I'm not sure what anyone expects to gain by doubling down on the goodthink echo chamber that's just lost them an election. Emotional comfort, perhaps? I'm not without sympathy for the need - but that's a private matter. Governance in the US is public, and refusing to engage in the process merely cedes the field. Demonizing one's political opponents not only cedes the field but energizes them with just resentment, and I should think the events of this past month should suffice anyone as a lesson in why that might not be the best of all available tactics - but perhaps I extend more credit than due.
The rise of neonazism in the US is real. To claim otherwise, to imply that it is an "arrant falsehood," is to be purposefully ignorant.
For clarity, that quote is referring to journalists and the media. Not Jews, as some have been heavily implying.
I'd like to remind people here that this is exactly Trump's playbook. You infuriate people, they are eager to take you out of context or extrapolate wildly, then curious passersby figure your accusers are not credible.
It's not a high moral ground tactic, but it sure works.
This absolutely false. The word "zombie" is what people go to when they think of a mindless being. The word "golem" is what a nazi would say as a dogwhistle to let people know he's down with hating (((Jews))).
We Jews said we would never forget, and we haven't.
You're probably not aware fnovd, then many of the attendees were themselves Jewish, including those of 'Heiling' fame.
http://www.thewrap.com/tila-tequila-jewish-friends-nazi-sieg...
These people are trolling. This is classic trolling. They know this causes people to react and how the media works. For instance The Atlantic in their video on the NPI conference showed apparently 'dozens' of people doing the 'Heil' salute, but if you examine the footage closely you'll notice Richard Spencer is in fact holding up a water glass in one hand and the camera is being positioned multiple times in such a way to make the same three people look like six or nine people. There are classic camera tricks in that video actually to form your opinion (e.g. selective blurring), I'm sure you'll see them too if you go and look.
This is also trolling with a purpose in order to attract the right enemies.
As I said, this is not the high moral ground. Nonetheless they are not Nazis. You'll need more than some Jewish boys and an Asian pornstar for that to have merit.
The people I know who claim "alt-right" are not. They're young and full of piss and vinegar. They're also largely quite intelligent and not less well supplied with humanity than anyone else their age. They were quite receptive to the idea that nothing in the world is simple, and that demonizing any group of people en masse is a cheap, lazy, stupid shortcut past a lot of hard thought and the careful application of empathy toward the acknowledgement that compromise and negotiation are necessary toward any modus vivendi that's satisfactory to everyone, or as nearly so as can be managed in the imperfect world we inhabit.
I've been at this for a year now, more or less. It's been slow, difficult, complex, and anything but heroic, as teaching always is. But I'd capitalized on a couple of early successes, favorably impressing some of those among this group who are themselves generally looked up to by most others, and I was having a real effect. I had them thinking, or starting to - critically analyzing the contradictions between the left's claims and its behavior, and distinguishing the desirability of a lot of progressive goals from the counterproductive ways in which the modern progressive movement operates. I had them getting toward ready to start using the brains and the hearts God gave them to work toward a genuinely better world - for everyone - rather than the mirage of the progressive millennium whose pursuit has brought us to the pretty pass whereat we stand.
Of course, that was before the whole godforsaken world started calling them Nazis, sight unseen. How the hell am I supposed to compete with that? They're good kids, but they're kids. If you think it's easy, over a purely textual medium, to outdo "fuck you, you're not my dad", then by all means I invite you to try. And if you want to write them off, fine. That's easy and it's comfortable and it feels good. I get that. I don't even blame you, although I'd like to, because that would be easy too. But I am going to tell you you're making a mistake.
Not that it matters, at this point. In the last few weeks, I've seen my influence go from considerable to just about none. They aren't listening to me any more, because there's nothing in the world as exciting as to fight against injustice - which is exactly how they see it, and considering the way I'm seeing them slandered I don't even think they're wrong. Certainly one bookish old homosexual who counsels analysis and empathy over rash action can't live up to that! So they're going to go their way, and you are going to go yours, and I guess I've wasted a year's worth of the hard work with which the actual left, for whom I hold no love, can't be bothered. Perhaps I should have done better, but for the life of me I can't see how. There's only so much shit you can expect people to eat, and the left long ago passed that mark with those whom it makes its enemies. Little wonder they're starting to sick it up now, and we all have to live with the mess.
(And I see the post's been flagged, which means even the time I've spent writing this comment was wasted, because no one will see it. So it goes. May God and history judge us all more kindly than we deserve.)
Actually read some of the material and see if 'it checks out' that we're all nazis. Scott Alexander has a essay called 'Reactionary Philosophy in a Planet sized nutshell' which is a good synopsis.
http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/03/03/reactionary-philosophy-...
Scott is definitely not a reactionary of any kind, so this is a neutral take.
Otherwise we can just call each other names and strawman each other all day.
Please don't come out with "I don't need no... or somebody on the internet said...". That is just lazy. I don't imagine all socialists subscribe to SJWism, since a lot of them are vehemently against it. Same goes here.
Is there a post on r/The_Donald that stands out to you as being hate speech?
looks like hate speech to me.
https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/5fltt9/amy_schu...
To save others the trouble, the title of the post is "Amy Schumer And Lena Dunham Are Finally Leaving The Country" and the image is of two orca whales being prepared for transport. The very non-coded message is that these two women are "as fat as whales" and furthermore that they deserve to be derided based on physical appearance because of their expressed political opinions.
I'm no lawyer, but I think that's treading awfully close to "hate speech".
Of all the principles we've ever espoused in this country, we have perhaps been most consistent in our national conviction that the answer to wrong speech is right speech - not less speech but more speech.
That is, until recently. We've lately seen the rise of a strain of thought in which not only is it acceptable to answer mere words - however cruel - with the full and mighty force of law, but to suggest such a course might reasonably inspire trepidation is itself worthy at best of contempt, and the many examples in history of why such trepidation might be justified are ignored in unseemly haste to crush those who speak in a fashion deemed insufficiently satisfactory.
In such a strain of thought, the problem with McCarthyism is not McCarthyism in its own right, but rather that the direction in which it was pointed was wrong - the weapon should not be put down and never picked up again, but merely wielded against a different target than last time.
Is that really the lesson to draw from such an unsavory example? Is there really any practical benefit in such a lesson for the causes such a strain of thought claims so loudly to espouse? The left has fought to silence its opponents for decades, more or less by whatever means fell to hand. The result thus produced, this very month, is remarkable, but not for its loveliness. It will not grow more lovely with time. Does it really seem likely that the tactics which have brought us to such a strait are blameless, and that only more energy is required?
In Ireland we have foolishly installed laws that made criticism of Mohammad or Jesus illegal.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2016/apr/11/why...
I don't enjoy their humour but I think this would prevent something like Charlie Hebdo from operating in my country.
How about caricature of public figures? Note that they do not have to be tasteful or respectful. Just look at bankers depicted as pigs.
I am neither american nor a lawyer, but as I understand it hate speech has a fairly narrow definition over there. It requires imminent danger of inciting violence. Merely expressing racist or other kinds of -ist viewpoints is not hate speech.
That said, the very colloquialism they use to refer to the opposition ("cuck") is merely a shortened form of a term ("cuckold") with a very long history of being a base insult with rather heavy connotations of misogyny.
(i.e. Being "cuckolded", a man whose female partner has exhibited infidelity, is taken as a sign of weakness whereas being a woman whose male partner sleeps around is just de rigueur to the point there's not even a special term for it.)
Of course it being a sexul insult it is practically unavoidable that values and the female partner are indirectly involved in how the insult works. Well, technically homosexual couples can also cuck each other, and I have seen the term occasionally used in discussion about homosexual manga. So it really is not about the female.
Hell, even the fairly juvenile "ur mom" is more negative towards females than "cuck".
When women are attacked you will notice. Slut and whale are still the go-to insults.
So please do not shoehorn gender issues into everything. Sure, some assumptions are encoded into it. But it's a goddamn insult, not some friendly disagreement in a debate club. Please adjust your context sensitivity.