Peaceful Berkley Protests Ruined By Antifa

[hollodero]

(08-28-2017, 09:35 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: These sort of subtle distinctions are beyond the comprehension of many.  The same people who derided the foaming at the mouth paranoid anti-Obama types have themselevs turned into foaming at the mouth anti-Trump people.  Ironic isn't it?

Yeah... in a sense. Not that it's overly important, but I still disagree here. On the grounds that Trump really isn't Obama, and those foaming over Obama often foamed over things like he's a Kenyan muslim and other pieces of utter misinformation, while those fomaing about Trump are foaming about, well the reality that is Donald Trump. With al these equivalency-arguments I can never forget what Trump did and said and tweeted and how much it disgusts me on levels I think do hold apolitical merit. Whatever.

(08-28-2017, 09:35 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Trump is hardly an eloquent man, but this is, essentially, what he was trying to say with the "both sides" argument.  Of course he made his point in a ham fisted way at the absolutely worst time.

I don't have anything to add to the rest of your post, I am on a similar page there. And I really wanted to avoid getting into that Trump reaction debate.... this is so politicized and it makes me cringe. So there's some chance I won't respond to a counter-point if the ensuing discussions were already had here in length.
Just so you see my problem with Trump's statement [apart from him saying that many goog people marched with the Nazis and supremacist, which is just absurd]. I agree that violence is wrong. I don't agree with taking this statement to the extreme of "equally bad". I do think beating up a marching Nazi who's against everything the constitution of the USA stands for (he's a Nazi, so of course he is) and, not to forget that, is in favour of mass murdering other ethnicities and everything else that comes with Nazism is wrong. It is. What you do is if there are 1000 Nazis marching, you try to get 100.000 people denouncing these efforts and what Nazis stand for. But it's not that kind of bad as said Nazi beating up a bystander or inhabitants (let alone kill one and injure many with his car). I feel seeing it like that is just common sense. There's a time and a place to debate Antifa, it could get more room, but in this case - it leaves me with the taste that they are dragged to the light so "the left" can't get any moral victory out of Nazi marches and Nazi terror attacks by spoken out Trump supporters. Which is playing with fire for political purposes.

We had similar discussions here in my country, and our right-wing, (probably) non-Nazi politicians made similar "yeah of course Nazis are bad, but..."-arguments. In the end, it seems like Nazis and the more extreme right wing base share similar enemies: The "left", the establisment, the media, and of course foreign domination and all that. And the enemy of my enemy a) votes for me and that helps and b) can't be my total enemy. But they are Nazis, so there's that; you can't and probably wouldn't want to defend them (I do not think Trump is a Nazi). And the solution to that conundrum, and what I feel Trump tries to do, seems to be to drag all kinds of other groups down to Nazi level. What about Antifa, what about radical Islam. Which quickly gets what about the left, what about muslims. Whataboutism at its finest, and it comes across as defending Nazis - by claiming, there are "Nazis" everywhere, the whole world is bad. It's kind of an "Putin might be a murderer, but so are many, and so were we, so what gives and who can throw a stone"-moment. This isn't helpful or uniting though. And it's also misleading. David Duke was happily misled by Trump's words, and that never is a good sign.

If Trump wants to speak Antifa, fine, mention and denounce them. But giving Antifa violence the same room (or time) as Nazi violence and terror, you're getting out the wrong message. Which, again, is a common sense argument, principled on morale and not on the words of your constitution. In the end, Trump spooked me a little there, and with reason I consider to be good.