Thanks, all.
I’m starting to miss the ACA defense work that kept me off the board. 
We know what kind of filth you stand with.
Oh, the guys in white shirts beating up the black kid in the parking lot? Yeah, I saw something wrong with that.
As far as anyone hitting a guy wearing a Hitler t-shirt under his fake camos while sporting a hunting rifle? No, I saw nothing wrong with that.
The Nazi-wannabes WANTED to incite violence. That was the point of this gathering, not a peaceful protest.
ETA: Hey, Coach! We cross posted!
Your point proves mine. Yes, there were club-wielding violent thugs on both sides. Your article shows one side’s club-wielding hate-filled violent thugs. The tweet I posted from the NYT reporters shows the other side’s club-wielding hate-filled violent thugs. Which is what Trump was saying.
Got it. So thugs are the ones who attack VA Nazis.
At least they’re thugs with a conscience. Where can I buy a Go Thugs t-shirt? Trump make those too?
I think we can both agree that beating someone with a club is bad.
Person A: Beats someone with a club because the victim is black.
Person B: Beats someone with a club because the victim chooses to espouse an inherently violent ideology that celebrates the subjugation of millions of black people (or the mass extermination of millions of Jews, take your pick.)
Do you think those are equivalent actions? Ethically speaking.
Yes, I consider anyone who starts beating someone else with a club a violent thug. You apparently don’t.
Never mind, I take that back. I’m uncomfortable with any sort of defense of violent behavior, even if the victim is a Nazi piece of shit.
See my post in the other Pit thread for my real argument.
Depends on your ethics. For me, beating someone who is not attacking you is beating someone who is not attacking you.
As I said before, I am Jewish. More than a dozen of my relatives were killed in the Holocaust. I still would call someone who beats that Nazi who is demonstrating and not violent with a club a violent thug and condemn him. The Nazi espouses an evil ideology. And the one with the club is a violent thug. You seem to want very badly to excuse the violent thug. But a violent thug is a violent thug. In his mind he may have great motivation (both the Nazi and the antifa thug) to be a violent thug. But he is a violent thug nonetheless.
And pointing out that there were a lot of leftist violent thugs at that event is not racist and is not apologizing for Nazis. Nazis are evil scum. And “antifa” are violent thugs. The fact that Nazis are evil scum does not excuse antifa being violent thugs, in my eyes. YMMV.
This is what jumped out at me when I heard the conference. If you oppose the extremist White National or Nazi platform, then you too are an extremist albeit at the other end of the spectrum. IOW, if I demonstrate at a pro-Nazi garden-party, I’m a dangerous extremist. If I DON’T demonstrate, I am tacitly approving of the abhorrent Nazi ethos…is that how this works?
Fuck US, what hope is there? 
No, if you’re a violent hate-filled thug who is beating up people with a club, you’re an extremist at the other end of the spectrum.
I am enjoying the thought of hundreds of pols with “R” next to their name scrambling to decide if this finally the point where they stand up and denounce Trump completely, or continue to weasel that although his opinions are deplorable he is still a “good” man. A few of them may actually have a smidgen of morals poking at their conscience even.
I was once told that it is completely ethical, nay it is a moral imperative, to attack any person who puts you in fear of your life the instant that you feel that fear. Armed white supremacists marching in lock step carrying Nazi imagery and chanting anti-Semitic bullshit would scare the shit out of me. Fuck them.
See my above post retracting that statement. I won’t make that argument. Violence is violence.
I’ll repost this:
Group A: Nazis
Group B: Counter-protesters.
Group A is 100% bad. There is not a single redeemable person in Group A. Group A espouses an inherently violent ideology and is ethically bankrupt, completely and totally. Every single person.
Group B is mostly good. Most of the people in Group B are there because they don’t like racism. Some people within Group B are assholes and resort to violence, but on the whole Group B is driven by a peaceful ideology predicated on standing up for the oppressed.
At this event, someone from the 100% bad Group A murdered a person from the mostly good Group B and wounded 19 more.
As a result, Trump is shifting the blame to make Group B, as a whole, look violent.
There is no comparison. It is utterly fucking inexcusable.
Bull. Trump is not talking about the car-crash murder. That incident is 100% one sided.
He is talking about the incident as a whole. And in the incident as a whole there were groups of hate-filled violent thugs, Nazis on one side and “alt-left” (or “antifa” or whatever you want to call them) on the other side - attacking each other in the streets. Which is what Trump said. Which is what the NYT reporter said. Apparently it’s only “bad” if Trump says it. If it’s an NYT reporter that reports it, that is skipped. 'cuz it’s not Trump.
Team Bannon has always been in the lead. That asshole is there for a reason. Make America White Again.
He’s usually even dumber.
Breaking news: armed thugs toss garbage, has garbage tossed back at them. Film at 11.
So your position is that if anybody hits a Nazi with a club, then that makes everybody else as bad as Nazis - worse even, because we need to focus on the attack against the Nazis, and utterly ignore which group clearly escalated the situation via imposing and threatening behavior.
On a separate point, I absolutely agree we shouldn’t physically attack nazis on national television - not because those shitbags don’t deserve to have their shit and bags beat to a pulp, but because they want to be attacked. It allows them to crow what victims they are.