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[SalmonGod]

as someone who lives in berkeley, I can list a shitload of instances of antifa morons assaulting people with a deadly weapon, i.e. Eric Clanton bike-locking three people, all of them non-violent, at the April 15th rally, or someone who still hasn't been fucking caught hitting a prone man over the head with a shovel. If you think this isn't a fucking problem...

I and others have repeatedly stated our agreement that this is a problem. 

Our disagreement is with the conclusion that just because some people are irresponsible means their motivations and methods are completely wrong.  That free speech trumps self-defense, and all should be left to the marketplace of ideas to sort out.

I can draw a distinction between cracking some unknown person's skull in a recklessly engaged street fight, and punching Richard Spencer.  Just because one thing's bad doesn't mean the other is, and condemnation of one action should not necessarily extend to condemnation of all similar actions.

if you think that two lone wolf stabbings by mental cases are worse than a nationwide trend of political violence...I don't think I can help here. It's despicable the kind of damage alt-right types do, but trying to deflect using that is cowardly.

If you think that this is about two lone wolf stabbings, then your one-sided focus and confirmation bias is beyond words.

Radical leftists bringing deadly assault with improvised weapons to reckless street fights over the public appearance of their political adversaries is making news, because it's unusual.

Hate crimes have been a normalcy throughout United States history, such that they happen all the time without making national news, if news at all.  Only cases that are especially gruesome, connected to well-known public figures or authorities, or done with the intention of making a political statement gain much attention.

What's happening right now is that background noise of discrimination and hate crime that we've been taught for the last 50 years to condemn as wrong, but grew up tuning out as normal, is now re-gaining legitimacy in our politics.  Some people have responded recklessly to this, and all of a sudden they're being viewed as the violent party.  But that's only because the background noise of discrimination and hate crime is tuned out, and omitted from consideration as a part of this political development.

and i'm also arguing that all the antifa types have done is radicalized the not-alt right even more. cat's out of the bag now, though.

"White nationalists are getting assaulted for publicly promoting ideologies that society agreed to be wrong after causing centuries of untold suffering and some of the most horrific episodes in human history?  Hmm... maybe white cis-genders males really are the supreme form of humanity.  Where do I sign up?"

If this is how it works, then our species deserves to be wiped off the planet.  But I don't think it does.  Moderate onlookers aren't going to develop racist tendencies, because of radicals engaging in street fights.  Any radicalization is far more likely to be based on tapping into latent pre-existing biases.  And if violence against unabashed white nationalists triggers that, then the sympathy for them was already there, and allowing them to speak and gather legitimacy was going to do the same thing in the end.

[Max™]

... so can anyone actually find data on stateside political violence? 'Cause I just spent the last hour digging around, and the last numbers specifically tracking that that approached particularly good seem to have ended in '68, with the last period in 2010. Bit more with somewhat more specialized stuff like domestic terrorism and hate/extremist groups (which definitely appears to have a strong lean, politics wise), but not something I'd be willing to cite as signs of any particular trend.

Someone out there happens to know where to find something that's worth a damn, it'd be nice to hear about. Most of the more recent stuff I'm seeing is either biased as all hell or light on actual numbers... and if we know anything, it's that american feelings on crime rates et al are among the gold standards for "shit what is wrong".

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/ was my first reflex, but then I remembered these: https://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/terrorism-2002-2005

[RedKing]

extentuating

Do you mean "extenuating", or is this some obscure statistical jargon I'm not familiar with?

Typo.

... so can anyone actually find data on stateside political violence? 'Cause I just spent the last hour digging around, and the last numbers specifically tracking that that approached particularly good seem to have ended in '68, with the last period in 2010. Bit more with somewhat more specialized stuff like domestic terrorism and hate/extremist groups (which definitely appears to have a strong lean, politics wise), but not something I'd be willing to cite as signs of any particular trend.

Someone out there happens to know where to find something that's worth a damn, it'd be nice to hear about. Most of the more recent stuff I'm seeing is either biased as all hell or light on actual numbers... and if we know anything, it's that american feelings on crime rates et al are among the gold standards for "shit what is wrong".

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/ was my first reflex, but then I remembered these: https://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/terrorism-2002-2005

CIA? FBI? Fake news!!

[alway]

you realize these guys have shown up to events across the country, right? from auburn and nawlins to portland, from new york and boston to anaheim?

sure, they're not beating the shit out of people yet, but it's a matter of time. the cats out of the bag now, thanks to the communist ninjas. 2018 and 2020 are going to be fun, get the popcorn.

Oh no! Before long, it won't be safe to march in the streets calling for the extermination of non-whites anywhere! The horror! Whatever will we do in such a terrible dystopian future? I mean, aside from living nice lives without neo-nazis in power.

[Gizogin]

In other news, the MDA has successfully tested a missile interceptor system. Maybe I'm overreacting, but I can't help but be reminded of the "Star Wars" (SDI) system and all the accompanying reasons why being able to defend against nuclear weaponry could be far more dangerous than not being able to do so.

I don't know, maybe that all goes out the window when dealing with an irrational agent.

[Lord Shonus]

The fears over SDI derived from them potentially being able to stop a disarming first strike or to blunt a retaliatory second strike (which theoretically would already be reduced significantly by a disarming first strike) from a major nuclear power. This would undermine the balance of terror, and thus remove MAD as a limiting factor in international diplomacy.


Even with a working missile interceptor (which is nothing truly new - there are nuclear-tipped ABM installations all around Moscow, and the US briefly had a similar system deployed around a major missile field), the infrastructure needed to stop such an attack does not exist. The most that can probably be handled without a massive building program is a small number (1-10) of launches.

This isn't a missile shield like Star Wars was supposed to be. This is more like a missile fragmentation helmet.

[Virtz]

Spoiler: 2 pages ago, nazis (click to show/hide)

I think he's implying that because the Nazi party had the word socialist in it, Republicans would disapprove of them. While this statement, by itself, raises alarm bells I didn't even know I had, the second-half might actually clear it up: I think that the line about redefining words is actually intended to raise a point about we use and abuse language in political discourse, using the "Nationalist Socialist" thing as an example.

Or he's being completely literal and saying that calling Republicans Nazis is just wrong, because Republicans can't be Nazis, because they hate socialists.  Which... I leave to someone with more sleep and fewer pending deadlines them myself to deal with.

So you think the National Socialist party wasn't actually socialist by our understanding of the term? How so?

Oh, ok. Have fun you guys. I'll merely add in while I'm not a fan - to put it mildly - of comparing Trump or Republicans to Nazis (My grandfather would actually return from the grave to slap me), you're kind of going too far with this line here:

And I wasn't aware that hiring a paramilitary for security is synonymous with "gas the jews".

I don't think anyone reasonable is arguing that (and anyone unreasonable who is not currently the President of the United States can be safely ignored). Nazism was a lot of things to a lot of people during the existance of the original NSDAP. It was genocide, it was racial purity laws, it was militarism, it was a lot of different things. What I mean here is that setting the standard as high as literally quoting Mein Kampf is already a bit of a problem, I think; not specifically with Nazism, but with any "ism" that people don't like. People say "Well if I'm not actually gassing jews I'm not a Nazi" or "Well if I am not going around flinging racial slurs at people in the street or lynching negroes, so I'm not a racist." It reminds me of something from Catch-22 (Censored because I don't remember forum policy on these things, and I'd like to not be warned today.):

Racial prejudice is a terrible thing, Yossarian. It really is. It's a terrible thing to treat a decent, loyal Indian like a n****r, k**e, w*p, or s**c.

You're right that people have an amazing ability to make negative words mean "people I don't like", but you should also remember the "and not me" part. You're going on about the context of the NSDAP party, and that's fine; but when you consider that someone may well just be referring to Neo-Nazis, your analysis loses a bit of punch. These things are real, and it should be possible to call something out as being a part of that without all the "But HOW DARE YOU" that comes up. Yes, it's possible to be a racist or a nazi without personally murdering six million Jews, and the fact is that standards tend to inflate towards that, for ourselves, and away for others. Both angles need to be rememebered.

(Also fuck you I NEED TO WRITE AN ACTUAL ESSAY DAMN IT)

Jeez, way to construe. All I'm saying is there's a lot more to nazism than plain militarism and racism. You need a particular kind of political environment to end up with the genocide, dictatorship and racial hegemony (no, you don't actually need to "literally quote Mein Kampf" to qualify). Without the state being controlling of its citizens and industry enough (i.e. socialist), I don't find it particularly likely to happen. America is too individualistic and capitalistic to end up in the same state as Nazi Germany. You could see it coming a mile away if Republicans suddenly started trying to implement actual nazi policies, cause that'd be going against their usual talk of leaving people less regulated by the state.

Now, if you want to claim it's becoming more militaristic, racist, homophobic or whatever, there's many less hysteria-inducing examples throughout history than NAZIS. I'm glad you bring up American history, though, cause that's actually a much more appropriate example, and is something Republicans openly try to strive towards (or at least parts of it). Or would you like to call all your ancestors nazis now because parts of their views happened to coincide? Was world war II just nazis fighting nazis? Or would you like to present some checklist of what qualifies someone as a nazi so that we can carefully try and verify it compared to societies of the 1930s who were on the Allies' side?

And the paramilitary thing was just hyperbole to point out how one has nothing to do with the other. Hiring paramilitaries for security is not a thing that inherently leads to nazism, nor is it particularly related. It's a huge stretch to see one as a sign of the other.

So let me ask, where do you see these prominent "nazis" on the American political scene prescribing the ideas of genocide you've just described? Actual quotes if you may. Cause the term's been getting thrown around more and more lately, and any time I see anyone using the term, it's not directed towards someone actually suggesting "gassing the gays, jews and liberals" nor replacing democracy with a dictatorship. At best it's just directed towards someone who made a mildly racist, homophobic or nationalistic remark, because apparently you're not allowed to have typical irrational human tribalist biases (or even joke about having them) without being an evil nazi beyond all hope of redemption.

Richard Spencer himself should be suitable for this, since its his infamous on-camera punching that kicked off the whole public debate on this subject, right?  Well, here's your 2-minute google.

The ideal I advocate is the creation of a White Ethno-State on the North American continent.

America was, until this last generation, a white country designed for ourselves and our posterity. It is our creation, it is our inheritance, and it belongs to us.

And when White men talks about “restoring the Constitution”—or, more so, “Taking Our Country Back”— leftists and non-Whites are right to view this as threatening and racialist: it implies a return to origins and that the White man once owned America.

Yeah, not everyone who supports Trump is racist.  Plenty of people are caught up in the whole antifa frenzy that shouldn't be.  But if you're saying stuff like this, or publicly supporting someone who does?  Nothing mild about it.

I was gonna say he doesn't unambiguously sound like a nazi in those quotes (more like a plain racist wanting a return to 1960s America), but a look at his wikipedia page suggests he's got some neo-nazi views indeed. I would note that he belongs to no political party, though, so he doesn't seem very relevant.

Putting aside the whole nazi thing for a moment, to my knowledge, he hasn't actually physically harmed anyone, nor has he asked anyone to do so, so he's not the one who went from words to deeds. If that's what justifies getting punched, then will I get applauded for punching an orthodox muslim? They'd actually want to stone me to death or drop me off a building, so I'd be more justified by your logic, I think. How about if I call them a nazi before I do it? Would that be fine?

[EnigmaticHat]

In regards to political violence, the Intercept's FBI expose (which I've linked before but I like it so I'll link it again) mostly centers around the methods the FBI uses to operate.  But it also includes an interesting bit on the largest domestic terror threat facing the US, again from the perspective of how the FBI has gone about combating it.  This particular terror threat is extremely tied up with local politics

Its a long article so I'll summarize the relevant bit (and add a bit of my own knowledge from various news reports over the years).

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

A decade ago the FBI released a memo expressing alarm at far right terrorists infiltrating law enforcement and the military.  The FBI has long identified far right anti-government and extremist racist terrorists as the largest terror threat to mainland US.  The memo prompted the creation of a special FBI task force to deal with the threat, and they began monitoring the police and creating a database of sleeper terrorists within the police.

Unfortunately, in 2009 the conservative backlash against Obama was in full swing and the tea party was emerging.  They started a large backlash against the FBI, its reports on far right extremism and in particular its task force on police.  In response the FBI and other federal agencies backtracked furiously.  The task force was disbanded, the database and any future databases on were banned, apologies were issued and the relevant memos were heavily redacted.

The thing about the KKK is that (like Frumple said a few pages back) they had their day and people didn't like it.  In a similar way, anti-government militias have a lot of sympathy within the US but the extreme edge that wants to bomb government buildings and kill civil servants are very much not popular.  As a result they're operating more like Middle East terror groups; instead of trying to convert the majority of the population they aim to take receptive individuals and radicalize them to an extreme, then place them in a position where they can do some damage.  This means training them both in survivalist/anarchist nut stuff (how to escape the plastic handcuffs used by the military, how to build a homemade bomb, that kind of thing) but also how to blend in with others, and how to recognize receptive individuals and recruit them.  Apparently when the race war types go deep cover its called a "ghost skin", that's interesting.

Anyway, the situation has been allowed to progress basically unchecked.  There are 3 basic scenarios that present a problem.  The first is when a small ring of individuals begins a terror plot.  The FBI is highly restricted in monitoring these individuals, and they almost never actively catch them.  Fortunately these plots almost never succeed because the rings inevitably try to recruit the wrong person and that person turns them in to the FBI.

The other two scenarios are what happens when terrorists infiltrate the military, and what happens when they infiltrate the police.  Unfortunately the FBI has effectively 0 power here, even as an early warning system.  However, after the initial report back in 2006 the military has begun its own filtering process.  Current evidence suggests this has been very successful.  This brings us to the police.  There are thousands of police departments in the US, varying wildly in scale, funding, and the type of area they're responsible for.  Many of these departments are not informed about the threats against them, and current government regulations prevent the FBI from telling them.  In fact even if the FBI has reason to suspect that a policeman is a ghost skin they literally aren't supposed to tell that person's boss.  This has been going on since well before the original 2006 report mind you.  The KKK and similar groups (police are the main target of racists, anti-government types more want to enter the military) have been infiltrating the police for around 15 years.  As a result for any given police department its unknown how many of the members are sleepers, how highly placed they are, and to what degree they've succeeded or failed at ingratiating themselves with the other policemen and influencing their actions.

The truly tragic thing of all this is that if the FBI could sit your average police department down and explain the situation, the majority of policemen would probably be horrified.  But that can't happen, and the police are currently being heavily enabled both by each other and by the current political climate.  See, when a black guy dies in the paddywagon going back to the station, and there were no witnesses, that might be an accident.  It might be a racist or angry cop getting out of control.  But it might also be the logical result of what happens when a KKK member ends up alone with a handcuffed African American and he knows there won't be consequences for anything he does.  When cops and the significant minority of the population that defends the police all join hands to defend a murder like that, what they do is they further blur the line between terrorist sleeper and legitimate cop.  And so you get this situation where a normal person who's joining the police for career, patriotic or altruistic reasons steps into what has to be the most explosive office politics ever.  Without understanding the situation.  And so yes our police are failing us, but in a way the FBI and congress have also failed our police.

[Gizogin]

you realize these guys have shown up to events across the country, right? from auburn and nawlins to portland, from new york and boston to anaheim?

sure, they're not beating the shit out of people yet, but it's a matter of time. the cats out of the bag now, thanks to the communist ninjas. 2018 and 2020 are going to be fun, get the popcorn.

Oh no! Before long, it won't be safe to march in the streets calling for the extermination of non-whites anywhere! The horror! Whatever will we do in such a terrible dystopian future? I mean, aside from living nice lives without neo-nazis in power.

That's actually a really terrible viewpoint to have. If we want to be able to argue for our own viewpoints, we have to extend that right to people whose opinions we disagree with. That's why the ACLU will defend the rights of even scum like the WBC (also actual neo-Nazis; they fought against a 1977 ruling that would have banned neo-Nazis from publicly demonstrating, while maintaining their opposition to what said neo-Nazis were actually saying).

Free speech (and freedom of assembly, freedom of press, freedom of association) has to extend to everyone as long as no-one else's right are being infringed upon. This is especially true of unpopular, even reprehensible, opinions, because popular opinions don't need defending.

When Richard Spencer was punched for being a white supremacist, I may have felt a certain visceral pleasure in it, but that doesn't mean I can't condemn the act of punching him. Not just because it fed perfectly into his rhetoric about how he was being persecuted for, in his mind, "speaking the truth"; not just because now I'm in the uncomfortable position of having to defend the rights of a really terrible person; but because we should all be wary of a culture that celebrates acts of violence when they're committed against certain, "acceptable" people.

[Toady One]

I know it's a topic these days, but I'd appreciate it if we move the discussion of acceptable violence away from specific individuals etc.  People are endangering their accounts and this topic with some of the rhetoric.

[sluissa]

In other news, the MDA has successfully tested a missile interceptor system. Maybe I'm overreacting, but I can't help but be reminded of the "Star Wars" (SDI) system and all the accompanying reasons why being able to defend against nuclear weaponry could be far more dangerous than not being able to do so.

I don't know, maybe that all goes out the window when dealing with an irrational agent.

As Shonus was saying, there's a big difference between this and SDI. SDI was going to attempt to be a "global" or near to it system, capable of intercepting a launch from just about anywhere at any time. This system will require localized ground stations positioned relatively close to a launch site. This means it doesn't threaten powers like Russia or China with their missiles located well inland within their own territory or anyone with submarine launched missiles and their relatively tough to pinpoint locations. (Although I'm skeptical of the idea that missile subs are as well hidden as they advertise themselves to be.) This is mostly useful in cases like Iran or North Korea where they're relatively small geographically and nobody around them really wants them to be able to launch anything.

Missile defense isn't anything new. This is just a relatively new system and showing it off is very likely just posturing towards North Korea. US and Russia both have  systems set up and active, but there is simply no reasonable amount of defense that could protect from the sheer number of warheads that could be launched by either side.

[EnigmaticHat]

you realize these guys have shown up to events across the country, right? from auburn and nawlins to portland, from new york and boston to anaheim?

sure, they're not beating the shit out of people yet, but it's a matter of time. the cats out of the bag now, thanks to the communist ninjas. 2018 and 2020 are going to be fun, get the popcorn.

Oh no! Before long, it won't be safe to march in the streets calling for the extermination of non-whites anywhere! The horror! Whatever will we do in such a terrible dystopian future? I mean, aside from living nice lives without neo-nazis in power.

That's actually a really terrible viewpoint to have. If we want to be able to argue for our own viewpoints, we have to extend that right to people whose opinions we disagree with. That's why the ACLU will defend the rights of even scum like the WBC (also actual neo-Nazis; they fought against a 1977 ruling that would have banned neo-Nazis from publicly demonstrating, while maintaining their opposition to what said neo-Nazis were actually saying).

Free speech (and freedom of assembly, freedom of press, freedom of association) has to extend to everyone as long as no-one else's right are being infringed upon. This is especially true of unpopular, even reprehensible, opinions, because popular opinions don't need defending.

When Richard Spencer was punched for being a white supremacist, I may have felt a certain visceral pleasure in it, but that doesn't mean I can't condemn the act of punching him. Not just because it fed perfectly into his rhetoric about how he was being persecuted for, in his mind, "speaking the truth"; not just because now I'm in the uncomfortable position of having to defend the rights of a really terrible person; but because we should all be wary of a culture that celebrates acts of violence when they're committed against certain, "acceptable" people.

You're right that free speech and freedom of assembly need to be respected universally, you're wrong about how those rights work.  First of all, antifa has no obligation to respect either of those rights since they apply only to the government.  If someone has a swastika tattoo and I punch them because of it, I didn't "violate their free speech" because I can't do that because I'm not the government.  I'm still going to jail, but for assault.

Protests are protected by freedom of assembly and speech, but so are counter protests.  Antifa has a right to their voice just like the bigots.  Trump supporters can tell the "Mexicans" to go home but the the "Mexicans" can insult Trump supporters back and make fun of them till the sun goes down and that's their right.

In addition, neither of those rights has ever been universal.  And bear in mind, both freedom of assembly and freedom of speech are FAR more protected now than they were throughout most of American history.  Freedom of assembly only applies if you have the approval of local government (which is obligated to give you that approval, of course, but they can restrict it within certain bounds).  Freedom of speech has always had a ton of footnotes.  Doesn't cover hate speech, threats, certain forms of deception, ect.  In addition tho free speech only restricts, it never obligates action on the part of private citizens.  Or to put it differently, no one owes you a venue, no one owes you to listen, no one legally owes you politeness.  If the government, for example, told Reddit they weren't allowed to ban r/ fatpeoplehate, that would be violating the rights... of Reddit's owners to do what they want with their own privately owned forum.

You want your rights to help you, know what they are.  Shutting down counter protest isn't protecting people's rights its eroding them, and both the founding fathers and the constitution have my back on this one.

[Neonivek]

I didn't "violate their free speech" because I can't do that because I'm not the government

A lot of the freedoms outright spread out to the people because they apply to the government.

Essentially BECAUSE the government MUST guarantee these rights, it means it must protect them from others within specific limits.

It is why I cannot sue you swearing online (which was illegal until 2002... no really)

So yes freedom of speech applies to everyone and YES it even applies to your example of someone punching you for wearing a swastika. If the government tried to make it legal to punch people on the moral ground that they are a Nazi sympathizer, that would immediately hit free speech.

It might even prevent a business from, say, firing such an individual for wearing that tattoo, even if they keep it hidden during office hours.

This is because there is NO such thing as a "Violation of free speech" legally. The government cannot break that because it isn't a law.

---

Also I am really sad that the "Moral outrage making it legal" isn't one I pulled entirely out my ass.

[Frumple]

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/ was my first reflex, but then I remembered these: https://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/terrorism-2002-2005

CIA? FBI? Fake news!!

More than that, I wasn't much considering them because terrorism tends to be a bit more specific than what was the point of interest, particularly when it's coming out of sources that disseminate information how and to who those do, and from what I recalled if they've got numbers on less extreme stuff it was buried somewhere. Political violence would include a fair wider net, yeah. _{And, of course, if you throw it wide enough you hit racism related stuff and any attempt to even remotely equivocate scale or concern between political spheres goes straight to pot, for reasons obvious and historied.}

... also the general state of things regarding US domestic terrorism was something I was already familiar enough with (goes something like right wing extremists > jihadists > everything else, speaking very roughly and probably somewhat misusing jihadist) to not be terribly curious about, heh. General politically motivated violence, though, that I haven't/hadn't seen much of anything approaching solid on.

[MrRoboto75]

Freedom of Speech is merely the right to speak against the government without fear of imprisonment/execution/disappearance.  It does not enforce speech between individuals.

Conservatives and Democrats giving each other verbal shit isn't a violation nor a compliance of freedom of speech.  Trump shutting out reporters on grounds of "fake news" or whatever can be a violation of free speech (or press actually, but they're related nonetheless).