Turning to communism for fear of fascism is like suicide for fear of death
Sadly, it is time to recycle this one yet again it seems.
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Samizdata quote of the dayAugust 16th, 2017 |
 140 comments to Samizdata quote of the day |
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Ann Coulter really knocks this one out of the ballpark:
vdare.com/articles/ann-coulter-on-charlottesville-when-liberals-club-people-its-with-love-in-their-hearts
From Miss Coulter’s piece:
Yesterday I spent a few minutes driving from A to B, and being pretty bored I turned on the radio, and lo! there was Rush. I don’t listen to Rush nor any of the others (except once in awhile Mark Levin), but he spent the whole five minutes or so talking about Miss Stolberg’s unfortunately foul and untruthful statement about the hard-left’s own hate and violence.
Quelle horreur! Sheryl, how could you say such a thing! Per Rush, she was promptly lambasted up one side and down the other by the Twitterati, shamed beyond endurance by the NYT, and (I think he said) threatened with banishment to durance vile by the same.
This is not the sort of thing we like to hear from our reporters.
She promptly caved in, Mr. Limbaugh said, apologized for her dreadful awful unbelievably evil statement, and I believe wrote at least one more piece explaining that of course she never meant such unthinkable accusations or defamatory statements, it’s just that she was extremely emotionally upset at the time.
Mr. L. seemed a little encouraged by her initial Tweet (I think it was), noting that even persons on the Left occasionally come out with the truth. But he was pretty unhappy over her walking it back, not to mention her treatment by her employer.
I’m pretty far removed from people like Ann Coulter. I’m libertarian, atheist, introverted and allergic to self-promoters.
But her column linked above is completely logical. The nazis in Charlottesville had legally sought a permit to exercise their free speech rights and they were met with violent thuggery much like has been occurring regularly across the country.
And the media are now openly approving of violent suppression of free speech (see today’s WaPo editorial).
We’re reaching a point where the Left is ready to dispense with democratic governance and rule of law to get its way. And this extends from the open violence on the streets through to the use of the IRS and NSA against political opponents.
I’m not a fan of Trump but I’m beginning to think he’s the boy with the finger in the dyke. If the Left destroys him, they will destroy much of what made America endure as the world’s oldest constitutional democracy.
I’d say that most of the people cheering Trump on right now aren’t and never were fans of Trump. I remember laughing when someone mentioned he was going to run, and groaning when he got the nomination.
But we’re fans of how his election blocked Clinton, we’re fans of what he has enabled in the USA, and we’re beginning to feel, maybe not respect, but appreciation for him as his presidency goes on.
If Justice Ginsburg or Justice Sotomayor or Justice Kagan would now decide to retire, I think I could make that leap to “fan of Trump.” That would limit the power of future Dem presidents and Congresses greatly. (Sadly, I expect that all three would continue on the Court with oxygen tanks and constant dialysis if their other choice was to let Trump name their successor.)
I was listening to LBC in the UK yesterday where the host argued that Nazis are in such a special category of wrongthink that turning up to oppose (i.e. attack) them when they march or peacefully protest is to be expected and even condoned. Many people called in to support this position. I was stunned by what many British people actually think.
The virtues of tolerance are not easily appreciated. Letting idiots sprout their nonsense is a learned quality. Not an educated quality. The last place you can expect appreciation of diversity is in a university.
Nicholas Gray
Yes, try an Australian university. A set of monocultural, monolingual mediocrities and morons make diversity training compulsory – and the ‘correct’ answers are at variance with the observable world (but don’t tell anyone or you are marked out (and down)), and, of course, fit a very narrow view of diversity that has no diversity to it at all. I presume that it is now impossible to discriminate on grounds of ability, hence the presence of the dross in such quantities in such institutions (and I don’t mean just the students).
For some of the cringing conformists who merely go along with PC wherever it has power, another analogy is with those students who are so terrified of exams that they don’t turn up to sit them – so choosing assured and total failure over whatever mark they would have got if they had merely endured two hours of trying.
Yes – and it is also (of course) true the other way round.
Saying we must support the “Alt Right” (the Nazis – Mussolini might, if still around, complain about these people being called “Fascists” on the grounds that his own vile movement was not originally a RACIAL one) because the Communists have murdered tens of millions of people – MISSES THE POINT.
It falls into the trap of thinking that the alternative to the Communists is Richard Spencer and Patrick Buchanan.
It is the trap that Glenn Beck (do not laugh – he has been proved correct) warned about for years. With people being so afraid of the left that they leap to a “right” that is about RACE not about LIBERTY.
People who do this make the lies of the left the truth. They turn “the right” into a movement about RACE.
The point is obvious – yet most people are missing it.
The correct response is NOT to say “well the left did terrible things to”.
The correct response is to say “we are AGAINST these Alt Right scum – Richard Spencer, Patrick Buchanan and the rest of them do NOT speak for us, we will not “unite” with them”.
We are about liberty – not about race.
Perry should not have had to write this post – it is so obvious.
But people still do not get the point (even after he wrote the post) and go about “well the left did…..”
The Sargon of Akkad video “Weimar America” has some good commentary on the matter:
“The “alt left” and alt right are racial collectivists who despise each other for picking the wrong side, but they both despise liberalism more”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwSYhTWk6E8
Paul Marks
I don’t think anybody is saying this. What most people are saying is that people who took part in this march included national socialists, people who want a white ethnostate, people who want to limit immigration, people who are sick of pic. The alt right is a broad church, are not all the same, are not all nazis.
Such a group is perfectly entitled to march in a peaceful way in order to draw attention to their concerns. Supporting the right to speak and protest freely is not the same as supporting some or all of the topics which are of concern to the demonstrators. You seem not to understand this difference.
“The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is one of the finest expressions of uncompromising principle in human history. In order to maintain that standard, we must protect speech and assembly rights for the unsavory, and then use free speech to demolish their toxic ideas. Professing allegiance to the First Amendment while authorizing vigilante gangs to shut down disapproved speech with the Heckler’s Veto — or clubs and broken bottles, when the Heckler’s Veto doesn’t get the job done — is not good enough. “The First Amendment doesn’t cover hate speech” is a much more dangerous, far more contagious fascist ideal than anything snarled over a tiki torch in Charlottesville.
Frankly, if you can’t win an argument with a handful of Nazis without resorting to violence, you suck at freedom. If you can’t damn the swastika without also cursing the hammer and sickle, you suck at history.”
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/08/16/mccain-romney-rubio-join-republicans-antifa-club/
Such a group is perfectly entitled to march in a peaceful way in order to draw attention to their concerns. Supporting the right to speak and protest freely is not the same as supporting some or all of the topics which are of concern to the demonstrators.
Absolutely this.
Johnnydub, sorry no, not going to give that bastion of ‘race realism’ VDARE the clicks. The enemy of my enemy is sometimes also my enemy.
Perry, I can understand your deleting the link to VDare, but you could have replaced it with a link to Ann Coulter’s own website (and article). Here, I’ve done it for you.
Indeed. It would however suit the PC to have ‘the right’ consist entirely of one group who all cringed and obeyed whenever called racist, and another group who all waved swastikas and praised ‘der fuhrer’ whenever seen in public. And they will do what they always do when reality does not conform to their beliefs – claim it does and force that narrative down every insufficiently-protesting throat. (Given our failure to cringe when called racist, I think we know which label will be put on us.)
The empirical questions of whether the driver killed intentionally or accidentally caused car-snooker while fleeing a bat-wieldling mob, whether bobby b’s contacts are right that only 1 in 5 of the protestors savoured of national socialism (“but they got all the MSM coverage”) or they did indeed represent the majority, whether Kessler is an agent provocateur or a sincerely unpleasant man, whether the police inaction was an understandable error or a political ploy, etc., etc., may get trustworthy answers in time – I hope so. But as Ann quips in the article Laird links to, “Waiting for facts is now the ‘Nazi’ position.”
I have to observe that John K’s link to therebelmedia video shows the second car as the one that actually hit people. Contrary to my own conclusion that it was the third.
So now we have all three drivers accused of, at the least, vehicular manslaughter, by various speculators.
In sum, What Niall Said re the empirical questions….
I recommend reading this thread carefully (it is not long). Also, watching this video seems to be worth watching, although I have not yet had a chance to do so myself.
I repeat – it is obvious what this movement (the “Alt Right”) is about, it is about race. No one can honestly deny that.
This is a massive TRAP – I would not be astonished if it turned out that some of the “Alt Right” are (without their knowledge) funded by the left.
Yes – by the left.
What better way to DISCREDIT opponents of the left than by associating us with racialists.
“But Communists are just as bad” – and have I said they are not?
This is a false choice.
The Nazis are NOT us.
Stop acting as if this was “our side”. BOTH these sides are our enemies.
People who fall into the trap are doing the work of the LEFT for them.
This whole situation is a “wet dream” for the Marxists – they could not have hoped for better.
A group of people seem to have decided “we will be what the left say their opponents are” and now other people are accepting them as the “opposition to the left”.
No more of this.
When these Nazi scum marched into the University of Virginia with torches chanting “Blood and Soil” they should have been met by real conservatives making it clear “you are not welcome here”.
But where are the real conservatives?
When it comes to a serious conflict – conservatives are AWOL. Just like last year in the primaries – when conservatives got outvoted. So much for the Alt Right being few in number Laird. Donald Trump himself is NOT Alt Right – but he accepted their support last year. As he himself said (many times) “new people” were voting – people who do not normally vote in Republican Primaries. These are the “new people” – the Alt Right, the people who outvoted traditional Republican Primary voters. NO they were NOT all Trump Primary voters (certainly NOT) – but they made up his margin-of-victory over Cruz in Primary after Primary (and not just in the South). Without these “new people” Donald Trump would not have got the nomination.
Anyway….
So the Communists can pose as hero figures – as they are the ones fighting the Nazis, fighting the “Alt Right” (the Nazis).
Nazis I would not be astonished to learn the left (secretly) fund.
Repeating something does not make it correct, Paul.
This is a threat to the very existence of the American right.
If pro capitalist libertarians and conservatives do not fight the Nazis (the Alt Right) the Nazis will become “the right” – they will “replace” us.
This what Mr Beck (and many others) have been warning about for years – the replacement of the American right with a 1930s style European “right”.
And it is happening – because real conservative refuse to fight back.
Then the population will have only two choices – Nazis and Communists.
“Behind door number one – totalitarianism. And behind door number two – totalitarianism”.
That will be the choice – if the traditional right (the pro liberty right – going back to President Warren Harding, President Calvin Coolidge, and others) do not fight back against the “Alternative” Right – the Nazis.
Is “the right” about liberty or is the “the right” about race?
Time to decide. And please no nonsense about “they are few in number” – they are not few in number, they are Legion.
And if America falls into the false choice between the Collectivism of Race (the Nazis – the Alt Right) and the Collectivism of Class (the Marxists – the left), there is no hope for the world.
None – no hope at all. Freedom in the world can not survive if the United States falls – America is the last hope of humanity.
The Alt Right must be defeated, defeated by conservatives (not Communist mobs) – they are a Clear and Present Danger to the very existence of the right (the pro liberty right) in the United States.
As for Britain – if anyone thinks that either the Tory Dr Johnson or the Old Whig Edmund Burke would have had anything but hatred and contempt for the “Alt Right” then such a person is a fool.
The hatred of Dr Johnson for slavery, especially American slavery, should be known to anyone with even a passing knowledge of the world.
As for Edmund Burke (the great defender of American independence) his view of race was made clear in his reply letter to a lady who accused him of being obsessed with the rights of people in India.
“They have none of your lilies and roses in their faces [i.e. they are not white] – but they are made in the image of God, just as as you are”.
His SC pick, deregulation push, approval of energy development and, hopefully, tax cuts are more than enough reasons to prefer him to the alternative.
But the anti-democratic movement to depose him through lies about collusion (Russia would never want America to be an energy exporter), a media that’s really just the propaganda arm of a political party and felony obstruction in the bureaucracy now make it imperative that he prevail.
Here we go again. Spencer, Buchanan et al have been around for decades as fringe voices. They haven’t changed.
It’s the Left’s aim to link them to the GOP and Trump, and thereby deligitimize the current administration.
Rather than ignoring them and focusing on the important issues, you’re picking up their ball and playing their game.
“And if America falls into the false choice between the Collectivism of Race (the Nazis – the Alt Right) and the Collectivism of Class (the Marxists – the left), there is no hope for the world.”
And yet you’re doing exactly that by pretending white nationalism is a serious thing that should preoccupy the GOP.
Actual racism is in a precipitous decline. The use of racism as a tool to hamstring conservative voters is on the rise.
You’ve been swept along by the latter.
We’re going to get lumped in with the Nazis whatever we do. But, as people who primarily love liberty we must surely stand with the Nazis, odious as they may be, in demanding that their right to be odious in public is upheld unless and until it is the Nazis (as they inevitably would given the chance) start using violence to shut down speech they don’t like.
Charlottesville was allthe Nazis. I haven’t seen anybody suggesting that that was all of BLM and Antifa. Those two groups are rapidly becoming large, organised paramilitary groups within the US and are the greater threat.
Chip, thus:
Certainly. And isn’t the meat of Paul’s point that conservatives and libertarians worthy of the name should denounce that bunch, in the name and for the sake of political liberty and social decency — honesty, benevolence, and the trust that these engender?
If I have missed the Mark *g* with that, I hope that Paul will correct me.
Personally, if anybody cares, I’m not so afraid that the so-called “Nazi” contingent of whatever the Alt-Right is are going to sweep my country into the racial or ethnic “cleansing” of the original National Socialists. Nor even of their prejudice.
The Left (Most, not all of them) are working hard at the latter all by themselves. (Totalitarianism = Totalitarianism, flag emblem matters not, nor does alleged “Cause.”)
But they both need to be fought, vigorously and publically, with words and with art and with education and with deeds: attendance at rallies, our rallies and also those of our enemies where we can stage counter-protests. Also working on campaigns to elect the better candidates or block the worse ones. Preferably both, of course.
But not, of course, with violence, nor with property damage, nor with disrespect to common decency (think of some of the OWS carryings-on). –Except in defense of self and other innocents.
. . .
At the same time, Chip is right that we have to defend in practical reality people’s rights to rally or “demonstrate” and to speak, even when we abhor those whose rights we’re defending — those of Alt-Righters and even neo-Nazis, even the most despicable of them, like the Skokie Skinheads and whatever remains of the KKK. That, in fact, is part of our own fighting.
This does NOT extend to defending their misbehavior, nor their beliefs and attitudes.
But there’s no question we’ll be slimed while doing it. Thus Chip:
Also, What Wh00ps Said.
According to what I’ve read, the “new people” who voted for Trump included a lot of disenchanted Dems and also many so-called “Millenials,” of an age not usually terribly present at the polls. I daresay at least as many of Trump’s New Voters were of these groups, as of actual racists.
I do have to say that I think we non-lefties should be rather proud that the number of us who let ourselves be dragged down into the sewers of racism by the carryings-on of the Left, the race-hustlers, and also the Mohammedans who go in for or support Islamic terrorism — that that number is as small as it seems to be. No one should be surprised if there’s a backlash against those who keep sliming us, or who are perceived as the beneficiaries of such sliming. People who seem always to be defended as not “really” responsible for their crimes, especially when the victims are conservatives or other non-Leftists. It’s pleasant to see that there’s less of this than one might expect.
Or are my spectacles too rosy?
There was a rally planned outside of Google headquarters within the next few days, protesting Google’s actions concerning the memo and the underlying problems with Google.
It was cancelled yesterday because of all of the very credible threats of violence received by the planners from the Anti-FA.
Very light media coverage of this. But had the rally occurred, and then been attacked by Anti-FA, we’d again be hearing about the horrid Nazis protesting at Google.
The then-mainstream right warned that if women are allowed to vote then government spending would rise. Government spending rose after women were given the right to vote, with women voting disproportionately for stronger social safety nets, Democrats, and Progressive policies.
The then-mainstream right warned that substantial immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe would lead to the growth of the welfare state. The welfare state grew after substantial immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe, with those voters supporting FDRs dramatic expansions of the federal bureaucracies.
The then-mainstream right warned that removing homosexuality from the American Psychiatric Association’s list of mental disorders and considering it a personal choice would lead to the legitimization of homosexuality and to social acceptance of it. Homosexuality has been legitimized and has been largely accepted culturally after removing it from the APA’s list of disorders and viewing it as a personal choice instead.
The then-mainstream right warned that no-fault divorce laws would lead to lower rates of marriage, higher rates of divorce, and lower birth rates. Generally birth rates have fallen, marriage rates have fallen, and divorce rates have risen following introduction of no-fault divorce laws.
The now-mainstream right does not speak against women’s suffrage, immigration from Southern/Eastern Europe, removing homosexuality from the APA’s list of mental disorders, or no-fault divorce laws. This is because they lost those arguments.
__________________________
Decades ago, the then-mainstream right warned that state-sponsored affirmative action to artificially increase proportions of women and minorities in college would lead to the dumbing down and feminization of higher education, with grievance culture replacing an ethos of open discussion, emotion-validating virtue signaling replacing socratic dialogue as the highest form of debate, and identity politics replacing traditional Western values as the guiding principles of communal dialogue.
Now the mainstream-right is speaking out for the right to assemble peacefully. They will lose this argument too because the right to assemble peacefully is in reality assured not by the First Amendment but by social values and higher education, the promulgator of accepted social values, has for decades had to teach that grievance, emotion, and personal identity are superior to fact, socratic dialogue, and Western values in order to peacefully accommodate the relatively sudden influx of students who started arriving about 60 years ago who were and are emotionally, culturally, and intellectually unfit for higher education.
This right to assemble peacefully will not be lost on paper but in reality. Not de jure, but de facto. It already is being lost, as this news about the Google protests show.
Several Samizdatistas and other libertarians, classical liberals, and liberty-conservatives I know in real life have been hysterical about the threat of the Neo-Nazis when the imminent threat to their liberty is clearly from the antifascist leftist thugs who violently and illegally disrupted a peaceful, if odious, demonstration not just in Charlottesville but again and again and again and again. Ann Coulter and Ben Shapiro were not allowed to speak at universities because the students were out of control. Milo Yiannopoulos encountered riots. Even CHRIS ROCK won’t play colleges anymore because the political correctness of the SJW Left is violently out of control, beyond repair.
And Samizdatistas can point to the First Amendment and the Constitution all they want. It means nothing and will mean nothing to the antifascist left or for the people who want to make their voices heard but don’t out of fear of reprisal (whether its losing a limb at the protest or a job at work after the protest).
There may come a time when Samizdatistas realize that I am right. And by that time it will be too late. it probably already is too late.
Good post Shlomo Maestre. You are of course right, and Paul Marks is of course wrong (and hysterical to boot).
The idea that Nazis are a current threat to liberty is frankly nuts. The idea that conservatives need to get behind the gathering bandwagon focused on stopping legitimate protest because it comes from the ultimate evil of white people who think of themselves in terms of a racial group is suicidal.
But how we actually win against the left is a serious question, and one we are not at all good at answering. As you say we have done nothing at all but lose, time and time again.
The fact is, when you internalise the idea that certain beliefs consist of such wrongthink that they must not be allowed to exist, then you are not fighting for the existence of freedom and liberty- you have instead become the left.
Brace yourselves and watch out for falling statues.
https://twitter.com/datnofact/status/898291481907253248/photo/1
Alisa (August 18, 2017 at 7:15 am), your’ falling statues’ link returns a mediaite page saying ‘no results’: is the link wrong or has something been scrubbed?
I may have messed it up, Niall – here it is.
Paul:
“When these Nazi scum marched into the University of Virginia with torches chanting “Blood and Soil” they should have been met by real conservatives making it clear “you are not welcome here”.”
What do you mean “making it clear” ? Using sticks and stones, like Antifa?
The mayor of Seattle has just called for the removal – out of a sense of fairness – of a statue of Lenin that’s within the city.
Seattle is one of the most rich-liberal cities in the USA. This ought to be fun to watch.
Ah, but are they going to beat it with a shoe?
Nah, the enemy of my enemy is sometimes also my enemy, and both you and Tomsmith are just as much the enemy, just like Nazis and AntiFa
The trailer for a film called “Bushwick” showed up in my YouTube feed the other day:
http://variety.com/2017/film/reviews/bushwick-review-dave-bautista-sundance-1201966768/
Interesting to see things like this pop up in the zeitgeist, particularly if you think that politics is downstream of culture.
I was startled by Perry’s assertion above, so I went and read “Shlomo”s comment – I hope for Tomsmith’s sake that he didn’t.
It’s interesting to read your comments and Paul Marks’ comments in series. The two of you differ in almost every opinion. I’ve seen very few points on which you agree. Except . . .
Except that you both seem to agree that we’re all already screwed.
Do you spend any time in non-megacity USA? (Sorry, I don’t know where you are.) Maybe I’m just naively rosy-minded, but the building reaction across most of the geographical area of the country isn’t what you and Paul both seem to perceive.
The MSM reaction (and the reaction of the defeated wing of the GOP) decidedly do not reflect the growing view across the country. Their screaming alarmism about the supposed growth of Nazism is openly and generally mocked, as is their suppression of any criticism of the violent left. The true Nazis, along with the true white supremacists, have no support outside of their already-professed memberships, which are minuscule, and everyone seems to be aware of this.
If the AntiFA continues its trend of escalating its violent suppression of everyone they dislike, and if the progressives can’t find political leaders to diminish the AntiFA’s stridency, we’re going to have a wonderful national/state/local election in three years.
Can you imagine the fury of a CNN and an MSNBC confronted with an election that further disempowers progressives? It will be epic. It might even be more fun than the night Clinton lost, and that’s a high bar.
My inner pessimist sometimes agrees with you, but my inner optimist says that the progressives have overreached, and will do so even more in the coming days (as they did with their threats shutting down the Google protests), and the national disgust they will generate (along with maybe a few more excellent USSC choices) is going to swing the cycle around against them even more than it already is.
We are still the land of the free, even though the fight is on for it.
Some people believe that murder is acceptable. I believe that this belief consists of such wrongthink that it ought not be allowed to exist. I have not become the left. This is a perfectly acceptable opinion for a conservative to hold.
Granted that this is merely one anecdotal point, but it falsifies your statement (in my mind) sufficiently so that it no longer rings true.
I think we’re really just arguing about price at this point, as the old line goes. Which beliefs are that bad? The left just has a much, much longer and more trivial list of nominations.
BTW, I was going to ask about Perry’s original post above: who exactly turned to communism for fear of fascism?
The Gulaging continues: https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/17/alt-social-network-gab-booted-from-google-play-store-for-hate-speech/
Yeah, that’s it, volume… I think we can be pretty sure that Google will never boot YouTube from the Play Store, no matter how much “hate speech” there is on there. Although it is more than happy to demonetise the ones it doesn’t like, while keeping all of the ad revenue for themselves: http://thelibertarianrepublic.com/youtube-demonetization-scandal-gaining-traction/ (Sargon of Akkad being the latest thoughtcrimer to have this happen to just yesterday, after being Twitter banned back in Jan)
Seems to me like the big tech firms are really starting to flex their totalitarian muscles in earnest now.
So where then for Gab.ai users? Minds.com?
Thanks for the heads-up, EdMJ. That said, to my mind likening a semi-private company such as Google to a gulag really cheapens the latter – no matter how progressive the company may be. YMMV.
bobby b, perhaps I’m splitting hairs here, but if I wanted to reconcile your take with that of Maistre, it would go something like this:
Conditions are currently good – in this sense you are not screwed. Separately, American society is on a trajectory that indicates it’s heading for disaster and “too late” to reverse course – it can only be slowed. Trump is hitting the brake, but not changing into reverse, and the next one will hit the gas again.
Erik, months ago, I believed that stemming the tide was all we could hope to accomplish. I no longer believe that.
In the swath of the country I describe, I’m seeing a reversal. People who gave the progressives the benefit of the doubt – “they’re working to make things better, they’re just not very good at it” – are getting a clearer view, and are becoming (dare I say it) more libertarian than ever before. Where they used to chuckle at the antics on the coasts “as long as they leave us alone”, they are recognizing that they won’t ever leave us alone, and they are not willing to give in. Smaller government is more and more a concrete aspiration.
This isn’t so much a result of Trump as it is a result of people’s views changing. Trump helps (a lot), and provides a rallying point, but politics is following the culture, and the culture is getting tired of leftist crap.
@Alisa, that should have been ‘Goolag’ sorry, in reference to James Damore of the recent ‘Diversity’ memo (https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/10/16127968/fired-google-engineer-compares-high-paid-tech-job-to-soviet-forced-labor), which seems to have been picked up as one of the tags for the memo and associated discussion/fallout.
But you are right, the two aren’t remotely equivalent, and I certainly didn’t mean to diminish the horrors of the real GULAG camps by association.
Yes, I understood the reference, which is precisely what annoyed me even when it first came up a week or so ago. I’m glad you agree though – cheers.
Bobby b
You are confusing the holding of beliefs and talking about those beliefs with acting in accordance with those beliefs.
It is strange to read on a libertarian site that people wish to shut down peaceful demonstration. Also strange to see people accepting that an undeniably diverse group like the alt right are nazis. These are the actions of the left
“Also strange to see people accepting that an undeniably diverse group like the alt right are nazis”
Those alt-right who are not Nazis should stay away from demonstrations where Nazi flags are raised. We can safely assume that this group of demonstrators were all Nazis.
Crazy people like the Nazis and the anarchist, violent Antifas pose a problem when the state and the police are too weak to intervene and stop the street violence.
Exactly so. We scream at Corbyn for sharing a platform with Hamas, Hezbollah, the IRA and the thuggish regime in Venezuela, so why the hell would we give a free pass to people on the right for marching with these pieces of shit who are literal rather than figurative Nazis?
Hell no.
What if you organize a demonstration, and the Nazis show up uninvited?
Contrary to ample evidence showing that not to be the case?
Sensible people (as opposed to the current version of “nazis” AND the antifa) might simply show up at such rallies or protests or “demonstrations” carrying very large signs on tall sticks that show the Swastika and other neo-Nazi symbols, the KKK, and the antifa “flag” (as in, what, Minneapolis?), each with the circle-slash Universal “NO” symbol through them.
The signs could have the slashed-out symbols of the hate-groups in one horizontal row, and below them, in the opposite order, the slashed-out names of the groups.
. . .
Considering the glee with which all sides are trashing as Alt-Right anybody who holds anything short of Celebrate-the-Difference views, I don’t see why various people whom it pleases the gleeful to designated as “Alt-Right” wouldn’t also be well-advised to carry such signs.
This might include people like Milo Y. (of whom I’ve never been much of a fan) and even Charles Murray, who seems to be considered a conservative these days for some reason. Maybe also John Derbyshire…or maybe not….
If you are not a Nazi you don’t march with people who raise Nazi flags. If the Nazis show up and try to disrupt a demonstration organized by other, benign, alt-right groups these groups need to take care of their operation and get rid of the Nazis. And that goes for KKK flags too…
“Contrary to ample evidence showing that not to be the case?” What evidence? The Nazi flags is all the evidence needed.
There’s a difference between “sharing a platform,” or having your photo taken while you are in passionate embrace, with David Duke or some nincompoop from Stormfront, and showing up at a rally in order to protest against the ralliers as odious. Or to photo or report on the goings-on, for that matter.
Guilt-by-association is a sport requiring a clear head in the making of moral judgments and practical decisions based thereon. “Discrimination” is not always a dirty word.
OTOH, “you are known by the company you keep” is also a true adage about practical life. That’s why people who show up to disapprove must make their disapproval crystal-clear, utterly obvious, and readily and temptingly photographable. And expect to be slimed anyway.
Any specific measures you would like offer to take care of an operation and to get rid of unwanted elements – preferably from personal experience organizing or just attending public demonstrations? Because from my personal experience, you have absolutely no control over who might show up, especially these days when such events are organized on the internet; and even more specifically when the main organizer allegedly turns out to be a false-flag operator.
Plenty of evidence presented on this blog in the several threads discussing this matter, for one thing.
BTW, in other related news.
Yes, Alisa, very true. And consider the reports of people showing up at Tea-Party rallies carrying signs proclaiming that they are Tea-Partiers and that the Tea Party Movement consists of racists.
I have a Close Relative, a self-proclaimed “Proud Progressive” and Bernie campaigner & voter, who is apparently quite convinced that the Tea Party is just a right-wing version of OWC (as we here observe the two groups), while seemingly brushing off the excesses of OWC demonstrations.
Oh, I forgot. The person has lived most of his or her adult life about 3 steps away from the western border of the City of the Radioactive Glow, a.k.a. Skunk Cabbage City. Typical Community-Organizer type.
Seems to me the ACLU in Alisa’s link just above is at the least guilty of assuming facts not in evidence.
So lets say that Bob is a white Christian Southerner living in rural Virginia.
Bob’s family has lived in rural Virginia for three centuries. Bob takes pride in Southern culture and the Robert E Lee statue in Emancipation Park means something to him – it represents his part of his identity as a Southerner, it represents part of his heritage, and it is important to his culture. Bob hears that Progressives want to take the statue down. And so Bob attends a protest in Charlottesville to rally against such a decision.
Bob’s grandfathers fought against the Nazis and Bob hates Nazis. At the rally there are Nazis. Is Bob a Nazi?
According to Jacob the answer is yes.
When sensible mainstream Progressives attended rallies against George W. Bush’s war in Iraq there were sometimes anarchists or communists in attendance. Were all these sensible mainstream Progressives suddenly anarchists/communists because they did not leave the rally once the anarchists or communists were there?
Mencius Moldbug famously observed that in democracy there are no allies to your right and no enemies to your left. Jacob’s irrational, emotional labelling of anyone who attends and remains at a rally that has Nazis there as Nazis themselves lends Moldbug’s observation further support.
Obviously I don’t think it’s smart or good to attend and remain at a rally that has Nazis, anarchists or communists in attendance. I don’t even think it’s smart to attend a rally period. But the idea that attending and remaining at a rally that has Nazi scum at it MEANS that you are a Nazi is simply ridiculous.
Good on you for remembering about the TP rallies Julie, I forgot all about it – the times are too damned interesting to remember it all 😕
I agree that it is a dumb decision to attend and remain at a rally that has even one actual Nazi. But if you mean that we can assume that people who make such dumb decision are therefore evidently Nazis themselves then I’d disagree.
I also think a regular person attending and remaining at a rally that has some Nazis at it when the purpose of the rally was not to support Nazi ideals but merely to protest the removal of a statue that means different things to different people is VERY DIFFERENT than a political leader taking the initiative to invite avowed terrorists to share a platform with him.
Obviously I don’t think it’s smart or good to attend and remain at a rally that has Nazis, anarchists or communists in attendance. But the idea that attending and remaining at a rally that has Nazi scum at it MEANS that you are a Nazi is simply ridiculous. And labelling someone in that way for that kind of reason is not going to have favorable consequences for civilized dialogue, open debate in the Western world in the future.
“Each with the circle-slash … through them 😳 “???
–Me, August 18, 2017 at 4:16 pm 😥
There are a lot of things I could say in response.
1. In the 2016 Donald Trump won over 2,600 counties which accounted for 36% of America’s GDP, while Clinton won less than 500 counties which accounted for 64% of America’s GDP. Megacities and regular cities are vastly overrepresented in Hillary Clinton’s counties. The real economic power in the United States and Western world in general is found in the cities. Whether it’s financial services, media, entertainment industry, accounting firms, life sciences firms, investment banks, law firms, NGOs, think tanks, fashion design houses – it is in the cities where the companies in these sectors put their headquarters, strategic personnel, management teams, and often value-producing divisions. Fortune 500 companies’ headquarters are almost never in rural places. They’re in NYC, Atlanta, Chicago, LA, Seattle. It is in the cities that the firms, organizations, and individuals who set the tone for society, run shit, and set trends are. Real, genuine power, whether financial capital or cultural capital, is almost exclusively in the cities.
2. Basically, the Right has been losing in America for centuries. Yes, centuries. Yes, there are lurches against the tide. Andrew Jackson, Harding’s return to normalcy, Reagan’s Revolution, Tea Party. These achieve basically nothing of lasting consequence and basically only slow the disintegration of social order in America, slow the rate of growth of spending, slow the collapse of family formation, slow the unravelling of social trust, social fabric, and voluntary good works. The Right cannot win in democracy because democracy is controlled demolition of social order, which inherently favors the side that breaks taboos, dissolves hierarchy, and corrodes social trust. Democracy or constitutional republics are systems of government that institutionalize support for left-wing movements.
3. My argument with my post above regarding no-fault divorce, immigration, homosexuality, and women’s suffrage was NOT that the right ought to be arguing now as they were back then on those topics. My point was NOT even that the right was necessarily correct on those matters.
My point was that those who argue now on those matters as the right did then on those matters is considered by polite, mainstream society now to be, well, bonkers, insane, racist, homophobic, or some combination thereof. But that if you argue now on those matters as the left did then on those matters you will be taking a moderate, even sometimes right-of-center position on those matters in today’s environment.
Consider women’s suffrage. Some of left-wingers back in the very early 20th century argued in favor of women’s suffrage as a matter of democratic rights, personal liberty while also arguing that giving women the right to vote would not lead to women to enter the workforce en masse. In saying this, my point is NOT that women’s suffrage caused women to enter the workforce en masse. My point is NOT even that women entering the workforce en masse is necessarily a bad thing. My point is that SOME left-wingers who argued for women’s suffrage did so ON THE ASSUMPTION that women entering the workforce en masse would be a bad thing. And that assumption is today, well, not only NOT an assumption but even voicing that there may be a bit of merit to such a thought can easily lead one to lose one’s job and/or friends. It’s considered bonkers if not outright insane; certainly not a view to be considered in a serious way by mainstream, polite society. And this was an ASSUMPTION of some on the LEFT about a century ago.
Evidently, we have moved so far Left over the past century on this (and so many other) issues that voicing today what was an assumption of the Left wing on women’s rights one century ago will get you labelled a misogynist by most people, almost all powerful people, and all of polite society. You can easily lose your job by voicing such a view. James Damore lost his job at Google for voicing a far more moderate opinion.
In democracy things move Leftwards overtime. Inevitably.
They may not be Nazis themselves, but they are sure as hell no one I want to make common cause with, not if they are unable see the sheer fluorescent idiocy of tolerating people with actual ‘for real’ Nazi flags marching with them. Fuck ’em.
Julie:
Only people who are in thrall to the narrative of the left would worry about such things. It is a form of virtue signalling. This is part of the reason why the left wins, all of the time.
They play the tune, you guys dance.
Perry
Demonstrations are always a coalition of people sharing particular common cause but disagreeing on a number of other major issues. There simply isn’t any other way to get large numbers of people out on the streets.
Nazis are always going to attend a right wing demo protesting the removal of a statue of Robert Lee, along with other people who are not Nazis. Unless you never want to demo anything, and are only interested in doing the left’s job of policing opinion and shutting down debate, then you need to get over the fact that you disagree with Nazis about a number of things and be grown up enough to attend a demo where there might be some people you don’t ageee with on some issues (like Nazis).
It is amazing that people don’t have enough courage in their own convictions to walk the same streets as Nazis who agree with them on certain specific issues simply because they fear being portrayed as Nazis.
The left love it when people say this sort of thing, squirm in this way. It is an indication that they have won yet another battle. Again the right is in tatters fleeing the battlefield, the left is triumphant.
Tomsmith (August 18, 2017 at 6:13 pm), Julie’s final sentence
suggests she’s well aware that, if the left are not to win “all of the time”, there must be some way to expose the fact that the “utterly obvious, and readily and temptingly photographable” fact was very intentionally ignored by the MSM. Without that, the locals may notice, but the world will not. But you can plan for that.
Alisa notes that these things are “even more” difficult
bobby b’s informant stated that there were only 20% (his estimate) of BS people (“but they got all the [MSM] coverage” – which would indeed be exactly what we’d expect if that were so). I’ve seen no photos indicating the rest had the sort of banners Julie recommends. This could mean that the march did indeed contain a much higher percentage of BS types (there are probably just about enough in the US to make up the whole of that small group). However since it appears that 44% of African-Americans and healthy majorities of almost all other groups think the statues should remain in place, this is not a necessary assumption, so I want more than the MSM’s word for it. If indeed the advance publicity was sufficiently clear (and equally visible to all involved!) that you’d be thick not to know what to expect, then Perry’s point (August 18, 2017 at 5:35 pm) is a good one. But Alisa’s point abut “false flag operation” is making me cautious about that as yet. Time will (I hope) tell.
(In the above, ‘BS’ is short for ‘blood and soil’ – or any other term which might seem appropriate. 🙂 )
Tomsmith,
There, fixed it for ya. :>)
Tomsmith (August 18, 2017 at 6:26 pm), back in 2003, in the days of the UK war protests, there were occasional lefty leaders who were very opposed to the war but said “I will not share a platform with George Galloway”. I respected them for that – and despised the majority of leaders of that movement, who had no such scruples.
Sharing a platform of course means much more than just sharing a march, and is much more predictable. I’m well aware that you can’t always control or predict whom you’ll march with – see Julie’s points above. If I were in the states, I might well march to keep Lee’s statue.
However I’d like to think I’d check up on the march organiser enough to spot signs of a false flag operation. And if I did not spot that, but saw other possibilities, then a sign saying e.g.
is not hard to write and makes it a bit harder for the MSM to lie about you. Making it harder for the left to lie is our job!
Actually, I think Tomsmith’s point is a good one: if, as Perry, Niall and others suggest, the apparent non-BS majority withdrew from public protests on issues of importance to large-enough segments of the US population – such as the current trend of removing controversial historical monuments from public spaces – just because some odious but quite negligible elements were likely to join in, or known to plan on joining in, then these issues would effectively be left to the mercy of the Left. The problem with such an approach though is that there are very many such issues and their number is growing, plus the Left has no mercy. So the way I see it, anyone who feels the need to protest the Leftist agenda has a choice of staying at home and cursing on the interwebz, or getting out and making their voices heard – with Nazis present or not.
And again, I am sorry to disagree with some very good, smart and honest people here and elsewhere, but I remain convinced that at least at this point in time (if not at any time, really), the non-National Socialists constitute a much clearer and more present danger than the National variety.
I’d like to think so of myself as well – but then hindsight tends to be perfect 😕
The real economic power in the United States and Western world in general is found in the cities. Whether it’s financial services, media, entertainment industry, accounting firms, life sciences firms, investment banks, law firms, NGOs, think tanks, fashion design houses
It’s interesting to note that all of the industries you’ve listed are SECONDARY industries: They don’t produce anything on their own.
Meanwhile, the sort of industries that the left, and the ‘cities’ have spent the past few decades grinding into the dirt produce all our food, all our power, all our clean water, all our metal, all our industrial goods, and even all our electronics.
It’s enough to make you wonder about parasitism, and where the *wealth* (not the *money*) is actually coming from.
Niall:
Alternatively you can simply cease to care, and encourage others to do likewise. Again I don’t agree that fighting the left on their own PC ground is something we should ever do. Do not give an inch.
Simply make a different reality by not seeing it as they do. Have confidence and do not flinch. Do not care what people playing that game think.
Alisa:
Thanks, well stated
“First they came for the NAZIs, but I wasn’t a NAZI, so I ….” Oh wait.
Seriously though – the left keeps raving about how this time, THIS time, the right is going to go crazy and launch some fascist tyranny. They’re wrong about Trump, but I’m afraid they might not be wrong in the long term.
If you want to summon “literally Hitler”, fast forward the Hunger Games a few years to a time when most people across most of the landmass are starving/destitute, where the government is actively looting them on behalf of a hostile power (whether just the leftists in the cities, the capitol, or an actual foreign debtholder.) Most critically, violently suppress dissent in the name of order and stability, to the point where the only people showing up to rallies, or making any sort of noise at all are desperate people with nothing left to lose, and people who are bent in some way like the NAZIs. The freedom lovers are going to be nowhere in sight on that day – they’ll be keeping their heads down because they have lives and families which could be destroyed by political fanatics. The ‘centrists’ in the capitol will be rightly seen as ineffectual and in collusion with the looters – the ones who fight will be long gone.
That’s how you get literally Hitler. Seriously, read the first few chapters of “the rise and fall of the third reich.”
Oh, yes, bonus points if you take the military, grind them down in some sort of nasty losing foreign campaign, then spit on them when they return. Double bonus points if you start drafting the lower-class “unpeople” to be used by a callous political officer-class as cannon-fodder in this losing/ineffective war.
Julie
I don’t think it is realistic to surrender to the left and to follow their lead on anything. If we are merely fighting a rearguard action to slow their progress then maybe, but if we believe we can win then it is simply moral cowardice.
No, I’m actually not. I chose those words carefully.
There are some moral truths that have been universally accepted. One is that murder – not homicide, not killing in war, not judicial execution, but murder in its specific legal meaning – is wrong.
The belief that murder is not wrong violates that moral truth. To believe that murder is acceptable is to deny and contradict one of our foundational moral truths. Most murders are committed by people who know that the act lies outside of morality, but they do it anyway. I was speaking of the person who believes that it is morally acceptable to murder.
I didn’t indicate that I would like to see murder disappear. I said that I would like to see the belief that murder is acceptable within our moral framework disappear. There’s a difference.
Maybe it was just happenstance that you put these words on this comment, but if you look at past comments, I’ve been in complete agreement with you on these points.
People ought not hang around rabid hippos. We can safely assume that people who do are rabid hippos.
Makes just as much sense as yours.
I believe that it is ok for people to walk in the street saying that murder is ok. It is also ok for them to think and dream that murder is ok, or to fantasise about murder. For me it is the murder that is wrong, not the discussion, the affirmation or the secret thought. Who after all is really to determine what is in the hearts of other men? By their actions many people obviously think, on the spur of the moment, or perhaps in a deeper and more abiding way, that murder is ok. But how would anyone know this before they actually do it?
Yes I have liked and agreed with many of your comments on these threads. I only disagree here.
Well, yeah. Globalization, growing and unpredictable regulations, and central bank money printing have all in different ways dramatically shifted power away from those who produce wealth to those who acquire it in certain secondary industries like law firms, financial services, investment banks, lobbyists, accounting firms, etc. These days, generating money is a far more accurate proxy for both power and surplus financial capital than generating wealth.
Plus, you quoted only part of what I said; vast majority of the large corporations that do engage in primary industries have their headquarters, strategic personnel, management teams, and decision makers in cities even if their company infrastructure are not.
In most of human history it’s not the ones who produce wealth who have real power; in most of human history power is disproportionately concentrated among aristocrats and priests who by definition are not value producers themselves at all.
So anyway, my point stands 100%. Not really sure if/how you attempted to contradict it.
Yep.
Which is one reason why what tomsmith said originally is absolutely correct:
“The fact is, when you internalise the idea that certain beliefs consist of such wrongthink that they must not be allowed to exist, then you are not fighting for the existence of freedom and liberty- you have instead become the left.”
Amen. The right has always lost because we lose our nerve and abandon our positions out of fear of being tarred with the brush of some whackos who seemingly agree with us on one point. It doesn’t help that the progressive press jumps on such agreement and makes it the issue in a way they don’t do when the left’s own whackos say or do something outrageous.
But the public masses – in whom the right lacks confidence that they can see through such ploys – is seeing through them. Trump’s election after being labeled the worst man in the world proves that. No one on the right seriously believes that the Virginia protest was all white supremacy, even though that’s the only theme being presented by the press.
Bob’s grandfathers fought against the Nazis and Bob hates Nazis. At the rally there are Nazis. Is Bob a Nazi?
According to Jacob the answer is yes.
Again it’s yes.
Everyone knows what a Nazi flag means, even rural Bob. You just have to run away from it.
The organizers of a rally, or protest, need to make clear who is invited and who not, and when a Nazi flag appears – approach the bearers and insist that they remove that flag. If they can’t make them remove the flag they need to abandon the rally and cancel it, and leave the site.
I again stress: anyone who is marching under a Nazi flag or near it (and does nothing against it) has to be considered a Nazi.
I, for one, would go so far as to deviate from the libertarian principles of support for freedom of expression, and say that public demonstrations of Nazis is something I can live without, and would not shed a tear if such demonstrations were prohibited.
bobby b:
“People ought not hang around rabid hippos. We can safely assume that people who do are rabid hippos.”
People don’t hang around rabid hippos. If a rabid hippo happens to approach a group of people, they either kill it or run away as fast as they can.
Good analogy.
So the way I see it, anyone who feels the need to protest the Leftist agenda has a choice of staying at home and cursing on the interwebz, or getting out and making their voices heard – with Nazis present or not.
We are not talking about a Nazi just being present. We are talking about Nazi flags.
Organizers of a rally should make perfectly clear what flags and what slogans can be shown at the rally, to express it’s aim and purpose. They must also police and enforce their rules, and prohibit unrelated or contrarian flags and signs. And, if they can’t – than no rally.
Freedom of speech is a very important and strong principle. But, it does not include freedom to incite to a crime (like murder).
You cannot march and chant “Kill the …xyz…”, that is not protected free speech.
A Nazi flag is incitement to murder.
Go read Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969). Statements about killing blacks as a path to white supremacy are protected speech.
You cannot tell your audience to make a specific bad act – you cannot say “let’s kill John right now” – but you can speak about abstract acts freely.
So if I understand Jacob’s position correctly, if I’m with a few hundred of my friends at some sort of rally in favor of (or against) something, and a single person sporting Nazi regalia or wearing a swastika shows up and joins us, we all have to leave immediately or we’re presumptive Nazis and our whole cause is irredeemably tainted. I guess he’s invented a sort of “Nazi’s veto”. Sounds like a pretty simple and effective means of destroying any rally you don’t like. Perfect for false-flag operations.
Sorry, I’m not buying it. It’s a patently ridiculous argument.
bobby b
I hope it is a direction of travel that continues. I do think that recent events surrounding Trump have done quite a lot of damage to the left, exposing the way they operate and their extremism.
Some on this libertarian forum do seem to believe it? Which is confusing.
Jacob:
Libertarian principles are a little more than “support for freedom of expression”. And prohibition of speech and thought is a little more than “deviation” from those principles.
It is about facts, so should have nothing to do with ideology. I was not there, so I have to rely on reports by others – their personal and ideological biases, as well as honest mistakes included.
+1 to Alisa at August 18, 2017 at 7:42 pm (likewise Laird, August 19, 2017 at 4:01 am) and even more to Alisa’s comment at (August 18, 2017 at 7:46 pm):
As regards Tomsmith (August 18, 2017 at 9:28 pm):
if not caring means treating with utter contempt the *ist accusations they throw at you and acting as you would anyway, then I agree – I made that decision long ago. However if ceasing to care means ceasing to anticipate how they will lie about you, so not using prudent forethought to make it harder for them to lie about you in any and only ways that do not achieve their desired effect of silencing you – ideally, ways that on the contrary, expose their lies – then the undoubted fact that many do indeed use this kind of excuse to cover their cowardice should not deter us from thinking ahead.
(I will do so on the rare occasions when I’m smart enough 🙂 – Alisa’s point above applies here too. And we should remember to direct our anger rather at the liars on their side than any who were merely foolish on ours.)
Jacob:
Who then gets to decide which demonstrations are prohibited, and on what grounds? It may seem all fine and dandy when it’s something you disagree with, but what about when the things you support are declared wrongthink and become prohibited?
That’s entirely the point of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly – it must apply to everyone (yes, even Nazis, as odious as they are) or it becomes a tool of division and repression. And in the present climate I think we have FAR more to fear from those who would seek to stop us from saying what we think and associating with those we wish to, than those who have some stupid ideas and want to march with their fellow idiots.
Jacob (August 18, 2017 at 11:14 pm)
They had hate speech laws in the Weimar republic. That really worked out well for them, didn’t it?
They still have such laws in Germany today. A work-colleague of mine has a screen saver showing Bill Gates under a microsoft-logo flag leading lederhosen-garbed Microsoft employees. In Frankfurt airport, he was asked to turn his computer on (to show it was not a bomb) but then had plenty of trouble after they saw his screen saver. How much do you think those laws are contributing to their safety today? (A far more sensible question is: how much are those laws endangering them today?)
[To avoid any confusion: during the period of West Germany’s rule by Britain, the US. and France after WWII, when Germany was intentionally, justly and openly not a free self-governing country, I whole-heartedly defend the control commission’s right to restrict certain freedoms – and, in some matters, their wisdom in doing so. In exactly the same way, I would defend a prison governor’s right to prevent a convicted murderer from waving a nazi flag in his cell.]
Alisa, that “in other news” link about the ACLU was interesting in light of the video someone posted earlier that covered the armed militia (Oathkeepers?) presence at the rally. They seemed to be about the only ones doing any semblance of maintaining order, seeing as the police had decided (or been ordered) not to.
I found it fascinating that militia with assault rifles can turn up to an event like that in the US, sure is a different world than the UK! Both sides of protesters seemed to respect their authority a this particular event, but I wonder what would happen were things to really kick-off? How prepared would they actually be to use their weapons and under which circumstances, and what would the fallout from such an event be? Not saying that I disagree with them being there, from the looks of the video they did a fine job.
I also wonder how much more the clashes between Antifa and their opponents will escalate in future, and when might things turn to knives/guns/bombs…
This is the same video on YouTube if anyone wants to avoid the Facebook link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14uglBfhQiM
Good question, EdMJ – although in my mind the answer is clear: one must be mentally and practically prepared to meet violence with counter-violence, while at the same time making every effort to minimize any violence in the first place. My impression is that violence was avoided or minimized in the particular points these armed men were present, through that very presence alone. But that is just a general impression from far away, based on mere reports and images.
The Oath Keepers do a nice job of keeping people from killing each other. They’re ex-military or ex-police mostly – some are still active, which can be dicey – who take an oath to uphold the Constitution. They’re unconnected to the white supremacists and have members of all races. (I have a few friends who are members.) Their presence in Virginia constituted part of the non-Nazi contingent.
They got started after Hurricane Katrina, when an ex-cop was dismayed by the illegal move by several state and local governments to confiscate firearms from people looking to defend their lives and property. They were instrumental in providing supervision and first aid at the Berkeley protests, too.
Have to make two points here. One, they don’t have assault rifles, which are by definition automatic weapons. They’re all semi-automatic. I only point this out because it’s a big deal in the fight over the right to bear arms. Two, they actually have no legal authority whatsoever aside from being rather huge muscular guys with rifles. But in a mob scene, that’s probably the best kind of authority to have.
It would not surprise me if they were all there with unloaded rifles. The consequences of one shot would be horrendous for everyone involved, and it’s too easy in a melee for someone else to grab your gun, flip off the safety, and pull the trigger.
It was uncontrolled street fights between brown shirts and red shirts (paramilitary forces of the left and right) that brought down “normal” regimes in Italy (1920s) Germany (1920-30s) and Russia (1917). It was the weakness of the established regimes.
The police must enforce public order. I would prefer a ban on all street rallies (Nazi AND Antifa), strictly enforced by police.
Of course, rallies, marches and protests ought to be permitted, provided they are peaceful.
If the police is unable to maintain public order and prevent street fights, it’s better to cancel or forbid the rallies.
I would ban all Nazi rallies – “peaceful” and Nazi are contradiction in terms.
I would also ban all rallies of violent organizations such as the anarchists or Antifa.
“if I’m with a few hundred of my friends at some sort of rally in favor of (or against) something, and a single person sporting Nazi regalia or wearing a swastika shows up …”
It is your duty and that of the organizers to approach that idiot and politely (or less politely) demand that he gets lost (or removes his swastika).
Organizers of protest rallies need to enforce the rules of conduct for their protest.
If they are unable, and your rally gets swamped by uninvited Nazis, it’s best to leave.
I would not agree to march in a rally side by side with Nazi flags, nobody should.
Agree completely. The only way a state can legitimise itself is by maintaining the level of order conducive to everyday life, and if it cannot do that, then NOTHING delegitimises the state more swiftly and completely.
Niall,
“It is also worth mentioning the above historical facts, with a “Remind me – how did that work out?”, to all the liars and idiots who say we need hate speech laws lest the nazis return.
(Of course, there will always be those who say, “Well, those laws should have been enforced more vigorously!” As well as arguing the general case, one could ask why they would expect our current state to do a great job at enforcing any of its laws.)
Yes, the Weimar republic fell because it was weak and unable to enforce it’s own laws, and judges sympathetic to the Nazis would let them go free with a wink. That does not prove that the laws were wrong.
If the US is to avoid Weimar’s fate government forces must show strength and resolution, take decisive action, and stop the street violence by any means necessary.
It is in these acts that Trump will be tested, not in his tweets. The Left’s clear aim is to bring Trump (and the republic) down. The dangers of street violence must be recognized and addressed.
Indeed, which is precisely why none of this is relevant to the events under discussion.
Yes… and no. Contrary to a lot of commentary, I agree that nowhere in the western world (and certainly not the USA) is teetering on the cusp of Weimar Republic v2.0… but that will continue to be the case only so long as the consequences of institutions just letting things play out violently in the streets it always kept in mind.
My original SQOTD was actually posted by the mysterious Samizdata Illuminatus (who is just a genetically engineered cat with a 200 IQ, driven insane by his lack of opposable thumbs) with Jeremy Corbyn in mind, rather than Charlottesville, even if I did post it realising full well that it would be applied to other situations by other people (which is fine by me, as the remark is just an observation on the inanity of the stated reason many people align with Naziism/Fascism & Socialism/Communism) 😉
That’s almost word-for-word the phrasing they use in the college town of Berkeley to ban all right-wing talks, meetings, coffee klatches, and assignations in the town. You simply declare that you cannot “protect” the people that you hate, and then you can ban any speech you dislike. Damn that pesky Constitution anyway, right?
Good thing you’re the one doing the choosing, huh? Oh, wait, you’re not? Well, if you win some more elections, perhaps they’ll let you speak. It’s hard to win elections if you’re not allowed to speak? Well, bad luck for you, but we all know that conservatives are inherently hateful and violent speakers, right? Good plan.
So, a state simply has to declare that it cannot maintain order when _______ people speak – because the opponents of _______ will riot – and then it can ban activity by __________?
I’d say that such a state lacks legitimacy already.
bobby b (August 19, 2017 at 6:49 pm), Perry may be saying the exact opposite. He may mean that any state that says, “We must ban free speech for certain groups because we cannot maintain order in the face of the anger it provokes in certain opposed groups.” is delegitimising itself.
In any currently relevant case in the west, I would assume (Perry likewise, perhaps?) that “cannot maintain” in fact means “cannot be bothered to maintain” and/or “don’t really want to maintain”.
If the state allows the violent heckler’s veto then the state’s legitimacy is vetoed by that heckler. The state must not allow things to play out violently in the streets. (Especially in this case, the state of Virginia should not have allowed this.)
This is an inaccurate statement with no basis in fact. It’s the kind of thing people often say to make themselves feel good, as if they’re fighting so bravely, and effectively against an evil that is threatening what is good in not only their world, but the world. Are Nazis evil? Yes. Are Nazis any kind of real threat? Of course not.
It is the antifascists, not the Nazis, who are literally physically initiating violence against those they disagree with. It is the antifascists, not Nazis, who are causing riots and physically shutting down dissent at Evergreen State, UC Berkeley, Cal State, DePaul, University of Massachusetts, etc. It is the Leftist antifa and SJWs who are causing people to lose their jobs for holding views contrary to orthodox Leftwing wisdom.
Jacob’s thinking is indicative of so much of the American Jewish Left that is perpetually hysterical that we are one small step away from becoming 1930s Nazi Germany. They live in a fantasy world – constantly crying wolf when there aren’t even mice. Such Jews’ constant, incessant whining (and idk if Jacob is Jewish – whether he is or is not is irrelevant to my point) sadly lends credibility in some people’s eyes to false and antisemitic views, such as that Jews are incapable of living in Christian nations without causing a ruckus.
Yair Netanyahu, the son of the PM of Israel, recently said on his Facebook page that is 100% absolutely correct:
If in the next 100 years any group in the USA is going to be treated like Jews were in 1930s Nazi Germany it’s going to be white nationalists.
“Are Nazis any kind of real threat? Of course not.”
Ok. Good to hear that…forgive my doubts…
I’d like them to stay that way (i.e.”no threat”), therefore it’s important to shun them and ostracize them and denounce them and keep away from them and shame them. And vocally oppose them whenever they raise their head or march under Nazi flags, and tear their flag down, and, if someone beats them up – I surely will shed no tears. Being “perpetually hysterical” about them is strictly necessary and good. I wish they all dropped dead. “Their breed is dying out.” Could we please accelerate the process?
“It is the antifascists, not the Nazis, who are literally physically initiating violence against those they disagree with. It is the antifascists, not Nazis, who are causing riots and physically shutting down dissent at Evergreen State, UC Berkeley, Cal State, DePaul, University of Massachusetts, etc. It is the Leftist antifa and SJWs who are causing people to lose their jobs for holding views contrary to orthodox Leftwing wisdom.”
Sure. They probably are a bigger threat, now, than the Nazis. So what? Do I need to accept the Nazis in order to combat Antifa? Do I need to march under Nazi flags against Antifa? Do I need to moderate my opposition to the Nazis, or associate with them in the fight against Antifa?
“Turning to communism for fear of fascism is like suicide for fear of death”
This works both ways… (i.e. also vice-versa).
I agree completely with Shlomo’s last comment (August 20, 2017 at 7:37 am) and utterly reject Jacob’s entire line of posts here. Neo-Nazis are irrelevant: they comprise a minuscule number of people, they have no power, and they pose no threat to anyone. If they were simply ignored, rather than being given the attention they so obviously crave, they would fade completely from sight. Do they offend and annoy you? That’s your decision, and is more a reflection on you than on them. It’s people like Jacob (and Antifa) who give them whatever small amount of importance they possess.
It is the reactionary left (Antifa, BLM, SJWs, etc.) who pose the real threat to our society. But because of Jacob and his ilk all the attention is focused on Nazis. Brilliant misdirection by the left; pathetic acceptance of the left’s framing of the issue on the part of useful idiots on the right.
Shlomo maistre:
Quite. What is a threat to freedom is people who would be happy to tear down the flags of their political opponents, see them beaten up, or even have them drop dead. All because they hold unacceptable views.
These people, the ones like Jacob, are the real danger to freedom in the West. Support for such anti freedom viewpoints, the idea that any action is acceptable as long as it defends the politically correct point of view and is targeted at the politically incorrect, is growing rapidly. It is as if the traditional brakes against such sentiments and actions have recently been removed and we are accelerating down a slope towards who knows what.
The quote from Netanyahu was very perceptive and absolutely correct in my view. We are at a dangerous point.
You believe that prevention of legal demonstration beatings are appropriate for people you disagree with politically? Then I hope that one day you find yourself on the other side of the politically correct line you seem to believe justifies any action against wrong thinkers. You might then understand the importance of what you are rejecting.
Israel is a Jewish state, a religious/ethno state. Japan is a cultural/ethno state. Are these countries doing anything wrong by not allowing and encouraging mass immigration from different cultures? Do their policies amount to Nazism?
If not then what is different about alt right supporters who would like to limit or end immigration, or those who wish to create a European ethnostate, or preserve a western cultural model as superior to other cultural models? These people are not Nazis, and outnumber Nazis massively.
South Africa is a country that once had white minority rule and attempted using limitation of political power to preserve western culture and living standards for white people in a continent not know for high cultural standards or prosperity. Currently white people in South Africa face massive pro black positive discrimination from government in employment and property ownership, while also facing a crime epidemic that looks to any unbiased outsider as if it is largely racially motivated. Is this the model we are heading for in Europe and North America? It is very tempting to blame the white man for everything of course. But how long is it possible to do that with a straight face and an honest heart?
It seems as if double standards are often applied when white people or western civilisation is involved. Why this is I don’t know. But the direction it is headed does not look good.
Of course it does, they are just flip sides of the same coin, a Reichsmark on one side and a Soviet Rouble on the other.
Well I seem to recall someone in the comment here wanting to remove ‘Jewish’ influence from Europe, to which I pointed out Jews have been integral to European culture since the Dark Ages. Why would people of Frankish (invader) descent have a better claim to living in France than Jews? Or people of Anglo-Saxon or Norman (invader) descent (such as myself) have a better claim to live in England than Jews? Or people of Visigothic (invader) descent in Spain? etc. etc. etc. Jews are so deeply embedded in European history that anyone discussing treating them as a ‘problem’ is not fooling anyone. Like I said before, it is not a dog-whistle, it is a trumpet.
And the last time someone wanted to create a “European ethnostate”, certain Serbs in the 1990s added the term “ethnic cleansing” to common parlance, and I would have to say that, yeah, the cetniks actually ticked most of the boxes to be regarded as pukka Nazis in a non-figurative sense, complete with wholesale massacres of civilians based on ethnicity.
I tried to read it that way, but couldn’t get it to flow. Here’s what the comment said:
Your own statement was “If the state allows the violent heckler’s veto then the state’s legitimacy is vetoed by that heckler. The state must not allow things to play out violently in the streets. (Especially in this case, the state of Virginia should not have allowed this.)” If this is what he meant, I agree completely. I don’t think it was.
If the state CANNOT maintain order at a rally, better to shut it down than just let the factions run riot attacking each other in the streets. If need be, declare a state of emergency and put soldiers on the streets. Shoot people if need be.
If the state WILL NOT maintain order, then that is a very different situation that cuts to the very legitimacy of the state itself.
Simply put, it is the state’s job to ensure even the most vile people can march down a street holding up vile flags. If that does not happen, then said state needs to use riot cops to crack heads until order is restored, prosecuting whoever commits riot and affray. And if they will not do that, that particular state is not worth piss.
But we know it isn’t – so what now?
I’m an old man, a Canadian. If those people come to my town with their fucking Tiki Torches and shouting “Blood and Soil” , “The Jews will not replace us” and “The Streets are ours”, I’m gonna go hurt somebody.
There is no modern state – in both the abstract “state” meaning and the American states – that CANNOT maintain order.
If it fails to maintain order, it has made a conscious choice. Unless it then chooses to suppress ALL speech to keep things safe, it has enabled the heckler’s veto.
That is entirely untrue, and it is typically what we call “an insurgency” if it proves not to be an isolated incident. Or it might just be called Guatemala or Honduras.
The reality is much less clear cut. You only have to spend some time in Northern Ireland to understand the effort required to enable sectarian marches without riots occurring. It requires planning, available force, and numerous carefully negotiated restrictions on what people can do and where they can go.
This is a non sequitur and does not constitute a coherent reply to my quoted text.
That aside; you seem to be saying that because some un-named person in the comment section on samizdata said that they would like to remove Jewish influence from Europe, you have concluded that the alt right are indeed Nazis. Seems like the crudest kind of attack the man argument?
What does this have to do with the alt right in America?
It certainly isn’t an isolated incident, it happens regularly.
Do you think that the US is facing a leftist insurgency that it lacks the means to quell?
Clearly not. It is also facing a trivial level of organised violence thus far, but shows every sign of allowing the problem to grow,
Nothing, it is simply a response to your comments
My comments are about the alt right in America. I don’t see any relation between this movement and the former Yugoslavia. I also don’t see what a comment someone made about Jews in Europe has to do with either the alt right in America or my comments.
Can you explain please?
Tomsmith:
“…happy to tear down the flags of their political opponents, see them beaten up, or even have them drop dead”
It’s not “political opponents” – it’s Nazis.
If you’re unable to distinguish between “political opponents” and Nazis – go read some history.
Hint: Nazis are mass murderers NOT “political opponents”.
Suppose the ISIS starts a rally in the US, complete with black masked gorillas on trucks and black flags – what would you do to such “political opponents”?
I fully support the right of southerners (or any one) to protest against the removal of Lee’s statue. I, myself, think Lee is overrated, he has been made into a myth which is not strictly in accordance with facts. Nevertheless, it’s kind of insensitive or cruel to try to destroy myths that people cherish.
Seems to me the rally in Charlottesville was an opportunistic rally by Nazis, not by good old southern boys.
Antifa and commies are more dangerous than the Nazis? Probably. So what?
This is not a beauty contest or a presidential election where you have to pick one of the two (horrible) candidates.
We can, and must, oppose BOTH of them [Antifa and the Nazis], as vigorously as we can.
The best weapon against an idiot is to let him talk. The more AntiFA and the Nazis speak to the public, the more the public will know about them. The more the public knows about them, the less power they will have.
(Anything beyond speech, not a chance. Once they move to burn a Starbucks or club a head, slap them in irons.)
The famous Martin Niemöller quote some cited here ends with:
“Then they came for me —
and there was no one left to speak out for me.”
I fail to see how it applies to the current situation – did the KKK, Neo-Nazis and other from the “alt-right” ever spoke out for someone or helped someone not of their own?
That isn’t the meaning of the Niemoller quote! Lol
They don’t need to agree with you to merit your support of their right to speak, believe and exist!
I wasn’t aware that all of the people marching that day were guilty of mass murder.
Sorry but you are insane.
Radical Islamists often march in the UK. Personally I would do nothing about it. If they are only talking then let them talk. It just shows how disgusting they are. Sometimes the EDL (a right wing group formed for the purpose) demonstrate against Islamist marches. Generally the police do a good job of keeping the opposite sides apart.
And? Next question?
“I wasn’t aware that all of the people marching that day were guilty of mass murder.”
Anyone who walks under a Nazi flag is advocating mass murder.
Seems there are many things you refuse to be aware of.
bobby b
“The best weapon against an idiot is to let him talk.”
We’re talking about a Nazi idiot, not the garden variety of idiot that is quite ubiquitous.
Shout back at him (denounce him), and take care not to march with him, not to associate with him, to shun him and ostracize him.
Marching near a flag does not equate to being a Nazi. Being a Nazi or even idly talking about murder =/= murder. Murder is murder. Talking about murder is not murder.
You do whatever you like. The moment you start to try to remove the right to speak and protest for people you disagree with, or to have them beaten in the street because they don’t agree with you, then that is the moment we part ways.
Apparently, the best way to discourage Nazi marches is to encourage Nazi marchers…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/neo-nazi-walkathon_us_59952cfbe4b0acc593e51ae5
“…in 2014, sponsors agreed to donate money for each step marched by the neo-Nazis, with the cash going to programs that fight Nazis, the Guardian reported at the time.
It was billed as Germany’s most involuntary walkathon.
Instead of greeting the group with protests, they put up banners welcoming them to the “Nazis Against Nazis” walkathon, according to a video on a YouTube channel run by the organization that promoted it.
Mocking signs throughout the route encouraged them to keep walking to raise more money, and organizers put out a table of bananas to help them keep up their energy so they could keep walking ― and keep raising money.
They even painted numbers in the ground so the neo-Nazi marchers would be forced to see how much money they’d collected at every milestone.”
And on a similar note:
http://www.wired.co.uk/article/bjorn-ihler-anders-breivik-neo-nazis-charlottesville
The article is a good read.