It has so much utility because you can effectively call your opponent a nazi without invoking Godwin's law!
Furthermore, Mike Godwin himself says that you should make comparisons to the Nazis when warranted. https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/12/14/...
Tomorrow the alt-right will be marching in Charlottesville in support of actual literal neo-Nazis who call themselves Nazis, and claiming that they share a common enemy with the neo-Nazis and will therefore not criticize the neo-Nazis about anything.
AlternativeRight.com is run by actual literal neo-Nazi Richard Spencer.
They're calling themselves Nazis, and it's technically accurate. There's no need for their opponents to do it, and also, why should we censor facts simply because they are politically incorrect? Does it hurt the alt-right's feelings to be called "Nazi"? Facts don't care about your feelings.
Let's see....
https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/6rsng3/unite_th...
> I want to be perfectly clear with you guys that many of the people who will be there are National Socialist and Ethnostate sort of groups. I don’t endorse them. In this case, the pursuit of preserving without shame white culture, our goals happen to align. I’ll be there regardless of the questionable company because saving history is more important than our differences. This is probably why they named the event “Unite the Right.”
> Speaking for myself only, I won't be punching right. We need to save civilization first, we can argue about the exact details later.
and from the comments:
> Exactly. Anything to the right of Elizabeth warren is already a nazi ready to gas six trillion Jews so might as well say fuck it. The enemies of my enemy are my friends
https://altright.com/2017/08/05/the-unite-the-right-rally-is...
> The Daily Stormer [a neo-Nazi site] has been promoting the event heavily and it looks like they are going to bring a lot of young new cadres to the rally. Identity Evropa [a white-nationalist group] will be there as well as several Southern Nationalist groups. There will be no Alt-Lite co-rally, it will be just us, the proverbial and literal White Guard out there defending the statue of General Lee. This is a good development. They are quickly becoming irrelevant and losing their street presence as we continue to grow and take up space.
https://www.dailystormer.com/a-normies-guide-to-the-alt-righ...
Describing the origin of the alt-right:
> On 4chan, the Jewish problem was analyzed by news junkies and history buffs, feminism was deconstructred by sexually frustrated young men, and race was considered based on the actual data on the issue. The rehabilitation of Adolf Hitler and the NSDAP largely took place on 4chan.
> This newly formulated Nazi ideology was then combined with the established troll culture, based on memes, hilarious images designed to transmit cultural concepts, and “lulz,” a term coined by the troll Jameth which defines the type of malicious humor associated with trolling.
The only way you can claim that they're not marching with neo-Nazis and promoting neo-Nazism is if you use a definition of alt-right that's different from how the alt-right define themselves. As far as I can tell, the term "alt-lite" was created specifically to disavow the small number of people who refused to stand with the neo-Nazis.
The problem is people like yourself and other outlets lumped them altogether as one when they are more diverse than that. They then just ran with it.
http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/03/29/an-establishment-co...
The broad strokes are more common coming from the liberals and love to assume everyone is a nazi because its easier to debate.
You're again using exactly the tactic I described: bringing up white supremacists to derail any discussion and discredit any person the left doesn't approve of.
Whoever marches in Charlottesville represents those who march in Charlottesville. They don't speak for the rest of the "alt-right", whatever that is.
Can we assume that if some duly constituted group --- whatever definition we choose --- sponsors a march in solidarity with neo-Nazis, and the group is not riven with dissent over that action, that it's germane to compare members of that group (or, at least, those who knowingly remain after the march) with Nazis? Again: the action isn't dispositive; it just means the comparison, right or wrong, isn't frivolous.
Are we talking about anyone who's done so here?
If not, why bring them up?
As far as I know, that's not some duly constituted group - it's an insult used against a wide variety of people ("everyone to the right of Bernie Sanders") by their political adversaries.
And the intention of the insult is to encourage exactly what happened here - to associate people like James Damore with people like those marching in Charlottesville.
One of the very first things I wrote here said not only that I don't have evidence that Damore is part of "the alt right" ---- one of his enthusiastic supporters did --- but to reject the logic that would assign him to any such group. Conservatives are not neo-Nazis. I'm not a conservative, but I have plenty of conservative friends, and I actually enjoy talking to them about policy more than to my fellow liberals.
So, again, I'm just interested in the principles here. Could you check out those two questions I asked upthread and give me a quick take on them? Thanks!
I think that's a weird outcome but I believe that's where we're at.
Here's what happened on this thread (all paraphrased):
1. "This firing was so dumb that it's going to drive lots of people into the arms of the alt-right".
2. "That's useful for the left because it allows them to call people Nazis without invoking Godwin's law".
3. "That's not what Godwin's law says, and regardless, the Nazi/alt-right comparison isn't frivolous.
And here we are.
My stake in this discussion isn't about Damore, who, for the third time, I don't believe is an alt-right figure (much as the alt-right would love to claim him as one). Rather, it's in challenging the trope that some accusations --- racism, Naziism, maybe communism? --- are so outré that they can't be made. That creates a safe space for people to actually be Nazis.
How is Charlottesville relevant again?
What I see here is me going out of my way to accommodate your concerns about this discussion, and you trying to use those concessions as ammunition. I understand why that happens (it's a message board), but I'm not trying to score points off you.
This page is about James Damore, so why are we spending so much time talking about white supremacists and Nazis?
Unless you can directly justify the connection, I'm going to continue pointing out that making such irrelevant and unjustified associations is a common smear tactic.
The SBC is to the right of Bernie Sanders. For example, it prohibits male pastors and says the husband is the head of the family and the wife subservient to him.
They define 'alt-right' as a synonym for white supremacy, thusly: Racism and white supremacy are, sadly, not extinct but present all over the world in various white supremacist movements, sometimes known as "white nationalism" or "alt-right" - http://www.sbc.net/resolutions/2283/on-the-antigospel-of-alt...
Therefore, your description about this being a tactic of the left doesn't hold water.
> They define 'alt-right' as a synonym for white supremacy
That's not how the term is usually used online, though, except to suggest that anyone to right of Bernie Sanders is a white supremacist.
The world alt-right was a) coined by its members, not by its detractors and b) stands for "alternative right," that is, it implies that there exists a mainstream right wing that is not the alt-right.
(It's also a term used in the real world and not just "online debate"; for instance, the alt-right is marching in Charlottesville this weekend, which is located in Virginia and not on the internet.)
(He doesn't actually seem to self-identify as "alt-right," so I think there is room for disagreement here.)
https://twitter.com/search?q=alt-right
For example, here's the tech editor at Business Insider UK clarifying 'alt-right':
> Lot of alt-right people in my mentions say Jordan Peterson isn't alt-right. Happy to clarify!
> Peterson has criticised gender-neutral pronouns, feminism, and definitions of cultural appropriation. So, lots of overlap there.
Perhaps they do. But its also done by those on the right, so you are over-specializing when you limit it to "the left".
Oh no, people on the left drink water as a tactic to decrease thirst! We must stop drinking water so we aren't like the left!
When the left uses false associations with Nazis to try to discredit anyone who challenges their agenda, I object.
Your argument style is tedious. You seem to deliberately avoid understanding what others say, and instead change the topic to the conversation you want to defend.
I'm not sorry if you find pointing out this obvious, common smear tactic tedious. I find the people using the tactic tedious.
"The Associated Press warned this week that the media outlets should avoid using the term “alt-right” because “it is meant as a euphemism to disguise racist aims.”" ...
"And now, a new working paper from researchers at the University of Arkansas and Northwestern University sharply underscores the extent to which people who identify as “alt-right” harbor prejudicial views toward non-white people."
So, not just the Southern Baptists.