baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
And yes, in the scheme of things, the basic fact of racialized police brutality is obviously a much bigger problem than #KillAllWhitePeople tags on twitter (and domestic violence is a bigger problem than #KillAllMen from feminists, etc.), it's not hard to see why many people who would otherwise be sympathetic are going to turned off. Plus of course the alt-right eats this stuff up for breakfast, lunch and dinner - as do the vanilla mainstream GOP/Tory right, come to that ("Look at all these crazy people Corbyn associates with, how can anyone take him seriously?").

The point is of course that those people wouldn't otherwise be sympathetic - that's complete fantasy, in the direct service of doing nothing to combat the actual problem and feeling (erroneously) morally justified in doing nothing. Cos guilt is so annoying... If only oppressed people would conduct themselves with a little bit more decorum, then everyone would listen to them... The truth is that oppressed people resort to 'extreme' tactics and violence precisely because it's the only thing that will get a response. Asking nicely doesn't work, and never has. (Who are these delicate souls who get scared and end up altering their entire moral compass due to #KillAllWhitePeople and #KillAllMen hashtags anyways?)

The Corbyn situation is obviously different in many ways, but the principle of silencing debate is similar. If only Corbyn had never been in the same room as anyone we could call a terrorist, then we'd give him a fair chance!
Corbyn's mistakes are many, but extending courtesies towards people with blood on their hands is part of the Prime Minister's job description. Makes him better qualified, not less.
 
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luka

Well-known member
Haven't we just been discussing taboos here? An art gallery in London held a series of shows about the alt-right, and was shut down. A bookshop in Berlin planned a talk on Evola, and was shut down.

Yeah I guess so. We learned that openly avowed racism and killing kids ("raising the cost of being liberal to include death") is taboo. Do you want to have a debate about that? The Evola talk would have garnered no attention or condemnation were it not for josefs grandstanding in Dalston. Are any taboos ever justified?

As a sidenote I did find it funny when Ed Luker got shut down, refusing to answer when asked if his PhD was on Ezra Pound.
 

luka

Well-known member
Some arguments, like for example tea's attempt to revive respectability politics, are dead. They've been had, they've been won
Time to move on.
 

luka

Well-known member
"if the suffragettes hadn't irritated the ordinary working man by interrupting his day out at the races women would have the vote by now"
And so on and so forth.
 

luka

Well-known member
The Right is in the ascendant because the Left refused to debate the legitimacy of mass murder as a political strategy. They're so uncivil.
 

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
My two cents:

1) I wholeheartedly believe that freedom of speech and freedom of assembly should be guaranteed to everyone, no matter how heinous their ideology. The responsibility to safeguard these rights falls not only on political institutions and law enforcement, but also on the culture as a whole; individuals have the responsibility to safeguard these rights too.

2) Luka’s questioned why certain people emphasise the bad responses to bigotry and not the bigotry itself. Maybe I’m naïve, but I think these critics a lot of the time don’t have an ulterior motive. It’s quite disturbing to see people that you have a political kinship with on many levels so brazenly disregard the basic values of liberal democracy.

3) I think the problem of ‘illiberal liberals’ (for want of a better phrase) is by and large a problem contained within academia and student culture in general rather than one that has contaminated the left as a whole. It’s plain wrong to suggest that the grievances (perceived or otherwise) and spokespeople of right wing populism are ignored or treated unfairly within our political discourse, by the news media or by the political class. That’s of course not to suggest illiberal liberalism isn’t a problem, but there’s no need for hyperbole or caricature.

4) I spoke to quite a lot of Trump supporters online during the campaign. When I mentioned Trump condoning political violence they’d retort by talking about attacks on Trump supporters or violence by BLM. Liberal’s illiberalism is being used as a cover and an excuse by authoritarian-sympathetic elements within society. Just on a tactical level if elements of the left persist in bullying and intimidation it may well come to backfire in a very dangerous way.
 

droid

Well-known member
My two cents:

1) I wholeheartedly believe that freedom of speech and freedom of assembly should be guaranteed to everyone, no matter how heinous their ideology. The responsibility to safeguard these rights falls not only on political institutions and law enforcement, but also on the culture as a whole; individuals have the responsibility to safeguard these rights too.

This is the voice of liberal privilege.

Imagine you're a target of the fascists (and you may well be at some point in the future).

What do you do when people march by your house demanding your extermination? Hold rallies at the park at the end of the road with mock executions of members of your community? Advocate for the 'cleansing' of society by the removal of you and people like you? Articulate explicit messages of bigotry, ethnic cleansing and genocide in the national media, parliament and on the streets whilst refusing to condemn actual acts of violence committed against you and people like you?

What do you do? Do you 'safeguard their rights to free speech' or do you fight back against their propaganda, stop their rallies, confront them in the streets and do everything in your power to shut them down?

Its worth remembering that the first targets of fascists are their political opponents. We see this with Brevik, we see this with Israel and the targeting of 'leftists' and we see it with the rhetoric of the EDL. The Nazis went for the communists, socialists and the labour movement first. The leftists are the enemies within.

Dont think that white skin and a passport makes you safe.
 

luka

Well-known member
sounds alright but if someone stood up on a crowded tube train for instance and started spouting the kind of racist views nick land endorses and got knocked out with a big right hook i would laugh tbh i wouldnt be concerned about the violation of his right to free speech. you might be more high minded than i am though.
 

luka

Well-known member
uh, ok, think probably droid has pointed out the 'problematic' aspects of that position better than i have
 

john eden

male pale and stale
Liberal’s illiberalism is being used as a cover and an excuse by authoritarian-sympathetic elements within society. Just on a tactical level if elements of the left persist in bullying and intimidation it may well come to backfire in a very dangerous way.

They have always had sufficient excuses for violence.
 

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
sounds alright but if someone stood up on a crowded tube train for instance and started spouting the kind of racist views nick land endorses and got knocked out with a big right hook i would laugh tbh i wouldnt be concerned about the violation of his right to free speech. you might be more high minded than i am though.

I've been in that sort of situation a few times and obviously I've confronted the racists every time (only once or twice physically though). I count that kind of behaviour more as harassment rather than free speech.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
The point is of course that those people wouldn't otherwise be sympathetic - that's complete fantasy, in the direct service of doing nothing to combat the actual problem and feeling (erroneously) morally justified in doing nothing. Cos guilt is so annoying... If only oppressed people would conduct themselves with a little bit more decorum, then everyone would listen to them... The truth is that oppressed people resort to 'extreme' tactics and violence precisely because it's the only thing that will get a response. Asking nicely doesn't work, and never has. (Who are these delicate souls who get scared and end up altering their entire moral compass due to #KillAllWhitePeople and #KillAllMen hashtags anyways?)

I don't think that guilt, shame and self-hatred form a particularly sound basis for progressive politics, is the thing. (Someone posted something about this here a few months ago which was quite good on this, I'll see if I can find it - Fisher wrote about it in his 'Vampire's Castle' piece, too.) You're never going to win a popularity contest by telling people they're revolting and shameful, and for better or worse, democracy is a popularity contest. At any rate, it should be no surprise if many people are more inclined to follow someone who seems to be saying something positive about their culture, which unfortunately comes along with a whitewashing of past injustices or a desire to roll back some of the progress that has been made since then. I don't think it's unreasonable that people are going to say to themselves "Why should I support people who say they want to kill me, when they quite clearly don't want my support in the first place?". If we interpret #KillAllWhites to mean simply "fuck off whitey", then it seems like a good idea for white people to do exactly that, rather than insisting on foisting their 'solidarity' on people who very clearly don't want their solidarity or anything to do with them. And the phrase can clearly be interpreted rather more literally, seeing as there have been racially motivated attacks on, and murders of, white people by black people just very recently (contra your cute comment about 'delicate souls getting scared').

In fact you sound like you're saying the cure for racism is for black people to harass, beat and shoot white people until whites simply agree not to be racist any more. Which sounds about as likely as Islamist terrorism eventually defeating Islamophobia.

"if the suffragettes hadn't irritated the ordinary working man by interrupting his day out at the races women would have the vote by now"
And so on and so forth.

The suffragettes used disruptive tactics in support of demands for a specific privilege - a privilege men already had - which they eventually achieved. Ditto the civil rights campaigners of the 1960s. They weren't just spewing random hate in all directions. I appreciate that most race and gender activists don't do that, obviously, but inevitably it's the ones who do that get the most attention.
 
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sadmanbarty

Well-known member
Droid you're acting as though the mechanisms liberal democracy have failed minorities. The opposite is true; freedom of speech, assembly, courts, etc. have all been employed to advance and protect the rights of ethnic and religious minorities, women, homosexuals, etc. Are you seriously suggesting that a society based on unaccountable mobs intimidating each other for political ends will yield better results for minorities than a society based on liberal democratic values? The historical precedent all over the world suggests the opposite.
 

luka

Well-known member
Droid you're acting as though the mechanisms liberal democracy have failed minorities. The opposite is true; freedom of speech, assembly, courts, etc. have all been employed to advance and protect the rights of ethnic and religious minorities, women, homosexuals, etc. Are you seriously suggesting that a society based on unaccountable mobs intimidating each other for political ends will yield better results for minorities than a society based on liberal democratic values? The historical precedent all over the world suggests the opposite.

this is a very partial/selective reading of history as youre smart enough to know
 

droid

Well-known member
Droid you're acting as though the mechanisms liberal democracy have failed minorities. The opposite is true; freedom of speech, assembly, courts, etc. have all been employed to advance and protect the rights of ethnic and religious minorities, women, homosexuals, etc. Are you seriously suggesting that a society based on unaccountable mobs intimidating each other for political ends will yield better results for minorities than a society based on liberal democratic values? The historical precedent all over the world suggests the opposite.

Answer the question. What do you do?
 

luka

Well-known member
mr tea on the other hand is probably not smart enough and ive put a formal boycott on responding to his inanities in this thread.
 

droid

Well-known member
Welcome to the real world. Sometimes you have to fight. Sometimes not fighting leads to something far worse. You dont have to like it, and peaceful, principled methods are almost always more effective, but sometimes its not enough.
 

luka

Well-known member
no it doesnt make it right and its regrettable that people are put into situations in which there is no morally pure course of action. and yet, thats what happens. so you can retreat from the world entirely to preserve your moral spotlessness or you can bloody your hands. horrible world innit.
 
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