Trump -- once again -- fails to condemn the alt-right, white supremacists

[szechuan]

I'm impressed that the right hates the left so much that they've united with literal Nazis. That's hatred for you.

Truer words never been spoken.

 

[Rion]

It's why I said "technically". Communism is basically just glorified Communalism.



Right. Let's recognize that these groups never had classes with which to go to war. They did not require a revolution. What's Communism after the Revolution? Everybody takes according to their needs, and works to their ability. The workers control the means of production. Work for the benefit of the community, not the individual.

My point is merely that Communism doesn't have to be extreme.

My point is that the Amish are not communists. Again, private ownership exists.

You're saying Black Lives Matter is as bad as Nazis?

I see a striking difference between the two, even ignoring that we literally fought a war against one of these groups where the whole world got involved.

No, I'm saying that BLM is as bad as white supremacists. Just as communism is as bad as Nazism, as they have resulted in millions of deaths, untold suffering, but only one people think should still be tried for some freaking reason.

 

[Obliquinaut]

Just so we are clear, your argument is that the communists aren't bad because they're too stupid to know who Stalin was?

No, my argument is it is irrational to see in the group which may have contained some left-wing loony thugs as being somehow controlled by vicious Stalinists is bizarre and overreaching at best.

Says the man who just tried to tie this back to Russia and Putin.

Merely reminding you that if you wish to find Stalinist subterfuge in anything it should start elsewhere. It has no real bearing here.

Oh, I'm sure there were, as there were honestly non-racists there at the so-called 'Unite the Right' rally.

So you think they were going to support the Robert E. Lee statue because of...ummm...let's see... ummm, oh yeah, I know! Because it's an intergral part of the Southern Identity!

Look personally I wouldn't want anyone to remove a Southern statue because it's all history. When I lived in the South for many years it was actually kinda fun to see the monuments to the lost cause. But it was also sobering to realize that many in the South really didn't like to acknowledge that the South lost. There are a lot of things (like the one monumnet in New Orleans that the neo-nazis loved to rally around, it was actually pretty hard to find when you walked around the French Quarter. As I recall it was squirred away behind a parking garage on a side street).

You brought up Stalin. I just mentioned the Antifa communists. If you want to drop it, feel free.

You brought up the inherent evils of communism. Since Communism qua communism is not necessarily evil but hijacked by people with evil intents I only went with the most obvious example of that. I apologize if I was attempting to point out a possible flaw in your reasoning (which seemed predicated on communism=evil rather than the more accurate evil people who used communism to enforce their evil visions = evil).

 

[szechuan]

No, I'm saying that BLM is as bad as white supremacists. Just as communism is as bad as Nazism, as they have resulted in millions of deaths, untold suffering, but only one people think should still be tried for some freaking reason.

History has proven that false. Nazi's where emphatically almost like White Supremacists and History dictates they screwed up harder then BLM's ever would.

 

[W Johnson]

I'm impressed that the right hates the left so much that they've united with literal Nazis. That's hatred for you.

And the Russians. Strange bed fellows.

 

[Rion]

History has proven that false. Nazi's where emphatically almost like White Supremacists and History dictates they screwed up harder then BLM's ever would.

Nazism and white supremacy is not the same thing, but they overlap. I never compared BLM to Nazis.

 

[Obliquinaut]

I'm impressed that the right hates the left so much that they've united with literal Nazis. That's hatred for you.

That may be overstating the case a bit. I doubt the Right actually values the hatred of the Neo-Nazis. Personally I think Trump is not a neo-Nazi sympathizer (even though he and his daddy were prosecuted by the US government back in the 70's for discriminatory housing practices), but rather that he sees them as supporters of him regardless of his support (or lack thereof) of them.

It's kind of the "Enemy of my enemy is my friend" approach. It helps me feel that perhaps Trump is not fractally evil but simply a misguided narcissist who relies on people to love him as much as he loves himself, no matter how repugnant the people who love him are.

And likewise I don't think the Right in the US is largely white-nationalist. I think they have accidentally found themselves with some common causes and since the racism and hatred are not so repugnant to them that it overwhelms their common causes they will create moral equivalences even if they are not perfectly valid.

And again, to be fair, there are violent people on the Left as well. So the moral equivalence has at least a thin veneer of validity (even if I disagree with it).

 

[szechuan]

Nazism and white supremacy is not the same thing, but they overlap. I never compared BLM to Nazis.

I never said they were, they are by far extremely similar due to them wanting a emphatically state that there race is superior.

 

[Obliquinaut]

And the Russians. Strange bed fellows.

This absolutely fascinates me as well. Zombie Reagan must be clawing his way out of the ground in Simi Valley as we speak.

 

[Obliquinaut]

I never said they were, they are by far extremely similar due to them wanting a emphatically state that there race is superior.

BLM is not and never has been about superiority of one race over another. BLM is about addressing inequalities in justice and police actions.

Everyone can have a proper conversation if we all agree to the subtleties of both sides.

For instance I don't think the alt-Right is by definition a bunch of Nazis despite the ability to interpret them as being nazi-esque. I must agree that not all alt-Right people are necessarily antisemitic or anti-black etc. And by the same token the other side must seriously listen to what the BLM activists actually say and not just the fringe or deranged quotes one can find from one individual that merely sound scary.

BLM is simply NOT about superiority of one race over another. It never has been.

 

[W Johnson]

This absolutely fascinates me as well. Zombie Reagan must be clawing his way out of the ground in Simi Valley as we speak.

Zombie Reagan the RINO liberal? Trump is the new face of the Republican Party.

 

[Rion]

No, my argument is it is irrational to see in the group which may have contained some left-wing loony thugs as being somehow controlled by vicious Stalinists is bizarre and overreaching at best.

Again, you brought up Stalin.

You brought up the inherent evils of communism. Since Communism qua communism is not necessarily evil but hijacked by people with evil intents I only went with the most obvious example of that. I apologize if I was attempting to point out a possible flaw in your reasoning (which seemed predicated on communism=evil rather than the more accurate evil people who used communism to enforce their evil visions = evil).

Communism is evil, just as national socialism is evil. They're both forms of collectivism. Here, maybe Friedrich Hayek can make it clear to you:

One of the inherent contradictions of the collectivist philosophy is, that while basing itself on the humanistic morals which individualism has developed, it is practicable only within a relatively small group. That socialism so long as it remains theoretical, is internationalist, while as soon as it is put into practice, whether in Russia or in Germany, it becomes violently nationalist, is one of the reasons why "liberal socialism" as most people in the Western world imagine it is purely theoretical, while the practice of socialism is everywhere totalitarian. Collectivism has no room for the wide humanitarianism of liberalism but only for the narrow particularism of the totalitarian. ​

If the "community" or the state are prior to the individual, if they have ends of their own independent of and superior to those of the individuals, only those individuals who work for the same ends can be regarded as members of the community. It is a necessary consequence of this view that a person is respected only as a member of the group, that is, only if and in so far as he works for the recognised common ends, and that he derives his whole dignity only from this membership and not merely from being man. Indeed, the very concepts of humanity and therefore of any form of internationalism are entirely products of the individualist view of man, and there can be no place for them in a collectivist system of thought.

Apart from the basic fact that the community of collectivism can extend only as far as the unity of purpose of the individuals exists or can be created, several contributory factors strengthen the tendency of collectivism to become particularist and exclusive. Of these one of the most important is that the desire of the individual to identify himself with a group is very frequently the result of a feeling of inferiority, and that therefore his want will only be satisfied if membership of the group confers some superiority over outsiders. Sometimes, it seems, the very fact that these violent instincts which the individual knows he must curb within the group can be given a free range in the collective action towards the outsider, becomes a further inducement for merging personality in that of the group. There is a profound truth expressed in the title of R. Niebuhr's Moral Man and Immoral Society-however little we can follow him in the conclusions he draws from his thesis. There is indeed, as he says elsewhere, "an increasing tendency among modern men to imagine themselves ethical because they have delegated their vices to larger and larger groups." To act on behalf of a group seems to free people of many of the moral restraints which control their behaviour as individuals within the group.​

Road to Serfdom Pages 145-146

 

[GoldenBoy89]

I wish he would've named all the groups there: KKK, Neo-Nazis, Antifa, BLM. All the collectivist ideologies blowing their gaskets at once.

Yeah, it would have been nice to have a President with conviction at a time like this.

 

[Rion]

Yeah, it would have been nice to have a President with conviction at a time like this.

Sucks we didn't even get a choice of one in the general.

 

[PeachyKeane]

My point is that the Amish are not communists. Again, private ownership exists.

Private ownership exists in China and Vietnam.

No, I'm saying that BLM is as bad as white supremacists.

Black Lives Matter begins with the premise that black people's lives are as important as anyone else's. White Supremacy begins with the premise that white people are inherently superior to all others.

Just as communism is as bad as Nazism, as they have resulted in millions of deaths, untold suffering, but only one people think should still be tried for some freaking reason.

Communism begins with the premise that people shouldn't take advantage of the labor of others, the community should work together, lift each other up, and work for the benefit of all. Nazism begins with the premise that white Christians are inherently superior to all others.

I'm not endorsing any of these, but BLM and even Communism each begin with a premise I can understand and agree with.

Can you say the same for White Supremacy and Nazism?

 

[Hank77]

Black Lives Matter begins with the premise that black people's lives are as important as anyone else's. White Supremacy begins with the premise that white people are inherently superior to all others.

And that is why there is not a moral equivalency between these two groups.

 

[SoldierOfTheKing]

I'm impressed that the right hates the left so much that they've united with literal Nazis. That's hatred for you.

It doesn't take much to be called a literal Nazi these days...

...how many are without even knowing it?

 

[PeachyKeane]

That may be overstating the case a bit. I doubt the Right actually values the hatred of the Neo-Nazis.

Yeah. The right basically looks at Nazis and then looks at left and shrugs and says "well, at least I can depend on these Nazis to help me attack the left." They may not value the hatred, but really, how much do you have to hate the left to actually unite with Nazis?

 

[AvilaSurfer]

Trump statement in a few minutes. I hope he says: Those who misconstrued what I said are typical media morons. The end.

 

[PeachyKeane]

It doesn't take much to be called a literal Nazi these days...

...how many are without even knowing it?

This guy seems aware.

He seems to know.

The flag seems to make it obvious.