White Supremacists Are Top Terror Threat

[Safe-Keeper]

He killed a fascist, and I thank him for that...

Wow. Way to add to polarization and give fuel to the trumpkins .

 

[jimbob]

This is dangerously close to "labeling" - a tactic often used to silence and marginalize dissenters, It is akin to saying "if you don't support intrusive government surveillance then you support kiddie porn".

There could be any number of reasons why a voter doesn't want a Democrat in the White House. Some voters might believe that ultimately, Democrats won't make a difference so other issues take place. Others might believe that Democrats would bring in such oppressive legislation in support of BLM that they must be stopped at all costs.

Americans might have a habit of putting up Hobson's choices in the Presidential election but that doesn't make somebody a <insert label> just because they vote for one and not the other. It also doesn't make them "almost as bad".

In an ordinary election you'd have a point.

But by now, it's clear that if you still support Trump, you're either wilfully ignorant (in which case you're a fool) or you're happy with someone who's treasonous acts include telling the CIA to share intelligence with a hostile power that he knew was paying a bounty for dead US troops. Someone who promotes QAnon conspiracy theories. Someone who is unable to distinguish truth from falsehood. Someone who's working to dismantle as many constitutional checks as possible. Someone who tried interdicting medical supplies to blue states for political gain.

There is no reason for voting for Trump that isn't bad

NSFW

 

[jimbob]

Back to the OP. I'd say Antifa and BLM are the "Top Terror Threats". Unless they mean they are not threats if they are actually doing terror?

Do you think that BLM has a point?

Given the existence of police departments with officers getting celebratory tattoos when they kill someone? Or almost any of the examples in the "behaviour of US Cops" thread?

 

[portlandatheist]

Please don't refer to what he was doing as LARPing. Genuine LARPers like myself have and want absolutely nothing to do with that, and you're tagging an entire hobby with a vile association. Please stop.

I do not mean you any disrespect. We have a situation where there are many cops who have no business being cops and also members of the public who have even less business role-playing and acting as cops. I guess vigilantes or militias may be a better word choice.

 

[Boudicca90]

Wow. Way to add to polarization and give fuel to the trumpkins .

Meh, I stopped caring what they think of me a long time ago.

Trump and his supporters are a threat to myself and to our country, and as far as i'm concerned, my Oath of Enlistment is still valid.

Their mistake is thinking we are pushovers.

 

[CaptainHowdy]

Do you? Why do you think the majority of people doesn't seem to share that view? Why do you think the news don't report "terrorist attacks" when riots occur somewhere?

Because, to the news media, rioting (and looting) fall under the umbrella of "peaceful protests."

 

[LondonJohn]

In an ordinary election you'd have a point.

But by now, it's clear that if you still support Trump, you're either wilfully ignorant (in which case you're a fool) or you're happy with someone who's treasonous acts include telling the CIA to share intelligence with a hostile power that he knew was paying a bounty for dead US troops. Someone who promotes QAnon conspiracy theories. Someone who is unable to distinguish truth from falsehood. Someone who's working to dismantle as many constitutional checks as possible. Someone who tried interdicting medical supplies to blue states for political gain.

There is no reason for voting for Trump that isn't bad

NSFW

Sorry to interject as a non-US single-post drop-in, but as a genuine point: have you considered the phenomenon of low-information voters?

In the UK there is a constant issue - from all sides of the political debate - where politicians, political commentators, and other informed observers, mistakenly believe that effectively the whole electorate is as informed as they are about the political landscape. And because of this false belief, they are led in turn to believe that the electorate will make the sort of fully-informed rational choices which they themselves regard almost as "no-brainers".

On the contrary: there is a significant proportion of the electorate - perhaps even a majority (it's difficult to measure accurately) who are either wholly or substantially ignorant of the political landscape, or who think they know the landscape but in fact do not. I guarantee that I could stand outside my local shopping precinct and quiz random passers-by on political matters, and most of them wouldn't even know who the UK's Chancellor (finance minister) or Foreign Secretary was, let alone what each major party's policy on health or education was.

 

[arthwollipot]

I do not mean you any disrespect. We have a situation where there are many cops who have no business being cops and also members of the public who have even less business role-playing and acting as cops. I guess vigilantes or militias may be a better word choice.

I understand, and thank you.

 

[psionl0]

In an ordinary election you'd have a point.

But by now, it's clear that if you still support Trump, you're either wilfully ignorant (in which case you're a fool) or you're happy with someone who's treasonous acts include telling the CIA to share intelligence with a hostile power that he knew was paying a bounty for dead US troops. Someone who promotes QAnon conspiracy theories. Someone who is unable to distinguish truth from falsehood. Someone who's working to dismantle as many constitutional checks as possible. Someone who tried interdicting medical supplies to blue states for political gain.

There is no reason for voting for Trump that isn't bad

NSFW

That has nothing to do with labeling anybody who wouldn't vote for that other old fogey a "racist".

 

[The Great Zaganza]

That has nothing to do with labeling anybody who wouldn't vote for that other old fogey a "racist".

I find it fascinating that "racist" is considered such an unacceptable descriptor: it is the commie it seems.

We know from studies that everyone has biases, including racial ones. So everyone is a a racist to some degree or another.


The actual debate is: when you see racist behavior in action, how willing are you to support or oppose it?

My beef with Trump-supporters is not that they are racists, but that they are very tolerant of racists.

At some point, supporting and covering for racists makes you a racists, simply because of your need to emphasize with the person you support.

 

[cullennz]

I find it fascinating that "racist" is considered such an unacceptable descriptor: it is the commie it seems.

We know from studies that everyone has biases, including racial ones. So everyone is a a racist to some degree or another.


The actual debate is: when you see racist behavior in action, how willing are you to support or oppose it?

My beef with Trump-supporters is not that they are racists, but that they are very tolerant of racists.

At some point, supporting and covering for racists makes you a racists, simply because of your need to emphasize with the person you support.

Tbf this only works as a theory if the oppo' is good enough to cause normally US Republican voters to switch from their norm.

And frankly looking from the outside it is pushing it to see this happening.

Orange racist sexist old dude who is with the party you normally vote for

Or even more ancient sleazy racist old dude as the other option.

 

[psionl0]

Q

I find it fascinating that "racist" is considered such an unacceptable descriptor: it is the commie it seems.

That is precisely the intention of those who use the term.

The actual debate is: when you see racist behavior in action, how willing are you to support or oppose it?

I was behind BLM all the way until they started making it all about statues. They allowed the looney left to turn a serious issue (racially motivated cop violence) into a joke.

My beef with Trump-supporters is not that they are racists, but that they are very tolerant of racists.

At some point, supporting and covering for racists makes you a racists, simply because of your need to emphasize with the person you support.

You yourself are now using "racist" as a "commie" label.

Its use this way is classic politician's logic"

- Racists vote for Trump
- Person X votes for Trump.
- Therefore Person X is a racist.

(As used in Yes Prime Minister)
- Something needs to be done
- This is something
- Therefore we need to do it.

(Logical Structure)
- All cats have 4 legs
- My dog has 4 legs
- Therefore my dog is a cat.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

People can have more than one attribute.
People can be racist but not act in any racist way.
People can also be anti-racist but ignorant of the racist effects of their actions.

And people can support racist policies because it benefits them personally, not because of any prejudice or animosity.

The later case is possibly the most widespread in right-wing politics, not just in the US but globally.
The reason being that when the percentage of a minority in the population increases, the percentage the majority holds decreases, even if the total size of the pie increases for everyone.
Privileged people lose out when privileges are eroded, because their First-mover advantage is only temporary, and not permanent as they thought it was or should be.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Historically, it US has always been racist: the only way for a new minority to be accepted into the mainstream was for them to **** on the next wave of immigrants together with the majority.
US Border Patrols have traditionally been composed of immigrants who, in return for being allowed to stay, prevent other from coming in.
Current legal migration into the US is possibly the most difficult in all of the Western world.

At the core, the US is a White Supremacist Country, it is only that, with each wave of immigration, the "White" has become more and more mixed-colored.
But there is also an "other" that isn't yet part of what makes a "real" American.


None of that takes away from the awesome progress that has been made in the US and elsewhere for more equality and well-being.
Clearly, this cycle of racism and acceptance is one way societies can advance. But it would be disingenuous to claim that it isn't there.

 

[Mumbles]

That is precisely the intention of those who use the term.


I was behind BLM all the way until they started making it all about statues. They allowed the looney left to turn a serious issue (racially motivated cop violence) into a joke.

This never happened. BLM did not, at any point, focus on them, despite the fact that they're obviously meant to symbolize white supremacy, but it's not their job to tell white kids not to pull Confederate statues over. Much like they didn't ask Twitter, or any other corporation, to show sym[athy - everyone knows that they're doing it for money.

Well, everyone except the people who burned their shoes and threw their razors into their toilets over Youtube commercials, anyway.

However, they're not actually focused on that, they're focused on the US legal system, so they let it slide.

You yourself are now using "racist" as a "commie" label.

Its use this way is classic politician's logic"

- Racists vote for Trump
- Person X votes for Trump.
- Therefore Person X is a racist.

(As used in Yes Prime Minister)
- Something needs to be done
- This is something
- Therefore we need to do it.

(Logical Structure)
- All cats have 4 legs
- My dog has 4 legs
- Therefore my dog is a cat.

The problem is that Dolt 45 isn't a politician who, incidentally, has a few racist ideas He's a white supremacist to the point of holding that only white people can be true Americans (thus birtherism, his screeching that four nonwhite US citizens "go back to where they came from, his insistance that US Jews be loyal to Israel and Netanyahu in particular, etc.), who made oppressing nonwhite people the central goal of his administration, and very deliberately promised to do exactly this when campaigning. That's why it's no shock that he's paying for concentration camps for Hispanic immigrants, or banning Muslims, as examples.

(And frankly, this was the first and only major part of his platform that he has acted on. Remember his Healthcare "plan" which comprised of "Good, Cheap, Now"? Yeah...that sure collapsed quickly.)

If you voted for Cheeto Benito, you voted for a person who promised, first and foremost, to inflict as much harm on nonwhite people as he could get away with, and to stack the courts with lunatic judges who would do the same. And yes, this makes you a racist, just as you would be if you voted for George Wallace or David Duke.

 

[jimbob]

Sorry to interject as a non-US single-post drop-in, but as a genuine point: have you considered the phenomenon of low-information voters?

In the UK there is a constant issue - from all sides of the political debate - where politicians, political commentators, and other informed observers, mistakenly believe that effectively the whole electorate is as informed as they are about the political landscape. And because of this false belief, they are led in turn to believe that the electorate will make the sort of fully-informed rational choices which they themselves regard almost as "no-brainers".

On the contrary: there is a significant proportion of the electorate - perhaps even a majority (it's difficult to measure accurately) who are either wholly or substantially ignorant of the political landscape, or who think they know the landscape but in fact do not. I guarantee that I could stand outside my local shopping precinct and quiz random passers-by on political matters, and most of them wouldn't even know who the UK's Chancellor (finance minister) or Foreign Secretary was, let alone what each major party's policy on health or education was.

Sadly you're right, but I covered that, with the "wilfully ignorant" and "fool" comment.

 

[uke2se]

I was behind BLM all the way until they started making it all about statues. They allowed the looney left to turn a serious issue (racially motivated cop violence) into a joke.

It's not about statues and never were.

Are you behind BLM now that it's most certainly not about statues?

 

[psionl0]

The problem is that Dolt 45 isn't a politician who, incidentally, has a few racist ideas He's a white supremacist to the point of holding that only white people can be true Americans (thus birtherism, his screeching that four nonwhite US citizens "go back to where they came from, his insistance that US Jews be loyal to Israel and Netanyahu in particular, etc.), who made oppressing nonwhite people the central goal of his administration, and very deliberately promised to do exactly this when campaigning. That's why it's no shock that he's paying for concentration camps for Hispanic immigrants, or banning Muslims, as examples.

(And frankly, this was the first and only major part of his platform that he has acted on. Remember his Healthcare "plan" which comprised of "Good, Cheap, Now"? Yeah...that sure collapsed quickly.)

If you voted for Cheeto Benito, you voted for a person who promised, first and foremost, to inflict as much harm on nonwhite people as he could get away with, and to stack the courts with lunatic judges who would do the same. And yes, this makes you a racist, just as you would be if you voted for George Wallace or David Duke.

I agree that anybody who votes for such a blatant racist with oppressive policies to match is probably a racist themself or, at least, is willing to tolerate such policies because the candidate has something else to offer.

However, this was in reference to Donald Trump who AFAIK is not advocating for such extremist policies. (He is either too stupid to think of them or barely smart enough to know that they would cost him votes).

 

[Safe-Keeper]

Meh, I stopped caring what they think of me a long time ago.

Trump and his supporters are a threat to myself and to our country, and as far as i'm concerned, my Oath of Enlistment is still valid.

Their mistake is thinking we are pushovers.

Ignore list, then .

Because, to the news media, rioting (and looting) fall under the umbrella of "peaceful protests."

I guess I shouldn't have expected a serious answer.

 

[LondonJohn]

Sadly you're right, but I covered that, with the "wilfully ignorant" and "fool" comment.

But that depends on whether you categorise people who are not sufficiently informed about politics "wilfully ignorant" or "foolish".

To you and I maybe, it's difficult to understand why one would not want to inform oneself about politics in order to be able to make better decisions at the ballot box. But I do think it's mistaken (and perhaps even patronising) to assume that those who are not in the same position as us have either taken the conscious decision not to become informed, or are intrinsically stupid.

Instead, I'd suggest that a better approach would be to try to understand the deeper systemic reasons why so many people are so ill-informed about politics. I suggest it's because many people either don't feel that political knowledge/analysis is of relevance to them; or they find it boring; or they are disillusioned with politics and politicians in general; or they are primarily influenced by soundbites, dog whistles and image (rather than the details of policies); or they think they already have sound reasons for voting (or abstaining) the way they do.

And - somewhat paradoxically - I think that part of the problem here is that politicians and political reporters (and the media in general) have not tried to answer those questions. Rather, they appear to believe that the solution is to air plenty of political discussion, debate and analysis - somehow assuming that the "if you build it, they will come" approach will lead to improved voter education. But it won't (because it doesn't answer the questions I posed above).