thats a literal oxymoron. antifa isn't facist that you claim it is only shows your biases and ignorance. and the right wing attitude to label everything
See, reality doesn't agree with our neighbor, Vociferous, so all he can do is change the subject and cry. Remember, this part
starts with↑ failing to discern between Democrats and leftists, and even that was a clumsy maneuver in a
rubber-glue retort↑ that fails to distinguish thought from action.
The thread is actually about "cancel culture"; one of Vociferous' fellow advocates wanted to have the discussion, yet this is what comes of it. Well, what, really, did we expect? The question quoted in the topic post was an attempt to distract a discussion about prejudice and law enforcement.
We should observe that certain people cannot discern between behavior and viewpoint: If we oblige people to behave decently, then some political views need to seek new expression. Some people think this is cancellation, or suppression of a political view. Like the old question of equal or special rights, some people just aren't capable of perceiving or understanding the difference. But if you also add in the old, related political canard about crime, punishment, and psych defense, you'll see an underlying expectation emerge, that certain forms of dangerous or otherwise problematic behavior must be shielded from criticism because folks just can't help themselves.
And it is, in fact, a common behavior among supremacists. I sometimes remind that some arguments are harder to justify rationally than others. We also ought to wonder, from time to time, at the exceptions and excuses people make. One joke would be that changing the subject is among the leading discursive methods at Sciforums. Analysis would suggest identifiable themes about how that works. You've been around, awhile, PJ, so certain themes in all this are pretty apparent to you.
Several months ago, the staff had another one of its disputes that never get resolved. The demonstrable results of that problematic episode include that changing the subject in order to troll threads one doesn't like is acceptable behavior for some people and political views, and that doing so will sometimes be rewarded.
You've been around, awhile, PJ; you can probably kind of guess how it goes.
There is a literary metaphor that doesn't quite work because the moralization that goes with it, about expecting better of people, in addition to being stupid in and of itself, also fails to account for infliction beyond explicitly natural circumstance. But if we attend a different literary consideration, and observe who is amusing themselves, compared who is obliged by the principle of actually believing in what they are saying to use words responsibly, you already know what we will find.
As a question of behavior, those who delight in bad faith, hoping to disconcert at the very least, while posturing an outward appeal—uh ... what is it they call it,
virtue signaling?—are given some functional cover because otherwise, certain political viewpoints might not be represented in the discourse at Sciforums.
†
Not all funny stories are truly funny. For instance, funny story: Once upon a time, someone I respect noted the manner in which explicit supremacist hostility made participation at Sciforums an undesirable experience, a literally dreadful prospect. And, no, that's not funny. What it actually referred to is supremacist bigotry, and the idea of experiencing such hatred as the price of admission for participating at Sciforums. It really isn't funny.
Some months later—not real long, as I recall—someone delivered a similar line to me, but about someone else. And every once in a while, you might notice me reminding that function matters. Someone else found the price of admission at Sciforums disconcerting:
While devoting much effort to disingenuous behavior, the constant criticism of disingenuousness was discouraging.
It's also true, you've been around long enough that if I say it's not a new complaint, you probably have some idea of what that means.
†
One of the generally apparent aspects about these behaviors as political viewpoints—
i.e., if the problematic behavior is forbidden, it necessarily follows that some political argument silenced—is that they are strangely, intrinsically antithetical. As downstream complaints against a critique, they are invested almost entirely in identifying against something; the plot twist, of course, is that the something they identify against is a critique of something else that the anti-identification pretends to refuse. Like the late Den Hollander, or infamous hoaxer Lindsay; it's not "misogyny", but, "anti-feminsim". In that framework, it's not a matter of being
for misogyny, but identifying against some sinister iteration of
feminism while desiring circumstances that
just happen to coincide with misogynistic outcomes.
And of that latter, Lindsay, what do we call his anti-antiracism?
†
Yes, there are variations on the theme; I actually know people, in another question, who would be on the right side of history if they gave a damn about such things, but that actually isn't their point. For them, it really does start to look as if the point is the comfort of having someone to hate.
And if we consider a point about birds of a common feather, well, Venn overlap isn't nearly as surprising as they would pretend.
†
Anecdote: I once had a dispute with someone who decided to remind me to check a dictionary; thing is, I'd already told him he was at a point where his only course was to redefine words. As you might expect, given the setup, the difference between what he wanted and what the dictionary said was that I would need to strike definitions from the dictionary in order to accommodate his argument. I mention it because it comes up, from time to time.
†
Recently at Sciforums, a public discussion arose regarding potential racist advocacy. It was an interesting inquiry because the question of advocting for something is a fraught prospect: At Sciforums, seeking normalization of and sympathy toward, or even an advance in legal status for, the infamous and dangerous is not presupposed to constitute advocacy for that whatever.
Even setting that obscure aspect aside, the entire episode was—y'know, never mind. You get the drift.
†
In the distraction along the way in this discussion, it really is unclear what to tell the guy who thinks the party that rejected the socialist and the reformer in favor of an old white institutionalist, just passed on universal healthcare and marijuana legalization in platform arguments, hems and haws about police reform, has undertaken the duty of preserving warzone deployment, and must necessarily be dragged kicking and screaming to meet the basic needs of Americans is somehow the left; he's not really capable of explaining how that works—I mean, coherently.
"Fascist 'antifa'"? Hey, remember once upon a time when we had that dirty Muslim-Nazi-Jew-Commie in the White House? Or the time Obama was Hitler, and Democrats Jews?
These right-wing jokers don't change, much. Remember how people used to bawl about liberal elitists, and all that? Really, to think this all is what we were supposed to take seriously?
†
Oh, right, this thread is about cancel culture. So, yeah, did you hear the one about the Republican U.S. Senator who complained that celebrity endorsements of her opponent is "more proof that the out of control cancel culture wants to shut out anyone who disagrees with them"? A sitting U.S. Senator suggesting that being defeated in an election is proof that her opponents are out of control?
And, yeah, also, BLM is eroding the nuclear family. And something about the flag. The statement itself (
qtd. in Deb↱) really delivers the kick lacking in the reportage (
e.g.,
Wise↱).
But, yeah, I love that bit about, "anyone who disagrees". Still, really, it's an election. And, yes, when you lose, it's over. But,
cancel culture?
Okay.
†
No, I don't really have any good advice, in the moment, but it occurs to mind that, oh, yeah, that's why we pretend to take them seriously. This is the Republican Party mainline, these days.
Remember also,
Vociferous↑ is the one who thinks he would "be happy to be profiled and occasionally inconvenienced in the hopes of making myself safer", but apparently hasn't stopped to consider the prison bid; moreover, if police kill him, he can't be happy about being profiled.
†
Fascist antifa. We can just add it to the list. It's not quite
s-apostrophe↗, but still. If the inability to discern between thought and action tells us anything, it's that they haven't learned much these last thirty-five, forty years.
____________________
Notes:
@SopanDeb. ".@SenatorLoeffler out with a statement that says WNBA players supporting her opponent is an example of 'out of control cancel culture.'" Twitter. 4 August 2020. Twitter.com. 4 August 2020. https://bit.ly/2XtKD7M
Wise, Justin. "Loeffler knocks WNBA players for wearing shirts backing Democratic challenger". The Hill. 4 August 2020. TheHill.com. 4 August 2020. https://bit.ly/3i6MgzYv
