Bob, the people you're trying to either defend or deflect attention from are fucking cunts, end of story. I understand that people are being driven to the far right (leftist violence and impingement on free speech predated Trump and the rise of the alt right, and has a lot to do as a causal factor for both), and that certainly not everyone heading to that end of spectrum are awful, but anyone preaching racial purity, resisting the white genocide etc have lost the fucking plot. There is no right side apart from condemning all illegal violence and upholding free speech.

Newt, you pontificate about how even handed you've been, but where are the hosts of videos showing antifa violence? Where are the upvotes for this video? I've been considering putting some of them up not as a mitigation for the actions of the right, but to show that polarisation and extremism is no good for anyone, but I was almost entirely sure they wouldn't sift in the slightest. Given this vid has been up for 9 hours and has 1 vote (mine), the theory seems to hold water...

Meanwhile, Arnold's tirade against nazi's is top sift of the week. Not that he was wrong of course, but anyone with five minutes and a willingness to be open minded can find endless unbiased documentation of leftist violence, something he completely omits to mention. He talks about the nazi's rotting in hell, how about Stalin's communists (which antifa models itself off...)?

Sift is leftward leaning and that's cool, I generally agree with a lot of sensible ideas that people around here are for. But it has it's own bigotry against people expressing views that aren't in lockstep with the majority view, and members certainly aren't afraid to punish people for not toeing the line.

And one of my favourite quotes as an advocate for free speech no matter how awful or confronting it might be...

"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all."

H. L. Mencken

I'm Canadian so maybe that's only a problem here from my country. We have complaints and confrontations against churches for not hiring or rejecting a hire based on sexual practices, or even in one case for being an atheist. We also have a 'women's only' nude spa facing human rights complaints for keeping out people with penises because they are women too.

http://vancouversun.com/news/staff-blogs/will-atheist-rev-gretta-vosper-obtain-no-fault-divorce-from-church

A 5 second google at least has some American tracking of demanding sexual practices be untouchable when religions or other clubs add new members or hires:
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/lgbt-employment-discrimination-churches_n_6082846

It is happening, and more importantly, whether the laws are all there already or not, the fact a complaint likely would travel to the supreme court at least is certainly a pretty legitimate concern about where that line is being drawn.

And hey, maybe the Dems don't want to try and find common ground with that particular demographic. The fact is though that there are plenty of anti-nazi people in that demographic and many others that the Democrats have currently cast as 'enemy' thinkers. The Dems need to pick some things they are willing to compromise on that will help them reach out to voters that didn't show up for Hillary.

KKK, alt-right, nazi party, white nationalists, and generic right wing racists, all under the banner 'Unite the right' (meaning right wing, not the correct). That's not one radical group it's a conglomeration of many, all of which are firmly on your 'team', and the counter protesters were not so organized and were mostly non-affiliated locals protesting a hate march/rally in their town.

The right wingers came armed, in riot gear, with shields, clubs, and mace. The anti protesters had cardboard and sticks they picked up on site when confronted, and mace. The right marched, without permits, all weekend. (the one event they had a permit for was canceled due to repeated violence in each of those unsanctioned marches) The right wingers were 90%+ non residents that came to start a fight, the anti-protesters were, from what I've seen, nearly 100% locals.
The right wingers committed actual murder and uncountable attempted murders and assaults. I didn't hear of or see a single right winger being killed or even hospitalized.

With the right as one of those extremist groups, I expect violence, no matter the circumstances and I'm rarely disappointed.

But yeah...like your president, feel free to continue deflect blame from your team and keep trying to pretend it's all the "other's" fault and they are responsible for your team's hate crimes and racism. That's working so well for him...and you....winning.

*Facepalm*

Way to stand with the Nazis, Bob. Nice job.

PS: It's ANTIFA, not ANFTA. It's short for ANTIFACIST. Know your enemy.

You'd be surprised at how many candidates that otherwise seem fine that reveal, when confronted with such a test, that they just. Cannot. Code.
*engineering

that... doesn't warrant a confrontation. also, by the looks of things, that wasn't happening.

what did he do to warrant a confrontation?

The guy was right to confront the group.

Pulling the gun and the rest of it was where he was out of line.
Pressing charges -- yes -- it is the right thing.

Not the *only* thing.

We also don't invade if you don't have anything we want, or if you can't be exploited as a pawn in a proxy war.

N. Korea doesn't have anything we want, so they would generally be safe on that account. On the other hand, the Korean War (particularly support from China, Russia, and the US) was very much tied into early and continuing Capitalism vs Communism proxy wars wherein those major players downplayed direct confrontation (why the Cold War was cold) but were quite happy to ramp things up indirectly.

Things frequently don't go real well for countries tied up in that history. We arm Afghanistan to indirectly prod the USSR, decades later that comes back to bite us and we hit them back with a rather disproportionate degree of destruction. The USSR sets Cuba up as a potential proxy Communist threat to the US, which pushes us pretty close to nuclear war. Fortunately we avoided that, but the fallout for Cuba in trade sanctions etc. persists to this day. And on and on.

So I concur, N. Korea has plenty of reasons to see the US as the bad guys. Personally, I think Obama's strategy of patience was probably the best. Either they are full of hot air and won't ever actually do anything, or they'll eventually do something so provocative that China will have no choice but to withdraw that lifeline. In the meantime, N. Korean people are the ones suffering the most. Not much to be done about that, because the US has an even worse track record when it comes to interfering "to save the people of {wherever} from their terrible leaders"...

It's hard for me to know why Putin is doing what he's doing. When he moved on Crimea, was he doing it because of the advance of European influence closer to Russia's borders? He's short on good allies unlike 'the west', so can he let people chip away at his comfort zone? Or is he a crazed imperialist?

I don't know. Why don't I know?

Because my government have shown themselves over the years to be a bunch of twats who will literally tell bare faced lies, whilst smiling, and when confronted with the horrors of what they've done they throw their heads back and laugh like a fucking sea lion swallowing a fish whole. And that's what they've done to their OWN PEOPLE. To other countries countries we declare war and send in the multinationals to rape their resources. I consider the invasion of Iraq equally dodgy as the invasion of Crimea. So my moral compass for what's ok and not ok no longer has a baseline.

On the other side, a bunch of people who used to know how the world worked back in 1970 probably thought propaganda was the best way to whip up some nationalistic pride and resentment toward the reds, but in 2017 the majority of young people don't trust a single word they say. So these 70 year old media mogul billionaires can't even tell a believable truth anymore - even if Putin's tanks were half way down my street i'd have to clap eyes on them before i could be sure.

Plus Russia's leadership is Putin himself, he's the spearhead, and he's very cunning. Our leadership is spread across a set of democratically elected people, half of which are both incompetent and self interested, while half of those remaining are merely one or the other. It's easier for one person to look competent and assured. Someone like Merkel has to share the associated incompetency of whatever the German equivalent of her 'cabinet' is.

@Diogenes

Thank you for your detailed answer. I do agree with you that context matters and that words are neither inherently good or bad by themselves. However, I think you’re looking at the situation from a more microscopic point of view as a simple joke between two people. I prefer to take a more macroscopic view of the situation. Allow me to explain.

Going back to my hypothetical example, it’s true that I didn't mean any harm when I used the term "retard" towards my brother. I think all people like to think of themselves as "good" people. For example, I would never in my life point at person with Down Syndrome and scream "Retard!" at the top of my lungs or attempt to belittle someone with an actual mental disability. The problem, however, is that by using the word in the way I did in the example I am tacitly--and quite publicly (remember this is happening in a parking lot)--endorsing the equating of people with mental disabilities to stupidity. I may be making a joke towards my brother but it isn’t just my brother that winds up being the butt of the joke.

Now maybe from your perspective, it’s just one person saying a joke. Look at the context, you might say. It’s a distasteful joke but no big deal, right? And I could agree with that if it was just some off-color joke limited to a single individual. Unfortunately, and I think we can both agree on this, the use of “retard” to mean “stupid” is a relatively common occurrence in American vernacular. You couple that with the stigma against mental illness and mental disability and I think it becomes fairly plain to see that on the macroscopic level (i.e. society) we have a problem: a group that is socially disadvantaged and historically discriminated against is even further marginalized by the language people use in their everyday lives. Now, if you don’t agree this is a problem, I’m afraid the conversation has to end here since the logical conclusion of such a stance is that people should be free to say whatever they want and be immune to criticism, damn the consequences.

But if you do agree it is a problem, how are we going to solve it? My take on the situation is that doing absolutely nothing when witnessing a situation like the one I've described is unlikely to improve society in any way. The status quo will be maintained if people are not confronted about their language use.

That being said, people often say things without fully comprehending the implications of what they are saying. They often talk the way they were raised and never once questioned whether what they were saying was actually harmful or not. I don’t think people should be pilloried for that, but in the event that they are unaware of how they are contributing to the discrimination and oppression of others they certainly need to be educated.

This necessarily entails confrontation, although that confrontation might be very low key. Continuing the example above, I think a good way for the woman in the example to “enlighten” me about my misguided use of the word “retard” would be something along the lines of this:

“Excuse me. I really wish you wouldn’t equate having a mental handicap with stupidity. My nephew has Down Syndrome and even though, yes, he can’t do everything that a person without an intellectual handicap can do he is most certainly not stupid.”

Now, all of that said, I see nothing wrong with publicly shaming those who clearly understand the implications of what they are saying and out of either stubbornness, a need for attention, or actual spite willfully continue to use language that is degrading or oppressive. A white person frequently using the N-word in public to describe black people, for instance, is a situation where I’d be completely fine with them getting verbally eviscerated. We don't always have to be polite, even when being politically correct.

As a final note, I want to make it clear that I believe in free speech in the sense that everyone should be free to say whatever they wish. However, as a caveat to that I also believe that free speech comes with the responsibility that people must own everything they say. If someone wishes to use offensive, degrading, or oppressive language that is their choice. Free speech in no way gives them a free pass from criticism of that choice, however.

Thailand, where I live now is called the "Land of Smiles". But I ran into some hiccups trying to fit in that conform to some of what the video said:

Basically, the "Land of Smiles" thing is pretty accurate -- generally Thais want to keep a (somewhat subdued) smile on their face. Even/particularly in frustrating/aggravating situations; Thais are extremely confrontation-averse and I think the smiling is a cultural adaptation to try to defuse those situations before they escalate.

BUT, when I first came here, I caught on to the "try to smile through all situations" culture but kind of went overboard on the enthusiasm in what I gather might be a typically American way. One time some Thais that I knew were introducing me to somebody that I hadn't met before. The new person didn't speak any English, and I couldn't speak much of any Thai at the time, so I was just trying to smile through the awkward second-hand introduction. Since I was just passively sitting back and smiling, the new person asked my friends if I was a "special person" -- a direct translation from Thai which means exactly the same thing that it does in English.

So I guess even in the "Land of Smiles", going overboard can make people think you're a bit dim...

@newtboy
i like the 'failing liver" analogy.
appropriate and easily understood.

and i can understand where milkmandan is coming from,but my perspective is more aligned with yours newt.

what consistently baffles me,is how so many people are willing to simply accept this short term strategy from our politicians.

there is no surprise when corporations push for this,they are just focusing on their own interests and bottom line,which is short term profit.

or the politicians who bow to their neoliberal masters to receive those tasty campaign contributions.

or even the banks,who again focus on their short term gains.

these players are all behaving as they always have:for their own self interest.so there should be no shock or surprise when they act exactly as they have always acted.

but when i see everyday,normal people defend the behavior and actions of oliticians,financial institutions and multi-national corporations.it baffles me as to why they would choose to do such a thing.

we can understand why those players seek to retain a system which benefits them,their shareholders and their bottom line,but that system no longer serves the interests of the people,community and society as a whole.

so why make arguments defending it?

it is,quite frankly,killing us slowly as a species.

look at germany.
that country has slowly been recruiting,educating and now poised to corner the market in:new energy,renewable energy and are leading the world in breakthrough technologies in all energy fields.

germany has long played the long game.
they now dominate the entire EU in finance,and are now focusing on dominating the globe with new energy technology.

and what are we doing here in america?
pushing through more and more neoliberal policies that immiserate the working poor,both here and abroad.desperately continuing our destruction of entire ecosystems to exploit our natural resources for:oil and gas.military conflicts,which only make this country less safe,all to exploit other nations and extract THEIR oil and gas,and the cost in human lives is absolutely indefensible.

all of it.
every single bit of it for short term gains for an extremely small minority.

and here we are,with trump opening the flood gates to further exploit and destroy our natural resources with no thought or plan for the future.no investment in our communities,nor our society as a whole.

and for those who wish to make an argument that hillary would be better.i will only concede that on a domestic level this may have been true,but hillary is a neoliberal corporatist,and she would have pushed for even MORE military intervention in the middle east.MORE sanctions against countries unwilling to play ball,in order to politically squeeze them out,and even MORE of this countries policy of "regime change" to exploit and extract from those countries their precious resources.

i strongly suspect Iran would have been next on her agenda.

so when are some of these people going to step up,and realize that both trump AND clinton are (or would have been) disasterous for us as a community,a nation and as a species?

because they both only offer short term solutions to long term problems.and those short term solutions only benefit a minority of the population.

we could turn this ship around TODAY,right now,if we so choose.
we need more politicians like elizabeth warren and tulsi gabbard.we need more integrity in our media and journalists willing to do their job and criticize power,not bow to it just for access.we need the people to become engaged and confront their representatives,and make them uncomfortable,not treat them as celebrities.

and we need to reject the system where rich people choose who we get to vote for,and begin to dismantle this two party duopoly.

because trump vs hillary?
this election cycle has just revealed that both these candidates are not the disease,but rather the symptom of a very broken,and dysfunctional political system.

we need to begin to invest in the future.
and reject the status quo as no longer being viable for the continued existence of the human species.

and with the newly energized american public,who are growing in numbers daily,and is a direct response to the unmitigated disaster that is trump.there may be hope for us yet.

because if we stay on this trajectory,we are fucking doomed.

Very good points.

My "cultural momentum" argument isn't so much an attempt to justify this stuff as a pragmatic take on who good counter arguments like yours (and the video itself) need to be directed at. "If all the tradition were stripped away" is easy for us "internet observers"; perhaps less so for the people that actually go to these events. But your approach is still a very good and persuasive one; much better than screaming PETA-like protests and confrontation that I think are more likely to just entrench the tendency to cling to tradition.


Your "having to realize that parents and grandparents were assholes" comment is apropos and truly is a very difficult thing to do. But I think the next step is ever harder -- realizing that our kids and grandkids will look back on things that we do and take for granted as normal behavior today, and come to the same conclusion about us that we have with regards to our parents and grandparents...

If AJ really is faking it all, that puts a whole new spin on his confrontation with Cenk from TYT during the election.

I think this is similar to many victim blaming conversations. You are trying to offer practical advice to avoid confrontation with police. However, you have to admit that even if you are polite and respectful, escalations happen, particularly for people of color. When your expectation is that no matter your behavior, this encounter is likely to lead to you taking a ride in a cruiser, frustration and defiance are at least as natural a response as the officer's nerves. The man certainly had more available evidence that his day was going to end badly than the officer had evidence of imminent threat and justification for the use of force.