# Unite the Right Racist Scum **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 12, 2017, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unite-the-right-racist-scum/793471 "2017-08-12T22:19:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 40
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2017, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unite-the-right-racist-scum/793471/781 "2017-08-18T16:06:36Z")
_sigh_ Apparently Bricker thinks that Nazi websites encouraging members to burn synagogues is somehow protected Free Speech. I can’t even. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2017, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unite-the-right-racist-scum/793471/782 "2017-08-18T16:07:40Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > I was not, as a leftist, pleased with some of the behavior of people on the left. But that some people would watch that video and say, ‘‘Look at all those Antifa thugs being violent!’’ really blows my fucking mind. Best Facebook quote: “Yes, the cancer was aggressive. But the chemotherapy was aggressive too, so it was on both sides.” ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2017, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unite-the-right-racist-scum/793471/783 "2017-08-18T16:13:14Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > _sigh_ > > Apparently Bricker thinks that Nazi websites encouraging members to burn synagogues is somehow protected Free Speech. > > I can’t even. ☹ Assuming the synagogues are spoken of generally and not specifically, it is protected free speech. I mean, it’s arguable that it shouldn’t be, but legally, it is protected free speech to advocate violence. It’s only incitement to violence in the case of imminent harm. I don’t even think, ‘‘harm is more probable than not,’’ qualifies as incitement to violence, but IANAL. What is legally and ethically permissible are two completely different things. What grosses me out is that some people seem genuinely more disturbed by the behavior of some counterprotesters than actual Nazis who clearly stood on the side of the guy who murdered people at that same event. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2017, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unite-the-right-racist-scum/793471/784 "2017-08-18T16:16:28Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > I will say one thing. I watched the VICE video and the ideologies expressed by the alt-right are explicitly, jaw-droppingly violent. There’s a scene where Cantwell is unloading weapons in his hotel room, talking about how eager he is to get the strength in numbers required for genocide, and in the wake of the terrorist attack that killed a person _just hours before_ he remarks that, ‘‘Well, nobody on our side died, so I’d call that a bonus for us.’’ It’s just beyond the pale horrifying. > > I was not, as a leftist, pleased with some of the behavior of people on the left. But that some people would watch that video and say, ‘‘Look at all those Antifa thugs being violent!’’ really blows my fucking mind. And even here, look at the so-called “people” who defend his kind. His kind are a disease. ---
**Author:** ![BlankSlate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blankslate/32/80_2.png) [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2017, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unite-the-right-racist-scum/793471/785 "2017-08-18T16:17:45Z")
> [@Ann\_Hedonia](#): > > I don’t really know how to classify my family. They identify as conservatives. > > But they hold very liberal positions on policing ( possibly because some of them have been on the wrong side of the law a time or two ). And my 90 year old mother has been known to use the phrase “Black Lives Matter” in conversation and she gets worked up about those news stories. And they’ve always been pro-life and they have literally laughed about evolution deniers. I was raised with an emphasis on critical thinking-my parents would walk me through the process if I expressed an irrational opinion. > > But they are very conservative on immigration. My mom picked up my copy of Matt Taibbis The Divide > [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EBRUB02/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?\_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EBRUB02/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1) > > and was happily reading the condemnations of urban policing - then she got to the section on immigration. She called me to tell me “I think that guy’s a liberal”. > > And they’re still dumbfuck stupid about Trump. It not that they like what he’s doing but as of a month ago, at least -they were still into “everyone is so mean to him” -“all presidents do stupid stuff”, “respect the office” and “give him a chance”. I haven’t checked in on the subject lately because Mom’s 90 and hasn’t been well but I keep thinking something’s got to give. Really. Soon I hope. When someone says you should give Trump a chance, tell them New Yorkers have been giving him a chance for decades, which is why he only got 10% of the vote in his home county. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2017, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unite-the-right-racist-scum/793471/786 "2017-08-18T16:18:09Z")
> [@Skywatcher](#): > > [Susan Bro, mother of Heather Heyer, snubs invitation to visit the White House due to the head twit’s tweets.](http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/18/politics/heather-heyer-susan-bro-donald-trump/index.html) I would turn it down too… with no second thought. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2017, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unite-the-right-racist-scum/793471/787 "2017-08-18T16:19:30Z")
> [@BlankSlate](#): > > When someone says you should give Trump a chance, tell them New Yorkers have been giving him a chance for decades, which is why he **only got 10% of the vote in his home county**. This. I grew up in Bayside, Queens County. We ALL knew about him, long ago. He was always filth. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2017, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unite-the-right-racist-scum/793471/788 "2017-08-18T16:20:25Z")
> [@SteveG1](#): > > And even here, look at the so-called “people” who defend his kind. His kind are a disease. I haven’t seen much defending of Nazi ideology on these boards so much as being really concerned with free speech. But I don’t understand how you can watch that video and be more concerned with free speech than with people like Cantwell. Like in the abstract, free speech should be protected, but if your first instinct watching that video isn’t to vomit all over the place at such open displays of bigotry, I just… I don’t understand that. It’s such a viscerally disgusting thing I don’t understand how anyone could not react so viscerally. Even the lady doing the interview was choking back obvious contempt. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2017, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unite-the-right-racist-scum/793471/789 "2017-08-18T16:23:34Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > I haven’t seen much defending of Nazi ideology on these boards so much as being really concerned with free speech. But I don’t understand how you can watch that video and be more concerned with free speech than with people like Cantwell. Like in the abstract, free speech should be protected, but if your first instinct watching that video isn’t to vomit all over the place at such open displays of bigotry, I just… I don’t understand that. It’s such a viscerally disgusting thing I don’t understand how anyone could not react so viscerally. Even the lady doing the interview was choking back obvious contempt. It makes me want to break things. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2017, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unite-the-right-racist-scum/793471/790 "2017-08-18T16:27:31Z")
Anyone else here read the “right” in the thread title as “proper” and thus parse the thread title as Unite the “right racist scum”, i.e. “unite the definitely racist scum”? ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2017, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unite-the-right-racist-scum/793471/791 "2017-08-18T16:31:47Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > I haven’t seen much defending of Nazi ideology on these boards so much as being really concerned with free speech. But I don’t understand how you can watch that video and be more concerned with free speech than with people like Cantwell. Like in the abstract, free speech should be protected, but if your first instinct watching that video isn’t to vomit all over the place at such open displays of bigotry, I just… I don’t understand that. It’s such a viscerally disgusting thing I don’t understand how anyone could not react so viscerally. Even the lady doing the interview was choking back obvious contempt. Agreed. I will reiterate some previous comments, though, that it’s important always to think “this is a damaged horrible person” but not “this is not a person.” We all have the instinct to distance ourselves from someone disgusting and that leads to calling them “monsters” or “vermin” or something that we are not. But that leads to the idea that the danger is the other, that no one normal could ever fall into extremism, etc. So we see a video with someone spewing contemptible things and we think “How unlike me that person is.” But (as we talked about yesterday) we see someone else in the video who is talking semi-coherently and that makes us uncomfortable because it’s harder to see why they could be so wrong when they have less obvious markers of being monsters. We want so very badly for monsters to be something separate from us rather than a variety of us. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2017, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unite-the-right-racist-scum/793471/792 "2017-08-18T16:32:34Z")
My husband usually has snide, confident remarks regarding anything political happening, but he was just stunned by that footage. He said, ‘‘I knew they were white supremacists, that deep down behind the cloak of anonymity, they supported genocide, but I just can’t believe they would ever talk openly about it.’’ Maybe this is old hat to those alive in the 60s, but this is not comparable to anything my generation has ever seen before. The good news is that while living in their deluded internet bubble, these people apparently overestimated how many people agreed with them. [QUOTE=Ludovic] Anyone else here read the “right” in the thread title as “proper” and thus parse the thread title as Unite the “right racist scum”, i.e. “unite the definitely racist scum”? [/QUOTE] Well, it works either way, I suppose! ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2017, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unite-the-right-racist-scum/793471/793 "2017-08-18T16:38:59Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > Agreed. > > I will reiterate some previous comments, though, that it’s important always to think “this is a damaged horrible person” but not “this is not a person.” We all have the instinct to distance ourselves from someone disgusting and that leads to calling them “monsters” or “vermin” or something that we are not. But that leads to the idea that the danger is the other, that no one normal could ever fall into extremism, etc. > > So we see a video with someone spewing contemptible things and we think “How unlike me that person is.” But (as we talked about yesterday) we see someone else in the video who is talking semi-coherently and that makes us uncomfortable because it’s harder to see why they could be so wrong when they have less obvious markers of being monsters. We want so very badly for monsters to be something separate from us rather than a variety of us. Absolutely. A lot of these people are college-educated and probably live quite mundane lives. I think that’s part of what Cantwell is about, mocking him for whining about his OK Cupid profile both diminishes the legitimacy of Naziism and drives home that for all his disgusting rhetoric, he is basically just this sexually frustrated oversensitive white boy totally unprepared for a confrontation with reality. ---
**Author:** ![Folacin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folacin/32/3195_2.png) [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2017, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unite-the-right-racist-scum/793471/794 "2017-08-18T16:46:07Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > I will say one thing. I watched the VICE video and the ideologies expressed by the alt-right are explicitly, jaw-droppingly violent. There’s a scene where Cantwell is unloading weapons in his hotel room, talking about how eager he is to get the strength in numbers required for genocide, and in the wake of the terrorist attack that killed a person _just hours before_ he remarks that, ‘‘Well, nobody on our side died, so I’d call that a bonus for us.’’ It’s just beyond the pale horrifying. What hit me first about that part of the video was the sheer number of weapons he was carrying - it looked like Mad Max disarming prior to entering Bartertown. Sure, right to self-defense and all of that, but why would you voluntarily go to a place where you would think you would need that much fire power? ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2017, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unite-the-right-racist-scum/793471/795 "2017-08-18T16:54:44Z")
> [@Folacin](#): > > What hit me first about that part of the video was the sheer number of weapons he was carrying - it looked like Mad Max disarming prior to entering Bartertown. > > Sure, right to self-defense and all of that, but why would you voluntarily go to a place where you would think you would need that much fire power? I think it was clear he wanted violence, he just didn’t want the responsibility of instigating it. In his wildest wet dream the president would have said, ‘‘Have at it, Nazis!’’ and he could mow people down left and right consequence free. That’s why he said he hoped for a president more racist than Trump, who would openly advocate violence against people of color. But until that day came, he had to settle with just talking a bunch of shit and hoping for a fight to break out. That guy was the textbook definition of a coward. They couldn’t have picked a lamer spokesperson. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2017, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unite-the-right-racist-scum/793471/796 "2017-08-18T16:56:30Z")
People have some goddamned stupid ideas about self-defense. When I worked Armored (Loomis), I carried a 9mm with a single clip of 15 rounds. My partner carried a revolver with one spare speed loader. We got a lot of shit from co-workers who carried 3-5 clips of extra ammo and as large a caliber weapon as they could get away with. Lots of stupid smack talk about how if they got into a firefight, they wanted to be sure to have enough ammo to do the job. :smack: I asked our mechanic, who had been on the job for 40 years, when the last time someone used their weapon was. He paused then said “I think back in the 70’s, someone shot a dog.” Couldn’t remember anyone shooting at another human in 40 years. As I said, if I have to fire more than twice, I’m too likely to hit a bystander. But these clowns aren’t carrying because they’re walking down the street with $100k in someone else’s money, they’re carrying as many weapons as possible because they have this video gamer mentality that if the shit flies, they want to be able to kill every last person in the area and fight their way past the police response. Because they want to feel like badasses and they want to appear as a threat to anyone and everyone who sees them so that everyone knows who is boss. I wonder when their less than friendly neighbors will start to think “Hey, that guy has a lot of guns. What time is his shift at the Pizza place?” ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2017, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unite-the-right-racist-scum/793471/797 "2017-08-18T17:00:43Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > Agreed. > > I will reiterate some previous comments, though, that it’s important always to think “this is a damaged horrible person” but not “this is not a person.” We all have the instinct to distance ourselves from someone disgusting and that leads to calling them “monsters” or “vermin” or something that we are not. But that leads to the idea that the danger is the other, that no one normal could ever fall into extremism, etc. > > So we see a video with someone spewing contemptible things and we think “How unlike me that person is.” But (as we talked about yesterday) we see someone else in the video who is talking semi-coherently and that makes us uncomfortable because it’s harder to see why they could be so wrong when they have less obvious markers of being monsters. We want so very badly for monsters to be something separate from us rather than a variety of us. If Musk/Tyson are right and we are in a simulation, a large percentage of entities in said sim would essentially be bots. Not saying that that is the case here per se, yet their mindless stimulus response actions (yes, a la video game bots) do make me wonder at least on that score. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2017, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unite-the-right-racist-scum/793471/798 "2017-08-18T18:48:19Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > If Musk/Tyson are right and we are in a simulation, a large percentage of entities in said sim would essentially be bots. Not saying that that is the case here per se, yet their mindless stimulus response actions (yes, a la video game bots) do make me wonder at least on that score. If the universe is s simulation, how do you know that you aren’t also a bot that just thinks that it is self aware? ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2017, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unite-the-right-racist-scum/793471/799 "2017-08-18T19:07:27Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > My husband usually has snide, confident remarks regarding anything political happening, but he was just stunned by that footage. He said, ‘‘I knew they were white supremacists, that deep down behind the cloak of anonymity, they supported genocide, but I just can’t believe they would ever talk openly about it.’’ > > Maybe this is old hat to those alive in the 60s, but this is not comparable to anything my generation has ever seen before. I take it you aren’t familiar with The Turner Diaries, which inspired Timothy McVeigh to bomb the Murrow Building. Two photocopied pages from it - the ones describing the bombing of the FBI building that kicked off the race war in the novel - were found in his car when he was arrested. The novel is written as a future history from the prospective of the future world after the white race has won the race wars and unapologetically committed near global genocide of all non-white people and reprinting the diaries of Earl Turner, a ‘hero’ in the war that cleansed America of the mudraces and race traitors (in ‘the day of the rope’ when white race traitors were hung from lampposts with signs hung on them proclaiming their crimes against the white race). I won’t link to it as the sites that have it online are quite disgusting organizations, but you can read it for free, just google ‘the turner diaries pdf’. It is a book I highly recommend everyone read if you can stomach it, not for any literary value and certainly not out of any sympathy for its political message, but to know your enemy and what he is thinking. What happened when the Nazis rose to power in Germany and the outbreak of WWII should have come as no surprise; Hitler quite clearly wrote what he planned to do in Mein Kampf. Unlike Mein Kampf, The Turner Diaries is very light, if disgusting, reading. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2017, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unite-the-right-racist-scum/793471/800 "2017-08-18T20:48:34Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > If the universe is s simulation, how do you know that you aren’t also a bot that just thinks that it is self aware? [possible solipsistic recursive black hole]Because I am?[/psrbh] [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unite-the-right-racist-scum/793471.md?page=39) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unite-the-right-racist-scum/793471.md?page=41)