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> frankly, I have a hard time coming to terms with > people self describing as 'moderates' who voted > for Trump, that is some kind of cognitive dissonance.

by lhnz 9y ago

> frankly, I have a hard time coming to terms with > people self describing as 'moderates' who voted > for Trump, that is some kind of cognitive dissonance. > Trump is about as far away from moderate as it gets. That's not what I'm arguing so I don't expect you to come to terms with that. You cannot be moderate and vote for Trump. I do think you can be moderate and point out that there are certain tactics used by the Left which have been weaponised against them, and that this has been a key driver in support for the alt-right. > That does not mesh with my reading of the facts > as presently available at all. I do not agree that the same set of facts are presently available to all. Even if they were, I believe that most people filter them out due to not wanting to look at the alt-right parts of Twitter. In any case I did link you to a tweet referencing two instances as an attempt to substantiate what I said. The first demonstrates that alt-right supporters from /pol/ are trying to "get normies onto [their] side" by trying to appear 'peaceful' and 'good' in comparison to their attackers ("and if antifa attack the white families, they're going to look like monsters"). The second demonstrates a time in which @SwiftOnSecurity received a message from a white nationalist trying to incite an offended quote-tweet as a way of maximising the audience of one of their memes. I can't source it because it was a long while back, but during the election and immediately after it, I also saw various accounts attempting to use instances of left-wing violence at protests to persuade others that they were unfairly threatened or attacked for their beliefs and to try to present antifa as violent thugs. I saw stories about families of Trump supporters trapped at protests and 'fearing for the lives of their children'. I saw photos of Trump supporters violently wounded. Frequently I see the photo of Richard Spencer being punched doubled against a tweet by some out-there radleft implying that anybody righter than them is a Nazi. I think it's really important to realise that anything you do or say can be turned into propaganda against you. Edit: The term "concern troll" could be used against me here, so all I ask is for people to evaluate what I've pointed out and decide for themselves whether it's useful or not. My opinion of course is that the alt-right substantially grew in popularity through the techniques I described and that if you care about this you should avoid being part of it.

jacquesm 9y ago
I refuse to be squelched because some Neo Nazi could use my words against me. In fact, I wish them good luck with that, I sincerely doubt you could do that and get away with it without some pretty extreme mental contortions. The instances you quote have nothing whatsoever to do with debating this in a facts and reason based way on an internet forum. If people are concerned with their kids getting wounded when attending mass rallies of whatever plumage then it is time to spread the word that whenever you assemble a mob, whether it is the 'good guys' or the 'bad guys' does not matter, the mob is its own enemy when panicked and when two mobs encounter each other violence is the predictable outcome. That idiots then use this to incite further violence is an obvious conclusion without much weight in practice. Each side will do what they can to victimize themselves and lay blame with their opposition, it has been so since the first man picked up a stick to wage war on his neighbors.
- lhnz 9y ago
  > I refuse to be squelched because some > Neo Nazi could use my words against me. You misunderstand again. I said that violent or smearing actions done for sound moral reasons can and are used to publicise and win support for the alt-right cause. While you might not care about your own personal risk, as a citizen of the world you should care about having your actions used to create political material that radicalises people towards the alt-right cause as this threatens people other than you. It doesn't matter whether they are idiots or not, it matters whether bad players have an easy or hard time making their case and recruiting supporters. Make it difficult, not easy! > The instances you quote have nothing > whatsoever to do with debating this > in a facts and reason based way on an internet forum. I fundamentally disagree. They demonstrate the mechanism by which the alt-right grew their support so quickly. This is important to the argument at hand and since you can't seem to see this and I don't have any more source material to counter your very strong opinions with, I don't think there's any point in arguing around it any further.

by lhnz 9y ago

jacquesm 9y ago

I refuse to be squelched because some Neo Nazi could use my words against me. In fact, I wish them good luck with that, I sincerely doubt you could do that and get away with it without some pretty extreme mental contortions. The instances you quote have nothing whatsoever to do with debating this in a facts and reason based way on an internet forum. If people are concerned with their kids getting wounded when attending mass rallies of whatever plumage then it is time to spread the word that whenever you assemble a mob, whether it is the 'good guys' or the 'bad guys' does not matter, the mob is its own enemy when panicked and when two mobs encounter each other violence is the predictable outcome. That idiots then use this to incite further violence is an obvious conclusion without much weight in practice. Each side will do what they can to victimize themselves and lay blame with their opposition, it has been so since the first man picked up a stick to wage war on his neighbors.

lhnz 9y ago
> I refuse to be squelched because some > Neo Nazi could use my words against me. You misunderstand again. I said that violent or smearing actions done for sound moral reasons can and are used to publicise and win support for the alt-right cause. While you might not care about your own personal risk, as a citizen of the world you should care about having your actions used to create political material that radicalises people towards the alt-right cause as this threatens people other than you. It doesn't matter whether they are idiots or not, it matters whether bad players have an easy or hard time making their case and recruiting supporters. Make it difficult, not easy! > The instances you quote have nothing > whatsoever to do with debating this > in a facts and reason based way on an internet forum. I fundamentally disagree. They demonstrate the mechanism by which the alt-right grew their support so quickly. This is important to the argument at hand and since you can't seem to see this and I don't have any more source material to counter your very strong opinions with, I don't think there's any point in arguing around it any further.