"I referred to the modern nazi who supports them"

Fair enough.

"It's not just a belief, it's a desire to exterminate, alienate and persecute an ethnic group. "
Agreed. That desire should not be considered an acceptable point of view. But there's a big gap between saying expressing a desire and carrying out an action.

"This implies that you think being 'nicer to Hitler' (i.e. not solved it with violence) would have gotten rid of them yet you contradict this later on."
No, I don't believe that. Hitler was in power, he had an army and he was already committing genocide. At that point, violence is your only recourse to stop the atrocities.

But yes, ultimately, if someone had been able to take Hitler aside BEFORE all the horrors of WW2 and been able to convince him to lay off the genocide, wouldn't that have been a better solution?

There are absolutely times when violence is the best course of action, but it ALWAYS represents a failure to resolve differences.

"I'm just saying if a nazi happens to get punched, on balance, it's probably ok."

I'm certainly not going to shed any tears over it and being completely honest, part of me relishes it. But intellectually, I know it's a) not a sustainable solution and b) it's a juvenile response.

"It's a bit like trying to 'defeat' religion. If you stamped out any sign of all religions in the world, all the imagery and documents and let's say memories too. Before long, religions would form because the human brain is drawn to those ideologies"

Completely agree. Put enough humans together and they form tribes and ascribe bad things to "the others". What saves us is the ability to learn from past mistakes as a civilisation, and even then we're REALLY slow learners.

But we have made progress.
Going from right to left, I would bet that even most Nazis think women should be able to vote; the vast majority of conservatives view racism as abhorrent (at least, consciously) and "Middle America" has mostly come around to gay rights.

"Defeated" might be the wrong word here. I want Nazism to become as laughable a philosophy as flat earthers. Espousing it should be met with the same response as someone who claims thunder is the gods playing football.

" TL;DR sorry for the wall of text, ignore me"

Don't apologise... it's an interesting discussion.

I think you've got the wrong end of the stick at some points, so let me just clear that up first:

"Woah, woah, woah! There's a pretty big difference between saying it's not ok to assault someone and expressing support for them."
-- I referred to the modern nazi who supports them, not you for thinking it is wrong to punch. You are not a nazi supporter because of your stance. A nazi of course supports hitler, etc.

So hopefully this clears up:
"The law has nothing to do with it. It is unethical to assault someone simply for stating their beliefs."
-- My point was that they are stating their support for genocide and harming other people. It's not just a belief, it's a desire to exterminate, alienate and persecute an ethnic group. They aren't shy about their template for society, they fly the swastika flag clearly and sieg heil and whatnot.

"Here we are, 70 years after the biggest armed conflict the world has ever seen.... and yet we still have Nazis."
-- This implies that you think being 'nicer to Hitler' (i.e. not solved it with violence) would have gotten rid of them yet you contradict this later on. Otherwise you must accept that violence was the most successful solution, and you are equivocating over semantics with this point. In as far as any ideology (which only really latches itself on generic human mindsets like xenophobia, and is therefore inalienable, a form of nazism will occur by some other name in any social group*) may be "defeated", it was defeated.

I accept that you think it is unethical to punch them. I'm not saying i want chaos in the streets where mobs go around tearing suspected nazis to bits; that's why i'm not asking for a law change and why i won't be opening with violence towards nazis. I'm just saying if a nazi happens to get punched, on balance, it's probably ok.

* - just expanding on this. It's a bit like trying to 'defeat' religion. If you stamped out any sign of all religions in the world, all the imagery and documents and let's say memories too. Before long, religions would form because the human brain is drawn to those ideologies; that's why so many diverse ones formed and still do. And as you originally said defeatable, if it isn't defeatable (because it's inalienable) then you're saying your own point is wrong.

TL;DR sorry for the wall of text, ignore me

Yet it is how they were ultimately defeated.

I don't mind swimming against the stream on this one; i think it's fine to punch nazis.

When you express your support for nazis, you're not just saying you have an alternative viewpoint. You are saying that you support the ideals of the old nazi party, you support Hitler & his goals, you want to see people exterminated in a genocidal system and you celebrate that such a system existed. You are actively pursuing a course of action that, if successful, will result in the deaths of millions of people. Your goal is to kill people.

I don't think there's any comparison to the same kind of treatment of the Phelps family. They celebrate death, misery and hate, but they never killed millions of Jews and other 'undesirables.' They are unconscionable bastards, but that's it. Your end goal in supporting them is not violence & genocide.

I can justify breaking the law to punch a nazi in the same way i can justify breaking the law to protest a fascist government. Laws aren't divine or sacrosanct, and they certainly aren't constant. Our oligarchs meddle with them on a daily basis. The right thing to do may not always be the legal thing to do, and you should not rely on your government to decide right and wrong for you (that's what nazi germany thrived on - 'i was only obeying orders'). The "law" argument will never convince me.

But i might be convinced for other reasons.

This isn't accurate at all on Columbus either.

Every educated person knew the Earth was round, they even had a pretty good idea of how BIG it was. Which is why nobody was insane enough to try the trip to the East over the Western sea. It was too far, they would simply die.

Columbus was an idiot who got the math wrong and thought the Earth was a lot smaller than everyone else knew it was. He didn't even really convince the Queen he was right, she just had lots of ships and on the off chance he might be right, she gave him three because the reward was worth the risk.

He then went on to slaughter a few million islanders in the Caribbean because they wouldn't tell him where the gold was (they had no gold).

So... he was basically an idiot and a homicidal maniac, responsible for one of the largest genocides the world has ever known. Yay, let's celebrate a day for him, America! (oh and he also never set foot in what is now the United States AND the first Europeans to come to the Americas were several hundred years earlier).

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

Like the cheeto in chief, you may not even realize you're standing with the Nazis, but make no mistake, they see it and understand.
Edit: if you want them to stand alone, you, and the exalted leader need to do a MUCH better job of both distancing yourselves and being clear they are alone in their levels of evil and bile, not state plainly that they are standing on a morality scale right next to some pc thugs (ugly as they may be, pc thugs don't advocate mass murders/genocides).
The KKK, neonazis, and alt right are absolutely on your Republican team, you can't wash your hands of them now after they voted with you because Trump's plan and statements mirrored theirs.

Edit: I may have misread you. Are you saying the republican "team" isn't on America's side? Because I'm saying the KKK and Nazis are undeniably Trump Republicans.

I refuse to acknowledge that ridiculous term....but I absolutely don't stand with the far left. I've said my entire adult lifetime that I would vote republican if only they would...but republicans today don't resemble the party I would have joined. They turned pro war, anti thought, pro spend, anti tax, pro debt, anti responsibility, pro corporation, anti citizen, pro oil, anti progress....I could go on but why?

Um...duh Bob, then you still had it badly wrong. Anti first amendment is still antifa, not anfta.

Actually, I do have fond memories of Berkeley, because I lived there in the 80's, not because I'm a leftist fascist.

Yes, he disavowed them, and in the same breath defends them and lumps his political enemies in with them, as if they're equally evil.
The media isn't saying he didn't say they're bad, it's saying he clearly didn't mean it.

If anti Nazi, anti fascist is the wrong side, color me proudly wrong.

I want you in that slinky black backless mini dress and a pushup bra please. I can't wait.

Jesus fucking Christ, learn to read.
I clearly said someone just giving lip service, as in someone just using words but not following through with actions, should not be met with violence.
An ACTIVE Nazi, as in someone physically enacting those words, making physical efforts to preform some genocide, or in the act of actually attacking a black, jew, hispanic, homo, cuck, libtard, etc, (not just calling them names, but attacking) yes, resist their violence with exponentially more violence from every direction without hesitation or empathy.

You aren't putting words in my mouth, buy you are 100% backwards in your interpretation of what I thought was clearly written.
I was raised to believe you are allowed to be as wrong and stupid as you like in America, but your right to swing your fist ends firmly at my nose and that line, once crossed, enables a righteous and crippling response without qualm.

I've seen enough footage, and come to my own conclusion based on the totality. I really don't need any prompting to come to the conclusion that Nazi/fascist=shitshow/violent mental defective.
Unorganized and unaffiliated doesn't mean impromptu or peaceful....or unarmed. Edit: The counter protesters were not all peaceful, but it seemed none of the Nazis were peaceful, and the Nazis weren't locals, they were an armed gang roaming the streets attacking people repeatedly.

After all the violent marches they had before their permitted rally, the permit was again rescinded (according to the police). There was a route cleared to the event by police before hand, but the Nazis ignored instructions and insisted on taking multiple unsecured paths to the event through the counter protesters, and the event was canceled by police 30 min before it started because they were again starting riots and fights and ignoring legal commands.
Could/should police have done more? Maybe, but city hall should have the right to deny permits to designated hate groups...like any that advocate genocide of another race/culture.
Nope...these assholes don't represent "whites", this was absolutely not a "white=shitshow" narrative, most of the counter protesters were white, far more white counter protesters than white Nazis. It's about how 99% of the planet thinks "Nazi=shitshow". Clearly you are in the 1%. Congrabulations!

Easy to see them as Trump loving Nazis, but make no mistake, they labeled themselves Trump loving Nazis, not me or media. When they wear swastikas, shout hiel Hitler, hiel Trump "Jew will not replace me" and a dozen other Nazi slogans, illegally march through campuses with torches and clubs threatening passersby, etc. it's pretty hard for a rational person to think differently. Are you denying all of those things happened, because I've seen plenty of footage of it, hours, without the slightest effort.

I think that may depend on your viewpoint.

A lot of native Americans would certainly take exception at having their treatment ignored, and I believe we at least started that genocide before African slaves were imported in large numbers.

Also, it bears noting that indentured servitude was (according to my history teacher) more prevalent in the early colonies than actual slavery....they were mostly poor whites.

I'm not trying to minimize the effects of slavery and racism, just pointing out it wasn't our first or only sin that needs "healing".

A common tactic employed by those who wish to suppress the truth is to become dismissive, devalue and attempt to marginalize the individual. It works as effective propaganda on the masses who need to believe atrocities and genocide could not possibly take place on american soil. But hey! texas released a text book that called slaves hard workers. Some could argue that is more insulting then using the n-word.

No court cases found? was an attempt even made? Let's make it the next X Prize.

*doublepromote
The invasions and cultural genocides we inflicted on natives are two of America's greatest national crimes. I could fully support giving back the undeveloped private island of Niihau and barely developed Molokai to a native Hawaiian nation. I had no idea there was a movement to regain sovereignty.

I put a browser in incognito mode (so there would be no cookies / history to tailor results with) and tried it. Should be pretty much on par with average Thai results since I have Thai ISP and went through google.co.th. Also, I changed the search term to "Hitler" in Thai language script: "ฮิตเลอร์".

I'm pretty functionally fluent in listening to Thai and semi decent at speaking it (I can get along in daily life fine although I'll never be mistaken for a native speaker since I didn't grow up with a tonal language). I'm not completely illiterate when it comes to reading it, but I'm quite slow. Sort of "Dick and Jane" level. Anyway, it would take forever for me to interpret the results of that search reading everything in Thai, but here's a quick once-over:

#1 result is https://th.wikipedia.org/wiki/อดอล์ฟ_ฮิตเลอร์
The Thai wikipedia article on Hitler is a bit shorter than the English one, but seems to cover everything in a similar way. I didn't try to read much to confirm but it does talk about the holocaust and Jews.

#2 result is http://teen.mthai.com/variety/57766.html
Seems to be a blog-type article on Hitler, written by a (high school?) student. I used the Chrome translate feature (which generally produces nonsense with Thai to English, but can get you broad strokes) to save time. This one does mention that Hitler hated Jews and talks about the holocaust being "cruel", although it seems to present a sort of positive take on Hitler in general. At least, more than we'd generally be comfortable with in the West.

#3 result is https://pantip.com/topic/31569039
This is a web forum. The article/post is called "(เรื่องน่ารู้) 10 อันดับเหตุผลที่ทำไมฮิ
605;เลอร์ถึงเกลียดชาวยิว", which google translate converts to "(I know) 10 reasons why Hitler hated the Jews". My stab at a better translation would be "(Things you Should Know) 10 reasons why Hitler hated the Jews". Thai doesn't really have pronouns, so that bit in parenthesis is semi ambiguous, but น่ารู้ means "should know" or "worth knowing".

This one is interesting. The list it presents is:
* Jewish influence in communism.
* Jewish causes lost World War 1.
* Jews make Depression
* Hitler knot lodged since childhood.
* Hitler was influenced by the idea against genocide.
* Hitler's brain has been affected as a soldier.
* Master Race theory
* Hitler believed in conspiracy theories about Jews.
* Political nationalism
* Hitler envious of wealthy Jews.

It explains those in brief terms (a few sentences each) and then there is a poll where readers can vote on which one was the main reason that Hitler hated Jews. There's some anti-semitic implications mixed in there, but it is also blunt about the evil stuff that Hitler did and doesn't present him as a person to be emulated / respected.


I wish I read Thai better so I could get a better read on those. Your question is quite interesting, along with (my potentially incorrect take on) those first few search results.

If you count war, tyrants, genocides committed by governments/rulers, inappropriate criminal convictions/executions, draconian/harmful laws, illegal police actions, and political culling as law enforcement (and he does), he's almost certainly correct. Certainly there are exceptions in certain times and/or places, but as a whole I think he's not far off....at least counting since civilization/law enforcement started.
Think of Pol Pot....everything he did was in the name of law enforcement. He's not alone by a long shot.

Funny, but flawed it's own way.

Let me preface this commentary by saying I am not in any organized religion. I go back and forth in believing in God and also not being able to find proof he exists, basically an agnostic theist. So this is not in any way an attempt to 'prove' anything other than that I disagree with the way the video is portraying the biblical tale. I also know there are far more egregious examples than this story of God as an uncaring, flawed being with an uncertain temperament.

First, this story is one of the 'go to' stories that most atheists or anti-religion people look to for a clear example of the 'wrongness' of the bible or God. The reason is, if you don't take anything else into context, this story is massively damning! What god would call for a mass genocide out of the blue, right? Certainly not one people consider to be good!

But, if we look at the context of the bible in the Old Testament, we see that this is not wholly out of line for the character shown of God. If we take the statements of the bible as literal, then God has already shown he will destroy any threat to those he considers his 'chosen people'; even those who are/were part of that group.

In this case, the Amalekites were descendants of Esau. Esau was the brother of Jacob (later named Israel) and was supposed to inherit the blessing of his father, as well as command over the 'chosen people' of God. Esau was of rough nature and was a hunter. Once he was starving and went to Jacob, who tended the fields (sort of the Cain and Abel bit all over again), begging him for a bowl of lentil soup. Jacob told him that he would give him the bowl if Esau would pass his birthright (blessing and command) over to Jacob, since obviously Jacob was more able to care for his people than a solitary hunter. Esau agreed, but never really meant it, he was just hungry and was willing to say whatever he needed to so as to get that soup.

Jacob was dead serious though, so he took the birthright and became Israel, the leader of God's chosen. Esau was livid and swore to murder Jacob, who fled. Esau never got the birthright back, but he did sire the people who became the Amalekites, who in turn swore vengeance on Israel-ites.

This becomes important as time goes on, because basically every single time the groups encountered one another, the Israelites tried to be peaceful but the Amalekites always attacked.

By the time Saul was king, God chose to have him go and destroy the Amalekites, deeming them beyond saving. As he had told Moses during the first Amalekite attacks, he had Samuel tell Saul to blot their memory from history, wiping them out completely. Saul chose not to do this, sparing their king and some animals. Because of this, God replaced Saul with David.

So, now we come to the main part of the discussion. Like I said, this story is used quite often to show the capricious nature of God. However, like I said, it uses the story out of context. Now that we have the 'historical' description of the origin and ongoing nature of the conflict, we can put it into context.

If you are going to dissect the nature of 'God' as shown in the Old Testament, you have to look at the information given to show that nature. The bible says he is all-knowing, but it also says that he gave mankind free will. If you look on God as more of a creature running a simulation, he hopes that humanity will come to follow his rules of their own accord, even though he knows many will not. He chooses Israel and his descendants to be his 'messengers' to the other people that have chosen not to follow his rules, basically they are his missionaries that he hopes will lead his simulation to the proper conclusion.

Any group or race that tries to eradicate his messengers is a threat to his simulation, so he eventually will deal with them harshly. Sodom and Gomorrah, The Great Flood, and other examples of God deciding that he needs to protect his 'messengers' and clear off the playing board. In the case of the Amalekites, by this time period mentioned in the story, we are talking about generations of them trying to destroy the Israelites. So, God tells Samuel to tell Saul that they must be wiped from the playing board. Saul exercises his free will, therefore David enters the picture.

If you look at free will and God's choice of his messengers, as well as his protection of them, you get this story situation. By telling Saul to wipe them out, God is saying that he has tried to look the other way, but the Amalekites will never stop as long as they exist. Therefore they must be dealt with in a manner that will prevent them from rising as a people in the future and attempting harm to his messengers again.

It still doesn't paint God in a perfect light, but makes him more of a tinkerer. He keeps creating flawed inventions that choose to follow their own path and not his. The sad thing is, if you assume that he is all knowing, he knows this is going to be the end result. He creates angels and they turn on him. He creates humans and they turn on him. Then he creates Jesus, a combination of god and human, who doesn't turn on him. It is almost like he decides to create a Hero unit that can show the other simulations an easier path to winning.

Realistically and analytically, I know it doesn't make perfect sense. That is why I have my struggles with wanting to believe and then not being able to logically. If you choose to look at God as being a flawed creature (again, assuming that you believe he exists), the whole thing sort of makes more sense. In any case, we all have our own opinions and beliefs. I hope that my wordy post has explained how I try to work through mine.

@enoch,

I don't have any opinion on what Hedges says because I didn't take the time to listen to him...

Here was my bigger take away, an article posted by RT that is criticising negative press for Russia immediately gets filtered into my 99% likely hood of being misleading, either by outright lies or more often lies of omission.

Now, that filter got bypassed a bit seeing a recommendation from someone I deemed thoughtful on things. So, I went and did a 5 second google on the subject and found red flags immediately, so then I stopped again.

And Noam Chomsky has fallen off the rails IMHO. He's never going to lie, and he is incredibly intelligent, well reasoned and thoroughly knowledgeable. The catch is he is also biased in the sense of presenting everything he says over the last decade plus through the filter of American exceptionalism. He'll present mountains of accurate and compelling evidence of everything wrong about American foreign policy and the horrible impacts it has all around the world. Trouble is, he'll maybe give 2 sentences on the pre-American period or the alternative of American inaction.

In fact, as I wrote this I was going to blindly espouse that Chomsky's world view would council in favour of Clinton's inaction on Rwanda even with full hindsight. That prompted me to google for Chomsky's actual opinion on it, which led immediately to the fact that Chomsky wrote the forward for a book denying that the victims of Rwandan genocide were Tutsi but instead that they were in fact it's architects...