@blatham,
blatham wrote:
Quote:These attempts at false equivalence were absolutely brutal during the last election. It's as if otherwise intelligent people have completely lost their ability to make meaningful comparisons between two dissimilar objects or ways of thought.
The idea that the two parties are 'the same' is the dumbest **** ever.
Yes. It is about as intellectually lazy as it gets. Saves all the effort of making distinctions. You don't have to read or study, just spout the "both sides are the same" as an axiomatic formulation.
And, of course, it has the added benefit of solidifying and protecting previously held beliefs.
I know this is going to surprise everyone, but I don't have a problem drawing equivalency between the white supremacy thugs and the Antifa thugs that faced off this weekend in Virginia.
The primary reason for this is that I don't believe that using violence as a response to political speech (even hate filled political speech) is in any way justified or noble. It might be if the Neo-Nazi goons marching through the streets of Charlottesville shouting noxious slogans like "Blood & Soil" or "You Will Not Replace Us" actually presented a threat to our way of life or were part of a paramilitary group employed by the government or a prominent political figure in the US, but, of course, they do not. We aren't even remotely close to living in Germany of the early 1930's, and anyone suggesting we are is a hyperbolic fool. The nonsense about how the present rise of fascism in this country must be stopped now before it is to late is simply an excuse for Resistance brown shirts to indulge their violent fantasies.
Time and time again many liberals will declare that if a conservative doesn't want to see the 1st Amendment rights of even hateful people quashed, it's a clear indication that they must sympathize and agree with the miscreants. They would never level such a charge against ACLU lawyers who have actively worked to preserve the rights of Neo-Nazis and the KKK to freely assemble and spout their venom, but in their minds all conservatives are at best closet racists and so clearly, any words or actions that they can interpret as
defending these groups is an admission of sharing their values. It's absurd but all too common.
I will go so far as to say that overall, the Antifa thugs engaged in violence were more repugnant and a greater threat to our society than the Neo-Nazi clowns simply marching through the streets with tiki-torches, no matter what they were all saying in unison.
Before the floodgates open and I am overwhelmed with insults and scorn, I will note that the horrendous action of the young man who apparently sought to mow down counter-demonstrators of any sort with his car is indefensible and clearly more heinous than a man in a "V" mask punching someone in the face, pepper spraying someone or hitting another person with a thrown brick, however...
It was
one young man who drove his car into a crowd. His fellow Neo-Nazis or soul brothers in the KKK didn't go on a killing spree. If James T. Hodgkinson who attempted to shoot and kill numerous Republican lawmakers is not representative of members of the
Resistance , than I fail to see how a case can be made that this one young man with his murderous act was representative of the groups to which he was aligned. I'm sure there are people here who disagree and if so please offer a specific explanation as to how I am wrong. I'll happily stipulate that in his vile racist views he was quite representative of the groups, but much of what Hodgkinson and his FB friends were saying and writing about Trump and Republicans bears a great resemblance to the rhetoric seen in this forum, and no less than a Democrat official declared in public that he wished Rep Scalise had not simply been wounded, but killed.
There is no evidence that the goal of the groups that traveled to Charlottesville this weekend was to engage in violence. Undoubtedly, some segment of them (quite possibly a very large segment) went there anticipating the Antifa thugs would show up and hoped there would be violence in which they might happily participate. Such miscreants are to be condemned for that and more so than for their hateful rhetoric. Violence actually draws blood and kills people, words do not.
On the other hand, there is plenty of evidence that the Antifa thugs went to Charlottesville with every intention of engaging violently with the demonstrators.
(There were, of course, essentially peaceful counter-demonstrators there and they may have outnumbered the thugs 10-1 but they are not the people I find having equivalency with the groups they came to protest. As the Neo-Nazis and Klansmen had a right to assemble and speak, obviously those who oppose them had the very same right. I find it unconscionable that law enforcement on the ground didn't take steps to keep these two groups apart and, far worse, fled the area once the scene began to head towards a riot, but that is not the fault of the counter-demonstrators or the demonstrators who were not engaged in violent acts.)
The Antifa thugs weren't young men who came to Charlottesville to peacefully, albeit vociferously, express their disgust with the white supremacists, and due to violence directed at them or even just an excess of passion, ended up throwing blows or bricks themselves. No, they were young men who came to do battle. Many, I feel certain, had seen action at Berkeley, LA, Portland and other scenes where demonstrations turned into riots, but whether veteran or greenhorn the young men in black masks and hoodies who were armed with pepper spray, tear gas, batons and bricks were in Charlottesville to shut down the demonstration through violent means.
These people (because they are not all men) are not noble social warriors who have taken on a dire threat that the authorities cannot or will not defeat. They are supremely arrogant, violent criminals who seek to impose their political views on others and suppress any speech that doesn't conform to what they believe to be acceptable. They haven't limited their thuggery to the gatherings of white supremacists. They haven't resorted to violence only to shut down loathsome racist rhetoric. Whatever one thinks of Ann Coulter, Milo Yiannopoulos, and the majority of attendees of Trump rallies, they are not the equivalents of David Duke, Richard Spencer or Thomas Robb and they are certainly not modern American Hitlers.
We've seen and heard, both here and in the wider world, self-righteous, heroes channeling their inner Lt. Aldo Raine and declaring how, given the chance, they will punch a Nazi in the face. Who here applauds this macho shite? And if you do, what gives you the right to decide who deserves a punch in the face? It's certainly not the Law. Pull such a stunt and you're likely to find yourself pleading for bail and hiring a lawyer out of your own pocket to defend you against a civil suit, and that's exactly how it should be.
A lot of comic books have been written and movies made that glorify vigilantes. The writers can very easily create characters and plots that manipulate our inherent sense of justice and lead us to seeing vigilantes as heroes. The problem is that the Batman doesn't exist, and someone like Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson's character in "Death Wish") could never exist. Even if there are people out there who can be relied upon to hurt or kill only truly evil people, we can't let them. We are a nation of laws. Without laws we live in a country where either chaos or the strongest and most ruthless reign. Laws require coercion and often violence in order for them to effective. Entrusting coercion and violence to the State is perilous enough, but it's essential if order and justice have any chance of reigning. Allowing fellow citizens to wield these forces because we happen to strongly agree that the folks upon whom they will use them are truly horrible is a short sighted folly born of conceit.
Yes, racists are terrible people, and their vitriol is, in fact, harmful to individuals and society, but people who employ violence to enforce their point of view; their will, are worse.
Will you find Antifa thugs posting hateful rhetoric about blacks, gays and women on Facebook? Probably not, but you will very likely find them posting similar shite about Trump supporters, the police, and maybe even Jews - at least the
Zionist ones.
So yes there is equivalency to be found in the debacle in Charlottesville this weekend. Obviously not between James Alex Field Jr. and Heather Heyer, nor between the twisted tiki-torch bearers and the folks Heather Heyer had joined with in a peaceful counter demonstration, but you would be hard pressed to find a material difference between the men lined up before each other screaming profanity, and making displays of aggression like two opposing bands of chimps in the wild. It's impossible for me, at least, to draw meaningful distinctions between the individuals among the crowds attacking one another with clubs, pepper spray and bricks.
Unless you hold your own world view in such high esteem that you can justify lawless violence perpetrated by those who seem to share it, there was equivalency between the thugs on the streets of Charlottesville this weekend.
