Comment by pitay | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pitay | Hacker News Reader

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A couple of things:

1. I was watching the news and in a picture I noticed one of the counter protesters using some sort of spray can as a flamethrower. I also saw the counter protesters beating up a spokesman for the protesters before the police saved him. So violence goes all around.

2. Arresting people just because someone like the parent here calls them violent is a really bad idea. As in, it's horrendous. If all someone has to do is call you violent to have you arrested, then boy can it be used to silence people that say things inconvenient to whoever wants to silence them. Saying "arrest their member" about a political group is extreme, ignores any legal precepts of innocent until proven guilty, and can be used by the most authoritarian groups to silence anyone they choose.

That said I do find protesters very unlikable. The counter protesters I have found a little bit more likeable but still unlikable, because they seem somewhat hypocritical and dishonest, given they have been somewhat violent as well, and have said that it doesn't matter that they were violent as well.

The difference isn't the violence at any one rally. The difference is that one group (the one with the swastikas) actually advocates genocide. As in: there were people in Charlottesville who openly told reporters that they want to send jews/blacks/muslims to gas chambers. And even if there were only a few of those, the swastika, "heil X", and nazi salute are undeniably linked with the history of the Nazi party, the holocaust, and WW2. I just scrolled through a few pages of pictures, and I think it's fair to say that the protest were pretty homogenous in that regard. I don't see many history professors among these people demonstrating to preserve the value of confederate monuments for science. It's also somewhat telling that I'm having trouble finding a single woman among that side of the protest.

Given such a protest–and even if you disagree with the above, please entertain this as a hypothetical–what would be the makeup of the group of people opposing such a protest? It seems to me that, in principle, everybody who disagrees with the far-right ideology of these protesters could, or even should, be among the counter-protesters. You can be a Nazi, or you can be against Nazis. But I'm having a hard time imagining someone being neutral: "I think the idea of sending the jews to the gas chamber has potential, but I will reserve judgement until I have studied it in more detail" just doesn't seem like a common opinion.

And that's why people are so outraged with the President's "there are always two sides" equivocation: one side wants genocide, the other wants "no genocide". Even if both sides had been similarly violent (which they were not: only one committed a terror attack killing someone), they aren't comparable. Because for these Nazis, the opposition is in the way of their fantasy of a whites-only country, whereas for these opponents, the step after keeping the upper hand against the Nazis is "going home".

Action can and should be taken against individuals that make a credible threat. We certainly don't want to have people fearing for their life. I don't think that "openly told reporters that they want to send jews/blacks/muslims to gas chambers" is in the slightest bit likely top happen, fortunately. Also, you don't go after a group because of one guy; imagine if that was applied to blacks, it would be horrible.

One can criticize both groups and still not be neutral. As I have stated, I do not like the neo nazis (not sure if all the original protesters are that or if only a few of them are, either way, they all seem quite unlikable).

What I have really been against is the "just arrest people for being seen in a group" which is what my comment was really replying to. Asking for discriminatory laws like this is backwards, harking back to when there were discriminatory laws against people with black skin. Although I know this is not what you were replying to, this is just to show why I made the comment in the first place. Also I seem to be being called a libertarian just for disagreeing with what I replied to, I don't think I have ever actually agreed with anything that someone calling themselves a libertarian has said, that I remember anyway.

If you didn't want to be arrested, then you shouldn't be a member of a group that has waged war against the US?

It's a good idea to arrest violent people. Don't be the libertarian theory nerd that thinks of people as academic concepts only. In the real world, people are violent and dangerous, and they get to be arrested.

Government limits rights and freedoms of individuals to deal with the real world.

Only if they are actually being violent, there is no reason to arrest people because they might be violent. Now let's apply your statement more broadly. Islamists successfully destroyed the World Trade Center. They have actually caused more death than those 'neo nazis' in recent times. If you were to apply what you are advocating for fairly, then every Muslims would be arrested in the US. After all it's members have waged war against the US, and some of its members still do. It would be more appropriate. Now I don't agree with arresting every Muslim as I don't agree with arresting every stupid neo nazi. If someone espouses arresting those protesters but not Muslims, then surely they are a hypocrite, who only applies what they preach very selectively.

What part of "the Nazi party has already waged war against the US" do you not understand?

We literally declared war against them, and killed them wholesale. Are you saying we should stop declaring war against Nazis?

> We literally declared war against them, and killed them wholesale.

Except we didn't kill them wholesale. The United States pardoned or looked the other way for lesser Nazis and Imperialists in Japan to run their respective postwar governments. How do you think these countries functioned after the war? It's not like they systematically shot every remaining Nazi.

Actually, the US granted amnesty and asylum to a shit load of Nazis and brought them to the US.

Look up Operation Paperclip.

I don't think comparing state actions against other states is very useful or instructive when you're talking about non-state actors. We don't "wage war" against domestic political groups. That doesn't mean we shouldn't do anything, but I hope you realize that military action is an extreme response to what amounts to a relatively small (but worrying) group.

Whbat part of Islamists have waged terror that you did not understand. I am not advocating arresting Muslims for simply being Muslim, just as I am not advocating arresting neo nazis for being neo nazis. We don't want laws that are different for certain groups, or how rich someone is. That the law applies equally to everyone is something that is valuable to preserve. We don't want to go back to the old days where blacks were treated by the law as inferior. Suggesting you do this to any groups because you don't like them is a travesty of justice.

> If you were to apply what you are advocating for fairly, then every Muslims would be arrested in the US.

No. Just no.

Islamists =/= Muslims

The honest comparison would be to ask if anyone who professes to be a member of Al Qaeda or ISIS, is considered a criminal by simple association.

And if they provide "material support or resources" (like organising/publishing/translating, at the lower end of terrorist criminality) they would be so.

Did you realise the point of my comment was not to criticize Muslims at all, just showing where the 'Just arrest them' mentality would actually lead to. There is a reason why I put both Islamist and Muslim in my comment, which was to separate them, because I know the difference. You somehow didn't understand that. So what you are replying to is not what I meant or wrote.

I don't think your comment was designed to criticise Muslims, but I think you did a sloppy job making your point, and equivocated (maybe accidentally) the wrong sets and members.

Charitably, your comment reads that people who call themselves Nazis today are as far removed from (and do not bear the mantle of) the Nazis of WW2, as Muslims are removed from Islamist terrorists.

Again, charitably, that is an appalling comparison. Because it implies the reverse too; that Muslims are as responsible for the crimes of 9/11 as one believes modern Nazis are for bearing the history of the National Socialist movement - which of course they (modern Nazis) are.

More clearly: The perpetrators of 9/11 are only tangentially part of the same group as Muslims in general. You may as well group these NeoNazis with the set "Americans", or "White Men", as their motivations have as little bearing as regular Muslims and the men who brought down WTC.

As before, the better comparison is to ask if non-violent members of ISIS or Al Qaida can be assumed criminals/terrorists, as their violent companions are.

To put it simply, I do not agree that it is an appalling comparison like you say. I think the perpetrators of 9/11 thought of themselves as Muslims, just as other Muslims thought the 9/11 perpetrators as Muslims. So yes, they identified as Muslims, and were part of the group "Muslims".

You know why I made that comparison, because someone was saying arrest them just for associating with the group, I was showing how it would apply more widely, indeed it could apply to people who associate with BLM, it is terrible to throw away due process like that.

I think that the people who carry swastikas and the like are morons, who have a fantasy view of what actual Nazis were. They are certainly not part of the Nazi Party, because it died at the end of WW2. If you think my view of them is wrong, then please correct me.

Person A is nazi and killed someone during a protest. Person B is also nazi Therefore person B potentially killed someone during a protest. Therefore we should arrest all nazis

How hard is this to understand the following

GROUPS != INDIVIDUALS

You're advocating to punish individuals by what group they belong to instead of what they did.

Sounds familar?

Person A is a jew and lends money and is rich by "stealing" money from the borrowers via interest Person B is also a jew Therefore person b "stole" money Therefore we should arrest all jews

This is a false equivalence. I think it's much more like, Person A is a nazi and killed someone after being indoctrinated by violent nazi rhetoric, therefore we should stop allowing violent nazi rhetoric to be spread.

And even then it's not actually that, because a private company has decided to stop hosting the content, the government/law enforcement was never involved.

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