That doesn’t support what you said. You said “primary tactic”, and that their only purpose is to “get together and hurt people”.
That’s very different than “The salient feature of Antifa is to oppose fascism by direct action, including violence if need be”
By that argument the primary tactic of the police is to shoot people because their job is to protect the public, including by shooting people if need be.
Holy shit; adaher is wrong again?!!??
I’ll go reset the board.
You wish. Show me when anti-fa showed up anywhere and didn’t get violent. “If need be” is not only a direct endorsement of violence, it also means violence as primary tactic if it is always seen as a necessary tactic regardless of the behavior of those they are protesting. With the exception of Charlottesville, they’ve attacked unprovoked every time.
“If I redefine words, they mean just what I say!”
ETA:
Evidence that adaher is wrong will prolly be handwaved away (“a rare exception” or some such) or ignored, is my guess. Prove me wrong, adaher.
Start by defining “violent.” Is throwing paint or smoke grenades “violent?” How about pushing and shoving? Resisting arrest? Waving weapons to intimidate? Threatening the literal genocide of entire races or religions but not actually acting on it? Encouraging other people to act violently by offering to pay their legal bills? Where’s the line?
Any large gathering of people, and particularly large gatherings of people with strongly divided opinions on something, is going to have “violence” in some sense, see basically any sporting event for examples. So for the “both siders” who see punching a Nazi threatening you vs. injuring three people and killing one by running them down with a car as exactly equivalent, that’s a freebie.
But rational people are able to make distinctions, judge severity, and compare incidents (hint: actual research doesn’t paint the Right in a good light, hence the absolute desperation with which they struggle to convey the false equivalency).
Antifa–inasmuch as it even exists as a coherent organization rather than an invented bogeyman bucket of the Fox crowd–needs to be discouraged from committing crimes, condemned by the left when they do (which I’m seeing), and prosecuted when they violate the law. But the Right seems to think that as long as “both sides” are doing it, then that somehow absolves their side of blame, or makes far worse violence OK.
Take it up with Berkeley’s mayor.
It is likely that every story that adaher has heard involving antifa has involved violence, but that is only because every story that he has heard had involved violence.
There are many stories of antifa that do not involve violence, but he has not heard them, because he only hears about the stories that involve violence.
No, it’s valid. I’m glad they managed to not attack anyone that day. Next step: not hiding thier faces. Cowards.
If someone forced me to choose between supporting antifa or the Nazis and the KKK, I’d support the antifa.
The shortest and simplest explanations/reasons are, antifa never lynched or gassed anyone. They do not have a core purpose of genocide. They do not have a body count. Antifa has not deliberately run anyone down in a car. Antifa has not fired a gun at a crowd. Antifa does not seem to hate anyone except Nazis and KKKers.
As was already said too many times, there is NO moral equivalent here. Hotheads vs genocidal maniacs. I choose to side with the hotheads.
Tell the Klan to stop wearing hoods.
Well, sounder minds disagree.
Why the left conveniently forgets that communist regimes have been responsible for more deaths than fascist regimes is one of the greatest unsolved mysteries. Antifa proclaims to be aligned with communists. Antifa engages in mob violence to silence dissenting viewpoints even those that aren’t “fa.” They label what they don’t like fascist, regardless of the truth (like many on this board), and then physically attack them.
You can say that about any group. :rolleyes:
Antifa does not and will never support the “final answer to the jewish question”, they do not and never did ride around at night wearing hoods and lynching people. To put your “but the commies” to rest, they never said they wanted to emulate Stalin or Pol Pot (unlike the Hitler worshippers) or bring their government “style” back. They are a REACTION to the Nazis and KKK and fascists of the so-called “alt-right”.
So feel free to try another, equally weak “whatabout” false equivalence when you have the energy. There is no comparison.
One side is evil. The other was started for the purpose of opposing it.
We’re talking about America – in America, white supremacists have hurt or killed far, far more people than communists or anyone even close to communists. Thus it’s entirely reasonable to consider them a far greater threat in America.
This is actually true. And it is why it is stupid when someone sees an article about a particular group of people engaging in violence or other anti-social type behavior, and then broad brushes the rest of the group with that behavior.
That’s why when I judge a group, I look to its leaders and its stated principles, not isolated cases of misguided followers.
If a person is reprehensible, a racist, a bigot, or whatever, and people are following that person, with the full knowledge of that person’s views, then the group can fairly be described as racist. If a group’s stated purpose is to ensure the supremacy of the white race, then you can fairly describe the group a white supremacist. If the leaders of a group call for violence, or talk about it in fond terms after it happens, then you can fairly describe the group as violent.
If you take the actions of a follower of the group, and the group disavows those actions, but you choose to brush the group with those action anyway, that is when you get to broad brushing fallacies that you are very fond of spouting.
You can say about antifa, that they are not always violent, and in fact, are only violent in the cases where you heard about the violence. So if you describe antifa as a violent group, you are wrong, there are many times and places that they do not engage in violence.
Nazis, on the other hand, at the core of their ideology, is the eradication of anyone that they feel is of an inferior race. That is the case for the leaders, the followers, and everyone in between. You can not say about a nazi group, ever, that they are not for genocide, that’s their calling card.
You lump the era of worldwide acceptance of slavery with 20th century genocidal ideologies to overstate a negligible threat now. The ideology more likely to result in people dying today is stuff like communism. We still have in the modern age communist governments that do terrible atrocities. Where is fascism popular enough to take over a nation?
Yes Nazis are bad. But they do less damage to the US then most decent sized criminal gangs.
That’s a ridiculous argument. Antifa is a violent group. That’s like saying the mob isn’t a violent group because they didn’t have someone sleep with the fishes today.