About those peaceful antifa protests...

[grumbler]

To the extent that anyone in the alt-right advocates political violence, yes.  My understanding, which may be flawed, is that at the very least, many members of alt-right do in fact advocate political violence.  Certainly some posters here have made posts in favor of the alt-right in which they advocated or at least defended political violence.

Thanks Grumbler.

Reading comprehension fail, eDDIE.

[grumbler]

What's wrong with advocating violence against Nazis? The US did it in 1941-1945.

Except that that was the result of the Nazis declaring war on the US, not the reverse. 

[Eddie Teach]

To the extent that anyone in the alt-right advocates political violence, yes.  My understanding, which may be flawed, is that at the very least, many members of alt-right do in fact advocate political violence.  Certainly some posters here have made posts in favor of the alt-right in which they advocated or at least defended political violence.

Thanks Grumbler.

Reading comprehension fail, eDDIE.

I was just recognizing the influence.

[grumbler]

I was just recognizing the influence.

If you think that I've influenced PeeDee's opinion of the alt-right, you need to get a tin foil beanie.

[Eddie Teach]

Er no. It was the stylistic influence. The cutesy take somebody else's post and change one word is your thing.

[grumbler]

Er no. It was the stylistic influence. The cutesy take somebody else's post and change one word is your thing.

Oh.  You mean pointing out the stupidity of a post by reversing a key word or phrase to show that the same reasoning can be used to reach the opposite conclusion.  Yes, that's a favorite of mine because it is so devastatingly effective.  Thanks. 

[Solmyr]

What's wrong with advocating violence against Nazis? The US did it in 1941-1945.

Except that that was the result of the Nazis declaring war on the US, not the reverse. 

Which just means that now we should know that Nazis should be stomped into the dust before they can do anything major.

[grumbler]

Which just means that now we should know that Nazis should be stomped into the dust before they can do anything major.

Your words are music to the ears of FDR and (most of) his advisors.

It would be better to stop the fascists before war or violence is necessary, however.

[Razgovory]

I'd rather Stop the fascists at Cable Street than 20,000 feet over the whole of London.

[The Minsky Moment]

Antifa to my understanding are basically anarchists with penchant for street violence; I don't care for either of those things.  Not a fan.

But their recent rise to prominence is not an accident. When the highest law enforcement authority in the land targets immigrants regardless of status and talks about dispensing rough (and illegal) justice in "paddy-wagons" on the one hand, but on the other hand expresses sympathy for torch wielding Nazis that ran over an innocent girl in the streets, it raises legitimate questions about the state's willingness to provide basic security, at least to those who do not vocally support the Dear Leader, as the fascists so vocally do. That's what fuels vigilantism.

[grumbler]

Antifa to my understanding are basically anarchists with penchant for street violence; I don't care for either of those things.  Not a fan.

But their recent rise to prominence is not an accident. When the highest law enforcement authority in the land targets immigrants regardless of status and talks about dispensing rough (and illegal) justice in "paddy-wagons" on the one hand, but on the other hand expresses sympathy for torch wielding Nazis that ran over an innocent girl in the streets, it raises legitimate questions about the state's willingness to provide basic security, at least to those who do not vocally support the Dear Leader, as the fascists so vocally do. That's what fuels vigilantism.

Agree with all of this, but I'd argue that those who engage in vigilantism (should be "vigiliantiism," damnit!) do so more because of their attraction to violence than their attraction to justice.  Dr. Martin Luther King Jr is the greatest American hero (yeah, Eddie and Der Spicey, greater than Lincoln and greater than Washington) precisely because he understood that the seduction of the violent approach had to be resisted because it didn't lead to the kind of resolution to conflict that would yield long-term justice. 

I am prepared to die, but there is no cause for which I am prepared to kill.

[DGuller]

Er no. It was the stylistic influence. The cutesy take somebody else's post and change one word is your thing.

Oh.  You mean pointing out the stupidity of a post by reversing a key word or phrase to show that the same reasoning can be used to reach the opposite conclusion.  Yes, that's a favorite of mine because it is so devastatingly effective.  Thanks. 

It is devastatingly effective.  Just not at the thing you generally want to be devastatingly effective at.

[Oexmelin]

It's partly Hannah Arendt's thought, in that violence actually frees situations that are blocked, and terrible, but narrows the outcomes in favor of more violence. This is the real conundrum, for there are times when the only possible answer to violence has to be violence, or the acceptance of terrible consequences, especially when regimes cease to recognize even the most basic dignity inherent in the protester. 

That being said (and Arendt's thought is much richer than that), I can't think of a successful non-violent movement that succeeded in the dialectical absence of a more violent alternative.

[Eddie Teach]

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr is the greatest American hero (yeah, Eddie and Der Spicey, greater than Lincoln and greater than Washington

I'd appreciate if you allowed me to make objections before answering them.

[derspiess]

Forget it, he's rolling.