"Unite the Right" white nationalist march: Ugliness on full display.

[Der_Trihs]

@Evil_Economist

The moral decay in this country just from the election of Trump is really striking. It’s especially striking that our resident conservatives are so loath to condemn Nazis. These guys are all over themselves to condemn BLM every time a couple of teenagers get into a slap fight at a BLM event, but when actual armed Nazis go on a murder spree, it’s all “hey, maybe these were the good Nazis”, and “Nazis marching in a right wing event in explicit support of Trump wasn’t really a political event”.

Guys, it’s OK to condemn Nazis, even if they’re on your side. In fact I should start a thread: “Dear Trump supporters, it’s OK to condemn Nazis.”

I think you have it turned around. Electing Trump didn’t cause moral decay; it was caused by moral decay. Trump doesn’t want to condemn these people because they are his base; they like Trump because he represents them and agrees with them. His voters supported him because this is the kind of thing they wanted, and more.

[octopus]

@I_Love_Me_Vol.I

[This thread is a long one. I have read the whole thing but I’m not up to the task of providing exact quotes of posts spread intermittently throughout this thread. So instead I offer only my impressions of some of the meanderings of this thread’s moods. I’m sorry.]

With that caveat out of the way I would like to offer my opinion that some people have been very unfair to Hurricane Ditka in this thread. As I read it HD started out simply defending the rights of Nazis, White Nationalists, and everyone else, to free speech and peaceful freedom of assembly. There wasn’t a lot of argument because I think the majority opinion of the SDMB would agree with that.

Later, it seems the attack on HD came down to whether he was an apologist for White Nationalism’s ethos and raison d’etre. But I only ever saw him-- not “apologizing” for them–but instead defending the First Amendment rights of racist scum. Which I would hope any American would likewise defend.

Still later, there was some discussion of what message is being sent by people who demonstrate while employing Nazi imagery, slogans, and the like. To me, right off the bat, they are communicating: “I am a fucked-up hater.” But some posters here said that a person carrying a Nazi flag can be presumed to be in favor of Genocide and other horrible crimes. I believe HD (rightfully, IMO) suggested that it is leaping to conclusions to assume that a Nazi flag bearer must necessarily and always personally desire Genocide.

Now it’s true–one would have to be a pitiful idiot to go out in public marching around with Nazi emblems. And maybe that idiot believes that all Jews should be killed or maybe he just believes that people of different races shouldn’t inter-marry (loathsome, but not Genocide).

IF one goes out in public bearing Nazi imagery you should expect a great deal of angry pushback. Also, you should expect that people will in general assign certain motives to your behavior… even if some of them are wrong. In short, you are deliberately showing yourself to be an asshole of the scummiest kind (or much worse) and you do this at your own peril.

But, that doesn’t mean you necessarily want to kill entire groups of people or even one single person–even as you send the message that you admire people who did exterminate millions. And that is all kinds of wrong.

Sorry… this is long and rambling. I don’t mean to put any words in Hurricane Ditka’s mouth, I’m just saying that IMO, he caught too much grief for simply trying to make a point of logic. It’s probably not that great of an idea to parse logic in such a emotional debate but, nonetheless… logic is logic.

Well said and exactly right. And it’s disappointing that logic is rare and assigning false motive is not. It makes reasonable discussion very difficult.

[Merneith]

No. If you dress up as people who are famous for being the most efficient genocidalists that the world as ever seen, if you proceed to march through the streets with torches, chanting genocidalist slogans and waving genocidalist flags - the logical conclusion is that you are a genocidalist.

If you don’t want people to think that you share Nazi beliefs, then don’t dress up as a Nazi and join a Nazi rally to chant Nazi slogans while displaying Nazi symbols. It’s really not complicated.

OTOH, if you do all that, and then expect passersby to listen to your long explanation about why maybe you don’t precisely support every aspect of Nazism, really, it’s about ethics in Nazi labeling, andtherefore it’s wrong of them to assume that you’re a Nazi (as you stand there in your Nazi regalia while all your Nazi friends are chanting for the death and expulsion of Jews) - then I regret to inform you that the irrationality is coming from inside your head.

[MrDibble]

@Merneith

really, it’s about ethics in Nazi labeling

[GuanoLad]

The originator of Godwin’s Law weighs in.

[QUOTE=Mike Godwin]
By all means, compare these shitheads to Nazis. Again and again. I’m with you.
[/QUOTE]

[Amara_1]

Top three values as a Republican:

1. Standing up for white identity
   2)The free market
2. Killing Jews

You can’t make this shit up.

ETA: love the “ethics in Nazi labeling”

[GreenWyvern]

If it looks 90% like a Nazi, talks 90% like a Nazi, quibbles and splits hairs about the other 10%, and refuses to unequivocally denounce Nazis… it’s a Nazi.

[The_Other_Waldo_Pepper]

@HurricaneDitka

What useful work do you think could have been accomplished?

I don’t know. And that’s just it: I don’t know. Is there some way I could’ve been of use? I don’t know. If I’d been on the spot instead of again figuring the cops said to disperse and that’s that, I wouldn’t be saying “I don’t know,” because, well, I’d know.

I don’t wonder if I could’ve accomplished anything in July, because I stuck around as long as the Klan types did. I wonder about what happened in August, because it’s possible for me to wonder about what happened in August.

Do you wish you were at the scene of the vehicular homicide so that you could have shot the driver? Something else?

Anything, really. I went to the July one with no real goal other than “if one of them is going to attack somebody, it might as well be me instead of somebody else; or, if one of them is angrily spewing hateful rhetoric and works himself right up to the brink of balling up his fists, maybe he’ll think twice if it’s a tall and broad-shouldered guy in front of him instead of someone petite. I mean, I’d never know whether just putting myself there stopped a punch from getting thrown; but I’d never wonder.”

Now I have to wonder.

[QuickSilver]

@Spice_Weasel

QuickSilver implied that you are a rape apologist. Preventing sexual assault is as important to me as protecting freedom of speech is to you. I’ve never encountered you in a thread on that subject, so I am asking you to reassure me that you are not, in fact, a rape apologist.

@HurricaneDitka

Of course I’m not. Quicksilver’s is only the latest in a long line of slanderous post about / directed at me in this thread. Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet.

In fairness to H-D, I used the rape example as a way to demonstrate the type of rhetorical technique I’ve seen H-D use repeatedly in this discussion (others topics as well IIRC). I in no way meant to insinuate H-D is in fact a rape apologist. It was unfortunate hyperbole on my part and to the extent that it was an unfair characterization I offer H-D my apology.

[octopus]

@GreenWyvern

If it looks 90% like a Nazi, talks 90% like a Nazi, quibbles and splits hairs about the other 10%, and refuses to unequivocally denounce Nazis… it’s a Nazi.

That’s a nice generality. Got anything specific?

[Olentzero]

In all the discussion that’s been going on in this thread, there’s an important incident that has been completely overlooked: Young white men bearing white supremacist symbols beat a Black man bloody during their march through Charlottesville.

That alone makes it no longer a simple debate about freedom of speech. The organizations marching under the banner of “Unite the Right” used it as an occasion to commit terror in the name of white supremacy. They translated words into action, and now people are hospitalized and one woman is dead because of it. As that line between speech and action was clearly crossed, the question then becomes one of active resistance. The citizens of Charlottesville are well within their rights to make it clearly and publicly known that white supremacists and Nazis are not welcome in their town, and anyone who went down there to take action in solidarity with them against this kind of far-right bullshit was doing the right thing. And they’ll be right to continue resisting those kind of encroachments in the future.

Some people in this thread have brought up tactics and incidents committed by left-wing groups (and I don’t mean the whole Che/Mao/Stalin discussion, which is pretty much a sidetrack here), as if there were some sort of moral equivalence. They ignore a few crucial differences in both how the left and the right in general react to such incidents.

Tactics such as smashing Starbucks windows and burning garbage cans are not generally accepted as productive or constructive on the left, and in the wake of protests where such things occur, there is almost always open debate among various groups about whether that’s really the way to build a protest movement. Groups that indulge in such shenanigans on their own - and this includes direct confrontation with far-right demonstrations - are often roundly criticized for risking the safety of other people on the same side.

On the far right, on the other hand, they indulge in nothing but handwaving (note Richard Spencer’s musings about the ethnicity of James Fields’s mother, for instance) in an effort to try to deny any responsibility for encouraging such acts through their inflammatory rhetoric. Because their politics are predicated on terrorizing pretty much anyone who isn’t a white male, they refuse to address it directly and thus allow it to continue. They will continue to cross the line from speech to action as long as they feel they can get away with it unchallenged, and it becomes the obligation - if not the duty - of those who do not agree with what these thugs of the far right say to challenge them by any suitable means.

[GreenWyvern]

Don’t feed the trolls. Especially the Nazi trolls.

[Spice_Weasel]

@Merneith

OTOH, if you do all that, and then expect passersby to listen to your long explanation about why maybe you don’t precisely support every aspect of Nazism, really, it’s about ethics in Nazi labeling…

lol

#notallnazis

[Spice_Weasel]

@QuickSilver

In fairness to H-D, I used the rape example as a way to demonstrate the type of rhetorical technique I’ve seen H-D use repeatedly in this discussion (others topics as well IIRC). I in no way meant to insinuate H-D is in fact a rape apologist. It was unfortunate hyperbole on my part and to the extent that it was an unfair characterization I offer H-D my apology.

Thanks for clearing that up.

[wonky]

@The_Other_Waldo_Pepper

Anything, really. I went to the July one with no real goal other than “if one of them is going to attack somebody, it might as well be me instead of somebody else; or, if one of them is angrily spewing hateful rhetoric and works himself right up to the brink of balling up his fists, maybe he’ll think twice if it’s a tall and broad-shouldered guy in front of him instead of someone petite. I mean, I’d never know whether just putting myself there stopped a punch from getting thrown; but I’d never wonder.”

Now I have to wonder.

I think all of us have to wonder.

Thank you for writing this.

[Shodan]

@QuickSilver

I do not expect but would appreciate an honest and self-aware response that doesn’t use “but freedom of speech!” as an excuse for instinctively defending fascists, racists and various related vermin.

In what way is a response defending freedom of speech, even vile and hateful speech, not honest or self-aware?

Regards,
Shodan

[QuickSilver]

Hate speech calls for unequivocal condemnation, not a legal defense posture of exactly what is meant by “blood and soil”.

For guidance I offer an Economist article on How Germany responds to “Blood and Soil” politics.

[HurricaneDitka]

@Evil_Economist

Well…how about you link to your strongest, harshest language condemnation of Nazis that you’ve posted in this thread. I bet it’s a scorcher. None of that weak sauce like “I don’t like Nazis”. I bet you really let the Nazis have it. Go ahead and link me, don’t worry about my feelings, I can take it.

Here are some (liberally-snipped) posts:

@HurricaneDitka

… I have no doubt there are despicable people in the world …

@HurricaneDitka

I do not like Nazis, or genocide, or chants for murder of people, or assholes who run people over who are exercising their First Amendment rights.

@HurricaneDitka

I think marching with white supremacists and carrying swastika flags and repeating Nazi chants is a pretty good indication that they’re not nice people, and not someone who I think holds the key to better race relations in their philosophy. I find the acts abhorrent …

@HurricaneDitka

My overall sense is that white supremacists / neo-nazis are a tiny fringe movement of extremists that have no real political power, don’t command any real influence (except for perhaps the hysteria their rallies tend to inspire on the Left and in the media) and are generally not worth the undue amount of attention they receive.

@HurricaneDitka

I’m on my phone right now, so It’s a PITA to cite or quote additional posts, but I’m fairly confident that one of my early posts used that exact same word - “despicable” - in reference to the Nazis. I’ve also sprinkled various condemnations throughout the thread. I don’t know how much more out of my way to disparage them I need to go, but I guess I get bored easily with ‘you’re not condemning them enough’ style of arguments.

So “despicable” “assholes” and “abhorrent” aren’t sufficient to allow you to sleep easy? Apparently I didn’t use the proper combination of “scum” and “evil”? Well, since you gave me a template to follow, I’ll take the opportunity to do so now:

Nazis [sic] murderers are evil scum and I don’t support them.

We wouldn’t want you to not be able to sleep at night.

[HurricaneDitka]

@**I Love Me, Vol. I ** Thank you! I’m glad you understood what I was trying to do. I think I’ve learned a lesson on the limits of pedantry that the SDMB will tolerate.

@octopus Thank you as well.

@QuickSilver

In fairness to H-D, I used the rape example as a way to demonstrate the type of rhetorical technique I’ve seen H-D use repeatedly in this discussion (others topics as well IIRC). I in no way meant to insinuate H-D is in fact a rape apologist. It was unfortunate hyperbole on my part and to the extent that it was an unfair characterization I offer H-D my apology.

Thank you and apology accepted.

[Shodan]

@QuickSilver

Hate speech calls for unequivocal condemnation, not a legal defense posture of exactly what is meant by “blood and soil”.

For guidance I offer an Economist article on How Germany responds to “Blood and Soil” politics.

Non-responsive. In what way is a response defending freedom of speech, even vile and hateful speech, not honest or self-aware?

Regards,
Shodan