you're cool with advocating their solutions, just so long as they are only applied to them. Who do we put on trial after that genocide?

this is literally one of their talking points

[Dr. Pepper]

3 hours ago, Nasty LongRider said:

Perhaps the ACLU could help you answer that.

 

Bingo.  I have a hard time accepting the "but they are immigrants" argument for not seeing these detention camps as similar to historical detention camps of non criminals.  "Oh, but they are Japanese", "Oh, but they are Jews", "Oh but they are Native Americans."  

There are children growing up in these camps, families, residents, and yes undocumented immigrants.  They are still in fucking camps and we should all be appalled.  And yes, I definitely place tons of blame on the Obama administration for their part in these camps.  

54 minutes ago, ThinkerX said:

Posters here might be going a bit too far back into the history books when it comes to accounting for the current racial lunacy.

The civil rights movement was much more recent, and at least part of the time, directly opposed by those in power.  Yet, ultimately, it succeeded. A warped repeat of that seems much more likely than a literal civil war. 

I think people in this thread often forget that the success of the Civil Rights Movement relied almost entirely on violating the rule of law.  Apart from one or two posters, most who post here likely support what the mission and goals of the CRM were even if the movement purposely ignored the rule of law in many areas.  

 

[Larry of the Lawn]

7 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Yeah, there have been a couple of posts here referring to it as "Free Speech fetishism", which in my mind is basically equating it to 2nd Amendment gun-nuttery. I think this is a really foul and intellectually dishonest tactic.  

I think it's intellectually dishonest to act like the stuff they were chanting in Charlottesville the other night wasn't inciting violence.  

 

It's a blurry area where all of a sudden protecting speech like that amounts to state sanctioned violence.  In that situation i fail to see how what we're talking about is unprovoked.  

What's crazy is that we're not talking about some anti-racist protesters that killed a neo-nazi -- because that didn't happen.  It's hard not to see any calls for moderation as tacit support of the status quo.  Because in practice, that's what it is.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

7 minutes ago, r'hllor's red lobster said:

this is literally one of their talking points

Which makes it invalid how exactly?

[DMC]

13 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Some of these folks work in a tradition that basically says language defines reality. Change the language and you change reality. There are no objective truths. So there is no point in having free speech to search for truth since reality is defined by language.

I don't think I'm down with that.

Gotcha.  And while there certainly are philosophical questions to be mined about whether there is one objective reality, in terms of policy implications I completely agree.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

9 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

I think it's intellectually dishonest to act like the stuff they were chanting in Charlottesville the other night wasn't inciting violence.  

 

It's a blurry area where all of a sudden protecting speech like that amounts to state sanctioned violence.  In that situation i fail to see how what we're talking about is unprovoked.  

What's crazy is that we're not talking about some anti-racist protesters that killed a neo-nazi -- because that didn't happen.  It's hard not to see any calls for moderation as tacit support of the status quo.  Because in practice, that's what it is.

 I'm not denying that. I'm all for arresting mouthpiece douchebags like Spencer and his ilk if you can prove incitement. I'm not saying yelling fire in a crowded theater is covered by Free Speech, it isn't.

 The problem here lies in being able to draw a logical and fair conclusion based on the facts. I think it's easy to make a conflation here between fiery rhetoric and some nutjob that decides to ram his car into a crowd of people. This type of conflation was made between BLM protest chants and the shooter who killed 5 cops in Dallas. Would you consider that to be incitement? I don't.