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[Arkage]

"Fascism is bad" and "people of color should be purged from the country" do not seem like super equivalent ideologies to me.

Antifa is explicitly pro-violence and anti-dialogue as far as I can tell. While not as bad as Nazism, it's not just holding a sign saying "facism is bad" as you seem to imply. Also, good luck finding the lines antifa draw to determine who's a "facist" or "Nazi" (likely all Trump supporters in their view), and thus, who it's ethically OK to physically assault in order to hypothetically prevent the spread of bad ideas.

 

[danm999]

Many evangelicals believe prayer can cure illness. Should it be taught in a course on medicine?

 

[pigeon]

Antifa is explicitly pro-violence and anti-dialogue as far as I can tell. While not as bad as Nazism, it's not just holding a sign saying "facism is bad" as you seem to imply. Also, good luck finding the lines antifa draw to determine who's a "facist" or "Nazi" (likely all Trump supporters in their view), and thus, who it's ethically OK to physically assault in order to supposedly prevent the spread of bad ideas.

"Fascism is bad and should be opposed with violence" is literally the cornerstone assertion underlying the entire global order since 1945, so I still can't get too mad about it. Dialogue with fascists didn't have a very good track record.

I don't think the antifa lines are all that complicated. They've literally been around for decades in Berkeley and there haven't been constant news stories about them assaulting people. The violence seems to have arisen specifically in response to a bunch of fascists deciding to come to Berkeley, which seems reasonable.

 

[Spectone]

"Fascism is bad" and "people of color should be purged from the country" do not seem like super equivalent ideologies to me.

Not all of antifa are bad eggs but the ones that are could cause just as much trouble if they were given power. We should not forget what happened during the communist purges.

Having said that though in the USA there is not a major political party supporting anarchists/marxists. There is one supporting the extreme right though.

 

[Ponn]

I consider myself fiscally conservative and socially moderate. I believe in more limited social welfare programs, a flat tax rate.

If you are going to Berkeley, and are a Republican trying to go to a Milo or Ann Coulter speech this is complete and utter bullshit. It's became a complete and utter bullshit anyways regardless but just more so. Republicans haven't been fiscally conservative in decades. If you are voting for them you know full well what you are getting and are ok with all racist, bigoted and harmful policies like the recent AHCA that are literally going to kill people.

As a Republican on campus I am targeted frequently. I have been spit on on several occasions. I have had drinks thrown on me. I have been punched in the face.
Anastasia Pyrinis, 18, political science and economics, Thousand Oaks, Calif.

These people aren't stupid. They have playbooks, they know what strings to pull and what lies they can tell to get sympathy and support. If on the slim chance it did happen my next question would be what were they saying or doing before it happened?

 

[pigeon]

Not all of antifa are bad eggs but the ones that are could cause just as much trouble if they were given power. We should not forget what happened during the communist purges.

Having said that though in the USA there is not a major political party supporting anarchists/marxists. There is one supporting the extreme right though.

This comparison seems kind of wacky, but sure, we should also oppose tankies with violence. Let me know if you encounter even one of them ever.

 

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

Why would you even go to a university widely known as liberal if you're a hateful shitsack, erm, Republican

 

[Epsilon-delta]

Also, are we gonna pretend economics isn't a social science?

It has always bothered me when some put economics on the same footing as the hard sciences, which is downright ridiculous.

 

[Fenderputty]

Antifa is explicitly pro-violence and anti-dialogue as far as I can tell. While not as bad as Nazism, it's not just holding a sign saying "facism is bad" as you seem to imply. Also, good luck finding the lines antifa draw to determine who's a "facist" or "Nazi" (likely all Trump supporters in their view), and thus, who it's ethically OK to physically assault in order to hypothetically prevent the spread of bad ideas.

You're responding to a man who on the last page called for violence against nazis, and who on another page equated young republicans upset at being spit on or punched with those at the nuremberg trials.

 

[Arkage]

"Fascism is bad and should be opposed with violence" is literally the cornerstone assertion underlying the entire global order since 1945, so I still can't get too mad about it. Dialogue with fascists didn't have a very good track record.

I don't think the antifa lines are all that complicated. They've literally been around for decades in Berkeley and there haven't been constant news stories about them assaulting people. The violence seems to have arisen specifically in response to a bunch of fascists deciding to come to Berkeley, which seems reasonable.

Replace fascism with communism or marxism and you could make the same exact argument. Let the face punching of American citizens commence for a better, safer, more loving world.

 

[AYF 001]

Why would you even go to a university widely known as liberal if you're a hateful shitsack, erm, Republican

Well if the son of stormfront can eventually have his beliefs changed by becoming educated, then I'd like to think they too can learn to see how narrow-minded they've been. If they're willing to learn, then there's still hope.

 

[pigeon]

You're responding to a man who on the last page called for violence against nazis, and who on another page equated young republicans upset at being spit on or punched with those at the nuremberg trials.

What exactly is wrong with calling for violence against Nazis

I don't see you giving all this crap to Winston Churchill

 

[Veitsev]

Replace fascism with communism or marxism and you could make the same exact argument. Let the face punching of American citizens commence for a better, safer, more loving world.

No you can't because communism and marxism aren't equitable to fascism.

 

[pigeon]

Replace fascism with communism or marxism and you could make the same exact argument. Let the face punching of American citizens commence for a better, safer, more loving world.

You could, I guess, but it would be a wrong argument

 

[TestOfTide]

Replace fascism with communism or marxism and you could make the same exact argument. Let the face punching of American citizens commence for a better, safer, more loving world.

Except communism and marxism haven't been on the rise.

You know what HAS been on the rise? Fascism.

You know what historically has worked when dealing with fascism? Punching fascists.

 

[HStallion]

Replace fascism with communism or marxism and you could make the same exact argument. Let the face punching of American citizens commence for a better, safer, more loving world.

Replace it with people who like pineapple on pizza.

 

[entremet]

I still contend that these dudes are trolling Berkeley and Berkeley keeps taking the bait.

They will continue to invite controversy so as to paint liberal opposition as violent and chaotic.

 

[Toxi]

I still contend that these dudes are trolling Berkeley and Berkeley keeps taking the bait.

They will continue to invite controversy so as to paint liberal opposition as violent and chaotic.

Then they're disingenuous little shits who deserve neither respect nor conversation.

 

[Fenderputty]

What exactly is wrong with calling for violence against Nazis

I don't see you giving all this crap to Winston Churchill

Maybe the part where you equate tacit support of US conservatism with being a Nazi.

I mean you post on here a lot. One would assume if you were actually running around punching republicans and calling them nazis you wouldnt be able to because you would be in jail.

 

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

Well if the son of stormfront can eventually have his beliefs changed by becoming educated, then I'd like to think they too can learn to see how narrow-minded they've been. If they're willing to learn, then there's still hope.

I actually think it's easier to pull someone like that out, not to mention that Black himself was starting to have doubts. People like this get societal reinforcement that what they're doing isn't wrong.

 

[HStallion]

Maybe the part where you equate tacit support of US conservatism with being a Nazi.

I mean you post on here a lot. One would assume if you were actually running around punching republicans and calling them nazis you wouldnt be able to because you would be in jail.

They didnt seem to mind the Nazis Trump surrounded himself with in both his campaign and his administration.

 

[Arkage]

Except communism and marxism haven't been on the rise.

You know what HAS been on the rise? Fascism.

You know what historically has worked when dealing with fascism? Punching fascists.

You can see Marxist ideology taking hold pretty strongly in leftist circles (ie replace "bourgeoisie" with "privileged" and "proletariat" with "victim" and speeches become interchangeable otherwise, as Jordan Peterson points out). In any case, I would keep debating but you sound like your philosophy on world government is based off an Indiana Jones script. Time to bow out.

 

[pigeon]

Maybe the part where you equate tacit support of US conservatism with being a Nazi.

I mean you post on here a lot. One would assume if you were actually running around punching republicans and calling them nazis you wouldnt be able to because you would be in jail.

Trump is a white supremacist.

If you campaigned for a white supremacist and vigorously endorsed a white supremacist I think it's not unreasonable to think you might also be a white supremacist.

If you are a political party that exists only to support and advance the goals of a white supremacist, you are probably a white supremacist group.

If you voted for a white supremacist then I guess you voted for a white supremacist. Doesn't mean you are a white supremacist, but you're clearly okay with it.

As noted, I don't see a lot of benefit in distinguishing between Nazis and good old-fashioned American white supremacists, and generally neither do they.

 

[IrishNinja]

the left is supposed to be the side of academia/etc yet so many fall for the tired "you're intolerant of my intolerance!" bit, it never ceases to amaze

 

[Fenderputty]

They didnt seem to mind the Nazis Trump surrounded himself with in both his campaign and his administration.

Yes I'm fine with demeaning this behavior. I lost friendships over this election because I disapprove of this support. Tacit support of Trump does not make one a Nazi though. Using the term here is offensive, honestly. Tacit support of Trump isn't a reason for violence either.

Are you punching people too, or are you just supportive of this behavior while sitting behind your keyboard?

 

[TestOfTide]

Maybe the part where you equate tacit support of US conservatism with being a Nazi.

Oh is that what we call it when you invite someone who says shit like this:

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-brief...like-to-see-a-little-more-violence-from-trump

and this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/...nn-coulter-killed-cindy-mccain_n_3060561.html

and this:

https://www.mediamatters.org/video/2011/06/06/ann-coulter-on-kent-state-massacre-thats-what-y/180342

and honestly that last example should be all the reason needed to equate nazis with these jackasses who invite Ann Coulter.

 

[HStallion]

Yes I'm fine with demeaning this behavior. I lost friendships over this election because I disapprove of this support. Tacit support of Trump does not make one a Nazi though. Using the term here is offensive, honestly. Tacit support of Trump isn't a reason for violence either.

Are you punching people too, or are you just supportive of this behavior while sitting behind your keyboard?

No I offer the people cool with Nazis a Pepsi.

 

[Sianos]

If child abuse advocate Milo is who the college republicans invite to represent their views on a public stage under heavy national scrutiny... then I shudder to think what their views are when they aren't putting their "best foot forward" for a highly public showing.

Because it's only rational that the college republicans would choose their best and brightest speaker for this important "debate", right? For them to do otherwise would suggest that they aren't actually there for a debate.

 

[RedAssedApe]

I've seen pieces like this before...example at my alma mater UCLA:

http://dailybruin.com/2017/01/18/conservative-students-face-discrimination-marginalization-at-ucla/

Call me skeptical.

 

[Vicetrailia]

the left is supposed to be the side of academia/etc yet so many fall for the tired "you're intolerant of my intolerance!" bit, it never ceases to amaze

Be tolerant of my intolerance is the right wings slogan.

 

[BunnyBear]

I said nothing defending Milo. He aspires to be indefensible, and he is. I merely said he was massively popular with young American men, which he is.

Donald Trump won the presidency. Those who don't want him to hold onto it should try and get a realistic sense of the cultural landscape that allowed for that to happen, rather than cling to the comforting illusion that most people actually agree with them.

Completely agree. The majority of the posts in this thread suggest most people on GAF don't get it. Treating all Republican voters with utter disdain is completely and utterly counter-intuitive to our aims of getting Trump kicked out in 2020. Not all of them are Nazis, and the ones featured here seemed quite moderate. It's these types of voters (and not The_Donald lunatics) we need to have a dialogue with, not write off in the first instance.

Sixty-fucking-million people voted for the cunt, simply washing our hands of all of them is an asinine strategy if we want a progressive in the White House come the next term.

Full marks to NYT for actually trying to hear them out. They, for one, have learnt the mistakes of the election.

 

[Team Alucard]

You can see Marxist ideology taking hold pretty strongly in leftist circles. In any case, I would keep debating but you sound like your philosophy on world government is based off an Indiana Jones script. Time to bow out.

Not among anyone who has any political power. If anything modern leftist parties are moving to the right. The left wing in France just rallied behind a guy who has promised to eliminate the 35 hour work week, gut labor rights, and rollback social programs.

 

[IrishNinja]

Full marks to NYT for actually trying to hear them out. They, for one, have learnt the mistakes of the election.

this narrative is more broken than berkley windows

 

[Pepboy]

I find it mystifying that Republicans at Berkeley didn't know what they were getting into prior to enrollment. The school does have a bit of a reputation, ya know...

Guess they were "asking for it"? As you mentioned, students should not be physically abused by other students for beliefs they hold, and this sort of attitude diminishes the victimization.

When people are asked why they are Republican, their opinions on reproductive rights are always conspicuoisly absent. It's always this shit.

Reproductive rights are not always the primary, or even a substantial, reason why someone would identify as Republican. So it makes sense they wouldn't mention them.

 

[HStallion]

Completely agree. The majority of the posts in this thread suggest most people on GAF don't get it. Treating all Republican voters with utter disdain is completely and utterly counter-intuitive to our aims of getting Trump kicked out in 2020. Not all of them are Nazis, and the ones featured here seemed quite moderate. It's these types of voters (and not The_Donald lunatics) we need to have a dialogue with, not write off in the first instance.

Sixty-fucking-million people voted for the cunt, simply washing our hands of all of them is an asinine strategy if we want a progressive in the White House come the next term.

Full marks to NYT for actually trying to hear them out. They, for one, have learnt the mistakes of the election.

Or you appeal to half the country that didn't vote at all and drag the last quarter kicking and screaming into the future they can't stand.

 

[BunnyBear]

this narrative is more broken than berkley windows

Why?

 

[Arkage]

Not among anyone who has any political power. If anything modern leftist parties are moving to the right. The left wing in France just rallied behind a guy who has promised to eliminate the 35 hour work week, gut labor rights, and rollback social programs.

True that in the US it's primarily in academia. It's been creeping into Canada's laws, though, and might do so in the US city government level. But I agree at the moment fascism is more of a threat due primarily to Trump's flirtations with it, though fascism itself is pretty directly opposed to democracy, which complicates the whole "antifa" objective to begin with. It's not like Trump seized power, so exactly what kind of government is antifa proposing here?

 

[Unknown Soldier]

You have to literally be crazy to be a Republican at Berkeley.

No one should be surprised that the Berkeley College Republicans are literally crazy.

They were always pulling the craziest shit when I was there and I see they haven't changed at all.

 

[AYF 001]

I actually think it's easier to pull someone like that out, not to mention that Black himself was starting to have doubts. People like this get societal reinforcement that what they're doing isn't wrong.

Well that's the trick, isn't it? You can't really engage someone as an individual when they have their whole echo chamber backing them up. But if they're genuinely interested in venturing outside their comfort zones, meeting different types of people will do them well. But if they only want to engage in their self-fulfilling persecution complexes, you're better off calling them out as the snake oil salesmen they are in front of everyone.

You can try to argue against their disingenuous assertions all you want, but the clueless moderate will only walk into a room seeing two people calling each other stupid and decide they're both stupid. Face punching can be easy and satisfying, but do you really want them to be able to play the victim card on top of it all?

 

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

Why?

If by learning from the election you mean learning to coddle people like the ones interviewed so they might be tricked into voting democrat, then maybe. It's pretty obvious from the interviews given that these kids feel they've done nothing wrong.

 

[pigeon]

Completely agree. The majority of the posts in this thread suggest most people on GAF don't get it. Treating all Republican voters with utter disdain is completely and utterly counter-intuitive to our aims of getting Trump kicked out in 2020. Not all of them are Nazis, and the ones featured here seemed quite moderate. It's these types of voters (and not The_Donald lunatics) we need to have a dialogue with, not write off in the first instance.

I tried asking them why they supported a white supremacist for president, but the dialogue didn't go that well and then they mysteriously got banned for posting stuff that was racist/sexist/homophobic/etc. Very puzzling!

 

[BunnyBear]

Or you appeal to half the country that didn't vote at all and drag the last quarter kicking and screaming into the future they can't stand.

If Obama couldn't get half the country to vote in 2008 and 2012 I don't think anyone will.

 

[Fenderputty]

Trump is a white supremacist.

If you campaigned for a white supremacist and vigorously endorsed a white supremacist I think it's not unreasonable to think you might also be a white supremacist.

If you are a political party that exists only to support and advance the goals of a white supremacist, you are probably a white supremacist group.

If you voted for a white supremacist then I guess you voted for a white supremacist. Doesn't mean you are a white supremacist, but you're clearly okay with it.

As noted, I don't see a lot of benefit in distinguishing between Nazis and good old-fashioned American white supremacists, and generally neither do they.

Theres a lot here that's basically just word babble. Tacit support of Trump doesn't make somone a white supremacist (by your own words even), even though they tacitly supported one. Why did I just read a bunch of stuff about nazis and white supremacists then? Why not a pretty little paragraph about why spitting little miss GOP is A Ok?

 

[HStallion]

True that in the US it's primarily in academia. It's been creeping into Canada's laws, though, and might do so in the US city government level. But I agree at the moment fascism is more of a threat due primarily to Trump's flirtations with it, though fascism itself is pretty directly opposed to democracy, which complicates the whole "antifa" objective to begin with. It's not like Trump seized power, so exactly what kind of government is antifa proposing here?

One not run by an ignorant bigoted narcissistic fool and his cronies and syncopants.

 

[HStallion]

If Obama couldn't get half the country to vote in 2008 and 2012 I don't think anyone will.

You don't need 100% of the country to vote to overcome the hardcore conservative base.

 

[danm999]

If Obama couldn't get half the country to vote in 2008 and 2012 I don't think anyone will.

You wouldn't need all of them.

 

[BunnyBear]

If by learning from the election you mean learning to coddle people like the ones interviewed so they might be tricked into voting democrat, then maybe. It's pretty obvious from the interviews given that these kids feel they've done nothing wrong.

But NYT is a news publication not a psychologist's office. They are still clearly left-leaning and progressive and very harsh on
Trump, as they should be. But they correctly identified that a massive swath of the population felt left behind and not listened to during 2016, and they are attempting to understand the other side.

 

[Spectone]

This comparison seems kind of wacky, but sure, we should also oppose tankies with violence. Let me know if you encounter even one of them ever.

I don't understand what you are saying. I wonder if you did not understand what I said?

 

[Fenderputty]

Oh is that what we call it when you invite someone who says shit like this:

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-brief...like-to-see-a-little-more-violence-from-trump

and this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/...nn-coulter-killed-cindy-mccain_n_3060561.html

and this:

https://www.mediamatters.org/video/2011/06/06/ann-coulter-on-kent-state-massacre-thats-what-y/180342

and honestly that last example should be all the reason needed to equate nazis with these jackasses who invite Ann Coulter.

I mean sure, Coulter is a vile person. Do you think Coulter or a conservative troll from Berkly trying to make a point is Nuremberg trial vile?

Is anyone here that's supporting violence against right wingers actually committing acts of violence, or is everyone just handing out Pepsis

 

[TestOfTide]

Theres a lot here that's basically just word babble. Tacit support of Trump doesn't make somone a white supremacist (by your own words even), even though they tacitly supported one. Why did I just read a bunch of stuff about nazis and white supremacists then? Why not a pretty little paragraph about why spitting little miss GOP is A Ok?

So explain to me and pigeon why we should respect a political group that wants to be represented by a bitch who justifies the Kent State shooting:

https://www.mediamatters.org/video/2011/06/06/ann-coulter-on-kent-state-massacre-thats-what-y/180342

I mean sure, Coulter is a vile person. Do you think Coulter or a conservative troll from Berkly trying to make a point is Nuremberg trial vile?

Is anyone here that's supporting violence against right wingers actually committing acts of violence, or is everyone just handing out Pepsis

So when Coulter justifies violence on her side, she's just "trolling"?

I'm not equating every republican with nazis and neither is pigeon. But the jackasses who want to be represented by Ann fucking Coulter and Milo the Pedo Apologist definitely deserve the Nazi label.