The Freudian slip is telling! — Janus

Alas, no slip. Just a racist piece of crap being racist.

If that is indeed true it would probably be so because they are an economically and socially oppressed and disadvantaged minority. And to further complicate the issue, the statistics re population are straightforward, whereas those re crimes committed are not. — Janus

Poverty is the parent of crime. Aristotle.

One doesn't need to study African American crime to see this. Even in countries with a very small percentage of black people, such as counterpunch's own, crime rates soar highest in the most squalid places.

But beyond that, being black in America is simply more criminal. A black person caught with weed is three and a half times more likely to be arrested. A black driver is far more likely to be pulled over. A black neighborhood is much more policed than a similarly poor white neighborhood.

Add onto that the fact that, surprise surprise, murderous racist white cops aren't exactly honest about their feelings. If you want to arrest or shoot someone, there's always "assault of a police officer" to fall back on. There was a video I saw a while ago of a white cop shooting an unarmed black guy in the back. Just strolled over and dumped a gun next to the body. If it hadn't have been filmed, that would have been one more black criminal rather than the equally tragic one more dead victim of racist white cops.

phew! :rofl:

What might mitigate the situation in this context would be:

a) An angry, potentially armed, crowd shouting that they wanted to murder the VP.
b) If there was a warning.

I mean, suppose he let the woman climb through the door and she was armed and intent on killing lawmakers? — Baden

I think even without him thinking it through that far ahead, he's one of a surprisingly small number of police officers defending the senate from an overwhelming violent mob. I think it's a miracle that only one person got shot under those circumstances. The people condemning this would be the first to defend a police officer shooting a black man for the slightest resistance or intimidation.

Yes, attempting to hang Mike Pence is pretty much the exact equivalent of calling for racial justice. — Baden

With the number of racists and fascists on the site atm, I'm worried you think I was being serious.

In fact, police arrest over 10 million people per year. There are around 1000 arrest related deaths, 42% white, 32% black. There's no racist genocide being committed by the police. — counterpunch

Yeah we've heard all this racist bs a million times. I don't even think *you* think you're being clever, it's more like a mindless vocal tick. BLM is not about the thousands of black people accidentally killed or killed in self-defence by police. No one is protesting because some cop won a gun duel. It's because of the smaller but still shamefully significant number of black people being murdered by police. Pretending up is down is something anyone with a bad ideology has to do, especially racists, so I'm not shocked.

the same media condemn those who seek to defend democracy from what they believe is a fraudulent election. — counterpunch

Another reality inversion. A lynch mob trying to stop the government accepting the will of the people is there to "defend democracy" in fascist double speak. Again, nothing new or smart here, just another example of why you should be loathed.

One of these days I should just pick a random argument with you and misinterpret everything you say. — BitconnectCarlos

I'll respond with shameless inconsistency to avoid addressing your points.

Trump insurrectionist being shot for those who want to debate it. Viewer discretion advised. — Baden

Not sure I have the stomach for it, but I guess I'll get the gist from others.

It's awful that the left-wing media supported the BLM protests but condemn these people for simply exercising their right to hold lynch mobs.

Duh, obviously. — BitconnectCarlos

Then there's no problem. Oh yeah, I forgot... Nazis and the Klan aren't violent.

Nobody is against cleaning up swastikas from building, but you can't go around punching fascists simply for speaking, sorry. — BitconnectCarlos

If a fascist punches me, I'll punch him back. So yeah I can.

There is no alternative to acting on the basis of belief; the important thig is to make sure those beliefs are valid. — counterpunch

Actually, yes, there is. Questioning your beliefs is important. Only an idiot would arrive at one idea without justification and run with it forever. If you can justify your beliefs, you should do so. If not, you should listen. And certainly not try and, say, stage a coup.

If one has every reason to believe X and none to believe in Y, your belief in Y is not a justification for bad actions. This is why "He seemed a threat because he was a <insert ethnic minority>" is not a justification for assaulting someone, even though it's the sort that racists think fine. To justify your actions in the world, your beliefs must have some basis in that world.

That is my general philosophical position — counterpunch

Good to know.

Nothing is a very clear concept. Is the lack of something. — Helder Afonso

A lack of anything. Everything lacks something. My dog lacks a tail.

given that Kier Starmer leapt to his knees for Black Lies Matter — counterpunch

Yes, it must grate that people out there in some position of power believe that black lives matter, and are willing to show it.

Nevertheless, if the election was a fraud, those people did the right thing. — counterpunch

If there had been evidence that there had been widespread and crucial election fraud, then there democratic systems would already have been worthless, so, yes, why not.

However not being able to accept defeat is not the same as believing you have won. The evidence for who won was determined by the count. There was no alternative count, like a secret will in a locked desk draw, with which to contest the first. The only evidence pointed to Biden winning the election.

So then no, after all. Since there was no basis to believe that Trump had been robbed, merely insisting on it doesn't justify the attempt to destroy democracy in process.

I see you you're new here. Welcome... ish. This is a philosophy forum and something has presumably attracted you to it. Here you are advocating that, if you do not want something to be true, you are justified in proceeding on the basis of its opposite, even to the extent of destroying democracy and attacking police officers. Is this a general philosophic position you have, or a special one you whip out for politics? Or are you not here for the philosophy at all, just for the right-wing propaganda?

I just don’t get it. — NOS4A2

Yes, you do. It's been explained to you often enough.

Also, while it seems beyond doubt that Trump himself is a despicable danger to the republic, it's also true that he has an instinctive street level type of understanding of the American public which surpasses that of his competitors. — Hippyhead

This is always the right-wing fallacy: an implicit and utterly dishonest definition of 'the people' or 'the public'. Trump is utterly bemused by 50% of the American public. They don't love him, so must be mistaken or traitors or weak or incompetent or something else that they're not. He cannot comprehend that anyone would disagree that he should get everything he wants at all times. There's no savvy there. He is immensely over-confident in himself and that is enough for a great many people.

This is a philosophy forum, and left wing politically correct dogma seeks to control Western civilisation. — counterpunch

The shame of this is that you'll never understand why that's hilarious.

On this forum being called a right-winger is used practically as an insult but that's because this forum is incredibly left-leaning. — Judaka

The converse is certainly true. It always baffles me that right-wingers use the phrases "left-wing" and "communist" as if I'm supposed to be offended by that the way they would be.

Please also share your thoughts on the relationship between these different axes.

Are liberty and equality (so likewise authority and hierarchy) two sides of the same coin, where you can't have one without the other? Or is each a threat to the other, where one must choose which is more important to them?

Is the status quo one of liberty or authority, equality or hierarchy?

Which of these values belong to the "left", and which belong to the "right"? — Pfhorrest

Economic liberty is generally counted within the right wing, personal liberty within the left. I voted 'somewhat limited liberty in this', by which I mean that granted by the principle of egalitarianism and that which does not harm, disadvantage, or reduce the liberty of others. I think this can be applied as well to economic institutions in a pluralistic economy, however I do not extend human rights to institutions, only to the persons working for them. I think the protections afforded companies should be much the same form as the constraints that stop them doing harm: pragmatic laws agreed on and refined over time.

The status quo is whatever the current power structure is, which can be assessed at various different scales. Equality of marriage rights does not affect our place in the national power structure where I live, which massively privileges a tiny minority of people from birth and yields a large, powerless and poor underclass whose potential progression up that power structure has a vanishingly small likelihood. An egalitarian revolution in my country would likely leave us persona non grata, a less power player, internationally where power structures are more malleable but even more bizarre.

Conservatives nominally favour the status quo. Regressives, like Trump supporters, the KKK, and neo-nazis, favour a return to outdated power structures, but ones that can be seen as a logical conclusion of a defense of the status quo, i.e. a transfer of further power from the people to an ever smaller elite. In a capitalist democracy, power means wealth, manifest in a reduction in taxation for the wealthiest and a corresponding reduction in investment in that which benefits the most rather than the privileged, and particularly that which benefits the poorest and most vulnerable over the wealthiest and most powerful. As such, there is a distinction to be made between conservatives and regressives, but also a uniting principle. 'More of what we have now,' if that makes sense. Thus conservatives and regressives are natural compatriots within the right wing.

Progressives, like regressives, seek to move away from the status quo but in the opposite direction: redistribution of wealth away from the few to the many, transfer of power to the majority, egalitarianism, social investment and conscientiousness. It is generally characterised by a long-term view, and is typically more espoused by the left wing.

Egalitarianism is the key theme here: it increases liberty by opposing oppression, and it progresses us from the status quo, as well as being an end to itself. Which makes it curious that there exists nominally within the left a faction with more than its fair share of power (similar to that historically enjoyed by the church) which seeks to reduce liberty. For the above reasons, I believe that any ideology that prefers and seeks to empower one demographic over others is regressive as well as anti-egalitarian and anti-libertarian. Yet it is apparently left wing, which distinguishes the left wing from the other axes.

No, I'm saying the actual policy of banning fascist speech & expression drives fascism underground. — BitconnectCarlos

And as we've already agreed, Antifa is not a reformist organisation. They are not trying to ban anything.

The Right are authoritarian by their nature. All their rhetoric notwithstanding, they have no higher principle than Power. They will support anyone who manages to seize and consolidate power - be it Trump or Putin or... — SophistiCat

Agreed, and I think what concerns me more than Trump, who might just have been an anomalous evil blip, is the trajectory of Republican leadership, from Nixon, through Reagan, through the Bushes, to Trump. In the orange light of Trump, Dubbya seems such a decent, grounded, competent guy, buddying with Obama and Biden on pro-vaccine and anti-Trump publicity that it's easy to forget what an appalling President he was.

One can hope that the two benefits of Trump's abject Presidency were: 1) the ending of the backroom neo-con power he would never have accepted, not because it was wrong, but because it wasn't about Trump, and 2) the villification of Trump and anyone like him. But it just seems hard to swallow that after over half a century of backing corrupt, authoritarian, backward morons, the Republicans are suddenly going to present anything like a sane, competent leader anytime soon.

I spent the evening glued to the news and was disappointed with the reactionary response to the protest, which not only condemned the violence, but also the spirit. All that hogwash about an assault on “the citadel of liberty” and "democracy" was laughable, especially given that for the last 4 years we’ve been taught that violent protest was the surest expression of the voiceless. — NOS4A2

I'm guessing there's no point pointing out that a) an election not going your way is not comparable to your friends and family and neighbours being murdered by the people sworn to protect them in terms of a cause, or b) the hypocrisy you're alleging is precisely your hypocrisy, insofar as you condemned BLM protests following another swathe of lethal police brutality against black people for violating the rule of law and now proclaim the spirit of using lethal and destructive violence to halt democracy as somehow beyond judgment.

OA makes sense
— khaled

The OA hasn't been refuted in a way that silences its proponents or satisfies its opponents. — TheMadFool

Two months late but point of fact: Dawkins refutes the ontological argument in precisely this way in The God Delusion.

Now I am needed elsewhere. Heroism never stops for pedAnt-Man!

No, again, the fascists will just be driven underground — BitconnectCarlos

So now you're back to saying the ideal of anti-fascism (which is the point in hand) is to drive fascism underground. The right will just say anything, as I've pointed out before. They're shameless.

Then you're just wrong. He did not, in fact, blind his kid when his kid was born. — khaled

It's difficult not to ascribe this to wilful misunderstanding to ill defend a bad point. We were discussing the judgment of the act, not the act itself.

Difference is Jenny-Wenny Classy-Lassy will never exist but Blind-Billy will. — khaled

Yes, barring accidents, that is the difference. Nonetheless they have in common that whatever character one is empathising with is imagined, not real. Pointing out where analogies differ is not sufficient to invalidate them. I'm not btw arguing that one shouldn't imagine the blinded child in particular, rather that it belongs to the class of non-existent things one cannot argue we *should* or even *can* empathise with.

Tricking oneself into feeling something, much as film and TV producers do to us, is not a justification because, if it were, truth is out the window and we're in definite Trump territory where outrage can be manufactured based on imaginings.

Imagining the suffering of a non-existent being and then arguing that it's existence, on that basis, should be averted is circular, again reminiscent of Republicans telling voters that there must have been voter fraud then reporting in Congress that voters have concerns about the election. It is dangerous territory in which otherwise unthinkable acts can be justified by imagining oneself into a rage against anything.

One thing that is most certainly absent from your argument is the suffering of the child whose future eexistence is apparently an argument for AN. If the child lives a perfectly happy life, doesn't matter right? He should not have been allowed to be born. This is even worse: we're supposed to empathise with the imagined suffering of an imagined thing and then use this as a justification for disallowing a real thing. Reality is disavowed; fiction is paramount.

:rofl: All good, meant lightly.

The "end" of anti-fascism is for there to be no more believers in fascism — BitconnectCarlos

Right, so this will leave no-one to express fascist ideas. And that's the extent to which anti-fascism censors fascism. No one is invading Klan meetings on private property. If fascists deface property with vile fascist slogans, they get cleaned up. If fascists have public matches, anti-fascists march against them. If fascists respond violently, they are met with violence.

Tbh I think your argument was lost when you described Antifa as systematically violent but the KKK not. That's so divorced from reality and betrays such a bias toward violent right-wing racist murderers as to make your position indefensible.

He didn't though. Don't you see? There is no kid! He didn't blind anybody! This is what I said a while ago by the way. I said that our empathy can extend to "future people" and you claimed it can't, yet here you are clearly extending empathy to "future people". — khaled

I meant once the kid was born. Happy to agree that we judge the father before the fact too, based on his intent. That's consistent with the four core mechanisms of our social behaviour:
1. empathy
2. altruism
3. counter-empathetic responses
4. intolerance toward antisocial behaviour

The notion of empathising with fictional characters isn't absurd, but it's based on present stimulus. Ryan O'Neal's heartbreak in Love Story is no less poignant for being a cynical audience manipulation. We do feel sorry for him.

But empathising with things that don't exist and have no representation is a bizarre idea. Why let facts have anything to do with it in that case? "And why did you assault the victim?" "Because he killed Jenny-Wenny Classy-Lassy." "Who the fuck is that?" "Oh, someone I made up once "

I can agree that the defendant might construct a narrative about a fictional individual and make himself empathise with her, but we're back in the realm of derangement. And it is far from natural: it is the height of artificiality.

If all you meant to say was "there is no data to support the conclusion" sure. — khaled

Yes. That is what I meant by the statement:

the data doesn't support the conclusion — Kenosha Kid

The data supports (not proves) other things, but it doesn't support (or disprove) that.

So I would say it's reasonable to assume that the same will be found in others. — khaled

Yes, but there's a difference between our reactions to someone intending ill (4) and someone suffering ill (1). And they have very different physiological responses. Empathetic responses, free from counter-empathetic ones (which really should be in the list), trigger the production of oxytocin which in turn prompts care for the subject (2). It is not the sort of reactive aggressive response we have toward someone trying to behave in some either fundamentally or conventionally antisocial way.

So when I cringe when hearing about the guy who genetically engineered his child to be blind that’s not an automatic reaction? I had to carefully deliberate to find something wrong with his behavior? Nah, that’s not what happened. — khaled

I was talking about the decision to not have a child with a high risk of a debilitating disease. I would wager in such a case that the instinct is quite the opposite, requiring a rational decision to abort.

As for someone genetically engineering a blind kid, sure, my gut reaction is that it is wicked, but not wicked on the grounds that he had a child that might be born blind, rather wicked on the grounds that he deliberately blinded his own kid.

Sure. I would say if you looked for it, you could very easily establish the existence of a physiological and neurological reaction that people have when it comes to potential future people. — khaled

Again, believing that it's true and therefore the evidence must exist is not empiricism, that's Trumpism.

Cite me the data proving the non-existence of a reaction when talking about future people. — khaled

Are you aware of the difference between evidence supporting something and evidence proving or disproving something? If so, you are being rather intellectually dishonest here.

Not really. — khaled

Yes, really. It is a physical and logical impossibility that nature could have selected a gene for antinatalism. This is really a bad route for defending AN, a total nonstarter.

So you mean if you’re incapable of performing the act, for whatever reason, then you cannot intend to do it? — Pinprick

If you know you are incapable of the act, then it is logically impossible to intend to do it, yes. Intent is teleological.

Why is it a good reason? There is no moral good for the child. You’re not doing anything good by having the abortion. So it must be that you think the future child’s suffering is a bad thing. Which is the instinct I’m referring to. — khaled

Right, but it isn't an instinct: it's a rational decision based on abstract information, not an automatic reaction to instantaneous environmental stimuli.

There are people who choose not to have kids in war torn countries for example and not purely out of scarcity, but also because they don’t deem the standards of living good enough for a child. — khaled

Likewise, war significantly reduces the possibility of sexual intercourse.

The biological underpinnings of sociality are not based on guesswork. They are based on empirical physiological and neurological data about people reacting to various stimuli. You can't just make up instincts to put antinatalism on a natural footing: the data doesn't support the conclusion and the premise is clearly incompatible with natural selection.

No more fascism, but you're not banning people from thinking it (because no one can) you're only sending the discourse underground. — BitconnectCarlos

Is that what you think the aims of anti-fascism are? Just to drive fascism underground?

What is, democracy?

Its a jeopardy-like answer to a jeopardy-like question. — javra

Read the context or shush.

When protesters “stormed” the senate building a couple years ago, 600 protesters and a Dem Congress-woman were arrested occupying the senate building. — NOS4A2

The only difference is how these people are being portrayed in the gutter press: one group as terrorists, a violent mob, and the rest as concerned protesters and activists. — NOS4A2

If you genuinely can't see the difference between a peaceful sit-down protest for immigration policy reform and a mob attacking police, smashing windows, and trying to use home-made bombs to stop the democratic process when it doesn't go their way, then you really are a poor example of a human being.

And no one is actually concerned with the consequences for the child themselves? Sure.... — khaled

Do you mean e.g. having an abortion if your child is very likely to have a debilitating disease? The consequences for the child are not real referents if you do. There is no moral good for the child. This is acceptable to me, and knowing that your potential child has a high risk of such a disease is a good reason: since the cause, degree and nature of the risk is understood. But that is a rational decision: we cannot possibly have a natural instinct for it since the possibility of acting on that instinct is only decades old. Which I think answers:

So, again, I believe we have a natural instinct to project onto the future and actually care about potential future people. How else do you explain the difference in reaction? — khaled

You can be an anti-fascist without advocate for banning all fascist expression. — BitconnectCarlos

What is the logical conclusion of anti-fascism?

Then why do we find someone who genetically engineers their child to be blind repulsive? — khaled

Some people dislike it because it's 'playing God', some because it might lead to a form of genetic cleansing, but I think mostly we're supposed to love our children for who they are, not make them what we love.

I heard antifa fucked your girlfriend — Maw

That's been debunked. He could never get a girlfriend.

And I’m a “ worm”. — Brett

Seconded.

The guy simply doesn't understand just how seriously his followers take him. — ssu

Like Biden said, what the President says matters.

Just seen that Trump's Twitter account is now locked.

Whether I am or not makes no difference. It's your argument that being anti-fascist is a violation of freedom of expression on the grounds that anti-fascism seeks to stamp out fascism, and therefore fascist expression.

America right now in a photo and a sentence...



If this guy had been a BLM protester, he'd be fucking dead.