Hate Free Zone!

[tigron-x.livejournal.com]

Comments

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

Republicans should have safe places to preach misogyny and racism.

[tigron-x.livejournal.com]

And Democrats should be the sole party that defines what is racism and misogyny.

[liliaeth]

The oppressed get to decide what is racism and misogony, it's a pity that the white men in charge of the republican party don't seem to get that.

[oslo.livejournal.com]

Republicans are welcome to define "racism" and "misogyny," once they're able to get their heads around what it actually is.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

[tigron-x.livejournal.com]

Maybe that would work if Capt. America was a commie.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

He beat up all sorts of totalitarians.

[wight1984.livejournal.com]

When I was young, my mother tried to keep cartoons that 'glorified violence' away from me. For example, she didn't like me watching Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles. Some people react with incredulity when I say that and I half-agree with them; any sensible person should realise that comic or cartoon violence doesn't translate to real life.

Yet I've seen a fair few examples of cartoon, comic and film violence against Nazis used as if it makes a real life point.

The real fight against the Nazis were by soldiers who picked up guns and shot German soldiers dead. I believe that this was justified at the time and what we now know about the Nazis justified this use of violence to kill. Sometimes life requires us to do ugly and unpleasant things.

To take the Richard Spencer example, sucker-punching a white nationalist who was not acting violently or illegally and then running away is maybe loosely similar to some examples of comic book violence but it is not comparable to the justified violence of WWII. Such violence is not brace, not necessary, nor even effective.

[garote]

Actually it might have been at least effective ...

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

> Such violence is not brace, not necessary, nor even effective.<

Richard Spence disagrees with on the latter two points.

c.f., http://isocracy.org/content/actually-nazis-are-still-bad

[pigshitpoet.livejournal.com]

maybe we can create a hate-freeze zone..

; '

First they came for the....

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

... yeah, we all know how that ends. You think you'll be one of the guys in the jack-boots, calling the shots: LOL no. You'll be one of the aging, insignificant proles, still blaming everyone but yourself as your health-care and community services vanish, prices rise while living-wage jobs grow fewer, and the fossil-fuel corporations systematically destroy our planetary eco-systems beyond repair. Go ahead and do your right-wing rant; the "I told you so" can just hang quietly over your head and wait till it's run out.

[tigron-x.livejournal.com]

"... yeah, we all know how that ends. "


Haha... no you don't. But, that's not going to stop you from being hyperbolic about it all.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Looks like the courts don't think it's hyperbolic, do they?

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

The problem with the cartoon is that it makes two mistakes.

1. "Tolerant Left." The ones acting in violence and the ones who generally preach tolerance are distinct groups. Of course, the cartoon wants to pretend that the actions of these few leftists somehow tarnishes all on the "liberal" side of the aisle, and that this somehow says something about "the left" as a whole, or even "tolerance" itself. Of course, I'd assume we are all smart enough to see through this sort of lazy false-dichotomy.

2. "Tolerant Left." The cartoon misunderstands what "tolerance" means. It's a common straw-man tactic on the right to pretend that liberal "tolerance" means "anything goes" and that we cannot ever judge anything or hold an opinion on it: "we should have tolerance for Muslims - therefore we must ignore violence committed by Muslim terrorists." It's obvious that this is, again, a very lazy argument, and it's a shame that so many on the right buy into it.

I'll quote someone else who spoke more eloquently on this than I can:

1) Free speech and tolerance are not the same thing. Free speech is the legal principle that the government cannot limit someone from expressing their opinions, no matter how repugnant those opinions are. Tolerance is a social contract in which people of vastly differing opinions and worldviews essentially agree to disagree. Free speech is protected by the State. Tolerance is a meta-ideology held by the culture.

2) Free speech has always had limitations. You can't yell fire in a crowded theatre. You can't slander someone, generate false criminal accusations, nor lie under oath. Free speech endures to a point until that speech becomes false and causes material harm.

3) Similarly, tolerance has its limitations too. It is a social contract: a peace treaty that establishes each individual has their own subjective lifestyles and worldviews and we shouldn't encroach on them. You do your thing, I do mine. However, if one's subjective worldview/lifestyle is such that they seek to stamp out other worldviews/lifestyles... well, that is a breach of the social contract. It inherently endangers that peace treaty for all. A tolerant society is under NO obligation to indulge an ideology that seeks to destroy said society. On the contrary, a tolerant society is OBLIGATED to fight intolerance. The ultimate goal of tolerance is peaceful coexistence, and an ideology of intolerance directly contradicts that.

Tolerance isn't a principle of passive indifference. It is a NATO for a diverse, multicultural population. And Milo Yiannopoulos is precisely the kind of asshole that we're supposed to stand against. Let's have Mark Levin, Charles Krauthammer, or good god even Dick Morris coming to Berkeley to offer a conservative voice. They actually have something substantive to offer.

But Yiannopoulos is simply a troll with no real principles to speak of. All he's ever done is kick beehives and bitch about how unjust it is that he's getting stung.

EDIT: To put it another way: Tolerance is the philosophy of everyone saying "I'll do my thing, you do yours." Bigotry is the philosophy of "I'll do my thing, which is to prevent you from doing yours." Bigotry demands we allow their ideology to exist unhindered, while it refuses to afford us the same in exchange. Which is precisely what Milo Yiannopoulos is doing.

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

I will add to the above by saying: civil disobedience, even violent civil disobedience, has long been a championed method of expressing political opinion. The founding fathers often broke the law when fighting against the Crown, and committed economic and physical violence against the property and representatives of the tyrannical King George III. Martin Luther King Jr. committed civil disobedience by refusing to move, and although he eschewed physical violence, he committed economic violence against shop owners through boycotts and physically blocking the way while performing sit-ins. Abortion protesters knowingly break the law by blocking access and sometimes commit physical assault on those they disagree with. In all of the above cases, those committing disobedience knew the consequences and were willing to face them, but viewed the cost of failing to act as higher.

Civil disobedience, even violent civil disobedience, has a long and storied history in our nation as a way to stand up against oppression. In the face of rising fascist and monarchist white nativist movements, those who break the law by blocking traffic, destroying property, and even committing physical assault, are part of a rich tradition that is every bit as "American" as free-speech.

I'm not arguing that any specific incidence of law-breaking or violence is justified: that is a question for the history books. But those who will argue that the violent protesters are somehow "unAmerican" are woefully unfamiliar with our own American history.

[tigron-x.livejournal.com]

That's all well said, but the point of that cartoon is that it's mocking various framings of reality that the left has set itself up as. One of the main ones is that the left is a paragon of moral superiority. Basically, it's become the new church that decrees who is and is not a heretic.


I think the best thing to take from this cartoon as well as current events is how polarized politics has become. And, this cartoon pokes fun at it all in hopes of illustrating how there are various inconsistencies.


For example, as much as you prefer multiculturalism, you do not have the right to force people to assemble accordingly. Turning around and vilifying those that reject such ideology doesn't give the ideologues superiority. It just makes them bigots.

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

"For example, as much as you prefer multiculturalism, you do not have the right to force people to assemble accordingly."

Define "assemble." No one is being forced to associate with anyone they don't want to. But neither do the nativists have any right to declare the entire country their property, and decide who can and cannot live there. That is only to be determined by principles enshrined Constitutionality, and ultimately democratically.

Fortunately, despite Trump's win, the majority of Americans continue to embrace enlightenment ideals and the multiculturalism that has been an American byword since the nation's founding. Nativists remain, and hopefully will always remain, a tiny minority.

[wight1984.livejournal.com]

'Left' is a bit vague.

I've found that people on the left who are comfortable with violence tend towards socialist and anarchist viewpoints. Those who tend more towards liberalism tend to be less comfortable with it as liberals tend to be more concerned with how social and legal rules may be applied in future situations (i.e. 'violence is a justified response to ideas that endanger society' has the potential to become dangerous if taken seriously by 'the wrong people'

However, I have also found that most people on the left take an anti-violence approach in most situations. In fact, some of the people that I have seen celebrating violence lately are people I know to have extreme anti-violence views in other situations.

I'm friends with people who feel that hugging children without asking is teaching children to view violations of their bodily integrity as normal and acceptable and not placing the level of importance on consent that we should be stressing for the next generation. These are people who I would expect to be at least cautious about violence but who have actually celebrated it and laughed at it in this case.

Trying to understand that from the perspective of moral and political philosophy is difficult. It makes a lot more sense when you accept the fact that a lot of political action and expression isn't about any rational philosophy or even about achieving any kind of political goal; it's about political tribalism.

i found this article quite insightful on this topic: I CAN TOLERATE ANYTHING EXCEPT THE OUTGROUP (http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/)

"The worst reaction I’ve ever gotten to a blog post was when I wrote about the death of Osama bin Laden. I’ve written all sorts of stuff about race and gender and politics and whatever, but that was the worst.

I didn’t come out and say I was happy he was dead. But some people interpreted it that way, and there followed a bunch of comments and emails and Facebook messages about how could I possibly be happy about the death of another human being, even if he was a bad person? Everyone, even Osama, is a human being, and we should never rejoice in the death of a fellow man. One commenter came out and said:

I’m surprised at your reaction. As far as people I casually stalk on the internet (ie, LJ and Facebook), you are the first out of the “intelligent, reasoned and thoughtful” group to be uncomplicatedly happy about this development and not to be, say, disgusted at the reactions of the other 90% or so."

This commenter was right. Of the “intelligent, reasoned, and thoughtful” people I knew, the overwhelming emotion was conspicuous disgust that other people could be happy about his death. I hastily backtracked and said I wasn’t happy per se, just surprised and relieved that all of this was finally behind us.

And I genuinely believed that day that I had found some unexpected good in people – that everyone I knew was so humane and compassionate that they were unable to rejoice even in the death of someone who hated them and everything they stood for.

Then a few years later, Margaret Thatcher died. And on my Facebook wall – made of these same “intelligent, reasoned, and thoughtful” people – the most common response was to quote some portion of the song “Ding Dong, The Witch Is Dead”. Another popular response was to link the videos of British people spontaneously throwing parties in the street, with comments like “I wish I was there so I could join in”. From this exact same group of people, not a single expression of disgust or a “c’mon, guys, we’re all human beings here.”"

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Yes, this.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Just to throw something out there that seems to have been overlooked: The cartoon has an anti-"Milo" overturned truck, which leads me to suspect it was inspired by the UW anti-Milo demonstration (even though no trucks were overturned at that event).

The violent participants were not those that put the protest together. According to organizers, the violent were those they organizing the peaceful demonstration did not recognize, but who seemingly arrived late, perhaps after seeing the press coverage.

In fact, the victim was not a Trump supporter (http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/northwest/how-the-shooting-at-the-uw-protest-of-milo-yiannopoulos-unfolded/) as the cartoon implies. Rather, about the shooter: "His Facebook page indicates he supports Trump, Yiannopoulos and the National Rifle Association." He even tweeted at MY asking for a signed MAGA hat.

How a left-leaning Wobblie gets shot by a right-wing counter-protester is completely reversed into an oppressive show of force by leftists is complete insanity ... but sadly not beyond what I have come to expect from the Facts Optional Right. Expect many such opportunistic reversals in cause-effect interpretation in the coming years.

[garote]

It's impressive, how deep this rabbit hole is.
I was expecting most of the backlash to be "look, it's wrong to call all Republicans or Trump supporters racists".
Instead the backlash is, "yeah we're racists, but we have to be, to WIN THE WAR!!!!!!!"

I mean ... what the fuck??!

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

I don't know why no one points this shit out, but here goes. Look at the source of your cartoon, the Americans for Limited Government (https://getliberty.org/) organization. This is so obviously a propaganda outlet it just screams for further research.

Sure enough, it's web work is handled by The Mace Group, an outfit started by Nancy Mace (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Mace), author and failed US House candidate. A list (http://macegroupllc.com/) of other web sites handled by the Mace Group lists lots of GOP congress critters and, like the Americans for Limited Gov, other propaganda sites. Which is weird, since the Mace web site says The Mace Group does PR work for "clients in a variety of industries." "Variety" means hard-right congressional candidates and propaganda outfits? Interesting.

This shows me that a shit-ton of money is flowing to these people from one of the very rich sponsors, perhaps even one listed in Jane Mayer's "Dark Money." These billionaires and the multi-millionaires who support them flood the media with cash in order to change laws into laws (or the absence of law) that will make them more money. Well-known names such as Betsy DeVos are part of this funding apparatus. Oh, and you should be hearing a bunch about Rebeka Mercer soon! Her dad's father might have been instrumental (https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/how-our-likes-helped-trump-win) in getting Trump elected!



Bottom line, these groups and about a gazillion others have been pushing the buttons of folks like white nationalists, the hyper-religious, gun groupies, and several others for one simple reason: they are values voters, people who will use their personal values ahead of their economic well-being as a voting litmus test. Take evangelical voters: According to Gallup, "an evangelical voter with $50,000 in annual income is as likely to be a Republican as a nonevangelical voter with $100,000 in annual income." (Jacob S. Hacker & Paul Pierson, Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer—And Turned Its Back on the Middle Class, Simon & Schuster, 2010, p. 149.)

That is amazingly important, since, according to researcher Larry Bartels, US lawmakers currently vote the issues important to people earning in the top third of the income distribution (Ibid, p. 110). Worse, this means they vote against issues of the bottom two thirds. Meaning values voters are actively voting against their own financial and legal interests by pursuing the rhetorical candy of white nationalists, anti-abortion absolutists, 2nd Amendment fanatics, etc.

These people (like our Tigger-on X) are getting played, and its evidently working. Against them.

[donkeyjon.livejournal.com]

Meaning values voters are actively voting against their own financial and legal interests by pursuing the rhetorical candy of white nationalists, anti-abortion absolutists, 2nd Amendment fanatics, etc.

I agree, and I can't help but wonder if Clinton had been elected if we'd be saying the same thing. Trump is worse in every way, but Clinton was no Sanders or Warren.

[tigron-x.livejournal.com]

"Oh noes! The cartoonist has a political agenda! What will we ever do?"

This is a nice conspiracy theory. What does it all mean though? What's their end game?