Greengrass
Well-known member
That's not a claim I made.
Who else dreads this year?
- Thread starter Cherico
- Start date
Sounds like justification of violence to me. "He likely provoked them, so he deserves it".
Hands and feet are legally classified as personal weapons and kill more people each year than AR-15s. Ever been hit with an egg thrown at full force? Shit fucking hurts, and yes thats a weapon. Literally anything can be a weapon if used as one, which is what they were doing. And they are certainly throwing shit at him, cant tell exactly what it is. I know at least with the bus incident back in Portland most recently they were throwing blocks of concrete at it.
Greengrass
Well-known member
That's never a claim I made, and I will say so explicitly. Andy Ngo did not deserve to be physically attacked or stolen from.
This is nonsense and hands and feet were clearly not what Hlaalu Agent was referring to as weapons.
Okay, then how is being provoked a valid defense for mobbing a man, beating him, and stealing his property? And if that is still not the claim you, made then what is the exact claim, and can you elaborate on it? Because, I want to know your exact claim to make sure that we are debating on the same page.
Greengrass
Well-known member
Andy Ngo did not deserve to be physically attacked or stolen from. Andy Ngo has a history of editing videos to remove evidence of right wing attacks to show only retaliation against their attacks, or to make up attacks entirely.
We have, on video, Andy Ngo laughing as Patriot Prayer readies actual weapons for an attack on a bar.
Those are my points.
establishing a repor with the people your interviewing is a basic part of journalism.
your not proving that he wasn't simply doing his job as a reporter so he could get the story. Reporters are expected to go out and talk to people and being able to put them at ease so you can get the facts has always been a standard part of the job.
if your surrounded by people who you think my be dangerous and its a tense situation are you going to get in their faces or are you going to laugh politely until your safely away from them? Keep in mind its your job to interview these people.
HistoryMinor
Well-known member
Lol the weathermen, it's kind of weird that you bring them up but not the constant lynchings and firebombings of that time. If Trump wins that's what I'm really worried about, we all know things aren't getting better and that he'll need someone to blame.
I'm not even going to go through the rest of this thread, no one was throwing blocks of concrete, people who use block block tactics are antifa in the same way that I'm a member of the wu tang clan and Democrats in general are pussies who got gaslighted into spending all their political capital on fighting for shit proposed by Mitt Romney back in the day.
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When did I say anything about getting in anyone's face? I said there's a difference between building a rapport, which can include "polite laughter", and actively supporting an action.
I didn't even say he specifically did, I was making a general statement of fact since it seemed that it was something being disputed.
Honestly at this point I'm at the level of "a pox on both their houses", and yes I know golden meanism and tu quoque defenses are crap, but the general behavior of "the guys on my side aren't doing anything wrong and your guys are all terrorists" is grating. (And yes, I know extremists on both sides have committed physical assault on people, that's what extremists do sometimes). Everyone's blood is up, which is sort of the point of the entire thread and why people are dreading next year, as increased passions will make political violence more frequent.
The entire point of our system, indeed of systems based on free speech and open debate, is to allow more sober discussions. It doesn't always happen (American history is chock full of debates that became rancorous, just look at the 1790s and the discussions of Revolutionary France vs. the UK, or how the rise of abolitionism led to increased Southern fervor for censorship and the crushing of anti-slavery dissent) but it's an ideal we should strive for instead of trying to demonize our fellow citizens for matters of reasonable political opinion.
The late 60s 70s really sucked.
City wide riots that burned large sections of America down, political extremism and terrorist groups on both sides, attacks, it was a serously bad time and I really hope we are not going back to that.
Yeah, that was me misremembering certain details. Especially since other attacks involved (improvised) weapons. Pretty sure mob beating someone is still bad regardless of if you use weapons, or you don't. What I was thinking of was things like that bikelock incident.
Do you have actual evidence for this? Because, it just sounds like pure deflection to me. And it is obvious that Antifa are the ones coming spoiling for a fight, I mean did all those trash cans, newspaper dispensers and shop windows provoke them? I am sure those small business owners had it coming.
And saw it, looks like exactly what you accuse Ngo of. Clips take out of context and commented on by the Young Turks. Though I haven't found the full clip yet, do you think a link? Because, if he is an asshole, then my opinion would change to him being an asshole beaten by other assholes. It would probably be good to know if that is the case.
HistoryMinor
Well-known member
We're not going back to that because the government has spent decades creating a militarized police force and for profit prisons. If we can normalize mass shootings, we'll normalize 80 people getting rounded up every time there's minor vandalism.
Greengrass
Well-known member
It's in the article I linked, but here's a direct link to the video. Notably, unlike the clips that Andy Ngo posted that are typically a minute long or shorter, this is a full 18 minutes long.
I would support your "asshole beaten by assholes." I am not an Antifa member or complete supporter of them, I do not approve of violence used in this manner. But the primary instigators of political violence (and far more dangerous than Antifa) are the far right wing extemist groups who often get ignored while Antifa fears are stoked by bad actors like Andy Ngo.
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@Greengrass I'll look into that and see if I can't draw my own conclusions about this.
HistoryMinor
Well-known member
Since this post appears to have started the whole antifa morality debate, I figured it was the best point to start with a rebuttal.
Antifa can't take credit for "defending" people from violence they provoked in the first place. Up until the last couple years, political rallies in the US were remarkably none violent, with even outright neo-nazis holding entirely peaceful rallies and events......and then antifa showed up to "defend" people by beating up peaceful protesters. Shithead protesters, to be sure, but peaceful ones.
Elements of the right gleefully took advantage of this new status quo and started punching back, or taking advantage of antifa's willingness to throw the first punch and then counterattacked, but they didn't start this escalation, antifa did, and so they get the lion's share of the blame for the current situation. Particularly because there are still rallies where only the right wing shows up and there's no antifa presence, and contrary to antifa's lies about "we're just here to defend our communities", the right wing doesn't rij around amok beating up helpless people or something when antifa isn't there. Antif clearly isn't defending shit, they're just petty shitheads who are butthurt about Trump and want to hurt people they view as responsible.
As for your article and your summary therefore, the two seem to be in conflict. The article and it's linked articles link the spine fracturing incident to a street fight between patriot prayer and antifa, while you claim it was an attack on "peaceful protesters". I'm pretty sure you can't engage in a street fight (on that, for the record, patriot prayer did provoke....but by yelling insults, not fracturing people's spines) and still claim to be peaceful.
The article also dishonestly interprets "two years ago some cops said they could arrest some guys, but offered them the chance to just leave instead" and "cops inform protesters of the other side's planned movements to try and keep them apart" as "cops are actively aided and abetting facists, oh noes". Because cops never make empty threats or bullshit people to make them do what the cops want, and cops never just let people off with a warning or try to get people to cooperate with them by doing them "favors". Nope, clearly it must be a facist conspiracy. And also apparently cops are deliberately letting right wingers get away with shit, because they're not listening to random left wing dirtbags on twitter screeching about nazis, or something (because usually the cops are so willing to take orders from rando calrissian's Twitter feed, right?).
Seems to me like the cops would probably have a much easier time if they only had to keep any eye on two groups of assholes instead of two, or if they could focus on looking out for troublemakers instead of having to sort out a bunch of "he started it! No, he started it!" arguements.
Antifa can't take credit for "defending" people from violence they provoked in the first place. Up until the last couple years, political rallies in the US were remarkably none violent, with even outright neo-nazis holding entirely peaceful rallies and events......and then antifa showed up to "defend" people by beating up peaceful protesters. Shithead protesters, to be sure, but peaceful ones.
Elements of the right gleefully took advantage of this new status quo and started punching back, or taking advantage of antifa's willingness to throw the first punch and then counterattacked, but they didn't start this escalation, antifa did, and so they get the lion's share of the blame for the current situation. Particularly because there are still rallies where only the right wing shows up and there's no antifa presence, and contrary to antifa's lies about "we're just here to defend our communities", the right wing doesn't rij around amok beating up helpless people or something when antifa isn't there. Antif clearly isn't defending shit, they're just petty shitheads who are butthurt about Trump and want to hurt people they view as responsible.
As for your article and your summary therefore, the two seem to be in conflict. The article and it's linked articles link the spine fracturing incident to a street fight between patriot prayer and antifa, while you claim it was an attack on "peaceful protesters". I'm pretty sure you can't engage in a street fight (on that, for the record, patriot prayer did provoke....but by yelling insults, not fracturing people's spines) and still claim to be peaceful.
The article also dishonestly interprets "two years ago some cops said they could arrest some guys, but offered them the chance to just leave instead" and "cops inform protesters of the other side's planned movements to try and keep them apart" as "cops are actively aided and abetting facists, oh noes". Because cops never make empty threats or bullshit people to make them do what the cops want, and cops never just let people off with a warning or try to get people to cooperate with them by doing them "favors". Nope, clearly it must be a facist conspiracy. And also apparently cops are deliberately letting right wingers get away with shit, because they're not listening to random left wing dirtbags on twitter screeching about nazis, or something (because usually the cops are so willing to take orders from rando calrissian's Twitter feed, right?).
Seems to me like the cops would probably have a much easier time if they only had to keep any eye on two groups of assholes instead of two, or if they could focus on looking out for troublemakers instead of having to sort out a bunch of "he started it! No, he started it!" arguements.
Terthna
Professional Lurker
Did not know we had a hip hop artist on the forum; welcome.
I do remember that early 2016 election primary polling stating how almost any Republican was seen as polling better in the election against either Democratic candidate when compared to Donald Trump. It was a source of much dismay for me when Trump did win the nomination and all I could think was... oh well... I guess Hilary Clinton is going to kill it. Of course these same polls also showed Bernie Sanders as performing far better then HRC against a potential Trump candidacy as well... and that clearly didn't bother the DNC in their sabotage of Bernie's campaign.
It's really hard to think how the election would've turned out if Trump wasn't elected and it was a Jeb Bush, or Kasich, Rubio, Carson or Ted Cruz or whatever. Keep in mind the mainstream media was more then willing to demonize Mitt Romney who was about as milquetoast as you can get even with trying to point out how he's a secret sociopath and the like back in 2012 so I'm sure that the media would probably be almost about as outraged and biased against any Republican President as they were against Trump, but because Trump doesn't pay lip service to respecting most of the media and their inherent biases, the media has this obsession to smear him more and he does make himself an easy target for media victimhood.
I would agree that the DNC wouldn't be as hardcore progressive and identitarian this election cycle as they are now if they were going up against an incumbent Jeb Bush or Rubio or Carson though? Trump has pushed the Democrats to accept more progressives and socialist and race identitarian policies because of the perpetual outrage the left side of the aisle has been feeling ever since Americans had the audacity to refuse Hilary Clinton's coronation. So in that regard, the RNC is in a better position.
Biden/Kaine/Gilibrand versus Rubio/Carson/Bush would probably be a lot closer since both sides would be able to moderate themselves and try to cater for moderate voters. All of the disaffected people that voted for Trump last time... I doubt they'd be particularly enthused in voting for someone like Kamala Harris or Julian Castro and other identity politics focused types. They might be for Biden though... and maybe Bernie. One of the interesting things last election was how many people seemed to treat Trump and Bernie as alternatives and that's been picked up this cycle I feel by some of the Democratic candidates, like Yang for example.