Christian militia lulz!
Mar. 29th, 2010 05:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabby![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
nihilistic_kid posted a picture. Compare these portraits to English portraits of drunkards in the Edwardian era. Also, their website must be seen to be believed. If I didn't think I'd get in trouble for it, I'd totally show it to my students when I try (in vain, I might add) to teach them why you shouldn't tile a background image and then put red type over it.It's amusing to poke fun of them, but expect to see more of this sort of thing. American political culture has been steeping in a higher-than-usual amount of crazy for some time now, and it's just beginning to come to a head.
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no subject
Date: 2010-03-29 11:01 pm (UTC)Or, like, their plan to shoot lots of people and blow things up. That would probably be worse come to think of it.
It can only be a matter of time before some of these people actually turn some of their talk into action. *Shudders*
no subject
Date: 2010-03-29 11:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-31 06:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-31 10:06 am (UTC)The tag "MSM" probably should be your first clue.
I mean, the argument is also aggressively stupid, and a rehash of the "Nazis were really Communist" line given by some of the lesser minds on
Also, I'm not sure where you're getting "routine" from. The particular act of violence referred to in that post is hardly routine. The American far left couldn't organize itself out of a paper bag, let alone coordinate routine acts of terrorism.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-31 02:51 pm (UTC)About nazism being socialism. We need to bring some quantifiable parameters into the discussion. I provisionally think that the claim that they were diametrically opposite is at least as misleading as the claim they are the same.
As for the guy who flew his plane into the IRS building, if you can take the time to bring forward actual arguments why the article I linked to is wrong, please do so, I'll appreciate it. What you did so far is a mix of ad hominem and appeal to ridicule, both of which are argumentative fallacies.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-31 03:16 pm (UTC)You confuse property damage, offense to your sensibilities and political positions, and inconvenience with actual violence. Only one of the things you've mentioned (the finger-biting) is actually a violent incident. And given that we don't hear about it all the time, I don't think "routine" quite covers it.
About nazism being socialism. We need to bring some quantifiable parameters into the discussion. I provisionally think that the claim that they were diametrically opposite is at least as misleading as the claim they are the same.
I didn't claim that. Placing them on the same part of the political spectrum is fucking moronic, though.
As for the guy who flew his plane into the IRS building, if you can take the time to bring forward actual arguments why the article I linked to is wrong, please do so, I'll appreciate it. What you did so far is a mix of ad hominem and appeal to ridicule, both of which are argumentative fallacies.
Because the author has never heard of libertarianism, which fits the hand-picked excerpts from the crazy guy's manifesto much more neatly than communism does. It's just another case of right-wing people feeling uncomfortable with the idea that right-wingers and/or white people can commit acts of terrorism, because terrorists are brown. The claim that Nazism is socialism stems from a similar place.
It's disingenuous to claim that the "MSM" has a left-wing bias; these drooling morons were claiming it when their guys were in power and Colin Powell's son was running the FCC.
If you are wondering why people keep banning and defriending you, by the way, I suggest you look into two options. Either you are a brilliant iconoclast and the lefty blogosphere is just not psychologically ready to handle your genius, or you have pitched your tent so far into the camp of wingnuttery that we're all just really tired of your shit. Think really deeply on it, and then get back to me on which one you think it is.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-31 08:25 pm (UTC)I suppose that those who conflate nazism and socialist allude to the totalitarian nature of both regimes. In that they were alike. On questions of economy, Stalin stood to the left of Hitler, as we understand the notions of "left" and "right" today.
So you consider the IRS guy a libertarian. First of all, libertarianity by itself does not determine a person's position on the left-right continuum. Could you refer me to a more specific libertarian ideology (say, from the list on wikipedia's article on libertarianism) so that I can check that guy's last words with that particular ideology?
It is disingenius to claim anything without having reasonable proof. Some media outlets are slanted to the left, some aren't. Why is it relevant who is heading the FCC? Media is "free" in the United States, the FCC, to the best of my knowledge, doesn't dictate opinions.
Finally, bans don't surprise me at all. Private journals are for the most part personal venting spaces. It is fully understandable that telling people who take their political stance seriously that their political opinions suck is not going to be welcome. If someone came to my journal and started routinely telling me something that would get under my skin, I'd ban him too. This doesn't necessarily mean, however, that he would have been wrong and I would have been right. My courses are getting under my skin, for instance, and I just have to shut up and do the work, because my profs are smart and I am not. But it's completely understandable that most people don't feel like making LJ time into thinking time. And I am by no means an exception.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-31 09:08 pm (UTC)Are you serious?
No wait, I take that back. I'm not going to even engage you on this, or any of your other points. It's not worth it. My time is limited and valuable.
In case you're wondering, no, you're not under my skin. And you're not making me or anyone else think. You are trying to tempt me into spending time responding to deeply misinformed and undereducated inanities rather than doing something either productive, or fun, or both. Given your slide into right-wing talking points as of late, I might as well be arguing with the semi-literate boors on
Don't flatter yourself. You would be better served staying out of politics entirely and concentrating on your studies.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-31 09:59 pm (UTC)I find it uncanny, however, that you are able to sell yourself a version of reality in which the reason you choose not to engage with the arguments and questions I bring is due to either me or the ideas I bring up being objectively stupid, misinformed and inane. You keep alluding to my ignorance while missing one opportunity after another to alleviate it in any way. Now you appear to have convinced yourself that I have come to hold right-wing positions, and that any discussion with me is therefore pointless. Yet I have not come to hold right-wing positions (you may wish to view my latest journal entry). If you did not wish to engage with me on the subject, why did you reply to my original comment at all?
In short, from my corner it appears that you, and some others, choose not to engage with me not so much because I am misinformed, stupid or inane (all of which I undoubtedly and self-admittedly am), but rather because I can, and sometimes do, dig up relevant inconvenient information, because I know a thing or two about the utter indeterminancy in which the social and economic sciences find themselves these days, and often allude to them, and because I am overall not as easy to argue with as a truly inane and stupid conservative in whatever LJ community you may frequent.
You don't wanna talk to me? Don't, who's forcing you. But if you claim that you choose not to do so due to me constituting a laughable opponent whose arguments deserve no attention, then, as far as most reasonable people are concerned, the joke is on you.
As a farewell gift, I would appreciate it if you did take the trouble of linking me to some material which explains why and how the FCC controls the opinions expressed by MSM, either as a whole or in specific cases. I do not observe "mind control" among the missions or strategies of the FCC.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, and good night.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-01 12:51 pm (UTC)Good for you. You figured it all out. Now you can go away feeling all smug.
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2010-04-01 04:08 am (UTC)I suppose that those who conflate nazism and socialist allude to the totalitarian nature of both regimes. In that they were alike. On questions of economy, Stalin stood to the left of Hitler, as we understand the notions of "left" and "right" today.
Actually there are alot of people running around parroting the "nazi's were really socialist as communists" thesis that Jonah Goldberg pushed in Liberal Fascism. Though the thoery is hardly coherent it's main point seems to be that both regimes were totalirtarian but their totalitarian nature arouse out of their "socialist" nature.
But this critique tends to be very out of touch with modern scholarship on Fascism (or Soviet communism) and draws upon and understanding of Nazism that for all intense purposes has been gleaned not from original source material but Hogan's Heros.
The toltalitarism model of the understanding of the authoritarian regimes was real popular in the '50s and 60's but has fallen out of favor with recognition that totalitarian regimes act to a great degree in reaction to pragmatic realities and not ideology, that there historically never been a monolithic Fascist model that all totalitarians can by judged by, to a great extent they were molded by the countries they came to be in. Furthermore that Nazism was a movement supported mainly by rightist, on an ideological level it wasn't quite right or left, it was a real mish-mash of modernism mixed with traditional 19th century national that transcended what we think of the left to right spectrum that was very specific to the crisis in modernity and rejection of 19th century liberalism and marxism that occurred in many post WWI countries.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-01 04:40 am (UTC)Could you please point me to some reading on the issue?
Calling people nazis or fascists is generally a misleading propagandist move, I am not contending this point. But I don't understand sabotabby's claim that people who say that the man who flew his airplane into the IRS building was a marxist-sympathizer are in fact conflating nazism and socialism. I failed to see the link so apparent to mlle sabo, yet she did not care to elaborate.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-01 05:40 am (UTC)But you're missing the point of the critique that sabo provided, people who are linking that IRS attack guy to Marxism are taking a bunch of incoherent and scattered ideas and putting them together without context to paint Stack as a Marxist or whatever else they need for political purposes, just like the people (often the same ones doing this with Stack) are taking selective fragments of fact without context to create a portrait that Nazis and Communists were both birds of a feather to achieve a political narrative that fits their world view.
I wouldn't say that Stack was a strictly tea-partier either, he could've have been described as "tea-partyish" maybe. If you read his stupid manifesto and look at his biography, it seems that he was general anti-authoritarian populist who failed many times to build a business and achieve the recgonition he thought he deserved. I think finally he probably decided that he could best serve both his grudge against the government and his desire for recognition through his little suicide mission. It's pretty much no more than that.
but anyway, arguing left wing inspired violence vs. right wing inspired violence is neither here or there in my opinion not because using violence as means for a political end in and of itself is not immoral (though 99.9% it is immoral, that all i'm going to say about my private views on it on the internet) because it really says nothing about the legitimacy of the ideas or morals being discussed. It's just a smear of "your guys are more extreme than ours" that has been given a huge amount wieght in mainstream American political discourse.
All that says is that a small fragment of people are willing to take violent action to propragate an idea or moral authority that they believe in, which applies to every kind of idea from animal rights, to monarchism, to jihadism, to white supremacy.
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2010-04-01 02:57 pm (UTC)Dern skippy! That's why I just refer to people as "Fuckers".
No need to sling names that don't fit or miss the mark politically. "Fuckers" is all-encompassing.
:D
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2010-04-01 02:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-01 02:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-01 04:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-01 02:28 pm (UTC)Christian militia lulz!
Date: 2010-04-01 02:29 am (UTC)Exercise for the student : back up your statement with something more concrete than "from what I hear". Names, dates, etc.. I'll even accept specific segments from fox news that focus on actual arrests and/or convictions as valid.
Nota bene : lefties, for the most part, support gun control, and are usually stoned or having teh gay sex, and as such, make for lousy violent criminals.
Re: Christian militia lulz!
Date: 2010-04-01 02:57 am (UTC)Re: Christian militia lulz!
Date: 2010-04-02 01:01 am (UTC)Over the last 20 years, how many actual dead people are the direct result of left-wing violence in the U.S.?
Clearly, if you group by ideology, you get something like this:
Right-wing Islam: ~3000
Right-wing Christian (or non-specific religion): ~200
Left-wing (all or no religion): ~0
There are left-wing Christians and left-wing Muslims, but I think it's telling that they are uniformly criticized by the right-wing (and even mainstream conservatives) in their own community for being too pacifist, too tolerant, and too respectful of women.
Re: Christian militia lulz!
Date: 2010-04-02 01:37 am (UTC)When you refer to right-wing Islam, do you refer to local Muslims unknown to me, or to the guys who performed 9/11 and have no relevance to the question at hand? Also, in what sense do you consider said Muslims "right-wing"?
I'll give it to you that when discussing specifically terrorism in the last 20 years, right-wing extremists pose more of a danger. Left-wing groups seem to have become less murderous in their aspirations after the 80's. The question still stands - why do you only count bodies?
Re: Christian militia lulz!
Date: 2010-04-02 04:51 am (UTC)Right-wing Christian (or non-specific religion): ~200
Right-wing Islam: ~20
Left-wing (all or no religion): ~0
And yes, if you go back to the 60s and 70s, the left-wing body count goes up to maybe 20 or so. The right-wing body count would need to be adjusted upward at least as much, though. And while the left-wing groups were extremists acting against the wishes of the broader left, most of the right-wing attacks were with the active support of the local conservative establishment (police, mayors, etc.) that saw universal suffrage as a threat to their power, to be stopped by any means necessary.
Right-wing generally means in favor of a stratified society and strong support for traditional values. I'd think any Muslim advocating for redistributing the wealth of the rich and permitting lesbians to marry would be considered leftist. On the other hand, Al Qaeda supports a harsh traditional theocratic rule, more extreme but very similar to policies advocated for by the christian right in the U.S. As for stratified society, I have heard nothing in their propaganda or actions that suggests they want to lessen stratification. And their hierarchical, anti-democratic system of government would certainly cement economic stratification.
Why focus on body counts? In the U.S. bodies we take our corpses very seriously. If somebody kills somebody, it gets counted. And it's hard to argue about how severely someone was killed.
Now, vandalism, threats, waving signs, etc. That's all open to subjective interpretation and really the historical and cultural context means quite a lot. If the KKK has just brutally killed a couple voting registration activists in town and someone one night hangs a noose in the tree outside the house where you and your wife and kids live, that's a pretty serious big deal - you'll probably leave town that day. If someone emails a picture of a noose to Obama, I think we can agree it's less of a big deal.
Likewise, with animal rights activists. How many people have animal rights activists killed in the past 20 years? None. How many people have anti-abortion activists killed in the past 20 years? Nine (see wikipedia). Sure, we can quibble about how serious various death threats or rocks through windows are, and we can quibble about rock counts, but there's no way to get an objective comparison.
Bodies, on the other hand, get counted. There are nine people who had a gun pointed at them by anti-abortion activists, the killers pulled the trigger, the guns fired, the bullets ripped through them, and they ceased to live as a result.
As far as I know, and correct me if I'm wrong, but in the past 20 years in the U.S., that has never happened with an animal rights activist. And I think the same is true of Communists of various stripes. The same can't be said for neo-nazis.
Re: Christian militia lulz!
Date: 2010-04-02 06:18 am (UTC)Would you have a citation on that?
Right-wing generally means in favor of a stratified society and strong support for traditional values.
Well, economically, right-wing means free market. You are, so to speak, alluding to the alleged fact that on Nolan's political compass players are roughly aligned along the diagonal from libertarian left to authoritarian right. Yet the totalitarian left and the libertarian right deviate from that line significantly. But okay.
I do not know of any people killed by animal rights activists, but I do not see why property damage due to eco-terrorism should be particularly difficult to estimate, or be subject to vastly divergent interpretations. The FBI estimates the costs of eco-terrorism in the five year period 2003-2008 to be about 200 million dollars (see wikipedia). If I may be allowed a moment of grim and rather irrelevant cynicism, that's significantly more than the added values of the life insurances of nine typical individuals. And we haven't counted any G20 protests and their likes yet. The Battle of Seattle alone cost taxpayers above 20 million dollars.
Financial costs of right-wing inspired property damage? I don't know, you are welcome to enlighten me. Only American Christians, conservatives or right-wingers count, because this whole discussion springs to life from what is a perceived danger coming from that direction - something the media has been munching on as of late.
Re: Christian militia lulz!
Date: 2010-04-02 05:38 pm (UTC)Some might attack you for your ignorance, but everyone is ignorant at various points in their lives, and I see this as a great opportunity for you to grow as a person.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyes_on_the_Prize
Rent it, watch it. Think about it. You claim to be in favor of laissez-faire - if that's the case, you should be especially interested in the horrible market distortion that was Jim Crow laws. These laws were enacted by a portion of the white ruling class and were defending bitterly. At times the violence came openly from the police at the direction of those in power, at times the police made a point of standing idly by watching the violence, and at times it happened in secret at night, with a wink and a nod.
Can you think of any cases like this involving left-wing violence:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Rides#Mob_violence_in_Montgomery
Contrast that with liberal and even left-wing reactions to the Weatherman's Days of Rage.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Days_of_Rage
One reason to count bodies rather than property damage or even injuries is that in the case of the KKK violence in Montgomery, the victims feared for their lives afterwards and did not want to officially register their injuries or property destroyed. In the case of the vastly tamer violence from the Weatherman, "28 policemen were injured (none seriously)". But in such a situation, any bystanders would have a strong incentive to report their injuries to the police, and the police have an even stronger incentive, since they are financially compensated for even minor injuries - plus, the slightest bruise can be used by police to prove that the arrestee resisted arrest and therefore police force was justified.
Your quote about the Battle in Seattle costing $20 million dollars is ridiculous. The figure is actually "damage to commercial businesses from vandalism and lost sales has been estimated at $20 million"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTO_Ministerial_Conference_of_1999_protest_activity#Aftermath
And of that $20 million the vast majority was lost sales. And sales were lost because shoppers didn't want to inhale teargas or risk being randomly arrested or shot with rubber bullets. You might be able to make an argument that somehow that was indirectly the fault of protestors (likewise the WTO), but you certainly wouldn't be foolish enough to claim that police teargas against leftists is an example of leftist violence.
Actual property damage was very little - a bunch of broken windows and some spray paint. By focusing on the dollar amount of the damage rather than body count, you get into a ridiculous situation where anarchists breaking one $5000 window in an unoccupied downtown store is considered equal to the KKK breaking $50 windows in all 100 houses of blacks in a small town in Mississippi trying to register to vote.
You see the problem?
Oh, yeah, rightwing property damage (looking just at the Oklahoma City bombing):
"The bomb was estimated to have caused at least $652 million worth of damage."
That doesn't include lost sales to surrounding businesses, or, you know, all the bodies.
Re: Christian militia lulz!
From:Re: Christian militia lulz!
From:Thank you for the music
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