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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Because all three result in the same amount of complaints from them and their useful idiots?
Trump's official inauguration poster has a typo
. Well, had.
Fascism wasn't defeated by punishing every Nazi we could find, it was defeated by punching the Nazis until they were stopped from punching us, then we taught them to not be Nazis.
We need to second part, we have to educate people away from Fascism, not just keep hitting them in the hopes that we can beet the Nazi out of them.
The second party of defeating fascism is regularly ignored by the Anarchy brigade, I suspect because they don't actually care about defeating fascism, they just want to feel morally superior while punching someone, the same way prisoners who shank rapists do.
Well, not everyone in Germany was a Nazi. We beat the Nazis by punching them until they couldn't punch back and handing control of the nation to the people who weren't Nazis.
As for educating, recent events suggest they may actually have done a better job of encouraging us to be Nazis than we have teaching them not to be. That's the problem with engaging a toxic doctrine in open debate. End of the day, hate is an easier message to sell. It's simple, easy to understand, and it feels good because it takes away responsibility.
Anger is a very powerful, highly addictive drug that demagogues have rarely had difficulty selling to the disenfranchised.
edited 12th Feb '17 7:59:17 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.You'll actually find that the impact on the useful idiots varies a lot depending if you punch in self-defence, no platform/peacefully protest or simply punch to halt hate speech. On top of that it varies even more amongst the disinterested who are barely paying attention (some of whom often count as useful idiots).
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranWe let them punch us, and we dont punch them back, because that's how we win. Persecuting an idea makes the idea stronger, and a reliance on violence as a tactic is an expression of powerlessness and incompetence, not power or strength. Conditions in America right now are nowhere near as bad as the British occupation of India, and Ghandi won. At the risk of sounding offensive, this whole discussion reeks of white people whinning because for the first time, someone isnt afraid of hating them, and they dont know how to respond. Conditions in America right now are nowhere near as oppressive as the South in the 1950's and 60's, and MLK won. Ask a black person how effective it's been punching rascists. Ask them if that ever got them anywhere. When we have our equivalent of the Soweto Uprising
or Bloody Sunday
we can start talking about armed resistance. Until then, raise your voices and lower your fists. If we can make them throw the first punch, fire the first bullet, we win.
Of course, once the other side begins to attack you, self-defence is entirely excusable. You can even use anticipatory defense if someone is explicitly encouraging violence against you. But the provocation has to be clear and unambiguous. To be self-consistent and true to our ideals, we must adhere to reciprocal justice: words are resisted with words, and actions with actions. Always make the other side escalate. Then respond in kind.
And we have to be individualists about this, because collective injustice has been used as a tool of oppression too many times. Hold every individual accountable for what they themsleves have said or done. Merely agreeing with a violent asshole doesn't make them a violent asshole themselves, merely deluded. We do not attack categories of people, not even when they categorize themselves, not even when those categories are offensive, because categorizing people is the very thing we are fighting against. You can't use evil to defeat evil, we all know what trope that is.
And always use the minimum amount of force required to protect yourselves from oppression. The use of force plays to the strengths of the other side. You may win the first street battle, but you will lose the war, because that is the very excuse that reactionary forces within law enforcement and the military are looking for to justify joining the right-wing mobs against us. They have a preponderance of force we can never match, so lets not go that way.
Our ideals are superior to theirs, so to the extent possible, we must rely on our ideals as weapons. That may mean taking a few punches. Or bullets. But at the end of the day you either believe in the power of righteous ideas to advance the cause or you dont. And if you dont, then I sincerely cant understand why you expect justice to win.
I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.@Smokey: While I understand the sentiment, I don't find the actions of fictional characters with writers that can make that situation turn out well should really be taken as a literal example of what we should do. Also, they were written in a time when the country was literally at war. Right now, we're likely to have much more parallel with the Civil Rights movement, which was a struggle with our own fellow citizens. While not without violence, peaceful protest won the day in the end. In fiction land, any act of violence can turn out well with no negative side effects. Here in reality land, the truth is as I have stated; they can use our occasional bad behavior against and just magnify that until that's all anyone sees if they wish.
The point of peaceful protest is the peaceful part. The point of it is to be better than them. I already said that the whole situation is viscerally satisfying; that's probably why they engage in such actions against everyone they hate. But if you stay in that place, where they already are, then you've successfully brought yourself down to their level, without them having to do anything. They want us to give into that anger, they want us to act as violent and nasty as they are. So tell me, while you justify punching a guy literally out of nowhere, what is the point of acting like we're better than them when we're not actually behaving better than them?
I reiterate: Long term solutions are not what we need, not the short term feel good of having just walloped a dude who has not at all been silenced by that action. A punch is not a convincing argument. It's just an ultimately meaningless act.
edited 12th Feb '17 9:17:52 PM by AceofSpades
National Security Council in Turmoil
But the ship was in international waters in the Arabian Sea, according to two officials. Mr. Mattis ultimately decided to set the operation aside, at least for now. White House officials said that was because news of the impending operation leaked, a threat to security that has helped fuel the move for the insider threat program. But others doubt whether there was enough basis in international law, and wondered what would happen if, in the early days of an administration that has already seen one botched military action in Yemen, American forces were suddenly in a firefight with the Iranian Navy.
Welp. Iranian War may be earlier than expected.
Mad Dog was a garbage choice for Sec Def
edited 12th Feb '17 9:31:26 PM by TacticalFox88
New Survey coming this weekend!Now now, Mad Dog may ensure that the war with Iran doesn't go nuclear, which would be something.
So yeah, anyone taking bets on the US being involved in a war before the year is over?
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranJust for Fun:
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1424599314256605&substory_index=0&id=595467550503123
"Little does Donald Trump know, the Mexicans have already devised a plan to get past the Wall"
edited 12th Feb '17 9:54:01 PM by sgamer82
US has replaced a lot of it's oil consumption with local product or natural gas over the last several years though (though some of that natural gas is from fracking which is its own set of environmental problems). The low gas prices we had last year was OPEC trying to price war our domestic oil out of the market; they've gone back up to normal-ish $2.50/gal because they gave up.
? What's going on in Oroville?
Edit: Ah.
"Crumbling California dam spillway prompts urgent evacuations" - http://www.reuters.com/article/us-california-dam-idUSKBN15S04W
Also:
"White House official attacks court after legal setbacks on immigration" - http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usas-trump-immigration-idUSKBN15R0O3
edited 12th Feb '17 10:06:34 PM by sgamer82
Yeah, no, she's not going to say that. For one thing, she has a sense of responsibility. For another, she probably realizes how badly that'd go over with certain parts of the country. And frankly, we don't need her fostering a sense of resentment and division. But then again I say with a fair amount of confidence she's not going to because she doesn't hold on to spite the way Tactical seems to wish she would.
And frankly that's the level of pettiness we've come to expect from Trump. Let's not encourage being like Trump, yeah?
edited 13th Feb '17 12:41:23 AM by AceofSpades
A Yale history professor says that America has a year perhaps even less to defend its democracy.
When you say that the press is the opposition, than you are advocating a regime change in the United States. When I am a Republican and say the Democrats are the opposition, we talk about our system. If I say the government is one party and the press is the opposition, then I talk about an authoritarian state. This is regime change.
Last week Trump called those who take part in demonstrations “thugs” and “paid protestors”. This doesn’t show respect for First Amendment right, it sounds more like Putin.
That is exactly what the Russian leadership does. The idea is to marginalize the people who actually represent the core values of the Republic. The point is to bring down the Republic. You can disagree with them. but once you say they have no right to protest or start lying about them, you are in effect saying: „We want a regime where this is not possible anymore.“ When the president says that it means that the executive branch is engaged in regime change towards an authoritarian regime without the rule of law. You are getting people used to this transition, you are inviting them into the process by asking them to have contempt for their fellow citizens who are defending the Republic. You are also seducing people into a world of permanent internet lying and way from their own experiences with other people. Getting out to protest, this is something real and I would say something patriotic. Part of the new authoritarianism is to get people to prefer fiction and inaction to reality and action. People sit in their chairs, read the tweet and repeat the clichés: “yes, they are thugs” instead of “it is normal to get out in the streets for what you believe.” He is trying to teach people a new behavior: You just sit right where you are, read what I say and nod your head. That is the psychology of regime change.
No, they usually have no idea. It is a good question. Americans have this idea that comes from Jefferson and the American Revolution that you have to rebel every so often. And they sometimes don’t make the distinction between a rebellion against injustice and the extinction of the whole political system, which is what Bannon says that he is after. The American Revolution actually preserved ideas from Britain: the rule of law being the most important. The whole justification of the American Revolution was that the British were not living up to their own principles, were not including Americans in their own system. In a broad way that that was also the argument of the civil rights movement: the system fails itself when it does not extend equal rghts to all citizens. So there can be resistance and even revoution which is about meeting standards rather than about simple destruction. What Bannon says correctly about the Bolsheviks was that they aimed to completely destroy an old regime. We can slip from one to the other very easily, from rebelliousness to a complete negation of the system. Most Americans had a rule of law state for most of their lives, African Americans are an exception, and so most Americans think this will be there forever. They don’t get that a “disruption” can actually destroy much of what they take for granted. They have no notion what it means to destroy the state and how their lives would look like if the rule of law would no longer exist. I find it frightening that people who talk about the destruction of the American state are now in charge of the American state.
Oy. The Oroville situation escalated quickly. And frankly, I don't understand how they didn't expect it. An unreinforced patch of ground is obviously going to erode if water flows over it. It ain't like the Gibson Dam a few decades ago, that kind of dam can handle being overtopped.
Also, what kind of idiot makes a dam where you cannot use turbines and spillways simultaneously?
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard FeynmanThey did, People warned them in 2005 it'd be an issue
, and they didn't do anything about it.
edited 13th Feb '17 1:37:13 AM by Lanceleoghauni
"Coffee! Coffeecoffeecoffee! Coffee! Not as strong as Meth-amphetamine, but it lets you keep your teeth!"

Have to agree with Physical Stamina and Silas on this one.
To be honest I'm not sure why we're so hung up on that particular example, anyways. You don't have to literally punch a fascist to ostracize them or tell them they're not welcome in polite society.