National Guard called into Minneapolis
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Do you think that the point of an analogy is to say "these two things are EXACTLY the same"?
Do you think that an analogy can be refuted by sarcastically pointing out that the things being compared are not exactly the same?
But not sizeable enough to do it; specially once they got rid of the Nazis. Without the Nazis, most of the Antifa left it and focused in rebuilding France instead of chasing the smaller dragons. That's the point of discussion, isn't it?
From Wikipedia: "In February 2019, female Democrat members of the US Congress dressed predominantly in white when attending President Trump's State of the Union address. The choice of one of the colours associated with the suffragettes was to signify the women's solidarity."
So apparently, they're protesting Trump.
Also, I did say "rarely", as opposed to "never". So even if you're able to find one or two examples, it wouldn't disprove my statement.
No, it's the fact you're using it to support your position which I explicitly stated in the post you quoted.
"n this instance you're using it to push your position, and saying it has no cost to do so. Seems disingenuous when it's not about cost but whether your purported consequences are a real thing."
What is so hard to understand what's dishonest about people telling people to just take your position for granted in an argument?
I realize it's a favored tactic of the right wing to whine and gripe about 'popular opinion' and pretend you're oppressed but please spare me that nonsense
That's true, you did. But then, your chosen comparison was between an legal Act and a pressure group, so I'm not sure that proves anything much, either.
You're... using examples of draconian government implemented provisions to talk about Fascism? One of the most unpopular acts that the Government keeps in play because it enjoys the freedom and backdoors there are?
Ok. We'll rock with that...
How many terrorist attacks have they prevented? Can't say. If there is a competent administration at hand, they would not give out too much information because if they do so, the terrorists might piece together how it was used to trap them and avoid it in the future.
What I think personally and what I think governments will do are two separate things. Allies spy on allies. I don't think that's something that should be done, but it is. Would I get rid of it? Yup. But that's why I don't run for office. I understand the necessary evil of spying. I know why they do it. I don't condone it. I wish all parties who are allied could just be above board, but I get each individual ally has to think about their own best interest.
I do not understand the "necessary evil" of overpolicing and sanctioned brutality. Police are not there to break any part of the American population. I REALLY don't think that it's something that should be done, but still... it is. Would I get rid of it? Hell yes. There is no necessary to the treatment African Americans received in this nation. They can't find any money for education, but the coffers over flow for more cops.
And quite right, it's naive.
That's why this matter should have been put to bed at Eric Garner. Or John Crawford iii. Philando Castile. Freddie Grey. Sandra Bland. Or Hell, let's go back to Rodney King. Black Panthers taking over city hall.
Each time when too much of this society patted black people on the head and said "Oh, Go have your silly protests. Get it out of your system for next time", they added more tinder and more powder for this blow up.
Back then was when it was time to think about this future that we're calling the present. Just finding it in their hearts to be human. To share in this land that we're all born into, that we work for and try to live in. All society is a chain. Either you tend to it all equally, or it will snap at the weakened links. Sure, you spent time shining up the links you favored, and they are indeed mighty. But they simply can not bare all the weight that's required. The other pieces will snap off, and you're left with a chain that can't even wrap around the object you're trying to move.
So, no. This is the time to think about the now, because this is the future that was earned by past inaction and weightless pandering.
And now... now when the moment that the world is seeing the straw that broke the camel's back... NOW we think about what future action might get us?!
That mindset is once again taking the focus on our plight now. I will not let that narrative twist. Nor will anyone else who's paying attention.
Millions of German citizens relied on the Nazis to help them out of their plight after WWI, and look how that turned out.
So yes, you should ALWAYS think about the future consequences of your bedfellows.
You're complaining that I made a claim assuming another one of my claims was accurate? I'm not allowed to have my own stated premises?
Like, you're certainly allowed to argue "I don't think the thing you're taking for granted is accurate, tstorm." But you're accusing me of bad conduct for believing my own arguments. I don't get it.
No, I'm accusing you of bad conduct for telling other people to accept it in the guise of 'giving people the benefit of the doubt'.
As I see it, a summary goes
You: Your rhetoric pushes people to the other side
Others: Don't believe that's what causes them to go to that side
You: I'm just giving them the benefit of the doubt
Giving people the benefit of the doubt is not assuming the worst of them, not assuming a specific cause is what pushed them to their position.
You think anarchists are going to take over and abolish the US unless we forcibly prevent them them from protesting police brutality?
Anarchists are often accused of being overly idealistic, but I think you've put us all to shame there. How is this supposed to happen? Are soy-fuelled antifa super soldiers going to carve through legions of police and the actual army with dual wield bikelocks? Is Joe Biden going to get elected (like that's going to happen) then suddenly 'Killing in the Name Of' starts playing and he rips off his mission impossible mask to reveal he's actually Alfredo Bonanno and has been playing the long game to destroy capital from within?
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You misunderstand me. I'm not saying to give people the benefit of the doubt that they pushed one way because they were pushed away from the other. That's not what I meant. I'm talking about preempting that issue. When people come out with the sort of claims like "if you don't say anything, it means you support bigotry", that's divisive. The people I'm suggesting should be given the benefit of the doubt are those people who haven't made a statement. In many cases it's the people taking measured stances.
For example: both the "thin blue line" crowd and the "defund the police crowd" are in disagreement with people who just want police reform. If someone highly pro-cop declares any criticism is an attack on the police and is unacceptable, the person in the middle will often then find greater sympathies with those on the defund side, the argument has backfired. If someone highly anti-cop declares that anyone trying to reform the police is just further enabling the capitalist gestapo, the person in the middle will probably find greater sympathies on the pro-cop side. Either extreme could make their case without demonizing the middle. They could assume the person in the middle is a rational person trying to do the right thing. That's the benefit of the doubt that is needed. To not assume that someone who isn't fighting exactly with you must therefore be against you and everything you stand for. With or against us rhetoric is recruitment for both sides.
Hey, Hawki, your quote doesn't come up when I try to reply to it. So I'll just answer bit by bit.
To your comment that police have been used for other things than crime... yeah. They've also been used as a tool of systemic oppression. But my future is without such things.
If you're talking about any other actions that are not police and oppression centered, a vast majority of poor minorities (and some rich ones) have never experienced such an idea. Might be for others, not for us.
And you're asking these questions while the government and the population who allows this treatment of minorities have the full weight of those two parties standing on their back. And one party is trying to actively help push them off of
Instead of asking questions of why we should accept the help of a potentially dangerous organization, ask why it seems like they are the only one who's actively trying to help us fight? Without insult, I'm going to say this for the last time because I think we're going to go around and around.
If they are the only ones who will fight with us, then they are the only ones. We are not in a position to deny any help. As much as it's academic and it might be thought exercises for you, my reality is that I don't get to make a mistake. I don't get to lose my temper. I don't get to be loud. I don't get to be anything but pleasing to the populace because I'm a 6'2 Black Male that works out.
I am always wrong. And the solution is always taking me out with the most force possible.
If Antifa is a horrible choice for an ally, that really isn't on Antifa. That's on this populace not standing up and giving a better alternative, and it's on this nation for creating this situation in the first place.
To your comment that police have been used for other things than crime... yeah. They've also been used as a tool of systemic oppression. But my future is without such things.
If you're talking about any other actions that are not police and oppression centered, a vast majority of poor minorities (and some rich ones) have never experienced such an idea. Might be for others, not for us.
And you're asking these questions while the government and the population who allows this treatment of minorities have the full weight of those two parties standing on their back. And one party is trying to actively help push them off of
Instead of asking questions of why we should accept the help of a potentially dangerous organization, ask why it seems like they are the only one who's actively trying to help us fight? Without insult, I'm going to say this for the last time because I think we're going to go around and around.
If they are the only ones who will fight with us, then they are the only ones. We are not in a position to deny any help. As much as it's academic and it might be thought exercises for you, my reality is that I don't get to make a mistake. I don't get to lose my temper. I don't get to be loud. I don't get to be anything but pleasing to the populace because I'm a 6'2 Black Male that works out.
I am always wrong. And the solution is always taking me out with the most force possible.
If Antifa is a horrible choice for an ally, that really isn't on Antifa. That's on this populace not standing up and giving a better alternative, and it's on this nation for creating this situation in the first place.
Again, you're using fascists in your argument. I'm really confused.
The message is this: always consider the future consequences of your bedfellows.
It doesn't matter if your bedfellows are fascists, democrats, libertarians, anarcists, or The Brotherhood of Steel. Just consider the future consequences, that's all I'm saying.
Is it still confusing?
Do you think that the oppressed Germans after WWI and right before WWII had any other option but to turn to the Nazi party for support? The Nazis offered ordinary German citizens a helping hand, a way out. Was it right of them to accept their help?
You'd probably say "no, they shouldn't have accepted their help. It would have been better for them and for the world if they had simply starved to death, because Nazis are evil and ever joining up with them is inexcusable", right?
So, just consider your own logic of "we are not in a position to deny any help" in light of this.
And that's the genius of naming yourself the equivalent of The Good Guys™. Anyone who disagrees with you must therefore be The Bad Guys™, and some people just don't think past the names.
Yes they did. Multiple times actually, the Nazis were bankrolled by the industrialists and by international magnates like John Ford because they supported their interests. It was not the majority rule it's panned out to be, since Hitler was appointed Chancellor by Von Hindenburg, not elected, after the Reichstag Fire was pinned on the KDP. Naturally this ended up legitimising the Nazis and was a series of intentional maneuvers to secure a chokehold of German politics, which is why the NSDAP moved so quickly to start banning opposition, since after all, if there is no visible opposition, then there can't be any dispute over who rules in the Reichstag. This is also after the Weimar Republic hired the Freikorps (who later on went on to form the bulk of the SS) to assassinate the leaders of the Spartacists League, who were supported by a major national strike, but were not in a position to receive aid from the Soviet Union, because it was at then, embroiled in a civil war. It was a revolution, and a series of other uprisings like the Kiel Strike that meant that Germany very narrowly avoided becoming Communist.
Really, up until 1933, people fought for an alternative that wasn't the barbarism it resulted in, even Anti-Communists like the Iron Front of the SDP (whose Three Arrows iconography is the symbol of antifascism, and has been for decades) actively fought against the Nazis, and the KPD (how's that for radical centrism) and sought to win against them in the elections. Germany also wasn't anywhere near as oppressed as all the other countries that got partitioned or had their lands seized and their power shrunken by the post-war treaties. Hell, just look at the Middle East today to see how much impact those treaties have had, that they're still sources of conflict and instability today.
Ah, I love this reductionistic approach to history. The German people needed help, so they just happened to fall upon the hands of the Nazis, because the Nazis were the only ones there. Let's not pay attention to everything that lead to the rise of their reich. Let's reduce all of history to a certain narrative that just so happens to serve your big brain argument. Let's not pay attention to the objectives of each group, the conditions under which they operated, the conditions of the population itself. No, let's paint the Germans as the oppressed, and that they all went into the hands of the Nazi party because they "aided" them. Nevermind the campaigns of oppression of the opposition, of rapid disintergration of citizen rights, and the ability of the military police to capture people just by suspicion and make them disappear. Your big brain argument disintegrates at a cursory glance at historical facts, but you don't really care about facts.
Oh, and by the way, who are the Jews in this instance?
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