Politics discussion: on the alt-right and their relationship to the recent shooting in NZ

Fed up talking videogames? Why?
Corazon de Leon

PostRe: Politics discussion: on the alt-right and their relationship to the recent shooting in NZ
by Corazon de Leon » Sun Mar 17, 2019 1:30 am

Forgive me for this self-indulgent and jumbled ramble, but I want to put my thoughts into black and white while they're fresh.

It's always very difficult to know where to gauge the free speech vs. hate speech argument - despite what both sides believe there is a very fine balance and I've been thinking about it while reading through the thread over the past day or so.

Realistically, I don't think anyone in this thread is arguing that fascism isn't bad, or that racism and hate speech shouldn't be stamped out - the question is how do we define what should and shouldn't be acceptable to discuss, and what/who shouldn't be given a platform?

I believe that free speech is very, very important. But there's a distinction to be made between what constitutes free speech and what is giving a platform to extremism. For example, allowing Tommy Robinson onto a nationally televised political debate show is giving a platform to extremism. It allows Robinson to air his views to a much wider audience than he generally is able to broadcast to alone and risks the door being opened for the radicalisation of young, potentially vulnerable viewers. Allowing Tommy Robinson to continue to organise rallies without arrest probably falls into free speech.

This is more of an issue online, where platforms such as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook are run as corporations and in terms of the content being provided, largely only answer to themselves. The question is - should there be legislation or even self-moderation to stop the spread of hate speech, extremist views and/or racist, sexist or homophobic rhetoric. And the answer is of course - absolutely there should be.

But how do we define what constitutes hate speech, or a dangerous idea? Those who engage in this sort of behaviour on both the left and right wing of political thought have traditionally been very good at masking their true intentions behind smokescreens of propaganda, and the veneer of "common sense thinking," or "freedom of speech." It's not as difficult as you might think to hide an extremist view that most would find abhorrent when written in plain English inside what appears to be a perfectly logical statement. The root idea becomes insidious, intertwining with the "logical statement" and implanting the message into the mind of anyone who reads it. Karl made a good point earlier:

Karl wrote:In 20th century warfare, propaganda (to win hearts and minds) was as important a weapon as a gun or a tank. In the culture war, memes are weapons. You have to adjust to that silly-sounding reality if you want to understand how politics works in the 21st century. The alt-right wormhole is directly responsible for Brexit, Trump, and this terrorist attack.


Personally, I agree that for the "alt-right," controversy and continued debate over their views is the oxygen that they need to spread, and it needs to be sucked away from them. I don't know what the best way of going about this is. As Moggy's stats proved, a thrashing in a public debate doesn't help. I'm not sure it's even possible to throttle the life out of the Graham Linehans of this world on Twitter. What surely isn't arguable is that letting them loose on our airwaves and bandwidth will make things worse, and ignoring or apologising for what is already going on won't make the problem go away.

How do you fight against a class of people online who are becoming more skilled in the use of black propaganda by the day? Information is generally the best way to fight against a propagandist. I think it was Jacques Ellul who wrote about propaganda as being most effective when the state - or the propagandist - controls the airwaves. His book came out in the 1960s but the concept remains true even now. Give someone control of media, and the propaganda becomes more effective.

So it follows that giving toxic culture control over social media means that propaganda becomes more easily spread, right? And it follows that giving a Tommy Robinson sort any TV time is not an easy win, but a spectacular own goal. It's not important for misogynists, racists or homophobes to have a loud voice on any network, at any time. Quite the opposite in fact. That's not a question of terminating free speech, it's a question of terminating hate speech. Finding the propagandists and the snake-oil salesmen who dress up their racism and making sure they're not allowed to keep preying on the disenfranchised and the poor by blaming the dreaded "other" for their woes.

Right wing politics was never supposed to be about any of this(and there are plenty of historic examples of left wing problems to go with those of the right wing), so it's not even a question of the left trying to censor the right. It's a question of not normalising radicalism. Would the BBC allow a convicted Islamic hate preacher to appear on Question Time - in the audience or on the panel? If not, then why is it ok for someone who has expressed anti-Islamic, racist, misogynist or homophobic views to do likewise? And if we wouldn't be happy with them espousing their views outside the local shopping centre, why is it alright for them to do it on Twitter or Facebook?

Ultimately, we're entering an unprecedented period of history now, where our actions in reigning in the utter lawlessness of social media will have massive, unpredictable consequences on the next generation. It's very important that we as a society begin to exert some kind of control over social media and stop allowing the normalisation of radicalism, which is really what we're talking about here.

--

As an aside, I'm worried that the world is standing on a precipice similar to the one we were on in 1934, only with even less understanding of how the modern world works. There's an undercurrent of racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia obviously prevalent in public discourse that I've never seen in my lifetime. It scares me. The parallels to what should be a distant past scare me. In the wake of a massive worldwide recession, charismatic, racist white men sold a con to their societies. A picture of something that never existed. "It's their fault," they said. "Those people coming here, the Jews and the gypsies and the homosexuals. They're taking our jobs, ruining our countries and making a mockery of our way of life. Follow me, and I'll keep them out. I'll make our country truly great again."

We know how that ended, and we promised it would never happen again, and yet it seems to be doing exactly that. I genuinely believe that this debate over free speech will define the milennial generation, and I really strawberry floating hope we get it right.




TL;DR we're strawberry floated. Sorry lads.

Last edited by Corazon de Leon on Sun Mar 17, 2019 1:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Peter Crisp
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PostRe: Politics discussion: on the alt-right and their relationship to the recent shooting in NZ
by Peter Crisp » Sun Mar 17, 2019 1:31 am

I see you like Dragonlance Gemini73.

Vermilion wrote:I'd rather live in Luton.
Gemini73

PostRe: Politics discussion: on the alt-right and their relationship to the recent shooting in NZ
by Gemini73 » Sun Mar 17, 2019 2:39 am

Peter Crisp wrote:I see you like Dragonlance Gemini73.


Oh yes indeedy. I've quite the book collection. 8-)

...wait, it's not fascist is it? It's about wizards and dragons. :shifty:

Gemini73

PostRe: Politics discussion: on the alt-right and their relationship to the recent shooting in NZ
by Gemini73 » Sun Mar 17, 2019 2:52 am

Corazon de Leon wrote:Forgive me for this self-indulgent and jumbled ramble, but I want to put my thoughts into black and white while they're fresh.

It's always very difficult to know where to gauge the free speech vs. hate speech argument - despite what both sides believe there is a very fine balance and I've been thinking about it while reading through the thread over the past day or so.

Realistically, I don't think anyone in this thread is arguing that fascism isn't bad, or that racism and hate speech shouldn't be stamped out - the question is how do we define what should and shouldn't be acceptable to discuss, and what/who shouldn't be given a platform?

I believe that free speech is very, very important. But there's a distinction to be made between what constitutes free speech and what is giving a platform to extremism. For example, allowing Tommy Robinson onto a nationally televised political debate show is giving a platform to extremism. It allows Robinson to air his views to a much wider audience than he generally is able to broadcast to alone and risks the door being opened for the radicalisation of young, potentially vulnerable viewers. Allowing Tommy Robinson to continue to organise rallies without arrest probably falls into free speech.

This is more of an issue online, where platforms such as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook are run as corporations and in terms of the content being provided, largely only answer to themselves. The question is - should there be legislation or even self-moderation to stop the spread of hate speech, extremist views and/or racist, sexist or homophobic rhetoric. And the answer is of course - absolutely there should be.

But how do we define what constitutes hate speech, or a dangerous idea? Those who engage in this sort of behaviour on both the left and right wing of political thought have traditionally been very good at masking their true intentions behind smokescreens of propaganda, and the veneer of "common sense thinking," or "freedom of speech." It's not as difficult as you might think to hide an extremist view that most would find abhorrent when written in plain English inside what appears to be a perfectly logical statement. The root idea becomes insidious, intertwining with the "logical statement" and implanting the message into the mind of anyone who reads it. Karl made a good point earlier:

Karl wrote:In 20th century warfare, propaganda (to win hearts and minds) was as important a weapon as a gun or a tank. In the culture war, memes are weapons. You have to adjust to that silly-sounding reality if you want to understand how politics works in the 21st century. The alt-right wormhole is directly responsible for Brexit, Trump, and this terrorist attack.


Personally, I agree that for the "alt-right," controversy and continued debate over their views is the oxygen that they need to spread, and it needs to be sucked away from them. I don't know what the best way of going about this is. As Moggy's stats proved, a thrashing in a public debate doesn't help. I'm not sure it's even possible to throttle the life out of the Graham Linehans of this world on Twitter. What surely isn't arguable is that letting them loose on our airwaves and bandwidth will make things worse, and ignoring or apologising for what is already going on won't make the problem go away.

How do you fight against a class of people online who are becoming more skilled in the use of black propaganda by the day? Information is generally the best way to fight against a propagandist. I think it was Jacques Ellul who wrote about propaganda as being most effective when the state - or the propagandist - controls the airwaves. His book came out in the 1960s but the concept remains true even now. Give someone control of media, and the propaganda becomes more effective.

So it follows that giving toxic culture control over social media means that propaganda becomes more easily spread, right? And it follows that giving a Tommy Robinson sort any TV time is not an easy win, but a spectacular own goal. It's not important for misogynists, racists or homophobes to have a loud voice on any network, at any time. Quite the opposite in fact. That's not a question of terminating free speech, it's a question of terminating hate speech. Finding the propagandists and the snake-oil salesmen who dress up their racism and making sure they're not allowed to keep preying on the disenfranchised and the poor by blaming the dreaded "other" for their woes.

Right wing politics was never supposed to be about any of this(and there are plenty of historic examples of left wing problems to go with those of the right wing), so it's not even a question of the left trying to censor the right. It's a question of not normalising radicalism. Would the BBC allow a convicted Islamic hate preacher to appear on Question Time - in the audience or on the panel? If not, then why is it ok for someone who has expressed anti-Islamic, racist, misogynist or homophobic views to do likewise? And if we wouldn't be happy with them espousing their views outside the local shopping centre, why is it alright for them to do it on Twitter or Facebook?

Ultimately, we're entering an unprecedented period of history now, where our actions in reigning in the utter lawlessness of social media will have massive, unpredictable consequences on the next generation. It's very important that we as a society begin to exert some kind of control over social media and stop allowing the normalisation of radicalism, which is really what we're talking about here.

--

As an aside, I'm worried that the world is standing on a precipice similar to the one we were on in 1934, only with even less understanding of how the modern world works. There's an undercurrent of racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia obviously prevalent in public discourse that I've never seen in my lifetime. It scares me. The parallels to what should be a distant past scare me. In the wake of a massive worldwide recession, charismatic, racist white men sold a con to their societies. A picture of something that never existed. "It's their fault," they said. "Those people coming here, the Jews and the gypsies and the homosexuals. They're taking our jobs, ruining our countries and making a mockery of our way of life. Follow me, and I'll keep them out. I'll make our country truly great again."

We know how that ended, and we promised it would never happen again, and yet it seems to be doing exactly that. I genuinely believe that this debate over free speech will define the milennial generation, and I really strawberry floating hope we get it right.



I'd like to think that we can all agree that political extremes are always dangerous, whether swinging from the right or the left. The way I see it is we have both these extremes currently gaining lots of momentum in the UK and very little in the way of a middle ground to keep either side reigned in, so to speak. If I have any concerns then it's that one of these political extremes is going to gain the higher ground at some point and that's not good.

I've already drawn up plans for the bunker.

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Prototype
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PostRe: Politics discussion: on the alt-right and their relationship to the recent shooting in NZ
by Prototype » Sun Mar 17, 2019 8:07 am

Magius, I remember! Carentan on CoD2 was a favourite.

Last edited by Prototype on Sun Mar 17, 2019 8:59 am, edited 1 time in total.
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1cmanny1
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PostRe: Politics discussion: on the alt-right and their relationship to the recent shooting in NZ
by 1cmanny1 » Sun Mar 17, 2019 8:57 am

You know what? Some people are just strawberry floating lunatics.
It doesn't matter if they are white, black, SJW or far right. They are mental.

Trying to find meaning is pointless, and making it political is disgusting.
The guy is insane, and only wants to be infamous. So screw all the media outlets posting him and his manifesto, and screw everyone soaking it up.

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Prototype
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PostRe: Politics discussion: on the alt-right and their relationship to the recent shooting in NZ
by Prototype » Sun Mar 17, 2019 8:59 am

Cmanny with the first decent post in this thread.

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Moggy
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PostRe: Politics discussion: on the alt-right and their relationship to the recent shooting in NZ
by Moggy » Sun Mar 17, 2019 9:02 am

1cmanny1 wrote:You know what? Some people are just strawberry floating lunatics.
It doesn't matter if they are white, black, SJW or far right. They are mental.

Trying to find meaning is pointless, and making it political is disgusting.
The guy is insane, and only wants to be infamous. So screw all the media outlets posting him and his manifesto, and screw everyone soaking it up.


Just writing them off as crazy is a dangerous game. If they are radicalised then we need to find out how to combat that radicalisation in order to try and stop other people getting radicalised.

You’ll never stop mass killers, people will always kill other people. But you might be able to reduce it.

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Knoyleo
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PostRe: Politics discussion: on the alt-right and their relationship to the recent shooting in NZ
by Knoyleo » Sun Mar 17, 2019 9:23 am

1cmanny1 wrote:You know what? Some people are just strawberry floating lunatics.
It doesn't matter if they are white, black, SJW or far right. They are mental.

Trying to find meaning is pointless, and making it political is disgusting.
The guy is insane, and only wants to be infamous. So screw all the media outlets posting him and his manifesto, and screw everyone soaking it up.

Social introspection is hard, so why bother?

pjbetman wrote:That's the stupidest thing ive ever read on here i think.
Gemini73

PostRe: Politics discussion: on the alt-right and their relationship to the recent shooting in NZ
by Gemini73 » Sun Mar 17, 2019 10:11 am

Prototype wrote:Magius, I remember! Carentan on CoD2 was a favourite.


:D 8-)

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PostRe: Politics discussion: on the alt-right and their relationship to the recent shooting in NZ
by Tafdolphin » Sun Mar 17, 2019 10:29 am

Knoyleo wrote:
1cmanny1 wrote:You know what? Some people are just strawberry floating lunatics.
It doesn't matter if they are white, black, SJW or far right. They are mental.

Trying to find meaning is pointless, and making it political is disgusting.
The guy is insane, and only wants to be infamous. So screw all the media outlets posting him and his manifesto, and screw everyone soaking it up.

Social introspection is hard, so why bother?


Yeah, this sort of thinking is dismissive in the extreme, fumblingly simplistic and it actually helps perpetrate the myth that the guy was simply 'a mental' rather than a symptom of a growing radicalisation machine.

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PostRe: Politics discussion: on the alt-right and their relationship to the recent shooting in NZ
by coldspice » Sun Mar 17, 2019 10:49 am

Gemini73 wrote:
Corazon de Leon wrote:Forgive me for this self-indulgent and jumbled ramble, but I want to put my thoughts into black and white while they're fresh.

It's always very difficult to know where to gauge the free speech vs. hate speech argument - despite what both sides believe there is a very fine balance and I've been thinking about it while reading through the thread over the past day or so.

Realistically, I don't think anyone in this thread is arguing that fascism isn't bad, or that racism and hate speech shouldn't be stamped out - the question is how do we define what should and shouldn't be acceptable to discuss, and what/who shouldn't be given a platform?

I believe that free speech is very, very important. But there's a distinction to be made between what constitutes free speech and what is giving a platform to extremism. For example, allowing Tommy Robinson onto a nationally televised political debate show is giving a platform to extremism. It allows Robinson to air his views to a much wider audience than he generally is able to broadcast to alone and risks the door being opened for the radicalisation of young, potentially vulnerable viewers. Allowing Tommy Robinson to continue to organise rallies without arrest probably falls into free speech.

This is more of an issue online, where platforms such as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook are run as corporations and in terms of the content being provided, largely only answer to themselves. The question is - should there be legislation or even self-moderation to stop the spread of hate speech, extremist views and/or racist, sexist or homophobic rhetoric. And the answer is of course - absolutely there should be.

But how do we define what constitutes hate speech, or a dangerous idea? Those who engage in this sort of behaviour on both the left and right wing of political thought have traditionally been very good at masking their true intentions behind smokescreens of propaganda, and the veneer of "common sense thinking," or "freedom of speech." It's not as difficult as you might think to hide an extremist view that most would find abhorrent when written in plain English inside what appears to be a perfectly logical statement. The root idea becomes insidious, intertwining with the "logical statement" and implanting the message into the mind of anyone who reads it. Karl made a good point earlier:

Karl wrote:In 20th century warfare, propaganda (to win hearts and minds) was as important a weapon as a gun or a tank. In the culture war, memes are weapons. You have to adjust to that silly-sounding reality if you want to understand how politics works in the 21st century. The alt-right wormhole is directly responsible for Brexit, Trump, and this terrorist attack.


Personally, I agree that for the "alt-right," controversy and continued debate over their views is the oxygen that they need to spread, and it needs to be sucked away from them. I don't know what the best way of going about this is. As Moggy's stats proved, a thrashing in a public debate doesn't help. I'm not sure it's even possible to throttle the life out of the Graham Linehans of this world on Twitter. What surely isn't arguable is that letting them loose on our airwaves and bandwidth will make things worse, and ignoring or apologising for what is already going on won't make the problem go away.

How do you fight against a class of people online who are becoming more skilled in the use of black propaganda by the day? Information is generally the best way to fight against a propagandist. I think it was Jacques Ellul who wrote about propaganda as being most effective when the state - or the propagandist - controls the airwaves. His book came out in the 1960s but the concept remains true even now. Give someone control of media, and the propaganda becomes more effective.

So it follows that giving toxic culture control over social media means that propaganda becomes more easily spread, right? And it follows that giving a Tommy Robinson sort any TV time is not an easy win, but a spectacular own goal. It's not important for misogynists, racists or homophobes to have a loud voice on any network, at any time. Quite the opposite in fact. That's not a question of terminating free speech, it's a question of terminating hate speech. Finding the propagandists and the snake-oil salesmen who dress up their racism and making sure they're not allowed to keep preying on the disenfranchised and the poor by blaming the dreaded "other" for their woes.

Right wing politics was never supposed to be about any of this(and there are plenty of historic examples of left wing problems to go with those of the right wing), so it's not even a question of the left trying to censor the right. It's a question of not normalising radicalism. Would the BBC allow a convicted Islamic hate preacher to appear on Question Time - in the audience or on the panel? If not, then why is it ok for someone who has expressed anti-Islamic, racist, misogynist or homophobic views to do likewise? And if we wouldn't be happy with them espousing their views outside the local shopping centre, why is it alright for them to do it on Twitter or Facebook?

Ultimately, we're entering an unprecedented period of history now, where our actions in reigning in the utter lawlessness of social media will have massive, unpredictable consequences on the next generation. It's very important that we as a society begin to exert some kind of control over social media and stop allowing the normalisation of radicalism, which is really what we're talking about here.

--

As an aside, I'm worried that the world is standing on a precipice similar to the one we were on in 1934, only with even less understanding of how the modern world works. There's an undercurrent of racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia obviously prevalent in public discourse that I've never seen in my lifetime. It scares me. The parallels to what should be a distant past scare me. In the wake of a massive worldwide recession, charismatic, racist white men sold a con to their societies. A picture of something that never existed. "It's their fault," they said. "Those people coming here, the Jews and the gypsies and the homosexuals. They're taking our jobs, ruining our countries and making a mockery of our way of life. Follow me, and I'll keep them out. I'll make our country truly great again."

We know how that ended, and we promised it would never happen again, and yet it seems to be doing exactly that. I genuinely believe that this debate over free speech will define the milennial generation, and I really strawberry floating hope we get it right.


I'd like to think that we can all agree that political extremes are always dangerous, whether swinging from the right or the left. The way I see it is we have both these extremes currently gaining lots of momentum in the UK and very little in the way of a middle ground to keep either side reigned in, so to speak. If I have any concerns then it's that one of these political extremes is going to gain the higher ground at some point and that's not good.

I've already drawn up plans for the bunker.

What harm do you see being done by the "extreme" left in society right now? For bonus points, finish your explanation without using the phrase "SJW"

Gemini73

PostRe: Politics discussion: on the alt-right and their relationship to the recent shooting in NZ
by Gemini73 » Sun Mar 17, 2019 11:52 am

Minty14 wrote:For bonus points, finish your explanation without using the phrase "SJW"


The fact you presumed that I would head down such a path says a lot about yourself and your own thought process. Let me guess, you probably think I'm alt-right leaning because I dared to suggest the left is anything other than moderate and" right on"? Yeah, this exactly my point and I why I don't engage with folk like yourself on either side of the [extremist] fence. Ya'll barking.

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PostRe: Politics discussion: on the alt-right and their relationship to the recent shooting in NZ
by Cuttooth » Sun Mar 17, 2019 12:03 pm

jawafour wrote:This is a tricky question and I want to use my words carefully; not because I'm attempting to appease people but because I am concerned that my words could be misconstrued.

I abhore racism and I wish people did not hold racist views. In my opinion, it is born out of ignorance and unfamiliarity. However, I also feel that in order to make progress, people have to talk in order to gain greater understanding of the factors driving the behaviour. I recognise that this can be virtually impossible in some situations; the views can be so strongly held that there can be an unwillingness to listen, learn or change. I also hold hope that, in some cases, this approach may produce better results.

So, yes, I feel that racism should not be tolerated but I also believe in the potential for change; whilst recognising that some people are just not going to.

Education is absolutely key and I believe many who hold white supremacist views or are sympathetic to those views can be brought back from that extremist viewpoint, particularly when events like far-right terror attacks show exactly where that hatred leads. However that education shouldn't be in the form of total balance or seeking a compromise between advocating the oppression of minorities and advocating for their human rights and an equal place in society. Racism has to be confronted to be defeated. Take a minute to read this article on how anti-fascist teachers in Crete helped drive Golden Dawn from the island by confronting those ideologies in the classroom. They also celebrated multiculturalism generally and forced far-right sympathising pupils to recognise how the ideology they were falling into personally affects their friends and peers. I'm certain a similar curriculum in British schools would soon be called out in the press and online presence as being "left wing indoctrination" or something similar, and it would be important to ask why it would be called out as that.

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018 ... olden-dawn

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PostRe: Politics discussion: on the alt-right and their relationship to the recent shooting in NZ
by Cuttooth » Sun Mar 17, 2019 12:07 pm

Gemini73 wrote:
Minty14 wrote:For bonus points, finish your explanation without using the phrase "SJW"


The fact you presumed that I would head down such a path says a lot about yourself and your own thought process. Let me guess, you probably think I'm alt-right leaning because I dared to suggest the left is anything other than moderate and" right on"? Yeah, this exactly my point and I why I don't engage with folk like yourself on either side of the [extremist] fence. Ya'll barking.

What does left wing extremism look like in your view though?

Gemini73

PostRe: Politics discussion: on the alt-right and their relationship to the recent shooting in NZ
by Gemini73 » Sun Mar 17, 2019 12:10 pm

Cuttooth wrote:
Gemini73 wrote:
Minty14 wrote:For bonus points, finish your explanation without using the phrase "SJW"


The fact you presumed that I would head down such a path says a lot about yourself and your own thought process. Let me guess, you probably think I'm alt-right leaning because I dared to suggest the left is anything other than moderate and" right on"? Yeah, this exactly my point and I why I don't engage with folk like yourself on either side of the [extremist] fence. Ya'll barking.

What does left wing extremism look like in your view though?


Venezuela.

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PostRe: Politics discussion: on the alt-right and their relationship to the recent shooting in NZ
by Tineash » Sun Mar 17, 2019 12:11 pm

This thread has turned into a strawberry floating farce

"exceptionally annoying" - TheTurnipKing
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PostRe: Politics discussion: on the alt-right and their relationship to the recent shooting in NZ
by That » Sun Mar 17, 2019 12:14 pm

Gemini73 wrote:
Minty14 wrote:For bonus points, finish your explanation without using the phrase "SJW"

The fact you presumed that I would head down such a path says a lot about yourself and your own thought process. Let me guess, you probably think I'm alt-right leaning because I dared to suggest the left is anything other than moderate and" right on"? Yeah, this exactly my point and I why I don't engage with folk like yourself on either side of the [extremist] fence. Ya'll barking.

It's a valid point though isn't it, even if he made it in a presumptuous way? Maybe I can ask more respectfully as I'm curious about your answer:

I see a lot of people in this kind of situation emphasising, "I'm against extremist politics, right-wing sure, but left-wing as well!". It seems an odd way to emphasise it, because it suggests the problem is the same in magnitude on both sides. I'd suggest this isn't really the case.

Authoritarians do exist on the left; in leftist communities we call them tankies (because they tend to love Stalin and Mao), and they're scum! But unlike fascists on the right, tankies don't really seem to be defining the zeitgeist of political discourse. They're too few in numbers, they're ineffective at spreading their (terrible) ideas, and they (despite being genuinely awful people) don't seem to be egging each other on to go out and shoot people like fascists are.

I'm really interested to hear from a moderate such as yourself, are you equally worried - in practical terms - about tankies and fascists? Why?

Or do you mean something else when you say "extreme left"? Are you equally worried about, say, fascism and anarchosyndicalism? If so, again, why?

Gemini73 wrote:Venezuela.

Why is the current political state of Venezuela relevant here? Like, what do you actually mean by this?

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PostRe: Politics discussion: on the alt-right and their relationship to the recent shooting in NZ
by Tafdolphin » Sun Mar 17, 2019 12:19 pm

Yeah Venezuela is a right wing taking point with no relevance outside of Venezuela.

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PostRe: Politics discussion: on the alt-right and their relationship to the recent shooting in NZ
by Knoyleo » Sun Mar 17, 2019 12:21 pm

Gemini73 wrote:
Cuttooth wrote:
Gemini73 wrote:
Minty14 wrote:For bonus points, finish your explanation without using the phrase "SJW"


The fact you presumed that I would head down such a path says a lot about yourself and your own thought process. Let me guess, you probably think I'm alt-right leaning because I dared to suggest the left is anything other than moderate and" right on"? Yeah, this exactly my point and I why I don't engage with folk like yourself on either side of the [extremist] fence. Ya'll barking.

What does left wing extremism look like in your view though?


Venezuela.

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pjbetman wrote:That's the stupidest thing ive ever read on here i think.

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