I don’t necessarily advocate banning expressing racist ideas, but how people are permitted to express those ideas might be a different subject altogether. Let’s cut through the nonsense and stop pretending that the neo-confederate and neo-Nazi message is simply expressing politically incorrect opinions; the inherent message is that the ethnic majority has the right to dominate everyone else. That’s an inherently destabilizing proposition because the subjugation of minorities cannot practically be achieved without violence. Did White Democrats in Dixie drive out White Republicans from the North and usher in the Jim Crow era by virtue of having more persuasive ideas? Or was it because they fire bombed houses and lynched people by the hundreds in massacre after bloody massacre?
If someone wants to go on and make racists rants on his twitter or Facebook account, I suppose that’s one thing. But I’m not sure I see the social value in letting people dress up in military fatigues, brandishing firearms, and carrying around overtly racist symbols and messages on large placards. I seriously doubt that the people defending the alt-right would tolerate Islamists dressing up in black and calling for sharia law.
So if you’re fine with banning Nazi symbols because Nazism is bad, what’s your argument to stop a right-wing legislature and president (like we have now) from banning, say, Islam or some large chunk of Islam because they say it’s bad? It’s easy to say ‘of course we should ban them, they’re bad!’ but you seem to completely ignore that even more people say that other organizations are bad, and would turn your tools against them.
Indeed, and it demonstrates a weakness in the slippery slope defense of free speech. If the slope is slippery, it probably has more to do with a complex set of problems, not merely because someone passed a single law that suddenly opened the floodgates for a tidal wave of tyranny. That doesn’t mean that I necessarily want the US to copy everything Germany does, and I don’t disagree that for the advantage of creating a nicer, more tolerant society on the surface, it allows undetected racism to fester beneath the surface.
For that reason I probably wouldn’t propose banning racist talk or racist speech unless it were intended to engender violence, which is pretty much the status quo in this country today. What I do sometimes question is whether we need to tolerate having large demonstrations which are inevitably going to inflame passions and tensions to the point where violence is inevitable.
I would say that Germany has evolved since World War II into a pretty civilized society, yet they ban all of that nonsense. Of course, they have a national memory and shame that we do not, and we don’t have a tradition of banning speech, but that shouldn’t be the measure of whether or not a society is civilized.
I had sort of assumed everyone was aware of this already, but in these circles, that’s probably not the case: a group of leftists have showm up at protests in Arizona locked and loaded too. They call themselves the John Brown Gun Club or Redneck Revolt. There was a good bit of handwringing over on AR15.com until a video of their “range day” surfaced. They can’t shoot for shit, so after that it kind of turned into a joke. Anyways, both sides do it.
My best theory as to why the alt right show up to protests armed: to intimidate minorities and to emphasize that they are willing to kill for their vision of a white-dominant nation.
My best theory as to why leftists show up to protests armed: to protect themselves from those mentioned above, and to show that they are not intimidated by said acts.
Am I incorrect? If not, I think that puts a bit of context in lacking in the simple phrase “both sides do it.”
And why is it so important that both sides do it, anyway? What does it mean? “The left is just as violent as the right. Therefore…” what? As I said above, I think it matters that one side is acting in what is basically self-defense. I can certainly understand being tired of being told to understand and accept the rhetoric of the people who want to murder you, that any violent reaction to their violence is unacceptable, oh, yeah, and non violent protest is horrible too, unless it’s done completely in private and nobody else sees it.
The blind partisanship of some Dopers still floors me sometimes. This is one of those times. Your ‘best theories’ suck. Both sides believe that they are doing it for self-defense and the other side is doing it to intimidate people they don’t like. Your post above is just confirmation of that.
Actually, I think if you asked a bunch of alt-right people, there are plenty who’d cheerfully admit to brandishing weapons to intimidate minorities. Hey, they say in public they want to kill Jews; why would they pussyfoot around why they carry weapons?
As for the self-defense thing, yes, I realize white supremacists believe they are being squeezed out of public life by minorities, but how does that belief merit serious consideration?
So if I were less “partisan,” what would my ideal attitudes be towards the alt right, Nazis, and white supremacists? IOW, why do Nazis deserve my respect?
If party A has a permit to be at a given location and applies for that permit first don’t you think that party B applying for a permit afterwards for the same time and place is actually choosing the confrontation?
Party B could have chosen any other place in the world to show up. But they didn’t. They wanted a fight.
Except one side is basing their beliefs on reality and one side is dressing up in Nazi uniforms and Klan sheets.
Did the Jews kill millions of Nazis? Did black people lynch thousands of Klan members? The two sides in these struggles are not morally equal. Sure, the President may believe that but he’s an idiot.
You have it the wrong way round Leaper.
For years and years it is white people who have been the target. I no uncertain terms they have been told their opinions do not matter, that they are evil and that they should go extinct.
Can you deny this?
It is “the left” that has brought back race discrimination and because it was against whites it was just fine.
Do you really find it odd that not every white person is okay with all that?
Every person, that is not a supremacist, but does take issue with the racism of the left, is immediately branded a Nazi. It is the left themselves that have been creating more Nazi’s by pushing these people towards them.
As for the violence, there is no denying that it is AntiFa that started the escalation in violent action, with their actions at Berkley.
The next protest people came more prepared for them, with helmets and counter attacks. Now they are bringing shields and sticks (and guns? or was that the militia?).