Twitter Reinstates White Nationalist Leader's Account (buzzfeed.com) 470
An anonymous reader quotes BuzzFeed:
On Saturday evening, Twitter reinstated -- with verification -- the account of Richard Spencer, a leading figure of the so-called alt-right movement, and the head of the white nationalist think tank, The National Policy Institute. Spencer's account was suspended mid-November as part of a larger cull of prominent alt-right accounts... However, according to Twitter, Spencer was banned on a technicality: creating multiple accounts with overlapping uses. Twitter's multiple account policy was put in place as a safeguard to help curb dog piling and targeted harassment. [Twitter] offered to reinstate one of Spencer's accounts if he agreed to follow the company's protocols.
Vox says the move "raises the question of to what extent Twitter intends to enforce the 'hateful conduct' policy." But the suspension had also been criticized by David Frum, a senior editor at the Atlantic, who wrote that "The culture of offense-taking, platform-denying, and heckler-vetoing...lets loudmouths and thugs present themselves as heroes of free thought. They do not deserve this opportunity... today, a neo-Nazi has more right to build an arsenal of weapons and drill a militia than to speak on Twitter." But BuzzFeed points out that though the account's been reinstated, Spencer "is now tip-toeing around the company's three strike policy, which carries a permanent suspension."
Vox says the move "raises the question of to what extent Twitter intends to enforce the 'hateful conduct' policy." But the suspension had also been criticized by David Frum, a senior editor at the Atlantic, who wrote that "The culture of offense-taking, platform-denying, and heckler-vetoing...lets loudmouths and thugs present themselves as heroes of free thought. They do not deserve this opportunity... today, a neo-Nazi has more right to build an arsenal of weapons and drill a militia than to speak on Twitter." But BuzzFeed points out that though the account's been reinstated, Spencer "is now tip-toeing around the company's three strike policy, which carries a permanent suspension."
Fuck Twitter appeasement (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Fuck Twitter appeasement (Score:4, Insightful)
No, because then you make him a "free speech martyr" and he'll still end up getting his message out on another platform anyway.
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Facebook?
Re:Fuck Twitter appeasement (Score:5, Insightful)
Just so long as he doesn't post, say, a non-explicit picture of a mother breastfeeding her child.
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I can't help but think that the alt-right movement is a symptom of that. That, and I think you can only try to feminize society so much before you'll get a reaction, which is also what this is. We live in a world where a guy can kill somebody while reckless driving, sue some of the people that he injured, and then suddenly he's a brave hero because he has gender identity disorder and got a sex change.
Re:Fuck Twitter appeasement (Score:5, Insightful)
Huh?
It's feminists who are pissed off about FB's ban on non-sexual images that (gasp!) involve a breast. Regardless of context. Things involving breast cancer are particularly frustrating. They banned a Swedish video on breast cancer awareness. They instituted a permanent ban on a tattoo artist who tattoos nipples on women who have gotten mastectomies. There's hundreds and hundreds of examples. Photographic? Artistic? Cartoony? Banned, banned, banned. Some people have taken to representing breasts and nipples as squares as a workaround.
The thing that's most annoying about it is that they're portraying things that are distinctly not sexual as if they're sexual. A mother breastfeeding her child is not a sexual act, and it's disgusting and insulting to act like it is. A breast cancer awareness video or a survivor of breast cancer are not there for sexual titilation - they're about survival from a deadly disease. Facebook's obsession about these things is a giant insult.
You went off on a most bizarre tangent there... what on Earth does Jenner have to do with Facebook's banning of breastfeeding / breast cancer images?
Re:Fuck Twitter appeasement (Score:4, Informative)
It's feminists who are pissed off about FB's ban on non-sexual images that (gasp!) involve a breast.
I think you're misinterpreting what I'm saying. People are getting tired of being pressured to go against the grain of their biology just because it offends somebody else, and the mere fact that you're a minority can be used to justify your sins. These things, IMO, have resulted in the alt-right.
Did I not convey that properly?
Re:Fuck Twitter appeasement (Score:5, Insightful)
These things, IMO, have resulted in the alt-right.
You lack historical depth. The "alt-right" has always been here, they just used to be the norm. It's only by standing up and demanding that they be recognized, that they exist and have the same rights that the so called special interest groups have managed to push society into no longer accepting the "alt-right" viewpoint as normal. Of course, they're only "special interest groups" in that they stand up to the bigots who would pretend they don't exist. When your entire philosophy rests on treating everyone who thinks differently from yourself as a sub-human with no right to exist, being stood up to does seem extraordinary.
Re:Fuck Twitter appeasement (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's the thing.
First some background. I was born in South Africa and lived under apartheid. I'm a brown person. I'm amply aware of white supremacy and hate it with every inch of my soul. However, I've also seen black supremacy and black nationalism. While white supremacy oppressed us, black supremacy burned down our town. And yeah, I've also seen brown/Islamic supremacy (my own group). Heck, even in the UK, I have Indian Muslim family I visit that gloats how they got together and drove the blacks out of the neighborhood because they bring drugs and prostitution.
I give all that as a background because if you live in any way long enough you quickly realize how every group has an 'alt-right'. This point cannot be overstated enough.
Now when white people were just so damn powerful as it was the 'norm,' yeah we could all just pretend only white people were racist. Or I guess in modern social justice terms... that only white racists matter because only whites have power.
This is some serious bull shit in my view, because all groups have power. I'm in Canada now. I'm Indian. My high school heavily Indian. Yeah, do you think white kids had any power? Nope, they got punked off for being white same as any other people.
This is the point we are in history and why the alt-right is more prevalent. Regular white people are seeing how society is allowing every other gang to arm itself and spread itself to the teeth, while singling our only white people.
Only white people can't be proud of their identity. ...
Black power... that's a good thing. Not for me. To use modern lingo. I get triggered by black power as rioting black people burned down my home in South Africa in the name of black power.
Indian power... that's a good thing because ethnic people need to have an identity.
women power... that's a good thing.. because...feminism.
These extremist groups really only gain power when regular people starting siding with them. I'm a bit of a realist. I don't pretend we can stamp out all form of hate, but various thing in regular society have people join their 'alt-right' movement and think they are legitimate.
Again I can speak from my own example. Muslim communities are segregationist and racist to any level. You can't be openly gay. Heck, it's really tough to have openly left Islam as I did. I'm still battling through it.
I really and truly don't see any different between white supremacists and muslim supremacists and black supremacists... hate is hate.
The danger we face is that we've empowered and encouraged and turned a blind eye to all the other supremacist groups out there. White people aren't really blind to this and what is natural but to be sympathetic to the people who even have your interest at heart.
Oh I see parallels all over the place. White people might not be part of the alt-right, but they sympathize. The same way most Muslims aren't part of ISIS or radical groups, but they do sympathize. You I attend regular family functions with regular Muslim people and I get to hear wonderful conversation like:
It's sad people got killed over cartoons, but they really shouldn't be speaking about Islam anyways.
I guarantee you there's some white people today going, I'm not for hate or white supremacy, but all I want is for my kids to have an identity they can be proud of or very legitimate issue X,Y,Z.
Basically, of course you're right the alt-right has always been there. The problem is you can't just take this approach to only white people. It's basic group tribal dynamics. And society has changed quite a lot. It's not the 1960s USA where no other group had power, but white people and no other group is filled with hate and a conquest to subjugate and segregate other people.
It's sad to see us a society not really demanding every other alt-right part of society be pushed to non-acceptance as well.
It's also sad that regular white people can't just have a regular white identity and be proud of it.
Re:Fuck Twitter appeasement (Score:4, Insightful)
Excellent post that points out the Left's hypocrisy. Generalizing a group based on a few of its members is bad and makes you a bigot, but it's okay for them to do it to white people who support individual freedom and free speech by painting them all as inbred hill-billies.
Re:Fuck Twitter appeasement (Score:4, Insightful)
You see, the problem is that alt-right types will take a statement like this one about South Africa - a majority black country - and use it to demonstrate 'reverse racism' in the U.S. - still a majority white country, and full of other minorities besides black people. There is no such thing as reverse racism in a country where the supposed racist minority is still suffering discrimination. Yes, I suppose there can be a form of 'compelled non-discrimination' - if only as a form of social pressure, which some whites will see as discrimination against them.
Affirmative Action is a whole other subject, and maybe it's not the best way to remedy the effects of past outright discrimination, but those effects are real - and if you've got a better idea, then out with it.
As far as white people needing a 'white identity they can be proud of'. How about an 'American identity that represents our national value of equal opportunity for all'. Using racial identity to shore up your personal pride is maybe a valid reaction to having been discriminated against because of your race to counter the narrative of racial inferiority that still infects this country. But it's downright silly to build an identity based on being white in America. What exactly is that identity - "we used to run this country - but now we're just as downtrodden as the rest of ya"? It's a big ole distraction / misdirection of anger towards the people who trod you down. Hint - it's not black people, it's the party who's nutcase candidate you just elected.
Re:Fuck Twitter appeasement (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Fuck Twitter appeasement (Score:5, Insightful)
As opposed, I presume, to the black supremacist scum of Black Lives Matter?
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People are getting tired of being pressured to go against the grain of their biology just because it offends somebody else,
If you're biologically a dickhead and people don't like you because you're a dickhead and you're pressured into not being a dickhead, well... shit. Not really sure I have any sympathy there. Oh, an BTW, I know you're implicitly shoving "man" into there, but the notion that man==dickhead is one of the most ludicrous things I keep hearing on slashdot.
These things, IMO, have resulted in th
Re:Fuck Twitter appeasement (Score:4, Informative)
That certainly seems to be a common misconception, popularized by fake news sites like Breitbart. In reality, to pick up your example, being transgender comes with a number of challenges and certainly doesn't convey immunity from the law.
As for biology, I'm afraid you will be expected to overcome it on a regular basis in modern society. You may feel like resolving your problems with violence, or grabbing that guy's crotch, but you won't be able to excuse that behaviour by saying "it's my biological imperative!"
Re:Fuck Twitter appeasement (Score:5, Interesting)
So the whole 'personal responsibility' thing the conservatives are always going on about ONLY applies to poor people or drug addicts or whatever group you currently want to justify not helping (or more usually - going out of your way to screw by voting for somebody who promised to make a law that takes away the things that keep them alive.
It doesn't apply to rightwingers. When people go asshole neo-nazi like the alt-right - somehow that's the fault of progressives ? You do realize that this shit existed long before progressives right ? Kind of makes the "you caused this" thing an obvious piece of bullshit.
No, the ONLY thing that changed this year is that these assholes who HAVE BEEN THERE ALL ALONG - have come out of the woodwork, because Orange Hitler made them feel safe and secure in doing so. They never went away. Hell black people have been telling you how they bump into these people every day and get mistreated by them as a daily life thing for decades ! Just because you were able to pretend they didn't exist anymore, doesn't mean they weren't real.
And nobody has tried to 'feminize' society, absolutely nobody has ever been asked (at least, not by the progressives) to 'act against their biology'. I find it incredibly insulting that you seem to believe that just because I *have* a dick I automatically have to *be* a dick. What has feminists done that's so bad ? They asked you to call out your buddies when they make rape jokes - because that sort of shit make actual rapists feel justified and safe. They asked you to actually *ask* the girl before you touch her privates- and to be a decent enough human being not to take advantage of a drunk woman.
These are not 'against your biology' - it is merely being a decent human being. If you find anything they've asked for excessive- it's not your biology that's the problem, it's the fact that you are a horrible human being and the entire species would benefit from your death.
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Re:Fuck Twitter appeasement (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, and then let this application grow and gain neo nazi moderators and turn it into a racist safe space.
Without free discussion, and real actual discussion instead of retarded namecalling we get shit like trump in power.
Re:Fuck Twitter appeasement (Score:5, Insightful)
It's called stormfront
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Yes, and look how big it got with all those people being banned everywhere else not called 4chan, instead of debated with.
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And they will get every word of this post you just did and use it to create 10 more of em.
Karl Popper (Score:3)
> These literal fascists can't be "debated", they can't be coddled, they must be beaten and when they try to act they must be shot without mercy.
An odd statement. If you go back to read up on Karl Popper's "paradox of tolerance" he justified his intolerance of intolerance by pointing out the fear that such people would resort to "fists or pistols" instead of debate. And so he justified his idea by the right of self-defense.
In other words, anyone who is inciting or committing violence should not be tole
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You haven't hit the gym in years if ever.
Never hit an inanimate object.
And you've fucked a relatively small number of women.
That's a curiously non-specific phrase. I like how it's not merely "small", but "relatively small". Relative to what?
every faggot pussy hurling threats like yourself is a total fucking loser.
I think you forgot to check "post as AC".
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Yes, and then let this application grow and gain neo nazi moderators and turn it into a racist safe space.
Without free discussion, and real actual discussion instead of retarded namecalling we get shit like trump in power.
But I don't think they actually want a safe space, they want victimization.
The alt-right segment that is causing trouble on Twitter has a very predictable pattern, they find a target and then troll them until they get a reaction. If the victim retaliates they claim that the victim is the real racist/sexist/bad person, if instead the service retaliates they claim they're being censored.
In either case they need a victim to target and aggravate and they need an authority to rebel against. You're not going to g
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Probably not, but its the only true way to combat the bad ideas they carry.
Bad ideas can only be killed by convincing arguments, rather than screaming "racist bigots!" until it magically disappear.
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Racist bigots never magically disappear. Unfortunately, almost all of the people who fought in WWII are gone now, or they'd tell you the most appropriate way to deal with Nazis: You blow their shit up until you get their attention, then you give them a choice of being good citizens. Maybe the process has to be repeated every so often, like spraying for cockroaches.
In the meantime, the
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You think they come from some portal to hell?
They are made of regular people that got caught into a "safe space" that "taught the undisputed truth" until becoming what they are.
Germany was the perfect safe space to make something like nazism grow, because they could literally cut out any opposition and make people only hear their side of the story.
Yes, your approach did work well back then because there was no such thing as the internet, so you could just round up everyone with the wrong opinion and toss so
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Sometimes, the stupid comes at you fast. Let me take these things one at a time.
Re:Fuck Twitter appeasement (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Fuck Twitter appeasement (Score:5, Interesting)
According to Richard Spencer, they've just won the White House. Does that meet your standard of gaining a "lot of power"?
Me, I take them at their word. When someone tells you who they are, believe them the first time. I actually knew people who fought Nazis in Europe last century. If they could have crushed Nazism when it was just 3000 guys in a beer hall, they wouldn't have hesitated. It was that bad. I take them at their word, too.
If you want to spend time changing Nazis minds, be my guest, and I wish you luck. You can start with the incoming President's Chief Strategist. It's up to the rest of us to have a contingency if you fail.
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Who cares? Let him use some third rate, white-only application to shit on other people.
But... I'm confused. Aren't we telling him not to use Twitter?
Re:Fuck Twitter appeasement (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, it is within their legal rights to enforce the fuck they want.
But it's still not a good idea, specially if your plan is to actually combat white nationalism instead of just sweeping it under the rug.
Re:Fuck Twitter appeasement (Score:4, Insightful)
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You are correct. The first amendment says that the government can't censor you at all.
The government will allow you to setup a twitter clone and spew as much hate and rhetoric as you want. Stormfront forums do just fine as the government is prohibited from making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, ensuring that there is no prohibition on the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the right to peaceably assemble, o
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Time was, in the 1970s in this case, the left objected to malls ejecting protesters inside in front of stores. They claimed that, even though the malls were private property, they functioned as modern public squares, and free speech was so important, it should override private property rights in this case.
Now they stand squarely -- squarely -- for private corporate speech rights. Try to envision a liberal suing Twitter in an attempt to claim they are a modern town square, or postal delivery system, and th
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So what you're saying is... liberals will respect, abide by and defend supreme court decisions EVEN IF THEY DON'T AGREE WITH THEM - and may even come to change their minds in time.
Now sure, liberals are still pretty hopeful of overturning citizens united but that is a pretty damn recent finding.
Call me when conservatives stop trying to overturn Roe v Wade and instead just embrace it as the law of the land. As it stands, if history is any indication - the only reason there won't be a lot of people protesting
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Re:Fuck Twitter appeasement (Score:4, Insightful)
More interesting is the government's baldfaced assertion that it has the power to strip religious behavior from the behavior of staying alive, which is to say, earning money, which is to say, baking for some people.
"We hereby declare that religious people need our permission to be religious in earning a living, a brute requirement of staying alive! We decline to permit them."
Religion is something they declare, fait accompli, is not part of business, AKA remaining alive by putting food in your mouth. They declare it only is permitted, by government, as a quaint lifestyle choice severed from anything of note.
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Different law, different amendment of the constitution entirely - and already passed supreme court muster (from one of the most notoriously conservative supreme courts of all time actually).
Now I'm sure you're about to shout that there hasn't been any case about gay wedding cakes in front of the supremes - and you'd be... wrong because that's not how legal precedent works. The civil rights act was challenged in 1965 - and EVERY SINGLE THING IT SAID - applies EXACTLY the same way to THIS question. A business
Re:Fuck Twitter appeasement (Score:5, Insightful)
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Were you in a fraternity when you st
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I had no idea you guys broke the top 800 subs on reddit. That's a real accomplishment and you should be very proud.
Re: Fuck Twitter appeasement (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh the irony, a user who doesn't like hate speech using a pejorative term for a gay male. Shame on you.
I believe it's possible to have two of these three things: anonymity, free speech, and an absence of hate speech. However, I don't think you can have all three of those things simultaneously. Twitter is a business and are free to decide what to allow and prohibit on their service, but that doesn't mean I have to agree with their decisions. No matter how much you censor hate speech, the ideas will thrive in
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The reason for rejecting hate speech in public spaces has nothing to do with changing the minds of hateful people. We KNOW that doesn't work.
The reason to help slow the speed at which those, extremely viral and dangerous, ideas can propagate. These are not ideas we should be tolerant off, or extend the ideology of tolerance to include. The philosopher Karl Popper proved in the 1930s (as NAZI propaganda was peaking) that it's logically impossible to be tolerant of intolerant ideologies - it is literally a se
Right to free speech (Score:5, Interesting)
Ban the motherfucker for TOS violation and deny him the audience that feeds his hatred of everyone and everything else.
Firstly, I'm not convinced that he promotes hatred.
We've learned in the last few weeks that the mainstream media is quick to mislabel something as bigoted and other related labels, so long as it promotes their position. To get to the truth you have to actually find the statements some person was saying, and then determine for oneself whether they're bigoted or not.
(And I haven't taken the time or effort to do this for Richard Spencer, never heard of him before this moment.)
And further, asking whether Trump was bigoted caused people to post entirely non-bigotry quotes as "proof" of his racism. Mexico isn't a race, he was specifically referring to criminals, Islam is not a race (it's a culture), and so on.
It's gotten so that no one can even mention race in an academic sense without being called a bigot, because the left knows that it's an easy way to shut down debate on the subject.
Secondly, the term "KKK member" has strong connotations, "white supremacist" is largely indicative of bias, but "white nationalist" seems like it's a tailored term to insult and demean most of the people who voted for Trump. It's trying to equate voting for Trump with white supremacy, which again is a way of shutting down debate on the issue. I'm white, I want the government to put the US first in things (such as trade agreements), but I'm not a racist or hateful person. Why am I (and half the country) always marginalized by the left?
It's estimated that there are less than 50,000 white supremacists in the entire country, and less than 1000 of the tattooed, nazi-ish, violent types that you see in a Banshee episode.
Trump got elected because there are real issues that were not being addressed by the establishment, but no one on the left *or* right has owned up to this simple fact.
Instead, it's all about racism. Voting for Trump was a hate crime.
Thirdly, the left really *really* doesn't have any good sense of priorities when it comes to human rights. Apparently anything goes, so long as it promotes their agenda. This twitter thing, and the quote above, is a good example of that in practice.
We don't allow twitter to hire only whites (14th amendment &c), or only men (19th amendment). We don't allow twitter to refuse services to gays or older people or the poor or veterans, because that would be a violation of their rights.
Why do we allow twitter to violate first amendment rights?
No one is required to give you a public forum, the saying goes, but Twitter *is* a public forum.
And finally, recall about a decade ago how ISPs would turn over subscriber information to the government on request without a warrant. The government thought that was OK because the ISPs were free to refuse, and it wasn't a violation of our rights because it wasn't the government doing it.
If we let companies censor our speech, then the same situation will happen. The government can "request" something be censored, with a wink and a nudge, and it won't be the government doing it.
We're rapidly losing our free speech rights.
And it starts with leftist idiots like the OP above, who thinks it's OK to violate that right, so long as the ends are virtuous.
So.,.. Twitter says everything on their forum? (Score:2)
The first amendment also prevents forced speech. The government can't force you to engage in any particular speech or type of speech. If Twitter doesn't want certain types of speech on their site, that is their first amendment right. For example, a Christian baker can't turn away a gay couple on the grounds that the couple is gay. The baker can, however, refuse to bake a cake that has a particular message on it that he or she finds offensive.
You are saying that Twitter considers everything anyone says on their forum as being said by Twitter?
You're trying to confuse the issue. That's a swing and a miss.
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It has nothing to do with Germany. The closest example would be Israel. Would you say Israel deserves destruction for wanting to have a country just for Jews?
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Re:Right to free speech (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Right to free speech (Score:4, Interesting)
Did you know that Israel has a 70 year history of its neighbors denying its right to even EXIST?
The Jews were never more than a racial minority in that region, they got kicked out, and they got reinstalled by force.
accidents and unfortunate issues happen, and that because of ONE action you claim the entire nation and defunct?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
One action? You're hilarious.
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What ToS violation? Multiple accounts? That's gonna take out a lot of people,,,
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Being not-leftist. (Score:5, Insightful)
The only violation that matters is not being a proper leftist according to Twitter.
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Call it what it is (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Call it what it is (Score:4, Informative)
"alt-right" is a concept intended primarily as a smear tactic by the Hillary campaign. White nationalists are hand-in-hand with the liberals in adopting it as a label. Since it is completely undefined, you can use it as a smear.
There's aren't any "white nationalists", KKK members, etc, in the Trump team, nor will there be. Both of these groups are utterly insignificant idiots, and have been denounced and denigrated time and time again by Trump and anyone else in his circle
You know we have videotape and records right? A ten second web search yielded this information [washingtonpost.com]
Trump himself is a hero to these people. What you think anyone is really buying the crap about trump being concerned about obama's birthplace? No, it was a transparently obvious attempt to delegitimize the first black president from the very beginning and it lasted just long enough to do what it needed to do. At the time Trump accused Obama of playing the best con in history, which was a bit of insight into how Trump thinks. He was lying of course, but I think even then he was thinking of playing the best con in history.
Sure on some level trump is likely racist, but mostly he is for Trump and is more than willing to deal with any racists that come along, as long as they support him. It is the same with Putin. We know Putin is a murderer. Too many of his enemies turn up dead. One even from polonium poisoning, but lead poisoning is the usual reason.
We also know he had a campaign manager with major Russian ties. We know they bent over backward to get him elected, though to be fair it was probably more to prevent Hillary. We know that he is bending himself in a pretzel to say that all of our intelligence agencies are stupid and wrong, and only he is right on russia and of course now Trump is appointing Russia's best friend in the most important position he has.
I wonder if he is afraid of his own polonium poisoning, or if there is actual marching orders. Heck, we even know that Trump is ignoring almost all of his intelligence briefings.
His decisions will cause deaths. All presidents decisions do. His uninformed decisions are bound to cause a lot more, but he is just too busy to do the damn job. Disgusting. Seriously, can you imagine Romney or McCain refusing to be kept up to date on threats?
Re:Call it what it is (Score:4, Informative)
Get a grip. Trump has not remotely denounced white nationalists.
Why should a president denounce any group of people? What good would that do? If it's not illegal why alienate people unnecessarily even if you strongly disagree with their ideology? Is this how you work to build the legitimacy of your office and country?
Trump has said a number of times he does not support nor does he seek the support of these groups. Obviously it will never be quite clear enough for race baiting media perpetually pushing racial narratives to enrich themselves.
The last youtube ad they ran was a straightforward white nazi dogwhistle
The code word / dog whistle is a magical device granting the invoker unlimited power to invent whatever connections fit their predetermined narrative.
If Trump loves the KKK or whatever your claim is your probably much better off convincing others by providing direct credible evidence to support your claims. It's fricking Trump shouldn't be that hard.
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Why should a president denounce any group of people?
Because...
Trump has said a number of times he does not support nor does he seek the support of these groups.
Yet he appoints a white supremacist to his team. And politicians have a habit of saying one thing and doing something different, a habit which Trump promised to break.
"White Nationalist" is racist term (Score:5, Insightful)
The term "White Nationalist" is meant to evoke the term "Nazi" mixed with "KKK".
But really it's neither of those things. A nationalist (of any skin color) simply wants government to put the interests of his nation first, above those of other nations generally.
When put that way it doesn't sound scary (or even unreasonable) at all. A nationalist can still want to work with other countries, can still support legal immigration - it simply means they adopt the doctors credo "First do no Harm". That is why the chattering news must paint the term with a racial brush, to frighten children or the weak minded...
Note they never call out "black nationalists" even though there are plenty of them... that would be racist after all! But it's OK to try and evoke hate for people based on color when they are white.
They're invoking the KKK (Score:5, Insightful)
And we called out Black Nationalists in the 70s. They mostly calmed the hell down and stopped being racists. The White Nationalists didn't do that when they were called out. They doubled and trippled down. Mostly because they're being used by a wealthy elite to win elections and stuff state legislatures with pro-corporate anti-worker politicians. That's what pisses me off the most about racism. It's just an excuse to give everything to the 1%.
Re:They're invoking the KKK (Score:5, Insightful)
because these groups have been hitting the dog whistle so hard
And there you have the complete admission that there are no racists statements. The term "dog whistle" is the left's term for racism when there is no racism. They can't find it, they can't point to it, it doesn't exist, so its statements that no reasonable person would find racist but for some reason is obviously racist.
4 years ago the DNC adopted the strategy of ignoring the white working class. I have see the strategy papers for their elections. It was all going to be about getting every possible minority that isn't white voting for them. Since that time, EVERY policy that isn't a DNC policy has been labeled "racist", see rsilvergun's comments. It worked so well for them in fact, Trump won 3 states he shouldn't have.
Time to cool off on calling EVERYONE who disagrees with you racist. Or keep it up, there are still a few DNC seats in Congress they can lose. If the DNC platform is "vote for us or you are a racist" I fail to see how they will ever win an election again, and from your comments I see you are currently sticking with it.
Re:"White Nationalist" is racist term (Score:5, Informative)
Spencer wants to create a nation of just white people. That's what is meant by the term.
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In Chicago we call them leaders of the black community. Jeremiah Wright, pastor of Obama's church is one of them, "destroy the white enemy".
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So what do we call all the black americans on Twitter, calling out to kill all white people?
a) Just as repulsive as Spencer.
b) If (and only if) they are advocating for a separate race-based nation, then you can call them black nationalists.
c) On Twitter? It's likely that you can call many of them Russian.
Re:"White Nationalist" is racist term (Score:5, Informative)
A nationalist (of any skin color) simply wants government to put the interests of his nation first
White nationalist doesn't mean a nationalist who happens to be white and I think you know that. It means they are promoting a white nation, which historically has meant KKK-style antics. Black nationalism is different because, as a minority, they had to separate. There was never a black KKK that went around lynching white people.
Re:"White Nationalist" is racist term (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah , not a formal group, but just walk down a mile on any Martin Luther King Dr, in any city as a white person at midnight. Something will happen to you.
Re:"White Nationalist" is racist term (Score:5, Informative)
> A nationalist (of any skin color) simply wants government to put the interests of his nation first, above those of other nations generally
Right, that's what a "nationalist" is. A (race) Nationalist is a *fundamentally different term*, however. It means someone who wants a nation to support a race in some manner, often by sorting people by race. That's why modern nationalists (with no racial preference) often identify themselves as civic nationalists, in case the term "nationalist" is misconstrued.
I've seen the general meme you are throwing around in a few places, and I wonder if it came from a chan or a discord, maybe some lolplot. Or maybe it's just an honest misunderstanding that a lot of folks ended up with somehow. A White Nationalist, or a Black Nationalist ultimately wants to establish a nation based on some (often modern and ahistoric) understanding of a people or race. That's why that racial adjective is there: it is not saying "a civic nationalist who is (race)", but instead talking about someone who often wants to sunder an existing country in some fashion, and is often only a few steps away from stuff far more horrifying than that.
An example (Score:2)
What else has every US administration done since the dawn of the Republic? (re: putting residents of the U.S. ahead of others)
I can't give you examples off the top of my head for past administrations, but Obama has decided that Iran should really have nuclear weapons and proceeded to make sure they have enough money and a nuclear program to make it happen. Given how they feel about the U.S. I'd say it's about five years before we start literally reaping the benefits of that choice.
In no way can arming Ira
Re:An example (Score:4, Informative)
Unlike Ronald Reagan, who just gave them the fucking weapons they wanted so they could use them against us.
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and it should be (Score:2)
1) first amendment rights in America really need to apply for this. The idea of the internet is that it is no different than speaking publicly.
2) it is far better to know what this WT is up to. And the only way is to have him record it on a freely available medium, such as twitter.
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While I do not agree with your first argument as twitter is a private company/service that just happens to be popular, I couldn't agree more with your second argument.
Letting these idiots speak their mind is the only way to know who they are and it allows arguments other than name calling to show the errors of their ways. This may not influence them, but it sure as hell will influence those reading or listening to them. And if it doesn't, then we know who they are and can take steps if and when they get int
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You can know what he is up to from his posts on Gab and other social media designed for Nazis. I'm sure you don't believe that Twitter should be forced by law to let this guy have an account.
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1) first amendment rights in America really need to apply for this. The idea of the internet is that it is no different than speaking publicly.
That's right. And part of the idea of free speech is that I do not owe you a soapbox to stand upon.
2) it is far better to know what this WT is up to. And the only way is to have him record it on a freely available medium, such as twitter.
Let him run his own blog, like everyone competent.
Wow (Score:5, Funny)
Wow... when Trump wants something done, it really does get done!
Censorship did kinda work... (Score:2)
I think the average person has always been a little more racist than the mass media. I don't think this was deliberate censorship, it was just the fact that to work in mass media people tend to be relatively smart and well educated, and as you add education a lot of the ignorance that feeds racism goes away.
Now that social media has reached the masses all that unintentional censorship is gone and ignorant views and arguments are getting a lot more air.
I don't think that censorship is the answer but we need
"so called alt-right movement" (Score:5, Informative)
The "alt-right" was developed as a term to describe groups of conservatives who are not mainstream conservatives or establishment Republicans. As a classification term, it didn't imply racism- it encompassed several different groups of thought. I'm not sure how it was turned into a "movement", despite all these groups not really identifying as such, but I know that if you change "a classification for non-mainstream conservatives" into "a movement that accepts neo-nazis", you've totally redefined the term. Probably with the purpose of painting the non-mainstream conservatives with a neo-nazi brush, despite there being a decent number of the former, and only a handful of jackhats in the latter.
Regardless, it is done, and it happened super fast and recently. Already, the non-racist conservatives who are not mainstream have begun rebranding themselves to make plain that they are not "alt-right", because now the term just means "neo-nazi".
Let me know when they remove leftists. (Score:5, Insightful)
Twitter has gladly helped criminals, abusers, and racists - as long as they were leftists. Some of them even have the ear of Twitter's Ministry of Truth & Safety department.
When we start hearing of people on the left get removed from Twitter (permanently), then they might have some shred of legitimacy.
Re:It was the white nationalist block (Score:5, Insightful)
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That's for sure.
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Have they? Not saying the KKK is cool, but you have a pretty loaded comment hear, that I don't think holds up under the smallest amount of scrutiny.
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Convenient list that ignores 49 killed in the name of Islam in Miami [miamiherald.com]. That attack ALONE outstrips all those the Guardian totals up over 14 years as attributable to the KKK and white nationalists. They have an agenda, obviously, and because it goes along with your own agenda - you champion it. Even though it's missing GROSS chunks of attacks (San Bernardino anyone?)
Also interesting that the total starts AFTER 9/11 - giving a few thousand head start to the Islamic terrorists... But then, to offset that,
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The FBI certainly didn't think he was gay. You must like reading all that fake news we keep hearing about.
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That article is total shit. Is says things like "groups like the KKK", and " people aligned with the KKK". I'm not even certain that the KKK has actually killed anyone since 9/11. Also the claim was the KKK, not racial extremist groups. Would you consider a Black Panther murder the same thing? I would, but most of you SJW idiots wouldn't.
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Are you joking?
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Compare that number to the amount killed by Muslim extremists.
Realize you are terrible at math.
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The guy is a Nazi. We have pretty good evidence that leaving Nazism unchecked leads to bad outcomes.
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"The guy is a Nazi."
That's just a label that people like you apply to others in order to deny them a forum. Exactly the way people use "Racist!" and "Racism!". Have you ever bothered to read anything written by Richard Spencer, or do you just read the out-of-context quotes which attempt to make him look bad? Have you ever listened to anything he has to say, or do you only listen to what the MSM say about him? Trump's appeal to the so-called "alt-right", apart from his immigration policy, is his reaction
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No, that's how he self-identifies. When you're throwing up heil Hitler salutes and screaming Heil Trump, and you're a white supremacist and anti-semite, it's a pretty good indication that you're a Nazi.
One observation where they killed millions upon millions in ovens using poison gas. Yeah, that's pretty compelling evidence.
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David Frum is not a democrat. He was a writer for National Review and a speechwriter for George W Bush. He is a lifelong registered Republican.
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