The Rise of Far Left Extremism

[Raver]

@Raver You don't pass for "white" and damn sure not in the "anglo"/"nordic" sense (like I do, even though I'm also "mixed"); "left wing extremists" like ANTIFA fight so that your new world mongrel ass doesn't get strung up by a tree somewhere or have your head bashed in just because you look like you belong to some Central American caravan. Say thank you and STFU. Enough with these retarded, intellectually dishonest false equivalencies. There's no way in hell one can honestly equate Antifa with the likes of far right extremists like Neo-Nazis. Those types of groups seek to eradicate and divide diverse societies (that created people like me and you), victimizing marginalized populations and calling for state-sanctioned discrimination. Antifa protects those marginalized populations and was borne from a desire to stop state-sanctioned discrimination. PERIOD.

I am well aware that ANTIFA are not Leftist Neo-Nazis and that they are very different. They both represent polar opposite sides of the political scale. I am also well aware there are Neo-Nazis that would be hostile towards me because I am mixed race. However, I don't think ANTIFA is necessary to defend me from Neo-Nazis, that's what the police is for. Plus, with the way ANTIFA attacked a gay asian male reporter simply because he was Conservative has convinced me that protecting the downtrodden is not the goal of ANTIFA. The goal of ANTIFA is to attack anyone who disagrees with them.

If I was in Andy Ngo's position, I would of got the same treatment simply for being a reporter in their territory or even worse because I appear white. You tend to get the bad aspects of both sides (white and non-white) from being mixed race. Anyways, I want to make it clear that I am not saying ANTIFA is as bad as Neo-Nazis in their actions. What I am saying is that ANTIFA should not be given a free pass on their behavior simply because they happen to occupy the left instead of the right on the political spectrum.

Drawing equivalence with Nazis is indeed retarded. When they should be calling them Communists instead.

I was just saying that ANTIFA are the opposite extreme of Neo-Nazis by occupying the left side extreme instead of the right side extreme rather than saying were literally Leftist Neo-Nazis. I agree that calling them Communists would be a far more fitting description though.

I do have trouble seeing the threat of left wing extremism if anyone (like @Raver, who I think is decent and not a right wing nutjob) wants to explain how my own freedoms are threatened, I've historically seen the anti-SJW thing as a laughable internet phenomenon targeting college kids and other inconsequential people but now and again I see them getting someone fired and im like, ah ok. And I saw they attacked that journalist and he got a brain injury (which im obviously sensitive about) but I don't see mass shooters and real fuckin weirdos like on the right. (But my views, I guess, are biased towards right wing views being weird, I'll concede that..a lone shooter is objectively weirder than window smashing in a group tho, I think)

I get your argument that the far right are more prone to causing injury and death than the far left. That is undeniable and I am not trying to draw a false equivalence that the far left is just as bad as the far right, but rather that they occupy the extreme of the left wing in the same way the far right occupies the extreme of the right wing. Anyways, the reason I brought up attention to the far left is because it is often ignored and passed off as insignificant. Everyone acknowledges there is a group of far right extremists, why not acknowledge that there is a group of far left extremists even if they cause less tangible damage instead of sweeping it under the rug?

All that and yet Raver's shucking and jiving ass wants to speak about the rise of "left wing terrorists." GTFOH. Like I said the first time, I have absolutely no patience for his intellectual dishonesty. For anyone with more than 3 fully functioning brain cells, it's more than obvious who and what entities comprise an ACTUAL threat.

P.S. Are you from the former Soviet Union? It just seems that something gets to throbbing in your asshole whenever anything "communist"-adjacent is mentioned. Feel free to relax. ANTIFA operates within a different framework and context. They will never be the monsters responsible for the Soviet atrocities. The right wing MFers caging/molesting/starving/abusing/neglecting brown migrant children at the US Southern border, on the other hand....

I am not saying that the extreme right are saints and the extreme left are demons. Heck, I'm not even saying that the extreme right and extreme left are even comparable on the same level of violence and damage. All I am saying is that we should acknowledge that there are extremists on the left that may mean well in their actions, but cause indirect harm and that more attention should be brought to it, nothing more and nothing less. Two wrongs don't make a right, even if the second wrong causes less damage than the first.

I assume @Alonzo's point was to emphasize that this post is drawing attention away from a real problem by directing it to one that doesn't exist. @Raver is finding examples of petty-bourgeois liberals using somewhat underhanded methods against conservatives and calling this "far left" "extremism."

In contrast, I am an actual far-left extremist. Ask me anything, folks.

What are your thoughts on the attack on Andy Ngo that caused a cerebral hemorrhage? Did he deserve it? Why or why not?

[FreelancePoliceman]

What are your thoughts on the attack on Andy Ngo that caused a cerebral hemorrhage? Did he deserve it? Why or why not?

I think it shouldn't have been done. I don't care that he was milkshaked, but it's obviously bad to physically attack people.

Whether he deserved it is, I think, besides the point. Maybe he rapes puppies. Maybe Calvinists are right and we all deserve eternal suffering, and by beating Ngo up the protesters were executing divine judgment. But the fact is that I'm not very familiar with what sort of person he is, and even if I were, I wouldn't feel qualified to make any sort of normative judgment of this sort.

[Raver]

Who are the "left-wing extremists"? Eco-terrorists? Revolutionary communists?

Right-wing killings eclipsed all other extremist-related murders in 2018. The numbers don’t lie.
In 2018, at Least 50 US Deaths From Surging Right-Wing Extremist Attacks
Right-Wing Extremism Linked to Every 2018 Extremist Murder in the U.S., ADL Finds

- 17 people killed in Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh
- In 2018, domestic extremists killed at least 50 people in the U.S
- In 2017, 37 people were killed
- In 2016, 72. In 2015, 70.
- The majority of the murders were committed by white supremacists, with a smaller number perpetrated by anti-government extremists and extreme misogynists who identify as "involuntary celibates" or incels.
- Only one of the 50 murders had any connection to Islamist extremism — and even then the perpetrator had ties to white supremacy.

- 51 people killed in New Zealand Christchurch Mosque shootings
- A white supremacist at a Veterans Affairs home in Tennessee allegedly set his African-American roommate on fire, then boasted about it to a white supremacist group.
- Another Pittsburgh white supremacist was charged with stabbing an African-American man to death


The right-wing extremists have actually been killing dozens of people in-discriminatory via mass-shootings, etc, while the "left-wing extremists" are calling people racists on YouTube. And we're supposed to care about left-wing extremists more because they're more dangerous. Right.

If you still think that the problem is left-wing extremists, then either you're very naive or very disingenuous.

I am not saying that right wing extremists are not a problem and that left wing extremists are the only problem. I acknowledge that right wing extremists have higher death tolls and physical violence than left wing extremists. However, the issue is let's not ignore left wing extremism just because right wing extremism exists. The problem is that both left wing and right wing extremism need to be remedied.

However, left wing extremism is often ignored by the media and the general public because it supports the social narrative. Let's acknowledge that both right wing extremism and left wing extremism are serious problems that need to be addressed. Just because right wing extremism is worse in terms of death tolls and physical violence doesn't mean that we can suddenly ignore and/or accept left wing extremism.

I think it shouldn't have been done. I don't care that he was milkshaked, but it's obviously bad to physically attack people.

Whether he deserved it is, I think, besides the point. Maybe he rapes puppies. Maybe Calvinists are right and we all deserve eternal suffering, and by beating Ngo up the protesters were executing divine judgment. But the fact is that I'm not very familiar with what sort of person he is, and even if I were, I wouldn't feel qualified to make any sort of normative judgment of this sort.

Well, at least we agree that he should not have been attacked. From what I know of him, he's a conservative reporter that tried to cover a story on ANTIFA and that was the extent of it. I have not heard of him doing anything malicious to deserve being physically attacked:

[Kill4Me]

In a nutshell:
A good antifa is a dead antifa.

[Singu]

I am not saying that right wing extremists are not a problem and that left wing extremists are the only problem. I acknowledge that right wing extremists have higher death tolls and physical violence than left wing extremists. However, the issue is let's not ignore left wing extremism just because right wing extremism exists. The problem is that both left wing and right wing extremism need to be remedied.

This whole narrative that you're eating right up is "left-wing extremism is just as bad as right-wing extremism!", which is just a convenient distraction from the real threat of right-wing extremism.

As ADL had noted, while the tactics employed by antifa are problematic, equating them with right-wing extremists is false equivalence:

All forms of antifa violence are problematic. Additionally, violence plays into the “victimhood” narrative of white supremacists and other right-wing extremists and can even be used for recruiting purposes. Images of these “free speech” protesters being beaten by black-clad and bandana-masked antifa provide right wing extremists with a powerful propaganda tool.

That said, it is important to reject attempts to claim equivalence between the antifa and the white supremacist groups they oppose. The antifa reject racism but use unacceptable tactics. White supremacists use even more extreme violence to spread their ideologies of hate, to intimidate ethnic minorities, and undermine democratic norms. Right-wing extremists have been one of the largest and most consistent sources of domestic terror incidents in the United States for many years; they have murdered hundreds of people in this country over the last ten years alone. To date, there have not been any known antifa-related murders.

https://www.adl.org/resources/backgr...are-the-antifa

However, left wing extremism is often ignored by the media and the general public because it supports the social narrative. Let's acknowledge that both right wing extremism and left wing extremism are serious problems that need to be addressed. Just because right wing extremism is worse in terms of death tolls and physical violence doesn't mean that we can suddenly ignore and/or accept left wing extremism.

The real reason why the "left-wing extremists" are ignored by the media is because they've never actually killed anyone before, while right-wing extremists are killing dozens of people every year.

A headline of "a group of anonymous antifa people have fisticuffs with right-wingers" isn't exactly exciting or very newsworthy. You might as well report on random bar fights.

[Sol]

you may notice the _existence_ of "far right" ideology masked in global liberalism and pseudodemocracies alike in USA and Europe. when interests of minority are set above interests of majority
while so called "far left extremism" appears from the understanding that there is no legal ways to change the situation to interests of humanity. it's not more spreaded than formally open "right ideology" alike nazism

liberalism is "right" ideology and it's almost anywhere now. it has open nazism in USA ideology and practice. more absorbs open ******ism and social eugenism. gets more traits of open antihumanism.
what you may see in today pseudodemocratic West is reducing of left reforms done before alike rising of social inequality, reducing of social fonds alike rising of pension ages
left ideology is illegally supressed on West. medias to support propaganda and strengheting of "right" ideology will fight against left ideas, including by lie about "left threat". while "right threat" will be ignored. it's even called differently but does the same what ****** did, partly by other means. what wars USA did in 20th century? what good they did in middle East in 21th century? they just destroy normal life anywhere to rob other nations.
what was done with ex-USSR territories by USA forced liberal ideology - there is poverty and degradation now, people die out. resources go away to foreign nations. who resists - there comes USA army and kills people under medias propaganda they bring something good. what is good in Afganistan? USSR built there factories, opened schools. USA support and protect grow of drugs only, while people live as in past centuries

think about liberal extremism. when is said good, but practically is done the harm against the laws. medias, politicians lie openly. lesser dirrect and lesser evident lie is much more. why was destroyed Iraq? what good was done with Lybia? with Syria by USA supported and rised islamistic bands. etc

[Metamorph]

you may notice the _existence_ of "far right" ideology masked in global liberalism and pseudodemocracies alike in USA and Europe. when interests of minority are set above interests of majority
while so called "far left extremism" appears from the understanding that there is no legal ways to change the situation to interests of humanity

Communism is dumb. I'd rather have the interests of the minority favored as long as it's the minority of each individual. There's nothing grosser than sacrificing people for the good of the community. That's always a lie anyways. Humanity's interests are worst of all. People always look at how things are rather than how they should be when doing things in the interest of "humanity." It's better to forget "humanity" and astonish everyone.

[FreelancePoliceman]

you may notice the _existence_ of "far right" ideology masked in global liberalism and pseudodemocracies alike in USA and Europe. when interests of minority are set above interests of majority
while so called "far left extremism" appears from the understanding that there is no legal ways to change the situation to interests of humanity. it's not more spreaded than formally open "right ideology" alike nazism

liberalism is "right" ideology and it's almost anywhere now

You’re right. But you’re speaking to mostly Americans, most of whom don’t even know the name of the ideology that rules our society. You’re likely better off saving yourself the effort in engaging with political threads.

[Sol]

You’re right. But you’re speaking to mostly Americans, most of whom don’t even know the name of the ideology that rules our society. You’re likely better off saving yourself the effort in engaging with political threads.

Those who don't know get the info to understand. It's one of purposes of this section's readers.

It's not a special problem of USA - it's common anywhere. Most people have no enough education and do not think critically about political situation. They only absorb propaganda, while their minds are isolated by a censorship and other methods. When they get other views they start to think and may change own opinions. It may happen not in a moment, - common 1st reaction is emotional negativism as propaganda is based on emotions. Later they may accept or reject new opinions more rationally, mb after gathering data themselves about politics.

Liberalism is based on individualism, egocentrism, on hate to other people. So called "right" ideology is the same individualism just on national level. People who follow to idea of higher interests of own nation above other nations are individualists and nazists in those views, - they can't be complete nationalists, as nationalism is based on love to people, on collectivism. Partly this controvertion is solved by illusions from propaganda about inferior or bad by other reasons people of other nations, by dehumanization of them.

I may add more.

There is no dichotomy right vs left. The dichotomy is individualism vs collectivism.
A human which lives for himself in egocentric sense (me against anyone) vs human who lives for other people (though this makes him happy too as he does this because having love to others and becomes happier when other people are happier).

I'd want to add - the more human is individualist - the more doubtful he may feel happy. For individualists the world should be terrible - a place of neverending war, they are always among enemies, threats are anywhere, in permanent emotions of anxiety and hate. Mb this has a metaphor in Christianity - when people living without love live in hell, who sell own souls - own possibility to feel happy for something else.

I also may add that when people love someone (own marriage pair, for example) - they are more predisposed to love in general, to love anyone, the whole World in the absolute and its Creator. Having more of love - they should be able to feel happier. I mean here not only a sympathy - but deeper feeling of union, joining the minds with other one, introjections of his personality and interests in yourself.
If Jung types with good IR is factor which makes easier to love other human. Socionics is a way to make more collectivism among people, more love among them. It mb the reason why Socionics appeared and developed in socialistic USSR, but not among Jungians in individualistic capitalistic Western world. Jungians knew about duality effects but thought them as "bad" - they followed to individualistic approach, where to love is bad, thought love as what makes weaker by preventing personal growth. On practice the situation is opposite. Duals may improve each other by sharing of skills and activation of weak functional regions - they should deeper love each other for this to happen better.

So people who are interested in Socionics and use it - follow to left ideology. They are practically communists as this term itself relates mostly to humanism and collectivism. They accept the need of love and search the way to make it more among people.
This also makes them extremists to some degree - as laws of today states is based much on antihumanism and nazism. These states also have ideology which describes [wrongly] their laws as best for people, so love and ideas of Socionics they may describe as harmful. Those laws go from the idea that good is a competition between anyone based on hate and fear, that it's the only good motivation.
From Christianity point - liberalism, capitalism are political expression of Satanism. While Christianity is extremistic ideology for today states. It's a question of time when this will be said openly and it will be tried to forbidden. Humanism will be tried to forbidden directly or indirectly. As collectivism and humanism are parts of normal people - the problem appears for humanity itself. There is predisposition to processes of Armageddon. While anything what supports collectivism works against this to happen or to reduce that.

People need to think deeper about politics. And a place of Socionics in it.

[Raver]

This whole narrative that you're eating right up is "left-wing extremism is just as bad as right-wing extremism!", which is just a convenient distraction from the real threat of right-wing extremism.

As ADL had noted, while the tactics employed by antifa are problematic, equating them with right-wing extremists is false equivalence:

https://www.adl.org/resources/backgr...are-the-antifa

Did you even read my other posts? I basically spent the rest of my posts stating that I think right wing extremism is worse than left wing extremism, but that doesn't mean we can ignore left wing extremism either. My argument is not a false equivalence because I'm not saying that they are equal, but rather that they both need to be dealt with.

The real reason why the "left-wing extremists" are ignored by the media is because they've never actually killed anyone before, while right-wing extremists are killing dozens of people every year.

A headline of "a group of anonymous antifa people have fisticuffs with right-wingers" isn't exactly exciting or very newsworthy. You might as well report on random bar fights.

That link has nothing to do with ANTIFA, it is about some random fringe environmentalist groups that have almost nothing to do with what we're talking about other than the fact that they're both far leftists. My original point still stands, how does the fact that right wing extremists cause more deaths and physical violence, make it acceptable to ignore what left wing extremists are doing? So in other words, I'm not saying that right wing extremists = left wing extremists in severity or in general. I am saying that left wing extremists are a problem that need to remedied, do you see the difference yet?

[Raver]

More evidence that you don't possess as much as in-depth knowledge and nuanced understanding of these topics as you claim (in so much as you frequently speak on them, often invoking some buzzword that you relentlessly beat over the head); everything you say sounds like it's been regurgitated from the most partisan, right wing hacks. First off, when conservative and moderate commentators talk about "identity politics," they usually mean espousing ideas and policies that appeal specifically to women, minorities, and LGBTQ people, in other words, a "multi-tribalism" or multi-tribal coalition of sorts; but in contrast, the right has long peddled in a form of mono-tribalism (centered on white, straight, Christian men), and as of recent (with the rise of Trump), a particularly ethnonationalist brand of mono-tribalism rooted in white identified grievance politics and culture wars. Anyone who has watched Fox News for a few minutes can cop to this.

Trump's "us against them” brand of demagoguery (and his focus on white ethnocentrism, anti-immigrant attitudes, racial resentment, fear of Muslims, and racial and ethnic intolerance) resonates in an American political environment that has long been centered on social groups and has grown even more since the Obama era. Appeals to racial and ethnic anxieties have often succeeded in activating support for racially conservative politicians. There has been research conducted that shows that white identity more strongly affects opinions when whites perceive themselves as under threat. This foreshadows a rising white identity politics as the United States becomes a majority-minority nation. The white supremacists marching on Charlottesville were only a small segment of a much larger population for whom the politics of white identity has deep resonance and meaning. The vast majority of white Americans who feel threatened by the country’s growing racial and ethnic diversity are not members of the KKK or neo-Nazis. They are much greater in number, and far more mainstream, which is why a fair amount of them were ripe for the picking when Trump came along, propped up and backed up by Fox News, the alt-right, intellectual dark web, etc... that have crafted a decidedly right wing, white oriented identity politic centered around resistance and opposition to actual and/or perceived left wing identity politics. Stop disingenuously focusing on the left wing as if they are the sole perpetrators of centering one's identity.

One of my chief issues with your "takes" and opinions is that they lack what I deem to be an intellectual honesty/rigor because they conveniently leave out deeper contexts, connections, perspectives, and data points that matter in these types of discussions. It just makes you look like an uninformed, lopsided hack. I'm not trying to be mean, but in a debate, that's some frustrating shit. And as a matter of public dialogue, I see your brand of cherry picking as dangerous.

I don't really consider myself super knowledgeable about politics or an expert on it, but I can still make conclusions based on my observations and what I do know. I am well aware that the far right are not innocent and a part of the problem like the far left. The reason why I bring up the far left is because they are often ignored and downplayed by the media and many leftists. I know the far right extremists are worse in damage and involved in identity politics too, but why should that excuse the far left extremism? Just seems like a weird double standard. I brought up the far left extremism specifically because I wanted to bring it up as an issue.

I am not expecting you or anyone else on the left to say that the far left are equivalent to neo-nazis (a point I retracted several times in this thread), but rather that the far left are a part of the problem. My views tend to vary politically for each issue, which is why I may appear dishonest when it is the exact opposite. If we can't admit that far left extremists, far right extremists, neoliberal corporatists and neoconservative corporatists are all a part of the problem then we will never make any progress in solving the real issue because we are too busy fighting each other.

IMO, the real problem in the US is the corporate oligarchy, the MIC and the mass media as their weapon of propaganda that dominates the country while neoliberal and neoconservative corporate politicians seek to protect it. Far left extremists and far right extremists fighting each other over identity politics is a waste of time and energy and those on the top are counting on it. Once you zoom out and look at the big picture rather than obsessing over the fine details, it just looks like a sideshow or a game comprised of smoke and mirrors. George Carlin put it best here:

[Delilah]

I don't really consider myself super knowledgeable about politics or an expert on it, but I can still make conclusions based on my observations and what I do know. I am well aware that the far right are not innocent and a part of the problem like the far left. The reason why I bring up the far left is because they are often ignored and downplayed by the media and many leftists. I know the far right extremists are worse in damage and involved in identity politics too, but why should that excuse the far left extremism? Just seems like a weird double standard. I brought up the far left extremism specifically because I wanted to bring it up as an issue.

I am not expecting you or anyone else on the left to say that the far left are equivalent to neo-nazis (a point I retracted several times in this thread), but rather that the far left are a part of the problem. My views tend to vary politically for each issue, which is why I may appear dishonest when it is the exact opposite. If we can't admit that far left extremists, far right extremists, neoliberal corporatists and neoconservative corporatists are all a part of the problem then we will never make any progress in solving the real issue because we are too busy fighting each other.

IMO, the real problem in the US is the corporate oligarchy, the MIC and the mass media as their weapon of propaganda that dominates the country while neoliberal and neoconservative corporate politicians seek to protect it. Far left extremists and far right extremists fighting each other over identity politics is a waste of time and energy and those on the top are counting on it. Once you zoom out and look at the big picture rather than obsessing over the fine details, it just looks like a sideshow or a game comprised of smoke and mirrors. George Carlin put it best here:

re: bolded: i don't personally agree with the notion of criticizing both sides for the sake of 'balance' or some such. Imo

[Raver]

re: bolded: i don't personally agree with the notion of criticizing both sides for the sake of 'balance' or some such. Imo

I wouldn't say it is about achieving balance or being impartial for the sake of it, but rather calling out poor behavior in general regardless of the severity of it. It should not be a competition of who is worse or better and the lesser of two evils is accepted, while the greater of two evils is scorned. It is about acknowledging both while simultaneously seeing the differences in severity and in general between them.

[Metamorph]

I wouldn't say it is about achieving balance or being impartial for the sake of it, but rather calling out poor behavior in general regardless of the severity of it. It should not be a competition of who is worse or better and the lesser of two evils is accepted, while the greater of two evils is scorned. It is about acknowledging both while simultaneously seeing the differences in severity and in general between them.

Yes! The far left shouldn't be allowed to try to ruin the college years of all the more intellectually-inclined students by filling everything up with ridiculous evil philosophies so that you have to agree if you're a normal human being and bite your tongue to the point you can't actually interact with anyone if you're not, and it shouldn't be allowed to ruin Hollywood by filling it with awful superhero films to the exclusion of good films, or fuel the military-industrial complex and run around destroying any wealthy countries it can get away with destroying (which results in way more deaths than right-wing terrorists have on their hands even if antifa aren't the ones killing people.) The damage the far left is doing is much more widespread, though I don't think there's any point in comparing them because I don't want to downplay the damage of the far right by comparing it to the far left any more than I want to downplay the damage of serial killers by comparing them to 20th century genocides. That just doesn't make any sense to do to begin with. "OK, Ted Bundy, you can go scott-free because there once was a man named Adolf ******." "Oh, ****** was completely innocent! He didn't stab a single person to death!" How about no.

[FreelancePoliceman]

Yes! The far left shouldn't be allowed to try to ruin the college years of all the more intellectually-inclined students by filling everything up with ridiculous evil philosophies so that you have to agree if you're a normal human being and bite your tongue to the point you can't actually interact with anyone if you're not, and it shouldn't be allowed to ruin Hollywood by filling it with awful superhero films to the exclusion of good films, or fuel the military-industrial complex and run around destroying any wealthy countries it can get away with destroying (which results in way more deaths than right-wing terrorists have on their hands even if antifa aren't the ones killing people.) The damage the far left is doing is much more widespread, though I don't think there's any point in comparing them because I don't want to downplay the damage of the far right by comparing it to the far left any more than I want to downplay the damage of serial killers by comparing them to 20th century genocides. That just doesn't make any sense to do to begin with. "OK, Ted Bundy, you can go scott-free because there once was a man named Adolf ******." "Oh, ****** was completely innocent! He didn't stab a single person to death!" How about no.

Periods are free; we won't charge you extra for using them.

[Alonzo]

I don't really consider myself super knowledgeable about politics or an expert on it, but I can still make conclusions based on my observations and what I do know. I am well aware that the far right are not innocent and a part of the problem like the far left.

Yes, you have the right to share your “observations” and “conclusions,” but because you admit that you aren’t “super knowledgeable,” then your thoughts simply shouldn’t hold much weight in the dialogue. PERIOD.

This is not CNN, who traffics in the same logical fallacies that you do > instead of treating competing views fairly—i.e., in proportion to their actual merits and significance—they are treated equally, i.e., giving them equal time to present their views even when those views may be known beforehand to be based on false or inaccurate information.

If two people are arguing the merits of childhood vaccinations and one person has a slew of peer reviewed/consensus mediated medical and scientific qualifications and a career in the field spanning 30 years and the other is nothing more than a deeply concerned first time parent voicing what they’ve seen in the case of their own child, then.... I mean, must I even finish this?

It would be absurd to pair these two as equally valid in their perspectives on such a broad, nuanced, complex topic and yet CNN traffics in this sort of shit DAILY. They give undo weight to an unsupported view that effectively diminishes the well supported view, which has the net outcome of imparting the false notion/impression that both views are equally flawed or that the truth lies somewhere in the middle. NOPE. Sometimes the extreme position is actually the correct one, and sometimes the entire spectrum of belief is flawed and incorrect, and the greater truth has yet to be considered or discovered. And this is where thinking critically (as opposed to shallowly and simplistically) comes into play.

The reason why I bring up the far left is because they are often ignored and downplayed by the media and many leftists. I know the far right extremists are worse in damage and involved in identity politics too, but why should that excuse the far left extremism? Just seems like a weird double standard. I brought up the far left extremism specifically because I wanted to bring it up as an issue.


I am not expecting you or anyone else on the left to say that the far left are equivalent to neo-nazis (a point I retracted several times in this thread), but rather that the far left are a part of the problem. My views tend to vary politically for each issue, which is why I may appear dishonest when it is the exact opposite. If we can't admit that far left extremists, far right extremists, neoliberal corporatists and neoconservative corporatists are all a part of the problem then we will never make any progress in solving the real issue because we are too busy fighting each other.

Raver’s “logic” in action >

****** and the Nazis: All the jews should be exterminated.
Jews: But we don’t want to be exterminated.
Raver: Let’s take into account both sides of these extremes and reasonably meet somewhere in the middle.

Da fuck? How would it be “logical” and “reasonable” for half of the jews to be exterminated? Another thing, it’s not as if the Jews were actively pursuing the same or any form of aggressive agenda against the Germans and the Germans were just “standing their ground” and “fighting” back against an equal and opposite threat. Nah, ****** and the Nazis were the ones with the actual power (particularly in terms of social/political/militaristic might) and they were railing against a disenfranchised group without the wherewithal to adequately resist them.

John Rawls takes this principle into account in his theorising of the value of tolerating intolerance. For Rawls, there must be a “self-preservation” clause — i.e. if the intolerant are intent on destroying a society, that society has the right to suspend tolerance in order to preserve itself. As such, Rawls believes that the default state of a just (and therefore tolerant) society ought to be that it tolerates the intolerant, until it has any reason not to do so. I tend to side with this frame of thought, in that it doesn’t stifle free speech, but it also doesn’t allow for the most intolerant extremes to destroy everything and everyone due to their having been tolerated.

What you need to learn to wrap your head around is the notion that some forms of extremism are completely wrong and others are not wrong at all, even if they are extreme. I’m not arguing that extreme leftism is correct and right and blameless but what you won’t do is create a false balance that supports the misguided belief that the truth must always lie somewhere in-between the two opposing sides. That’s FALSE. Sometimes, one side is definitely wrong or significantly more wrong, to the degree that the other side may not receive as much focus and attention, which, DUH, makes sense. It would be retarded to give the same attention, admonishment and punishment to both a child who pinches their classmate in response to being pinched and one who stabs their classmate in the neck with a pair of scissors because the teacher asked them to share. And let’s be super fucking clear here, it is the right wing extremists that are running around with scissors.

You want to talk all of this “blah blah” about both sides of the extremes being “a part of the problem” and that we must all work together to form a solution and that’s all fine and well. But guess what? As far as the right wing extremists are concerned, one faction is explicitly hateful and violently so (to the degree that they comprise the overwhelming amount of deaths caused by extremism) and another faction at the very least wants a significant portion of the population to be/remain socially, financially and politically disenfranchised for the sake of an all white ethnostate. And we’re supposed to work with that? Lol Stop with this “both sides” bullshit because it doesn’t reflect what is actually going on and who or what is the actual problem. And if you don’t know what's actually going on, LEARN.

[Raver]

I'm confused about this thread, are we talking about "what lead to the current rise in far left extremism", or "is far left extremism good or bad"? I guess I'll focus on the former.

It seems to me that the dramatic rise in Antifa (as such) started in 2016 in response to the campaign and subsequent election of Donald Trump.

I agree that the 2016 election certainly had a role in exacerbating it due to Trump getting elected. However, according to social psychologist/professor Jonathan Haidt, far leftism/SJW culture started in 2014 and began slowly manifesting since the eighties and nineties as he explains here:

I don't know if you're confusing it with Austria, but Australia is already an multi-ethnic, multi-cultural country like Canada.

A lot of the countries in Asia and Africa are already multi-ethnic or multi-cultural.

I mentioned Australia because its new PM and government wants to cut down on immigration and it isn't as diverse as Canada and it takes in much less immigrants compared to Canada. However, its PM and government could change in the following elections and allow more immigrants. I will also concede that Australia is already multi-ethnic/multicultural. Asian and African countries are mostly mono-ethnic/monocultural except for a few of them.

Most countries pretty much only accept highly-skilled immigrants. The US being one of them.

US/Canada/Aus/NZ do that, but Europe takes in tons of unskilled economic migrants.

Can you show me a credible source which says that immigrants (legal or illegal) use the welfare system more than native residents and commit more crimes than native residents ..?

Here you are, in regards to immigrants draining the welfare system in Europe as I only mentioned welfare in Europe and not crime:

An estimated 40% of Muslim youth in France and 50% in Germany are unemployed but far from destitute. Rather, they receive a wide range of social benefits. For example, an estimated 40% of welfare outlays in Denmark go to the 5% of the population that is Muslim. According to Otto Schily, former German interior minister, speaking of immigrants in general: “Seventy percent of the newcomers [since 2002] land on welfare the day of their arrival.” In Sweden, perhaps the most acute case, immigrants are estimated at 1.5 million out of 10 million people; immigration is estimated to cost almost $14 billion per year.

These high levels of welfare are accompanied by high levels of unemployment. Nor has this situation improved; rather, it is deteriorating. According to analyst Christopher Caldwell: “In the early 1970s, 2 million of the 3 million foreigners in Germany were in the labor force; by the turn of this century, 2 million of 7.5 million were.” Similar stories abound in other West European countries.

Source: https://acdemocracy.org/muslim-immig...cial-benefits/

[xerx]

US/Canada/Aus/NZ do that, but Europe takes in tons of unskilled economic migrants.

Here you are, in regards to immigrants draining the welfare system in Europe as I only mentioned welfare in Europe and not crime:

Source: https://acdemocracy.org/muslim-immig...cial-benefits/

So I looked in the "Our Mission" section of the website, which bombastically proclaims their organization's desire to defend "Judeo-Christian" culture, making them comically not neutral on the question of Muslim immigration.

We identify strategies used by radical regimes and movements to subvert Judeo-Christian based Western democratic systems, America’ Constitutional rights, and political and economic freedoms.

Regardless, the article was written in 2015, so I checked around to see how well the refugees in Germany are integrating. It seems like of the 1.5 million, 400,000+ are already either working or in job training. The article doesn't say what % of that 1.5 million are children, elderly, or women raising children. These figures are, in fact, ahead of what experts predicted. Source: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-a8901161.html

Regarding long-time Muslim immigrants to France: if integration is that bad (and I believe it is), then the problem could be structural, whereas the integration of long-time Muslims immigrants to Germany is significantly better, with unemployment matching the national average. Source: https://www.thelocal.de/20170824/int...rest-of-europe



Regarding immigration to America, according to the CATO institute, which is a right wing / small-government think tank, legal and illegal immigrants receive less welfare benefits and commit fewer crimes than ordinary Americans.

Source 1: https://www.cato.org/publications/co...-welfare-state.
Source 2: https://www.cato.org/publications/im...egal-immigrant

[xerx]

@Raver

Both legal as well as illegal immigrants to America use less welfare and commit fewer crimes. If I was going to be a dick about it, I'd point out how replacing ordinary Americans with illegals might actually make the country better.

[mfckrz]

Both legal as well as illegal immigrants to America use less welfare and commit fewer crimes.

That's been debunked over and over: https://cis.org/Report/63-NonCitizen...lfare-Programs

And they already committed a crime by coming here, hence 'illegals'.

[xerx]

That's been debunked over and over: https://cis.org/Report/63-NonCitizen...lfare-Programs

And they already committed a crime by coming here, hence 'illegals'.

That debunking has itself been debunked. https://www.cato.org/blog/center-imm...ve-welfare-use

[Raver]

...Why would you blame the victim? The racist will discriminate against them no matter how much they've integrated into the host country. There's also no fundamental reason why they should integrate, if only for the safety of not being a target of the majority.

I am not blaming the victim, I am just saying that making an entire country multicultural to cater to a minority of people is silly. Obviously laws should be put in place to prevent people from abusing minorities so they're respected as equal citizens, but forcing mass immigration to quell that doesn't make any sense.

People hate each other because of polarization and intensification of these identities, which some of them might be almost completely arbitrary. Who cares what "tribe" you belong to?

If people hate each other and fractionalize anyway, then what's the difference between homogeneity and diversity?

You can't undo thousands of years of humanity living in tribes in decades of forced multiculturalism and diversity.

OK Raver, I don't think we're going to agree.

To be honest, I've always known that some people will be resistant to outsiders under virtually every circumstance. It's futile to change deep-seated habits, so let's just focus on what we both can agree on: fewer people will need to emigrate from these countries once they become better places to live. This process is slowly happening, but it can obviously be accelerated if the third world receives massive investment and technology transfers from the first world.

Fair enough. I think you would find few people that would disagree with you that improving third world nations standard of living should happen. Where they might disagree on is how much they should be helped or the means. Some would argue that they should be helped by themselves, others believe in foreign aid. I would be fine with increasing investment and technology transfers from the first world to the third world, but within reasonable means to not overburden the tax payer of 1st world nations. Anyways, in my own country and other ex-British countries, I am pretty tolerant to outsiders, but I think a line needs to be drawn. A multi-ethnic/mono-cultural 1st world nation in order to exist needs to eventually freeze immigration to basically zero eventually. I'm not saying it has to happen today, but it needs to happen eventually. The main primary fear I have is not a mult-ethnic society, but 1st world nations devolving to 3rd world nations or somewhere in between 1st and 3rd world.

The other secondary fear I have is countries losing their culture and embracing the culture of where they immigrated from instead or developing a new watered down consumer mindless culture. The tertiary and last fear I have is countries losing their ethnicity so contrary to popular belief, ethnicity is not the main driving fear at least in my case. Where do I personally believe the line needs to be drawn in every single 1st world nation no matter what? I would say at around ~50% of the majority population so when the country is on the cusp of becoming a majority minority nation, near zero immigration needs to happen if the country wants to retain its 1st world status and the culture it has had for hundreds to thousands of years. So despite my rhetoric in keeping Europe ethnically pure, I know it's a fruitless endeavor in most European nations because of mass immigration/open borders so far and for that reason I don't expect it to happen.

Several nations are projected to be minority-majority nations at less than 50% within several decades time at roughly the mid point of this century. So that means I think France needs remain at least 50% ethnically French, Germany needs to remain at least 50% ethnically German, US needs to remain at least 50% ethnically European and Canada needs to remain at least 50% ethnically European. I am a lot more lenient with ex-British colonies because trying to keep America and Canada to ~50% ethnically British/German is silly considering they were originally Native American countries. I am also sure that my views are malleable compared to others that are more conservative on immigration. The truth is whether people want to admit it or not, the vast majority of 1st generation immigrants will never fully integrate or assimilate fully into the country they immigrate to. Sure, those who immigrated under 10 years old would likely nearly fully or fully integrate and assimilate into the country and culture, but it's safe to say that someone that immigrated at the age of 20 or older will always be culturally attuned to their first nation and never fully integrate or assimilate.

You can only really expect 2nd generation immigrants to fully integrate and assimilate into the country they have immigrated to. This is why lines must be drawn at some point in time if you want 1st world nations to retain their 1st world nation status, economy, quality of life, culture and values. As a 2nd generation immigrant, I feel much more culturally attuned to the nation I was born in compared to my parents that feel much more culturally attuned to the nation they were born in. This is true regardless of the nation the person immigrated from unless they immigrated from a neighboring nation that is very culturally similar. The main fear for most people ignoring racists in regards to immigration I would say is retaining 1st world status > retaining original culture > retaining ethnicity. Near zero immigration needs to eventually happen sooner or later or what the inevitable result is 1st world nations devolving into 3rd world nations at the worst possible case scenario or 1st world nations losing their original culture for a watered down meaningless empty consumer culture at the best possible case scenario. Majority ethnicities being wiped out completely is absurd of course, but them becoming eventual minorities is very real.

So my question to you is this, where do you draw the line of multiculturalism and mass immigration and instead focus on monoculturalism and near zero immigration? Is it the same as my view when the country is at the cusp of becoming a majority minority nation at around ~50%? Is it more lenient than that so when the majority ethnicity is roughly on par with several minority groups at ~33%? Is it when the majority ethnicity becomes less than at least one other minority group at ~25%? Or is it when the majority ethnicity becomes less than several minority groups at ~10%? Where would that line be drawn for in a nation you have ethnic ancestry ties to like Georgia/Armenia? Would it be the same or different than compared to European nations or the US/Canada? Applying standards by drawing a definitive line with immigration requires no inhumane treatment or mass deportations aside from illegal immigrants. It's simply a matter of enforcing borders to near zero immigration to all 1st world nations once that line is recognized and drawn in order to protect 1st world nation status and retaining the culture of these nations.

[Metamorph]

Where would xerxe draw the line? I wouldn't because racial and ethnic identities are ridiculous and stupid. I don't care if my grandson is White, Brown, Black, or Blue and speaks Martian.

If you think culture is that shallow, you've got another thing coming.

[xerx]

If you think culture is that shallow, you've got another thing coming.

I didn't say culture, I said race and ethnicity. Even so, culture changes radically all the time; the culture in 2200 is probably going to be completely unrecognizable.

[Metamorph]

I didn't say culture, I said race and ethnicity. Even so, culture changes ALL the time.

Ethnicity is the culture you belong to. It just gets confused for race because multicultural societies like to strongly imply that culture is only something that people who haven't had the Enlightenment have and confuse culture for the act of wearing a dashiki shirt (which is a shallow thing to do and no one would care if I wore one.)

[xerx]

Ethnicity is the culture you belong to. It just gets confused for race because multicultural societies like to strongly imply that culture is only something that people who haven't had the Enlightenment have and confuse culture for the act of wearing a dashiki shirt (which is a shallow thing to do and no one would care if I wore one.)

I'm not watching a whole 28 minute youtube video, so I'll just respond to your written statement: no, ethnicity and culture aren't the same thing.

[Raver]

Where would xerxe draw the line? I wouldn't because racial and ethnic identities are ridiculous and stupid. I don't care if my grandson is White, Brown, Black, or Blue and speaks Martian.

I don't care if my future great great great grandson is a mix of x, y and z ethnicities/races because that is inevitable in today's globalized world. What I do care about is if he is living in a corrupt authoritarian third world nation with no middle class because previous generations were too naive and gullible to think that endless immigration has little to no consequences.

Try to get out of the headspace that people conservative on immigration are afraid of race and ethnicity and try to get into the mindset of them being afraid of significantly reduced standards of living with significantly lower personal freedoms. Then you can understand their point of view more. Some of them are racist, but most of them are not.

[xerx]

I don't care if my future great great great grandson is a mix of x, y and z ethnicities/races because that is inevitable in today's globalized world. What I do care about is if he is living in a corrupt authoritarian third world nation with no middle class because previous generations were too naive and gullible to think that endless immigration has little to no consequences.

Try to get out of the headspace that people conservative on immigration are afraid of race and ethnicity and try to get into the mindset of them being afraid of significantly reduced standards of living with significantly lower personal freedoms. Then you can understand their point of view more. Some of them are racist, but most of them are not.

Which is also stupid. If population growth was the real issue, then 2019 France (67 million people) would have fewer freedoms and a lower standard of living than 1600 France (20 million people).

[Raver]

Which is also stupid. If population growth was the real issue, then 2019 France (67 million people) would have fewer freedoms and a lower standard of living than 1600 France (20 million people).

It is not just about population numbers though. It is clear now more than ever that you are not going to change your mind on this and that you are convinced you are 100% correct. I will follow the 90/10 rule in that I think there is a 90% chance I am right on this, but a 10% chance you are correct and I am wrong. I really hope you are right because it looks like most 1st world nations are heading in the direction you want.

So if I am wrong and we are heading to an advanced multi-ethnic/multicultural utopia in the 1st world and even the 3rd world to a lesser extent then I can rest easy. Knowing that my great great great grandchildren will live in a great future world. However, if I am correct then I can only fear and worry for the dreadful future that our descendants will have to endure.

[xerx]

It is not just about population numbers though. It is clear now more than ever that you are not going to change your mind on this and that you are convinced you are 100% correct. I will follow the 90/10 rule in that I think there is a 90% chance I am right on this, but a 10% chance you are correct and I am wrong. I really hope you are right because it looks like most 1st world nations are heading in the direction you want.

So if I am wrong and we are heading to an advanced multi-ethnic/multicultural utopia in the 1st world and even the 3rd world to a lesser extent then I can rest easy. Knowing that my great great great grandchildren will live in a great future world. However, if I am correct then I can only fear and worry for the dreadful future that our descendants will have to endure.

I think they'll be fine. There's no need to preserve anachronistic 19th century ideas into the 22nd century.