[Politics] Dumb People Protest and Look Dumb

[generals3]

Except the Right is the violent side, and the Left still gets all the blame.

Not on this forum... (and as that is the reach of my post that is what matters)

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

Amazing how stupid alt-right protesters look when they're simply allowed to speak, and the news of the day isn't about rioting, isn't it?

Amazing how this has been a consistent and reliable pattern for 40 years, and only in the last two to three has it been disrupted by black bloc violence leading to an escalating and expanding cycle of violence which permits alt-right apologia in the mass media, isn't it?

Why, it's almost as if violently and preemptively disrupting protest is counter-productive and ultimately self-defeating in any conceivable way, unless your vested interest is in that cycle of violence as opposed to the defeat of far-right ideology in the marketplace of ideas.

I mean Hitler was pretty much a proto early alt-right guy correct? And they did let Hitler talk and look where that got them.

We like to say logic and reason will win out and just debating them will see us win the day, but I wonder if that's really true or if we just want it to be true? I mean I'm sure we all know of absolute falsehoods that spread everyday from people who either flatout lie or have been tricked into believing nonsense.

And sometimes horrible ideas spread and people believe them despite all the logic and reason in the world, and people suffer for it. We have real life historical examples of this happening.

Look at the fake medicine scam industry, if they ban a book literally telling you to ban bleach to cure cancer somebody will go 'oh but free speech they should be allowed to sell that book' but what possible benefit is there to allowing these fake medical advices that are useless at best (and harm by putting off real treatment) or actively detrimental to your health at worst. Why does absolutely everything have to be allowed? Because usually when you take something to an extreme, you find problems with it, is freedom of speech any different there?

I've become aware that Free Speech doesn't lead to the Market Place of Idea or to good arguments winning the day. If that was the case, everything would have been cured by 1900. Free Speech does inoculate you from Logic and Reason, as you're just worried about what you have to say instead of someone else, so you just stop listening to good sense. Free Speech only works generationally with gradual increments being hard fought for a decades before progress is made. But can be easily outdone by Free Speech, leading down a different path.

Anti-vaxxers leading to measles outbreaks recently is another example

What would be great, though, is a clear definition of when Hitler actually becomes evil. He wasn't evil in the trenches in 1916. He was evil in 1942 when he started the elimination. When did he slip from normal to evil? Because that would shut a lot of people up on both sides about words like Fascists, Racists, Concentration Camps etc.

Well I dunno man. I mean we've thousands of years of everything being shitty and oppressive right? Versus the past couple hundred years of everything suddenly turning good? Whats the difference, well we have technology now but machines don't have ethics and work just as well for shitheads so I don't think it's that. We also have democracy and debate so that might be the ticket, it's just a slow process.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Well I dunno man. I mean we've thousands of years of everything being shitty and oppressive right? Versus the past couple hundred years of everything suddenly turning good? Whats the difference, well we have technology now but machines don't have ethics and work just as well for shitheads so I don't think it's that. We also have democracy and debate so that might be the ticket, it's just a slow process.

That's a big topic in of itself. Personally, I think it's at least in part because we tend to have more stuff and better life expectancy. If you're going to die poor due to disease or starvation, you've little to lose by getting violent. If you can expect to live to 70 or 80 and be fairly comfortable, more appealing to sit round and watch TV.

Now, doesn't apply to everyone, of course, but (IMHO) some conflicts fizzle out because people get shiny toys to play with and don't turn up to the fights anymore.

 

[Majestic Manatee_v1legacy]

I mean Hitler was pretty much a proto early alt-right guy correct? And they did let Hitler talk and look where that got them.

We like to say logic and reason will win out and just debating them will see us win the day, but I wonder if that's really true or if we just want it to be true? I mean I'm sure we all know of absolute falsehoods that spread everyday from people who either flatout lie or have been tricked into believing nonsense.

And sometimes horrible ideas spread and people believe them despite all the logic and reason in the world, and people suffer for it. We have real life historical examples of this happening.

Look at the fake medicine scam industry, if they ban a book literally telling you to ban bleach to cure cancer somebody will go 'oh but free speech they should be allowed to sell that book' but what possible benefit is there to allowing these fake medical advices that are useless at best (and harm by putting off real treatment) or actively detrimental to your health at worst. Why does absolutely everything have to be allowed? Because usually when you take something to an extreme, you find problems with it, is freedom of speech any different there?

Disturbingly, we have ideas like the great replacement theory entering mainstream conversation too: https://www.isdglobal.org/isd-publications/the-great-replacement-the-violent-consequences-of-mainstreamed-extremism/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/07/christchurch-mosque-killer-ideas-mainstream-social-media

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Sometimes I don't get what's so hard to understand about the fact that times change and with that the actions required to attain certain goals. There used to be a time when royalty used the marriage of their children as a diplomatic tool, it isn't anymore. There used to be a time when sending thugs on the street to beat up ideological opponents was an effective way to silence the opposition, it isn't anymore.
Interesting to see some so called "progressives" believe the violent methods used in the early 20th century are still effective/justified and not defending such methods is somehow a defence of the targeted group. Even the far right has realised these methods are no longer effective and peaceful communication and using the victim card is much more effective. We live in anti violence & victim-oriented times (relatively speaking). Don't turn your political/ideological opponents into victims of violence. You are merely helping them gather sympathy and support.

"As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil that they set out to destroy."

See, you say that, but Richard Spencer vanished off the face of the earth after the punch that turned him into a meme, the two bloodied dudes in Portland dropped out of the news cycle after pictures and video showed them starting their fights, and Ngo's punch fared similarly after he overplayed his "injury" for his 200k GoFundMe and the hilarious "concrete milkshakes" panic overshadowed the whole thing.

Political violence works great. That's why the Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer send people around to bars and union halls and people's houses to beat people up, break some necks, and generally intimidate folks. Antifa is just a general response to not wanting to get martyred for a media that won't care.

 

[Erttheking]

I get the idea being holding up non violent protests, but I feel like the well has been poisoned. Because there?s some double standards going on with one side being much more violent, even killing the other side, and yet people are being much more critical of the side that is less violent while being fanatical and refusing to accept less than perfection from those who are often more disadvantaged and heavily scrutinized. The type of people who ignore Martin Luther King?s comment on how he can?t condem Black rioters in good faith without condemning the system that drove them to riot. I don?t see any condemnations of systems here.

Though frankly I feel like the ship has sailed and it?s too late for me to get a word in now.

 

[Saelune]

Except the Right is the violent side, and the Left still gets all the blame.

Not on this forum... (and as that is the reach of my post that is what matters)

Constantly on this forum. Most of my posts are me arguing with those who do that.

But you're just moving the goal posts anyways.

 

[Saelune]

I get the idea being holding up non violent protests, but I feel like the well has been poisoned. Because there?s some double standards going on with one side being much more violent, even killing the other side, and yet people are being much more critical of the side that is less violent while being fanatical and refusing to accept less than perfection from those who are often more disadvantaged and heavily scrutinized. The type of people who ignore Martin Luther King?s comment on how he can?t condem Black rioters in good faith without condemning the system that drove them to riot. I don?t see any condemnations of systems here.

Though frankly I feel like the ship has sailed and it?s too late for me to get a word in now.

People will look back on this time and wonder why no one actually fought back.

 

[Drathnoxis]

If we go by Hardin analogy, the founding fathers must, therefore, be pretty incompetent.

Sure, I agree.

As Salvor Hardin once said "violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."

The point being, of course, that the actions of the Founding Fathers constitute a very effective use of political violence, and one which is now widely accepted, treated as necessary, and lauded as justified today.

You may get away with that kind of thing in the dark ages, but moving toward a galactic empire you need to be a little smarter than that.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

If we go by Hardin analogy, the founding fathers must, therefore, be pretty incompetent.

Sure, I agree.

As Salvor Hardin once said "violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."

The point being, of course, that the actions of the Founding Fathers constitute a very effective use of political violence, and one which is now widely accepted, treated as necessary, and lauded as justified today.

You may get away with that kind of thing in the dark ages, but moving toward a galactic empire you need to be a little smarter than that.

Heh when I play Stellaris my galactic empires are so much worse. I tend to play big 'egalatarian' societies that force you to join on threat of planetary annihilation.

 

[Schadrach]

As Salvor Hardin once said "violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."

Wait, I though YouTube was the last refuge of the incompetent. ;D

I'm pretty sure some of the incompetent consider YouTube videos to be violence, so I guess six of one, half a dozen of the other?

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

If we go by Hardin analogy, the founding fathers must, therefore, be pretty incompetent.

Considering the whole thing was pretext for retaliation against revocation of land grants following the 1763 proclamation, the means were to protect colonial smuggling, and the whole thing was over war debt incurred for a war colonials started over a goddamn cow..."clown car" is about the most charitable term I could use for the "Founding Fathers".

Or would you perhaps like to discuss the tale of the sugar acts as opposed to tea acts, being they strike more directly to the heart of the matter than the former, and that there is perhaps no greater symbol of global slavery during the colonial era than molasses?

Of course, we in the states love our selective memories. Up to and including the use of intimidation, coercion, and violence against non-combatant neutrals and loyalists. And the genocidal campaign waged by the Continental Army against British-allied Native Americans, particularly the Iroquois. Or that the "revolutionary spirit" that took the South was really fear of British manumission.

Would you perhaps care to have a conversation about those ill-discussed aspects of the Revolutionary war? Or would you care to continue whitewashing the war to wax polemic about revolutionary Fabian strategies? It strikes me an awfully strange thing to do, to want to make a case colonial violence was necessary and justified, without being too keen on actually discussing what that violence was, its motivating factors, nor its full extent.