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[Trekkin]

Everything is getting recorded nowadays.

Very few people actually want to go through with punching someone for any reason.

Someone is recorded chanting nazi bullshit and telling people they're a nazi, don't defend them.

Once people stop saying they're nazis, then we can worry about it getting used to justify shit, perhaps?

Our experience with police body cameras would suggest functional recordings of events are more discretionary than we would like, and the mob rarely cares to thoroughly validate evidence. So long as they have a recording of someone saying the word "nazi", well, then, on we go -- and many, many people want people hurt who are unwilling to do it themselves but more than willing to gin up any mob that falls readily to hand.

And by the time people stop saying they're Nazis it will be far too late to stop. All the people I mentioned who want to punch people and get away with it will vociferously agree on one thing: only a Nazi would ever want to make it harder or less popular to punch Nazis. Or rather, they'll punch first to defend their golden ticket and someone will come up with that later.

We've tried this before, you know. We've tried making it okay to kill witches and list Communists working in the State Department and throw suspected Japanese secret agents into internment camps. Every single time we've tried to single out a group as acceptable targets in extremis for a limited duration and with all the due process we can afford, everyone stops listening after "acceptable targets" and is running down the road, torches and pitchforks in hand, and all the definitions have twisted and broadened and fuzzed one punch at a time. Every single time, it's become a way to settle grudges and censor the opposition and let our basest impulses rule.

[Max™]

Yeah that's fine but I don't really care considering there are nazis in Charlottesville talking about not being replaced and planning to return.

Hypothetical "what if people start calling others nazis" is ridiculous: I don't give a fuck what someone else says about another person when there is someone happily stating they think genocide of non-white folk is cool.

[scriver]

Anyway, the main thrust of what I'm saying isn't about Muslims or Nazis, its about our political conversation.  I wrote up a giant post about this but its already been said.  There's a double standard as to what constitutes foul play between the left and the right.  I've heard people on this very forum try to downplay, for example, violence against trans people by saying that it happens no less than average.  And then we've got people digging up every example of how neo-nazis have been punched openly but not killed, and law enforcement actually did something about it.  And its like... I would feel a little more receptive to this, if at least one person who had downplayed violence committed by hate groups in the past isn't one of the people who's defended neo-nazis in the present.  Not naming names but some of y'all aren't nearly as moderate as you claim to be and you should stop pretending so you can genuinely participate in the conversation and say what you mean.

Aaand we're right back to the "if you don't toe the line completely then you're the enemy!" mindset. It's really a shame people won't admit that they're the simplified cardboard cutouts you envision them as.

[martinuzz]

Arjen Lubach (the same guy that made the 'Netherlands second' video) made another one about the USA for his late night show, yesterday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKYV_eMyrIk

[Trekkin]

Yeah that's fine but I don't really care considering there are nazis in Charlottesville talking about not being replaced and planning to return.

Hypothetical "what if people start calling others nazis" is ridiculous: I don't give a fuck what someone else says about another person when there is someone happily stating they think genocide of non-white folk is cool.

Did I give you the impression of trying to convince you of anything, Max? I really don't see any need to.

I'm simply trying to help you understand why the world will never conform to your power fantasies. You can accept it and figure out a better way of stopping the Nazis, or you can keep going on about how you'll totally punch those betas into submission for saying things you don't like. I simply suspect that the former will be more satisfying to you in the long term than the latter.

[Frumple]

... never can quite understand why folks try so hard to avoid/refuse to address the whole "literally have arm bands, flags, throwing out salutes and genocide supporting slogans, caught on video" thing.

Kinda' the difference between vague witches or potential spies within an ethnic group or... whatever. Difficult to talk to someone about slopes when they're talking about something nailed into a wall with a rail spike, particularly when the slopes pretty much never actually start from or have something that pinned down.

[Trekkin]

... never can quite understand why folks try so hard to avoid/refuse to address the whole "literally have arm bands, flags, throwing out salutes and genocide supporting slogans, caught on video" thing.

Kinda' the difference between vague witches or potential spies within an ethnic group or... whatever. Difficult to talk to someone about slopes when they're talking about something nailed into a wall with a rail spike, particularly when the slopes pretty much never actually start from or have something that pinned down.

Because it's too easy, and it feels too good. Once the vigilantes are done with the people who literally had the arm bands and flags and salutes and slogans and support for genocide, they'll look for the people who had all but one of those things, then all but two, and so on, because punching Nazis makes them feel powerful and gives them an outlet for their frustration and shows that they're one of the good ones. Who to punch is never as clear-cut as you would like, but somehow just enough that it makes sense to dole out more sweet, sweet, addictive justice. It's just so satisfying.

If you want to make it illegal to be a Nazi, we can have the debate over how to do that and put some carefully considered legislation together. But not post ex facto, and certainly not at a drumhead trial. Not bothering to talk just because it's difficult is exactly why the Nazis are out there chanting slogans and waving torches instead. That's the easy, satisfying way. But you know as well as I do that it's not right to meet even genocidal rhetoric with violence. If the best way you have of proving them wrong is to just punch them until they shut up, they will take notice of that, and they'll never stop bringing it up at every single one of the countless lawsuits they file where they get to play up being the victim. People will hear them, too; we love a good underdog story and we're not good at dispensing with things that make us happy just because they're morally reprehensible. Thus this whole mad idea.

[SalmonGod]

Anyway, the main thrust of what I'm saying isn't about Muslims or Nazis, its about our political conversation.  I wrote up a giant post about this but its already been said.  There's a double standard as to what constitutes foul play between the left and the right.  I've heard people on this very forum try to downplay, for example, violence against trans people by saying that it happens no less than average.  And then we've got people digging up every example of how neo-nazis have been punched openly but not killed, and law enforcement actually did something about it.  And its like... I would feel a little more receptive to this, if at least one person who had downplayed violence committed by hate groups in the past isn't one of the people who's defended neo-nazis in the present.  Not naming names but some of y'all aren't nearly as moderate as you claim to be and you should stop pretending so you can genuinely participate in the conversation and say what you mean.

Aaand we're right back to the "if you don't toe the line completely then you're the enemy!" mindset. It's really a shame people won't admit that they're the simplified cardboard cutouts you envision them as.

Pointing out a blatant double-standard is the same as declaring someone your enemy for not parroting ideology?

[sluissa]

It's a problem with seeing moderate grouped in with the opposite side simply because you're so extreme in your views and beliefs in your own ideology that anyone not immediately surrounding you is the enemy.

[Arx]

Anyway, the main thrust of what I'm saying isn't about Muslims or Nazis, its about our political conversation.  I wrote up a giant post about this but its already been said.  There's a double standard as to what constitutes foul play between the left and the right.  I've heard people on this very forum try to downplay, for example, violence against trans people by saying that it happens no less than average.  And then we've got people digging up every example of how neo-nazis have been punched openly but not killed, and law enforcement actually did something about it.  And its like... I would feel a little more receptive to this, if at least one person who had downplayed violence committed by hate groups in the past isn't one of the people who's defended neo-nazis in the present.  Not naming names but some of y'all aren't nearly as moderate as you claim to be and you should stop pretending so you can genuinely participate in the conversation and say what you mean.

Aaand we're right back to the "if you don't toe the line completely then you're the enemy!" mindset. It's really a shame people won't admit that they're the simplified cardboard cutouts you envision them as.

Pointing out a blatant double-standard is the same as declaring someone your enemy for not parroting ideology?

Scriver's pointing out that

Not naming names but some of y'all aren't nearly as moderate as you claim to be and you should stop pretending so you can genuinely participate in the conversation and say what you mean.

has fairly heavy implications that there is no middle ground. Declaring that compromise is impossible is a silly thing to do.

[RedKing]

I don't see that as saying that at all. There's a middle ground. But saying "there were bad people on both sides" isn't necessarily middle ground. In some circumstances, it might be a reasonable moderate stance.

In a case like Charlottesville, it's apologia for the Nazis.

Let me put it this way, would you consider "Well, yes, Stephen Paddock was a bad person, but I'm sure, statistically, some of the people he shot were bad people too" to be a 'moderate' statement?

[EnigmaticHat]

^he gets it^

Its one thing to be moderate.  Its another to act in a way that isn't moderate, and then pretend that you have no political alignments.

[scriver]

See, that's the thing. Anyone here not agreeing with you 110% is immediately painted as apologising for or supporting Nazis, LINOs who only pretend to be liberals or leftists.

^he gets it^

Its one thing to be moderate.  Its another to act in a way that isn't moderate, and then pretend that you have no political alignments.

You yourself continuously act in the manner of an authoritarian, you can't be either liberal or moderate by your own way of thinking. You should stop pretending so you can genuinely participate in the conversation and say what you mean.

[smjjames]

And the thing is, the middle ground, politically, has all but disappeared in recent years. It's still there, but there is a huge valley between moderate democrats and moderate republicans where they used to be a whole lot closer.

It's evident even here on occasion, but we're more willing to compromise and talk with each other than our politicians.

@scriver: Are you talking on the European spectrum or the American spectrum? You have to remember that the American spectrum is right shifted compared to the European spectrum.

[scriver]

This is the American politics thread, so I'm using the American definitions (as good as i can ) for simplicity. And to make everything even more complicated outside of it.