I'm seeing more and more extremists, mostly on the progressive left of US politics, trying to frame issues on the basis of "either-or" messaging. If you're not one thing, you're the other. If you don't support this cause, it means you obviously support that other cause. There's no middle ground, no gray areas, no equivocation. Here's an example posted on Twitter a few days ago.
It's a lie, of course. Anyone offering such an equivalence is defining the two terms, or the two sides, to suit themselves. I'd be interested to hear what the writer of that tweet defines as a "fascist". It'd probably sound much like a Republican or average conservative - but that would be false. The term "fascist" has a well-defined meaning (look it up if you wish). There are probably very few real fascists in the USA. To scream accusations of "fascism" at people with whom you disagree doesn't make them fascists, because you don't get to define the term (although many have tried in the past).
Be aware that this is a standard technique on the progressive left. They try to skewer their opponents with false accusations, making up new definitions for terms and then using them as a weapon. When challenged, they either call you a liar for not agreeing with their definitions, or they abruptly change the definitions and then accuse you of being that redefined evil.
There are, of course, many shades of gray in the world. Things are very seldom black or white. To some, "fascism" means "Well, Mussolini made the trains run on time", or "The Fascist Party drained the Pontine marshes". That doesn't mean the speaker approves of Mussolini's National Fascist Party and its brutality in other areas. (It's supremely ironic that fascism originated on the left of European politics, although today many on the progressive left use the term as an accusation against those on the right, conservative wing.) To speak of the fasces of ancient Rome (from which the fascist symbol was derived) doesn't mean that one approves of how that symbol was misappropriated by later generations; and to speak of the swastika (a very ancient religious symbol) does not imply approval of Germany's Nazi Party (which appropriated it) and the evils perpetrated in its name.
Almost every such "either-or" accusation is a lie, from start to finish. Don't emulate them, and if you're targeted, refuse to play that game.
Peter
Of course, few of them have any clue about what the Nazis were about. If you support socialized medicine, and most leftist do, they are not only Nazis, but communist as well.
ReplyDeleteIt's all very well to discuss minutia, but the major lie of that quoted idiot is that there is a difference between what he claims to support and what he claims to oppose.
ReplyDeleteA Progressive is a Socialist is a Communist is a Fascist is a Nazi. The costumes and litanies may change slightly, but the intentions, behaviors,. and results are dismally similar.
Moreover, that he is defining a group that fields street-fighting thugs wholly similar to the Brownshirts (minus the fashion sense) as ANTI-Fascsist indicates that he is a liar or an imbecile.
The 'othering' will go on til the death grip on power is complete.
ReplyDeleteLike everyone of their generation, they tend to view the world in binary terms: either with me or against me. This is an oversimplification of the real world, and it's a very seductive worldview because of it's simplicity.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately (for them) the world is infinitely more complex and sooner or later their stubborn black-and-white approach will bite them in their behind...
This approach was one of the things I tend to view critically in Robert A. Heinlein's philosophy - he was a proponent of polarization. That may have looked good in the '60s and '70s, but polarizing current society is a receipt for disaster because media is already monopolized by the left. Without an neutral dialog platform - which an unbiased media should be - a polarized society tends, and unfortunately I think it ultimately will (d)evolve into a totalitarian bloshevik or nazi-like society...
Ah, the difference between international socialists vs national socialists. Both groups suck. But both groups have pretty flags and neat slogans and good PR firms.
ReplyDeleteLike in the Spanish Civil War. Both sides were socialists. Just one side liked wearing peasant garb while the other loved their snazzy uniforms.
And that's really a good definition.
International Socialist (Antifa) - Must look like a peasant even if wearing a very expensive uniform.
National Socialist (real Nazis) - Must have really sharp and manly uniforms, even if one is just a private.
@Calteach - I disagree that it'll stop there. It'll stop once the 'Other' is taken away to the camps and "re-educated", or killed.
ReplyDeleteAs Bill Ayers noted,
I asked, "Well what is going to happen to those people we can’t reeducate, that are diehard capitalists?" And the reply was that they’d have to be eliminated.
And when I pursued this further, they estimated they would have to eliminate 25 million people in these reeducation centers.
And when I say "eliminate," I mean "kill."
link
Never forget, that's what they plan for us.
Aesop's Six Rules For Dealing With Delusional Sociopathic Leftards
ReplyDelete(but I repeat myself)
1) Antifa are the fascists they deliberately and deceitfully claim to oppose. They know this absolutely, before they open their pieholes. otherwise they'd wear suits, ties and bowler hats, and bring daisies to their gatherings.
2) THEY WANT YOU DEAD. Challenge accepted. I'm your Huckleberry. Say "When".
3) I won't mince words. My refusal to play their games will be kinetic in nature, and flying in their direction at between 800 and 3200 fps, entirely at my discretion as to which, and how many times. Absolute carrying capacity is liable to play a far greater role in that decision than temperament. Survivors will be an accident of nature and raw fate. I take "shoot to stop" to be a rather longer timeframe than just that particular moment. The word in play is "eternity".
4) And then, whenever possible and/or necessary, I'll be getting medieval, with pliers and blowtorch. Yes, really. Pour encourager les autres.
If you're clutching your pearls at that, know that you're playing by rules no one else is, and you're going to get an education, in much the manner of Kyle Rittenhouse. It will not be pleasant for you, then nor afterwards. How they feel about it, in that moment or afterwards, means zip to me.
5) Anyone else unknown in the vicinity is a potential target. Anyone unknown still running towards me after Weapons Free is a well-disciplined target. After the first one, the rest are free. No game regs, and screw the bag limit.
6) Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Marquess of Queensbury Rules have been suspended UFN. Antifa can call that toss in the air. ZFG.
Tell me. If Antifa were to torture someone you knew to death, would you be deterred? Or would it make you more determined to not lose?
DeleteThe answer, of course, is the latter. So why on God's green earth do you think that Antifa supporters are any less dedicated to their beliefs than you are to yours?
My understanding is that Fascism became known as "Right Wing" because Lenin declared them that -- for the simple reason that, being nationalistic, they were to the "right" of Moscow. As on Earth, where if you stand at the North Pole every direction is South, on Planet Politics if you stand at the Socialist (Left) Pole - Moscow - every direction is "Right".
ReplyDeleteAt the time, "Left" and "Right" in this country had different meanings than in Europe (and the Left in this country saw nothing wrong with Fascism/Nazism until WWII). Once the evils of Fascism/Nazism were known, the American Left re-defined the terms, saying, "Republicans are 'Right Wing', therefore Fascists/Nazis are conservatives."
Left and Right were originally coined by the French, referring to which side sat in which direction from the speaker's podium.
ReplyDeleteAnd let's get serious: Fascists aren't the Right, anywhere but Bizarro World.
Fascists are National Socialists;
Communists are International Socialists.
That's the entirety of the difference between them, now and ever. Like the Democrazy party of today, there's the Crazy Left, and then the Far Beyond Inanity Left. The latter has undeniably been calling the shots over there for at least the last 20 years, if not the last 50.
Neither fascists nor communists are on the right of anything, except each other.
Most of this country, however, is far to the right of both.
Which is why they want you dead.
The fact that they've never put their lives on the line for real, and run like scalded dogs anytime it's something close to a fair fight, should answer that question.
ReplyDeleteIf it doesn't, it'd be because like 99.99999% of them, you haven't served.
If you have, you know what I'm talking about.
A mob is a mob is a mob.
Everyone wants to act gangsta, until it's time to do gangsta $#!^.
You could have just said "I'm committing the same error that both sides did before the ACW" and saved yourself the effort of posturing.
DeleteYour misanalysis starts by assuming the other side is the side with either any material advantages in prosecuting a conflict, or any moral high ground, let alone the will to do so.
ReplyDeleteThe North had both; the Democommunists have neither.
The only thing the Left possesses in greater quantities than the Right is butthurt. Great for riots and tantrums, and mob-attacking small groups of unarmed helpless strays, sure; but the first time Moldyloclks walks into a fist, their whole plan goes as Mike Tyson suggested, once they get hit.
And their support for "direct action" is a mile wide, and an inch deep, with most of their so-called leadership constantly in the position of telling their minions "Let's you and the Right fight (while I kick back here in my posh digs at Tard Central)".
Google "combat leadership" and find me the statue that says "Lead From Behind". That works with Useful Idiots, occasionally, but then you've just got a mob of Useful Idiots.
"Give me a mob of useful idiots, and I can win!" said no general, ever.
Unless we want to count Iran, trying to cross minefields with hordes of child-soldiers in the Republican Guard. That turned out about as well as Rorke's Drift did for Cetawayo.
You want a slam-dunk one-hand-tied-behind-your-back easy victory, you're out of luck. But if you're not ready to bring a gun to a knife fight, best get back on the porch with the little yappy dogs. Be under no illusion: the conflict that's coming is going to be an existential conflict for survival; it's going to be a nationwide cage match on an industrial scale, and in 10,000 places. The only way to avoid that, or get a quick ending is to surrender, but I don't think that will be the default for a sizable number of the 72M people who voted for Trump.
The left is butthurt about getting caught stealing an election? ZFG. Weapons Free.
And if the election is decided fairly in the courts, you get the same butthurt temper tantrum we've already seen from the Leftards for the last 4 years, turned up to 11? I don't care. Their mask is off.
They're willing to steal elections, and then riot if they get caught? I'm your Huckleberry. Say "When".
If your knowledge and grasp of both history and current ground reality is that shallow, you could have just said you don't know what you're talking about, and saved yourself the effort of pointless snark. Keep a white hanky and bedsheet handy, and let us know how that plan works out.
Just remember to ask yourself, "If they'll do this now, while out of power, what will they do when they get their hands back on the levers, with no serious restraint?"
“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family?
Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt!
If...if...
We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”
You seem to be a deeply, deeply confused man, so I will spell it out in small words for you.
DeleteRefusing to torture people to death is not the same thing as being unwilling to kill them if they are trying to kill you.
The failure on your part to comprehend this is indicative of a problem with you, not me. Get some therapy. I'd rather not someone else get killed because you were too busy amusing yourself to make sure that the area was secure.
Oh, great, it's THIS jagoff again. (As in, BrooklynDad)
ReplyDeleteI've seen some of his greatest hits elsewhere. Suffice to say that he's a loudmouthed moron who should enjoy the full consequences of calling someone a 'Nazi' to their face -- assuming he's got the balls.
And Aesop, -really-? Pliers and blowtorch? As usual, you waste time. Shoot them and move on. Efficiency in action.
Fate being the fickle thing it is, some of them won't be immediately rendered hors du combat. So there has to be a policy. Mine has worked for the Afghanis for centuries. Somebody may squawk about that, but until they sign onto the Geneva Conventions, neither will I. Besides, if you enjoy what you do, you'll never work a day in your life.
ReplyDeleteNone of that has anything to do with the price of tea in China, nor with your only reply, which was this little gem:
ReplyDelete"You could have just said "I'm committing the same error that both sides did before the ACW"...".
Look, man, if you can't even keep track of your own arguments, on the same page you made them, you really are beyond all help.
The internet moves fast, but not so fast you can't keep up, with a minimum of effort.