Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[st barbara]

I'd like to hear from the people who were there protesting against the removal of the statue, before the neo nazis and others turned up.

[Old Man]

Descendants of Robert E. Lee denounce white supremacists, advocate moving statue to museum

[Tech priest support]

OK people want A civil war monument for the confederacy? Fine, I'll even design it:

 

It would be a tableau with 5 typical confederate army privates marching forward, muskets held ready. They would be thin, gaunt and poorly dressed in obviously low quality uniforms. Some would be old, some little more than boys. Some would have their feet wrapped in rags instead of boots.

 

Behind them is an opulently set table with a well fed white family sitting at it consuming a sumptuous meal, while slaves in chains wait on them. The obvious patriarch of this wealthy family would be holding a wine glass in one hand while pointing imperiously ahead with the other, obviously ordering the gaunt, poorly dressed soldiers forward.

 

It would me a memorial to the poor, impoverished common southern citizens that could never afford to own a slave being sent out to fight and die by the wealthy southern slave owners to defend their wealth and right to own slaves.

 

Yeah, that confederate memorial I would have no problem with.

[Joe Walsh]

People who hated our country, tried to destroy it, and killed vast numbers of our people deserve no monuments.

[Joe Walsh]

Or, to put it in a way that Trump and his minions can understand: The Confederates lost. They're losers. I like my monuments to be for winners.

[Hermit]

I'm trying to do the math myself...

 

One group is known for vandalizing, minus 10 points for Antifa!

 

One group is known for promoting/advocating Genocide!  minus 6,000,000 points for Neo Nazis!

 

Both groups accused of throwing some things and throwing punches? Minus 25 points for each!

 

Neo Nazi flat out murders people in a crowd, Minus 1000 points?

 

 

So I'm a little confused on how the math 'makes them even'

[Old Man]

That's because you left out the false equivalency term.

[Joe Walsh]

No matter what the right wing does, every person who isn't right-wing must be perfect in all ways all the time otherwise "both sides do it."

[Hermit]

Okay, NOT Safe for work. This guy did this on that same day, and is PISSED, and it shows. He uses words I'd have to edit if they were on the board so forewarning there.

 

And the guy's anti government streak makes me seem warm and fuzzy towards Big Brother.

 

but damn... whatever his other views (And some others in other videos of his seem a bit whacky to me), I want to applaud this video

 

 

 

 

 

[Lord Liaden]

You know, for years I've responded to people who assert the moral superiority of Western culture by pointing to activities by a minority of extremists among "other" people from "over there," that it's easy to act magnanimous when you belong to the group that's on top. Now we're seeing the truth of that. When some white, self-proclaimed Christians in this part of the world are feeling their previously-privileged status threatened, their worst instincts come to the fore, and a minority of them express the same fear, hatred, and violence they decried those others for.

 

The swinging pendulum always eventually reveals that human nature is human nature, and the struggle to transcend the baser parts of it is fought everywhere.

[pinecone]

I'm going to stay for the jousting:

 

 

But seriously, how delusional are these people? This pic is from the NC fracas. It'd have been comical if not for the other disturbing imagery of the whack job driving his car through a crowd.

And Ma said that SCA nonsense would never come in handy!

[Nolgroth]

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to peaceably assemble. The fact that these scum-sucking, pieces of worm- ridden excrement showed up armed shows intent and malice aforethought to make mischief. I don't hold the counter-protestors completely innocent, but the white supremacist bastards were looking to do harm, not stage a peaceful protest.

 

Speaking as one of those evil Right-wingers, those monsters wearing human form do not represent anything I believe in.

[sinanju]

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to peaceably assemble. The fact that these scum-sucking, pieces of worm- ridden excrement showed up armed shows intent and malice aforethought to make mischief. I don't hold the counter-protestors completely innocent, but the white supremacist bastards were looking to do harm, not stage a peaceful protest.

 

Speaking as one of those evil Right-wingers, those monsters wearing human form do not represent anything I believe in.

 

And the fact that the Antifa showed up armed shows intent and malice aforethought. THAT'S the equivalency.

[Twilight]

And the fact that the Antifa showed up armed shows intent and malice aforethought. THAT'S the equivalency.

If they were expressing a philosophy of hatred and genocide maybe, but they weren't.  Nor did they murder anybody.  Ergo there is no equivalency.

[Sociotard]

I'm with Siaju here. AntiFa is bad news. Oppose with peace. Respect the State's monopoly on violence. Allow them to hurt, and take video, and prosecute.

 

As for the murder, I'm not sure that guy should be included.  I haven't hear that he was a demonstrator at all. Besides, I don't hold the killings of cops against the Black Lives Matter people.

[Zeropoint]

 When some white, self-proclaimed Christians in this part of the world . . .

 

Hey, you don't get to judge whether someone is a "Real Christian" or not. If they say they're Christian, there's no reason not to take them at their word. After all, Hitler was a Christian, too, and a member in good standing of the Catholic Church.

 

If you don't like the fact that your co-religionists are obviously evil and horrible people, maybe it's time to take a hard look at why your religion isn't reliably making people better.

[Ranxerox]

I swear america has reached a point where you have the KKK and neonazis on one side screaming "We want all non whites exterminated! We want all non heterosexuals exterminated!" And you have POC and LGBT people on the other saying "We what equal rights! We want equal justice!"

I'm pretty sure your average KKK member or neo-Nazi doesn't have a hard-on for full scale genocide.  Yeah, sure some of them do and some others could be be gotten by a charismatic leader, but in this moment I strongly doubt that is where most of them are at mentally.  No, I kinda suspect that for the most part they are guys that aren't doing that well in this life with white privilege on there side and are scared ****less of how they would fare without it.

 

So, more a return to segregation and Jim Crow, than concentration camps and gas chambers.

 

Now, I realize this doesn't leave any middle ground worth claiming for compromise.  Still, the change in perspective is helpful, because if they are genocide hungry monsters almost any act taken against them can be considered justified, including violence and even murder.  However, if they are just guys whose lives aren't going well and as a result of that are in a bad place mentally, then they can potentially be turned around and put on a better path.

 

It is worth noting that there are people who have made it their lives work to reach out to Klansmen  and neo-Nazis and have had a large amount of success getting them to drop their robes and swastikas. So, that would seem to support the idea that these are confused and unhappy people and not psychopaths.

[Lord Liaden]

Hey, you don't get to judge whether someone is a "Real Christian" or not. If they say they're Christian, there's no reason not to take them at their word. After all, Hitler was a Christian, too, and a member in good standing of the Catholic Church.

 

If you don't like the fact that your co-religionists are obviously evil and horrible people, maybe it's time to take a hard look at why your religion isn't reliably making people better.

 

Actually, I'm an atheist. I used "self-proclaimed" because many members of the alt-right do identify themselves as Christian, and I do take them at their word that they so consider themselves. Others can and have disputed that identification on the basis that their expressed views and actions are the antithesis of Christianity; but as you say, it's not for me to judge.

[DShomshak]

Speaking as one of those evil Right-wingers, those monsters wearing human form do not represent anything I believe in.

Hey, I don't know what "Right Wing" even *means* anymore. Not when so many people have cheerfully tossed supposedly cherished views for the sake of power. Free markets and free trade? Nah, let's have protectionism and business decisions made in the White House. Family Values? Nah, let's vote for a serial womanizer and sexual predator, it's worth it to get someone on "our side" on the Supreme Court. National Security? Oh, Putin's not so bad, he mostly hacked the other party.

 

Meanwhile, yesterday the public radio program Fresh Air interviewed Max Brooks, author of World War Z (among others). He's part of a U. S. military think tank trying to anticipate emerging threats. They think about touchy-feely-lefty subjects such as climate change and public health in the Third World, because these things can harm us. The American Left traditionally disdains the military, but these "patriotic intellectuals," as Brooks calls them, sound... progressive.

 

It was quite an interesting program.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Lord Liaden]

It is worth noting that there are people who have made it their lives work to reach out to Klansmen  and neo-Nazis and have had a large amount of success getting them to drop their robes and swastikas. So, that would seem to support the idea that these are confused and unhappy people and not psychopaths.

 

Many commentators recently have been paraphrasing Martin Luther King in pointing out that people aren't born hating any group; they have to be taught to hate. I concur that no few people espousing a white-nationalist/supremacist philosophy, or preaching hatred of entire ethnic or religious groups, were brought up indoctrinated in those beliefs by others, or have embraced them as a way to rationalize and scapegoat the fear and despair they feel in their lives. So yes, some such people may potentially be turned to a more constructive path.

 

That doesn't change the fact that the philosophy itself is loathsome and should be denounced; and those who seek to propagate it publicly have to be publicly disputed. History has shown that ignoring those sentiments only allows them to grow, until they burst all bounds of civilized restraint.

[Old Man]

As for the murder, I'm not sure that guy should be included.  I haven't hear that he was a demonstrator at all. Besides, I don't hold the killings of cops against the Black Lives Matter people.

 

Charlottesville driver photographed with Vanguard America at Unite the Right rally prior to vehicular attack

[megaplayboy]

Yeah, he was an actual participant in the demonstration and a member of one of the groups involved. So separating him seems more problematic than, say, doing so in the case of the cop killer in Dallas(at which BLM was peacefully protesting).

[Hermit]

Hey, you don't get to judge whether someone is a "Real Christian" or not. If they say they're Christian, there's no reason not to take them at their word. After all, Hitler was a Christian, too, and a member in good standing of the Catholic Church.

 

If you don't like the fact that your co-religionists are obviously evil and horrible people, maybe it's time to take a hard look at why your religion isn't reliably making people better.

 

Are you kidding ? folks debate who is or isn't a Christian all the time. Who is one, and who is just pretending to be one for political gain or social acceptance.

Why do you think the faith has so many divisions, schisms, and so on? 

 

 

 

Adolf Hitler's religious beliefs have been a matter of debate; the wide consensus of historians consider him to have been irreligious and anti-Christian, while a small minority have claimed he was a Christian. In light of evidence such as his rejection of the tenets of Christianity as an adolescent,^[1], numerous private statements to confidants denouncing Christianity as a harmful superstition, and his strenuous efforts to reduce the influence and independence of Christianity in Germany after he came to power, Hitler's major academic biographers conclude that he was an opponent of Christianity. -

 

Now that was the summary, Watch the ball bounce back and forth here.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Adolf_Hitler#Hitler_on_Christianity_and_.22Positive_Christianity.22

 

These guys can claim to believe in the Teachings of Jesus

They can claim to be real Americans and that other citizens aren't

They can claim they're saving Americans and America with their hate.

 

They can claim whatever they want

 

I don't have to take any of it as an automatic truth.

 

The bible itself speaks of false prophets, knowing people by their fruits, and Jesus looking at people who claim to have done all this for him and his response "I do not know you"

[Lord Liaden]

Meanwhile, yesterday the public radio program Fresh Air interviewed Max Brooks, author of World War Z (among others). He's part of a U. S. military think tank trying to anticipate emerging threats. They think about touchy-feely-lefty subjects such as climate change and public health in the Third World, because these things can harm us. The American Left traditionally disdains the military, but these "patriotic intellectuals," as Brooks calls them, sound... progressive.

 

It was quite an interesting program.

 

Dean Shomshak

 

As I've said on numerous occasions, we have to recognize that there are reasonable, thoughtful people on the "left" and the "right," among the Republicans and the Democrats. Reasonable, thoughtful people can disagree on a number of issues, without being spawn of evil. And they can find common ground on matters of clear and present threat, without being traitors to their beliefs. IMHO people of any stripe who refuse to even consider cooperation or compromise on dogmatic grounds, are neither thoughtful nor reasonable.

[Hermit]

As I've said on numerous occasions, we have to recognize that there are reasonable, thoughtful people on the "left" and the "right," among the Republicans and the Democrats. Reasonable, thoughtful people can disagree on a number of issues, without being spawn of evil. And they can find common ground on matters of clear and present threat, without being traitors to their beliefs. IMHO people of any stripe who refuse to even consider cooperation or compromise on dogmatic grounds, are neither thoughtful nor reasonable.

 

Well said. 

 

For an Atheist Foreign influence whose loyalties to Aquaman have never been confirmed!!

 

(Sorry, trying to lighten things up. I'm sure you love Aquaman in your heart- all good people do)