One side came to a place where they weren’t wanted with shields, melee weapons, open carry firearms, torches, while chanting white supremacists slogans - and all to save a silly monoument to a traitor to the US that few in Charlottesville wanted around.
But yeah, tell me how its all equal.
“No Nazi. You’re the Nazi.”
Welp. The President of the United States has taken the SDMB crypto-racist position on these matters. Wonderful.
No kidding. What an absolute disgrace. He is clearly more mad at the “alt-left” than he is at the actual racist groups. Just when Trump was starting to get a little bit of credit for denouncing the KKK, he then says this shit? Unbelievable. Disgusting.
Sorry if it is paywalled for some folks – only place I can find the video of his comments.
I’ll say it. He’s not MY fucking president.
Please stop pretending that your experiences with the SCA have any relevance unless you are claiming that the right had formed coherent battle lines with the stated goal of charging the enemy in order to break their ranks and decisively route the left.
If you are claiming that then you give them more credit than I do and far more credit than any footage would seem to support.
Shield charge my ass. Show me a fucking charge. They didn’t even have the semblance of a cohesive line let alone the organization to perform a shield charge. Foh.
Care to explain why what I said was factually incorrect? Where is the evidence that these heavily armed people who were looking for fight actually injured someone (excepting the car attack - which I am happy to discuss)
I’m not sure why you’re calling the left libfags but if that is your bent I suppose so be it.
I said it served two purposes, intimidation and practicality. I hadn’t considered how it would show up on the news footage. Fair point though.
Generally speaking groups performing a protest action prefer to be more rather than less visible. They also prefer to look strong. Like it or not a couple of hundred people standing circled, lit by firelight, around something they mean to protect looks strong.
1)Howitzers, VX, MX? What did they bring? Knives and sticks? Sure. Both sides had sticks - that’s what their flags were attached to. Knives? I’ll bet the left had them too. I dunno though. I do know that the left brought mace and its like.
2)For people who came loaded for bear and “looking for a fight” they sure didn’t act like it.
3)Then it should be pretty simple for you to provide proof.
This is arguable but I’ll concede the point.
They came prepared for a fight. I’ve said that. Show me evidence of the right attacking the left - excepting the car - and I’ll concede that point too.
But I posted in specific response to Muffin linking to a Vice documentary and I saw no clear evidence in that documentary of right on left violence but I did see left on right violence (including a mob of hundreds going after a single doughy fuck.)
It’s not a gotcha. It’s a, “This is what I saw. Show me evidence to the contrary and I’m more than willing to accept it.”
I’m not crying for the guy who helped build this environment.
Neither am I. But it is a clear instance of the “peaceful” protesters who were not “looking for a fight” ganging up on and attacking a single man who had… approached a microphone in a calm and respectful manner.
Here is what I said that engendered this response:
I take exception to you calling me an apologist. I find it virulently offensive and intellectually simplistic.
Hate is wrong. Period. You feel justified hating them because you stand in ideological opposition to them. They feel justified in hating you because they stand in ideological opposition to you.
Hate + hate = bloodshed. That is the equation.
You each hate what the other stands for and, as such, you each hate EACH OTHER.
There are a good many ideas I hate. But I don’t hate the people who hold them. Doing so leads to the opposite of progress.
On a personal note
I have done my level best to respond with respect and consideration. To the point that I even provided context for your quotes in order that neither of us be misconstrued or can be accused of taking the other out of context.
You’ve accused me of, what I consider to be, revolting dishonesty. I take exception to that. Please don’t do it again.
Poor little Nazi loving victim.
All these fuckers had to do, was stay away, or leave the guns at home or not run anyone over, or not club anyone with metal pipes.
That’s a low bar if there ever was one.
So kindly fuck off.
That’s why I used to argue that the Confederate battle flag was - I emphasise was - the one symbol that stood for anything honorable about the Confederacy; that is, as the CBF was originally solely a battlefield standard to easily distinguish Confederate troops at a distance, it stood for the sacrifices of the men and women of the Confederate Army, doing a brave thing in a bad cause for evil masters (why does Lee get so much more hate than Jefferson Davis? The man was a U.S. Senator - there’s the arch-traitor).
The meanings of symbols change, though, and the CBF is now irreparably linked with hatred and racism, beyond redemption.
It’s also cruelly ironic that the riot in Charlottesville was occasioned by a statue of Robert E Lee, the one man in the South who did most to reconcile Southerners to the Federal government, and tried his damnedest to promote peace between Northerners and Southerners, in the years after Appomattox; urging Virginians to take the loyalty oath, not to emigrate to Brazil, which was wooing cotton planters in hopes of jump starting their own cotton industry, and quashing those ex-Confeds who wanted to take to the hills with their guns and keep fighting a guerrilla war. It’s well past time the country got over the romantic moonlight-and-magnolia bullshit that still persists about the “Lost Cause”; but that bullshit served a purpose for a time.
That time is long past, though, and it’s appropriate to retire Confederate memorials, and for folks to quit jerking off to the CBF and the Wah…
I’m claiming my experiences are relevant because I know what the shields look like when they are attacking vs when they are on the defensive.
It ain’t the line, its the poisiton you useless toady. Shields don’t go that high when you are protecting yourself unless you got a shitload of training. They don’t have that training. They are attacking with their shields.
I’m not saying they were *good *at it. That shiled rush was pathetic, but it was a rush.
Sorry, I’m not giving the Neo-Nazis the benefit of the doubt.
Are you immune to irony or something?
Gee. Thanks.
I’m sure their little pagent version of Triumph of the Will came off fine in their eyes.
OK, this is tiring and I doubt I really need to convince anyone esle here that you are making apologetics. If I have the willpower and time I’ll answer the rest, but really not much more needs to be said.
BTW, while this is eyewitness accounts let us stop pretending that the Neo-Nazis were all innocent lambs attacked unfairly by leftists:
But that is not how they see it. Remember, they call it “The War of Northern Aggression.” They don’t see it as Lee defending things most of us now consider horrible. They see it as the North attacking them and their way of life and Lee being a staunch defender against that.
An English prof of mine once asked if dogs were a positive or negative image in poetry. Most people said positive, man’s best friend and all of that. The prof said sure, but what if the poet had been mauled by a dog as a child.
This a fight of absolutes because the two sides won’t agree on the basics. And, which is worse, neither side is willing to actually talk (which means listen) to the other side.
For instance: there is no doubt that in Canada the majority of reported violent crime is committed by First Nations’ People. The stats are clear. That is an absolute.
A racist says: Their criminals because they are savages who were living in the stone age until white people came and tried to civilize them but they wouldn’t have it. They need to be dealt with. And if you disagree so do you.
An anti-racist says: We’re all the same and if you don’t believe that then you are evil and not only should you not be allowed to speak you should be hounded to the ends of the Earth.
A sensible person says: Yes, native criminality is a fact but it is no different than criminality in other groups that have been relegated to poverty and deprivation by a system that was explicitly designed to subjugate them. The best way to solve the problem - and is it a problem for aboriginal and non-aboriginal alike - is to look at the causes and then address them in the present.
You’re an illiterate fuckwit. You are sputum with the mental capacity of smegma. Pusfuck.
It’s past time for these ass clowns and their little “mutual admiration societies” to be legally and officially labelled by the government as hate groups and terrorist organizations.
Right back at you, you nazi bastard.
The SCA is not REAL. The situations are not remotely similar. Nothing in that documentary even began to look like a shield charge. Fucks sake next thing you’ll be claiming the Nazis are orcs. Foh.
Now, I know that you’re going to accuse me of moving the goal-posts and that’s expected.
But that is an opinion piece formed of the recollections of the “I hate Nazis” contingent. How about something objective that isn’t on the op-ed page.
I mean really, there should be police reports, records of hospitalization, news footage, something other than one side saying the other side hurt us.
I’m sure the Nazis have opinion pieces that say the students hurt us.
Look, if something happens, with that many news cameras and cellphones etc. in the area then there should be footage. Especially when each side WANTS to document the affronts of the other side.
So show me objective evidence.
I’m not saying it didn’t happen. I’m not saying the right did not commit violence. I’m saying that I watched a documentary recommended by an opponent of the Nazis made by an agency that is fundamentally opposed to the Nazis that showed violence from the left and nothing from the right - except the car.
Now lets address the car - since fucking Smegma-whats-his-face above insists upon bleating his mindless 1/2 cent.
It was a single asshole with a history of mental problems who liked to beat his invalid mother. This act is being used by the left as exemplary of the right in this instance.
I’ve not seen anywhere in mainstream media (BBC and CBC especially) listing injuries outside of the car attack.
To say that this asshole’s actions exemplify the right in this case is to say that James Hodgkinson (the guy that shot up the Republican baseball practice) is exemplary of the left.
Or that Hinkley did.
The profoundly mentally ill will latch onto stuff that appeals to them and go with it.
I’m not now saying, nor have I ever, nor will I ever, say “that side does it too so its okay if this side does it.” I’m saying that if one terroristic act is worthy of vilification then any other is worthy of vilification.
Jesus wept! Is this really that hard? People are dying because of the calcification of positions in the US and around the world and all anyone gives a fuck about is “I’m right, you’re evil”
Keep in mind, if the South had won then they’d be tearing down statues of Grant in the North and anyone who objected would be demonized. If the Nazis had won Mengele would be a hero on these boards and Schindler would be a traitor.
I think white supremacy is beyond fucking stupid. I think it is repugnant. Absolutely no one that knows me would suggest otherwise. I think any sort of prejudice is worse than useless.
But I’m not stupid enough to think that massing for battle and hurling epithets at one another is going to resolve anything. You want bloodshed and internal dissolution? Fine continue believing that the nazis are demon spawn and the non-nazis children of god. Just like the nazis think that we are demon spawn and they are god’s children.
But don’t pretend that that is useful or functional.
So you decry the 1st, 13th and 14th amendments then. How patriotic. You are certainly a brainwave.
Did you struggle to come up with that one on your own or did your mommy help you with alphabet blocks.
Seriously man, do you wear an anti-drool bib or do you just let it run down your chest?
That’s not why the statues went up. They went up to proclaim support for white supremacy, for Jim Crow, for segregation, and the like. They didn’t go up right after the Civil War to celebrate Southern valor and honor. They went up many decades later, when the country started to have public debates about rights for black people.
This isn’t a mystery – Stone Mountain, the largest Confederate monument in the country, went up at the exact spot where the KKK started. This wasn’t hidden at the time. When these monuments went up, the reasons why were proudly proclaimed, and often written explicitly on the monuments themselves.
So the Jews should have tried listening to the Nazis in Germany? Black people should have listened to white supremacists during the Civil Rights movement?
That’s the side you’re saying we should listen to, or try “agreeing on the basics”. Nazis and white supremacists. Why would we listen to them? Do they have anything to say we haven’t heard a million times in the last century? What could we possible agree with them on “the basics”?
I should most certainly NOT have included the 13th in that. That was a mistake based on my clear misunderstanding of a commentary on the 14th.
In no way shape or form did I mean to imply that you are supportive of slavery or opposed to the 13th - now that I know what it says.
I checked my facts after I replied and I was beyond wrong.
I apologize sincerely for the utterly wrong implication.
I’m confused why you think that labeling a group as a hate group or a terrorist organization would be a limitation on their free speech.
Or did you mean it would have been an infringement on their freedom of religion?
Quoted for truth
*they were never about anything but racism *