That’s only because he doesn’t have any nuances.
Uggh, what bullshit. The nazis surrounded a group of anti-racist protesters and attacked them. A nazi drove a car into a crowd and killed and injured people. Their actions are entirely their fault, not the fault of those who oppose them.
It’s never wrong to oppose hatred. Perhaps some tactics are better than others in various circumstances, but deciding to come out and speak out against hatred is never wrong, and the vast majority of the violence must be blamed on those who spout violent rhetoric, supported and are now justifying violence, and engaged in violence themselves – and for the most part this weekend, this was the white supremacists, not the anti-racist protesters.
This post is a steaming pile of shit. How are people literally defending Nazis!?
Ok. Whose fault is this:
(From Jake Tapper of CNN’s Twitter feed - according to some of SDMB’s posters’ logic, he is “aligning himself with the Nazis” with these tweets)
"At least two journalists in Charlottesville were assaulted by people protesting the Klan/Nazi/alt-right rally. Taylor is one:
The alleged assailant of the journalist was charged.
a photojournalist with the Richmond CBS station also was assaulted while filming a counterprotest.
he needed medical attention:
a source at the station says he’s been out for three days with a concussion
Antifa posted this on FB about the assault which a source at the station says is full of out-and-out lies.
these are unprovoked assaults on journalists doing their jobs – by those marching against the hateful racists.
Disgusting."
It’s really really simple: because of what Neo Nazis and the KKK represent and what they stand for, anything that happens from that is their fault. Resisting their attitudes and beliefs should be any decent, thinking person’s default position.
And if you think it’s crazy to think they can get enough political power to get what they want you haven’t been paying attention.
What does this have to do with what I said? Unprovoked assaults on journalists doing their jobs is disgusting. The vast majority of the blame for violence in Charlottesville lies with the white supremacists. These two sentences are not in conflict. There were a relatively small number of violent incidents that were the fault of others aside from the white supreamcists – this doesn’t absolve the white supremacists from their role in the majority of the violence, nor does it absolve them for the morally disgusting act of marching for and publicly espousing white supremacist ideas.
Cite for the “relatively small” part?
Unless you think that someone clubbing a white supremacist not in response to some violent action from the white supremacist but because he’s a white supremacist is the white supremacist’s fault. I suspect you do.
I’ve watched the videos and the news coverage of the events. I’ve heard from those who were there. I saw the video of the car plowing into the crowd (which, alone, can reasonably be stated to constitute the majority of the egregious violence), and I saw the reports afterwards that white supremacists openly said that they supported the actions of the driver/killer/terrorist.
Maybe you did or didn’t see this stuff, but I’m not going to go to any extra special effort to help you discover what’s so obvious.
As I said, no one’s right to free speech has been infringed. Or did you just want to re-write my post to make it longer?
Ah, so - anecdotal evidence.
Are there any reported stats on what ratio of violent attacks were initiated by the Nazis/white supremacists vs. the protesters?
and - you didn’t answer, so I wonder. Do you think that someone clubbing a white supremacist not in response to some violent action from the white supremacist but because he’s a white supremacist is the white supremacist’s fault or does the fault belong to the clubber?
Is it wrong to assume that self proclaimed neo Nazis and white supremacists are scumbags? Can they be decent people? According to Trump, yes.
No, it is not wrong to assume that. And I suspect that you attribute to Trump what he didn’t say.
Yes – very easy to find. There were 35 people hospitalized overall, and 3 deaths. 2 deaths in the helicopter crash (which, in my understanding, was just an accident), and 1 death from the white supremacist car crash. 19 hospitalizations from the car crash – that leaves 16 from other causes (which might also include the helicopter – I couldn’t find it).
So even if all 16 other injuries were caused by anti-racist protesters (and there’s no reason to believe this), still the significant majority of the injuries and all of the non-accident deaths were caused by white supremacists. Thus entirely reasonable to blame the majority of the violence on white supremacists.
Best case for the nazis, those other 16 injuries are split half-and-half on blame. If so, then that’s 8 injuries caused by anti-racists, and 1 death + 27 injuries caused by white supremacists. Based on the videos and reports, I suspect it was even more lopsided than that. Those entirely reasonable to say that the white supremacists are to blame for the overwhelming majority of the violence.
The fault belongs to the clubber, but clubbing a nazi for espousing nazi rherotic is, while bad, not as bad as most other clubbings. Unless you’re a moral relativist, I suppose. Are you a moral relativist?
I was asking about the incidents of initiation of violence, not overall stats.
The one, murderous, incident is where 19 of the injuries come from. If the other 16 come from multiple incidents where the “antifa” initiated violence, then the majority of such incidents would be the “fault” of the protesters, wouldn’t they be? Since, as you said, the fault for someone clubbing a white supremacist who is not being violent belongs to the clubber.
Note I said “if the other 16”. I don’t know. But neither do you. And judging by the fact that antifa clubbed journalists (not white supremacists), it is a pretty good assumption that they were initiating violence against the white supremacists/Nazis.
From one of many articles covering Trump’s response:
That’s a ridiculous distinction. 50 incidents (hypothetically) in which 4 people are hurt are much, much less violent than 1 incident in which 19 people are hurt and 1 killed.
If you want to try to finagle the numbers in such a way to try to reflect better on the nazis and worse on the anti-nazis, feel free, but I’m not going to pretend it’s anything other than totally ridiculous.
Violence is violence, injuries are injuries, and deaths are deaths. The white supremacists caused more deaths and injuries, and afterwards many of them supported the causing of those deaths and injuries. They were more violent. Pretty simple math.
He’s correct. Not everyone there on the “right” side was a Nazi or a white supremacist. I doubt if the majority was. The event was billed as “Unite the Right”, not “Nazis and White Supremacists March”, so it is quite reasonable to assume that there were some people there who didn’t know what kind of gathering this will turn into.
And I wasn’t there, but knowing how the press likes to cover such things, I would assume that there were quite a few areas in the “march” where there were no Nazi or white supremacist regalias or chants at all but they were not shown on TV.
It would show that there were at least 50 violent thugs on one side vs. exactly one on the other. Hypothetically.
No it wouldn’t.
That you’re choosing to try and tie yourself into knots just to try and make nazis look better and anti-nazis look worse just makes you look bad. It doesn’t make anyone else look bad but you.
You don’t have to make this choice. Denouncing the nazis unreservedly, and advocating opposition to nazis and white supremacists, even while decrying unprovoked violence, would make you and your side look better. Why not make the latter choice?
You don’t have to keep defending the nazis.