My Thoughts on the Charlottesville Situation
Im sure most of you know what happened in Charlottesville and have also probably heard a million different takes on it, however without trying to jump on the bandwagon I want to give mine. If you somehow were in a coma for the last few days, ill give you a quick summary of what happened there. A group of conservatives including many white supremacists, some who actually believe in the ideology and some who were there for the memes, planned to have a march and a rally in Charlottesville Virginia. The location was chosen to be held at a park that had its name changed from Robert E. Lee park because of the connection to the confederacy.
The rally which was called “Unite the Right” quickly started to gain popularity in attendance and because of the amount of people who planned to go, various groups of counter protestors flocked to attend the event as well. With a bonfire and torch burning the night before the protest boasting nazi salutes and victory chants, it was already off to a bad start. The day of the rally, people came prepared for a fight and it was no surprise that both sides clashed leaving many injured and even a woman dead after someone drove a car into the protestors. Many are left wondering how this could have gotten out of hand and others are questioning relations in our country. So on to my take on the event.
First lets talk about the Unite the Right Rally being held and those attending it. I personally believe that no matter what ideology you have, no matter how racist, no matter how offensive, should be able to speak and gather. I may not agree with what they are saying, but I agree that they should be able to say it. Freedom of speech is one of the great rights our country allows its citizens and it is not one I want to ever see go away. The people who never want to hear the other side of the conversation or simply want to silence people are in many ways very dangerous. The ralliers got the proper paperwork and permits for their rally and had the right to be there.
The attendance of the people at the rally varied greatly and I think lumping them into the same camp is just easier from the media’s perspective on how they want to tell the story. Many and probably most there were white supremacists, but there were a few groups of people to protest against the political correctness that has been happening in the United States. That being said there were also many hardcore white supremacist neo Nazis who went.
The protestors had similar extremist left leaning groups like antifa, which came knowing violence would ensue. They played DIRECTLY into the hands of the ralliers and when violent brawls occurred, both sides looked bad. The white supremacists who attending the rally now look like martyrs to those in the fringe and it will only help them recruit more extremist members. They will point to Charlottesville and say bullshit like “See the race war happening”. The smartest thing would have been for the protestors to not even show up or give them the time of day. Now these extremist groups both have the exposure to recruit more members and I think this is the biggest problem.
The problem on both sides of the ralliers and the protestors is that extremists take over these events and turn them into a shit show. When both groups show up, things are never going to end well and this is no exception. I think the protestors did exactly what the ralliers thought they would and we will probably see this only get worse. The downside to all of this is soon people wont be granted the permits to rally on anything out of fear of another one of these situations will happen and that only hurts the average person’s freedom of speech.
Thanks to @Elyaque for the badges
Do you think both (or all) sides are equally to blame or an equal part of the problem? If not, in your opinion who is to blame for what and to what extent?
But we should know better and regardless of how things look we should also try to see how things are. To me trying to equate the neo-nazis and the antifa is a falsity. A violent retaliation might not be the right way to go, but at least the antifa are on the right side of the racism (fighting against it be it violently).
It was never supposed to be unlimited. One's right to free speech ends where they start using it to incite violence especially based on race. Saying "we should kill the others" is not and should not be protected speech. So part of the discussion should be if the ralliers are saying this to an extent or not. Some of them certainly hold and share similar sentiment and some of them indeed acted upon it and there was even a case of murder. If violent juhadists wanted to rally against the US on US soil, would you support their right to free speech and assembly in the same deeply principled way?
Lumping everybody together is rarely correct, but that doesn't mean the groups that rallied do not have some things in common. In the end, they are all people marching for the slave-owner racist side of the Civil War and they are all on the side of protecting a monument that was not erected to celebrate southern heritage or some BS like that. Look at when it was erected and what was happening at that time and the reasons behind it become crystal clear.
If the right uniting was the reasonable and non-racist part of the right, it wouldn't unite under such a racist and segregationist symbol, how is that not clear as day?
In my opinion those people chose the wrong way to protest that. If you go to this exact type of rally, you are the only lumping yourself in with the racists. What are they trying to achieve anyway? They want people to be more tolerant towards their willingness to support and associate with racists while avoiding being labeled as racists themselves? Asking me not to call them what I think they are is asking for unwarranted tolerance towards the intolerant and asking for some lame form of political correctness towards them in turn.
So to put it shortly, I don't think that saying the rally itself was racist and people willing to be there were at the very list willing to support racism is lumping people together. I think it's a fair assessment.
Why always give priority of freedom of speech to nazi and extremist over expressing opposite view ..
You think letting those rally happen, and giving legitmity to them as if they were just a regular kind of group, not more dangerous than a bingo club will not help them to recruit more ?
I dont think freedom of speech imply horizontality of all belief system.
Or that the state religion of the founding father should take precedence over indivual opinion over this kind of ideology like kkk or nazism, or over the disgusting feeling they inspire to many people ..
If you think this kind of person are going to be so cute about indivual rights , freedom of speech and respect of history of all communities ..
I dont see why the need to have so much remorse about shutting them down ..
Both sides have extremists and are looking to push their own agendas. I believe both should have the freedom to speak and assemble because I believe in free speech. If arguments need to be silenced so badly out of fear that the public might agree with them, dont you think that perhaps they should be heard? I dont think the public at large is so dumb to fall for the nazi propaganda, so let them speak, give them no attention and lets all move on with our lives. Dont let these people get hurt for their cause and become martyrs.
The problem is you can hardly have this kind of person and another point of view .. neither this kind of person and other "races" or origin .. they are not really willing to resolve anything by other means than genocide or such .. they have zero capacity of compromise.
I dont even like this idea of there is only two sides as its presented with fascist - anti fascist, to me the two sides involved with the violence today look the same, its not like the so called fascist represent such an imminent threat to anyone to justify radical action like the so called anti fascist like to pretend, they both look fanatic to me ..
Hearing idk , for me this kind of point of view should be monitored, if its heard by relatively sane people, or accompagnated with sufficient context, and fact checking, ok, but the problem is when they start to distort history, concoct some kind of toxic propaganda, and target either vulnerable or ignorant peoples .. then it become dangerous. .
And dont count on them to be spontaneously balanced and fair in their view, or specially open minded, or especially open to point of view from people out of their group, and they have a knack to lock people in like in cults , except they are more agressives with political / totalitarian objective than most cults.
I dont think just ignoring them is that effective to counter them, and they always find people to reel in with a concotion of bullshit to solve their problem with radical politics, even they can stay in the shadow for as long as it take to have enough people to do real harm. The leader of such groups have good sense of political game in general, need not to underestimate this kind of things.
I agree with your take on the situation. So sick of people trying to divide our country and cause chaos. We need to all focus on what we have in common and accept our differences. By focusing on differences we just magnify them and cause an unnecessary division between groups. Then the media and political leaders are empowered to manipulate peoples views further. Labels are defined and people feel the need to identify themselves as this or that. Now they are a part of a group label and feel impelled to act out in defense of that group even though deep down the stereotype does not necesarily mesh with what they feel is good and true and right. In the heat of these emotionally charged situations they lose the proper perspective and make bad choices, take bad actions. They must be held accountable for these actions. They are not justified.
exactly, now if you arent on one of the two sides and actually rational, you are seen as against both.
Let's all be friends is a great sentiment, but what you are saying is either quite naive or willfully blind to a lot of issues. There are indeed differences that cannot and should not be accepted. Like people being racist, that's not acceptable and some people's willingness to support or associate with racists is a huge issue and is clearly quite divisive. How can somebody that wants unity be OK with such ideologies?
If you have accepted a label that doesn't fit your value, it's not my fault and it should by no means soften my criticism towards the values your actions support. Should we not criticize them because some of those people supporting racism are deep down good and don't really support it on the inside? Well, we have their actions to judge them on and if their actions are immoral, I'm by no means going to soften my criticism of them. Quite the contrary, we should not hold back any criticism and exercise our free speech to its full extent, so they can start using their brains, grow some personality and drop labels that don't mesh with their souls full of goodness and all.
As you said, when they make bad choices, they should be held accountable. When enough people are held accountable for bad choices, bad choices become a bit less likely (maybe? hopefully?).
I think you just called me racist and you know nothing about me. I totally and completely reject racism and the alt right Nazis and their hatred. But I also feel equally towards Antifa. Neither of them represent me. But let people believe what they will believe. I am in agreememt that we should criticize and condem evil actions on either side.
My usage of "you" here was the hypothetical kind referring to the people that have defined with a label, like using "someone" instead of the "you" there. I by no means meant you personally and I apologize for the bad wording on my part. There was zero intent to call you a racist here, so my apologies again.
That's a good way to put it. Let them believe what they want, let us criticize what we want and vice versa and hopefully this pulls things in the direction of social progress.
Great thoughts. I have lots of opinions but it causes so much emotions in people and destructs my life in some ways so for me I just think to stick to what is best in my life. Whatever keeps everything running as best possible.
Yes better to stay away if you feel negatively impacted by it to much, there are much better things to do in life :) better to stand up by showing good example and sticking around person you feel more at peace with :)
Wow such a great point!
What this new mob on the left doesn't understand about the 1st Amendment is that you have the right to protect speech that you hate and speech that you like at the same time. You can't say this is allowed or that isn't because then the whole concept is null and void. These are dangerous times because now founding fathers are under assault and calls to remove them are increasing. Next will be anything they did or signed and then the Constitution will be demanded to be removed.
I saw a documentary years ago asking how the Nazi party in Germany got into power. A few years before their rise, they were a joke.
I don't remember it exactly, but some scientists deconstructed how memes penetrate society, if you can believe it, you only need 15% of a given population to become 'true believers' of an extreme idea for them to be able to overtake the society. Those 15% are able to sway another 36% somewhat to sympathise or at least not oppose them through sheer force of will.
So be careful, free speech is a great ideal, but if these people hold sway, it will be gone quicker than you can blink.
I disagree, the Nazis were able to take power through physical force and increasingly violent acts in addition to recruitment. Also when Hitler was sworn into power as Chancellor originally he was seen as a very positive leader. Germany seemed like overnight their country turned around and the economy started making a recovery. The real problems with Hitler came when his fervent nationalism aimed the country at territorial expansion and war mongering. The death and persecution of free speech from the Nazi party when they were in power is precisely why many stayed quiet and things got worse. Those who silence people with a voice are always the ones who themselves are pushing their own ideologies.
The Nazis were elected, not by majority but it was then enough to use violence to take over. The point is how did the Nazis even get to such a position of power, a few years before they had a very small share of the vote.
Give these people a platform at your peril, this Charlottesville escapade becoming global news is exactly what they want. The oxygen of publicity.
Yes, need not to underestimate the damage this kind of group can do, especially that they tend to have a culture of covert activity, 15% overt = more in covert, and need not be shy about reinstating what everyone believe is right loud and clear with this kind of ideology, especially in period of crisis where society is already in state of confusion, and erosion of values, need still to remind where sanity is, even if its relative.
nice Thoughts on the Charlottesville Situation ...i like it dear
Agreed, but I think it's only going to get more extreme on both sides. Civil War anyone?
Your voting will force your voice to give me strength.
thanks.
The brainwashed are plentiful in this country. Easily swayed and manipulated. The elites are trying to Divide and conquer and these morons are taking the bait. Its all just a distraction