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KiwiGriff

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #50 on: October 12, 2020, 04:21:43 AM »
So Tom would vote for satan himself as long as he is pro life ?
Absurd but logical result of his position.
I know this is off topic...but it is part of why alt right has such power in the us
FWIW nz is debatable one of the most free society's on this earth  m
We are democratic socialist with a free market high leval of freedom for all along with universal health care no fault accident insurance and comprehensive socal welfare
From what I know of jesus and his teaching he would have been closer to us than to what the USA has.
 I am atheist but I have always thought to not believe in something you must have knowledge of what it Is you don't believe in
So spent a long time trying to understand who jesus was and what he had to say
Most of which I agree with I just do not add the Devine to who he was
As many of the writers of the USA constitution also thought

This is part of the discussion around the alt right and us political discourses
The mod on here is because who is from what I understand a Christian I could respect...
Animals can be driven crazy by placing too many in too small a pen. Homo sapiens is the only animal that voluntarily does this to himself.
Notebooks of Lazarus Long.
Robert Heinlein.

etienne

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #51 on: October 12, 2020, 07:24:21 AM »
Tom, aren't the words of your own Pope a bit more weighty that some church bulletin?

Quote
Pope Francis has released a new papal document in which he criticizes everything from the toxicity of social media to Catholics’ single-minded focus on abortion...

"Our defence of the innocent unborn, for example, needs to be clear, firm and passionate, for at stake is the dignity of a human life, which is always sacred and demands love for each person, regardless of his or her stage of development.

Equally sacred, however, are the lives of the poor, those already born, the destitute, the abandoned and the underprivileged, the vulnerable infirm and elderly exposed to covert euthanasia, the victims of human trafficking, new forms of slavery, and every form of rejection."

I'm wondering how such clear papal proclamations are being taken in by you and the folks of similar mind in your circle. Do you just blow off the Pope when he isn't saying something you want to hear?

https://www.vox.com/2018/4/11/17220108/pope-francis-catholics-conservative-abortion-gaudete-exsultate-twitter-church-apostolic-exhortation
Abortion is an easy fight because it doesn't require any involvement, just some protests in front of hospitals. Helping poor people or refugees is much more difficult and requires much more time and money, and if you start thinking why they are poor, you could become a dangerous leftist. 

It is also quite easy to get horrible pictures, and everybody finds babies cute, much cuter than a refugee coming over the border.
 

Tom_Mazanec

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #52 on: October 12, 2020, 11:21:10 AM »
Who am I to vote for, then? If there were a Third Party candidate who reflected Catholic beliefs, I would vote for him/her even if he/she had no chance to win. But I am unaware of such a candidate.
This is why I am an Independent, but I can’t take half of the Republican candidates and half of the Democratic candidates and see them together like Frankenstein’s monster. And I believe I have an obligation to vote.
Abortion causes more harm to Humanity than any other issue today, killing millions of babies. I have to fight it.

be cause

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #53 on: October 12, 2020, 12:24:52 PM »
Hullo Moderators

- please get this thread off the unread posts list.

if I could , I would ...
b .c.
Conflict is the root of all evil , for being blind it does not see whom it attacks . Yet it always attacks the Son Of God , and the Son of God is you .

Tom_Mazanec

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #54 on: October 12, 2020, 01:40:31 PM »
This is an example of why I did not isolate abortion in a specific thread. I emphatically rejected right wing violence by condemning it in the most extreme issue there is. If saving millions of babies does not justify violence then nothing does. This is why abortion was referred to by me in this thread.
Or take the election thread. Suppose someone asks in that thread, "Why would you vote for Trump?", a reasonable query for such a thread. I plan to vote for Trump, so I am a reasonable person to answer it. My reason is that he is more anti-abortion than Biden.
So I didn't see how it is possible to quarantine the issue to one thread. If you disagree with this let me know and I will consider a dedicated thread.

wili

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #55 on: October 12, 2020, 01:54:07 PM »
even though abortions have increased under trump, and your own pope has told you not to be a one-issue voter?
"A force de chercher de bonnes raisons, on en trouve; on les dit; et après on y tient, non pas tant parce qu'elles sont bonnes que pour ne pas se démentir." Choderlos de Laclos "You struggle to come up with some valid reasons, then cling to them, not because they're good, but just to not back down."

Tom_Mazanec

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #56 on: October 12, 2020, 02:00:00 PM »
Police kill dozens of innocent a year (let’s say). Abortion kills thousands of babies a week.
False equivalence?

wili

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #57 on: October 12, 2020, 02:08:54 PM »
Yup
"A force de chercher de bonnes raisons, on en trouve; on les dit; et après on y tient, non pas tant parce qu'elles sont bonnes que pour ne pas se démentir." Choderlos de Laclos "You struggle to come up with some valid reasons, then cling to them, not because they're good, but just to not back down."

kassy

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #58 on: October 12, 2020, 02:14:09 PM »
Requests for a certain thread to be removed from the new posts display should be put in Forum Decorum since this is not a thing mods can do.

Þetta minnismerki er til vitnis um að við vitum hvað er að gerast og hvað þarf að gera. Aðeins þú veist hvort við gerðum eitthvað.

The Walrus

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #59 on: October 12, 2020, 02:22:10 PM »
Actually I expect most of the violence is neither Left or Right...not political at all.
I's drug lords fighting each other, muggings, assaults...mostly done for reasons not having anything to do with politics.
And the violence, while it has been rising the last couple years, is nothing like it was in the ACW, or in Europe in the World Wars. The scary thing is worrying about it getting that bad again.
Maybe you're right, but political violence is something specific because it targets people who are totally innocent, and is done in order to gain power. It destroys democracy, and once the violent one is installed, it is quite difficult to get him out.

The violence of criminal organizations is something that a democratic society should be able to control, even if it is not always easy.

I'm living in Europe, so I can't testify about what's happening in the US, but in the news over here, we only see political violence  coming from the alt-right, excepted sometimes people reacting to planned provocations.

In the U.S., we have both.  It varies as to which side appears to exist in greater numbers.  Prior to recent activities , I would agree with those claiming the violence started mostly from the right.  Recently, it appears the left has taken over that stop.  Violence in Portland and Denver over the weekend  supports that.

Tom_Mazanec

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #60 on: October 12, 2020, 03:04:06 PM »
Very well I will drop abortion and state:
RIGHT WING VIOLENCE IS ABOMINABLE

Tor Bejnar

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #61 on: October 12, 2020, 05:46:10 PM »
fact check:
Quote
Police kill dozens of innocent a year (let’s say). Abortion kills thousands of babies a week.
False equivalence?
People killed by security forces per year, worldwide:  28,000
Abortions per year, worldwide:  73 million  [1.4 million/week]

Both numbers were 'off' by a factor of ~103, but in the same direction.

I'll leave the other question up to the individual and their doctor and spiritual advisor.  :P

Arctic ice is healthy for children and other living things because "we cannot negotiate with the melting point of ice"

The Walrus

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #62 on: October 12, 2020, 06:04:22 PM »
fact check:
Quote
Police kill dozens of innocent a year (let’s say). Abortion kills thousands of babies a week.
False equivalence?
People killed by security forces per year, worldwide:  28,000
Abortions per year, worldwide:  73 million  [1.4 million/week]

Both numbers were 'off' by a factor of ~103, but in the same direction.

I'll leave the other question up to the individual and their doctor and spiritual advisor.  :P

I suspect his numbers were U.S. only. 

wili

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« Last Edit: October 23, 2020, 04:49:44 AM by wili »
"A force de chercher de bonnes raisons, on en trouve; on les dit; et après on y tient, non pas tant parce qu'elles sont bonnes que pour ne pas se démentir." Choderlos de Laclos "You struggle to come up with some valid reasons, then cling to them, not because they're good, but just to not back down."

wili

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #64 on: October 23, 2020, 04:41:16 AM »
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/22/white-supremacists-rightwing-domestic-terror-2020


White supremacists behind majority of US domestic terror attacks in 2020


Data stands in stark contrast to claims by Donald Trump, who has argued that leftwing violence is a major threat


Quote
White supremacists and other rightwing extremists have been responsible for 67% of domestic terror attacks and plots so far this year, with at least half of that violence targeting protesters, according to a new analysis from a centrist thinktank.

The report found only a single deadly “far-left” attack in 2020, the shooting of Aaron Danielson, a rightwing activist, by a self-described “anti-fascist” during a protest in Portland this August. Experts on extremism said this was the first killing linked to an anti-fascist in the United States in 25 years.

Violent rightwing actors were responsible for 41 politically motivated attacks and plots this year, while “far-left” actors were responsible for 12, according to analysts at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), who have assembled a database of domestic terror attacks going back to 1994...

The percentage of rightwing domestic terrorism attacks would have been higher if CSIS had categorized “boogaloo” anti-government extremists as rightwing, as many experts do. Instead, they classified the emerging violent movement as “other”...

...white supremacists and similar actors pose the greatest domestic terror threat to the United States today, a finding that is consistent across multiple databases maintained by researchers who track extremist violence, and that was recently confirmed by a Department of Homeland Security threat assessment, which said that white supremacists “remain the most persistent and lethal threat in the homeland”.
"A force de chercher de bonnes raisons, on en trouve; on les dit; et après on y tient, non pas tant parce qu'elles sont bonnes que pour ne pas se démentir." Choderlos de Laclos "You struggle to come up with some valid reasons, then cling to them, not because they're good, but just to not back down."

The Walrus

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #65 on: October 23, 2020, 04:21:49 PM »
Of course much depends on who is doing the counting and what is considered terrorism.  The following lists 12 terrorist events in the U.S., killing 8 and injuring 187.  Of those 12, just two were perpetrated by right wingers; both attacks on police in California.  All the rest were listed as criminal terrorist activities, which resulted in 6 deaths and 183 injuries.  I suspect that Trump is counting all those as leftwing terrorism, as all but one occurred during recent rioting.

http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/terrorism/wrjp255a.html

Tom_Mazanec

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #66 on: October 25, 2020, 12:48:18 AM »
Just saw a TV show in which a character asks “Has any great social evil ever been ended without violence?”
I am glad I was not the character that question was posed to.

wili

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #67 on: October 25, 2020, 05:11:41 PM »
How about all of the revolutions of 1989 (except the Romanian)?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1989
"A force de chercher de bonnes raisons, on en trouve; on les dit; et après on y tient, non pas tant parce qu'elles sont bonnes que pour ne pas se démentir." Choderlos de Laclos "You struggle to come up with some valid reasons, then cling to them, not because they're good, but just to not back down."

etienne

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #68 on: October 25, 2020, 08:15:37 PM »
Just saw a TV show in which a character asks “Has any great social evil ever been ended without violence?”
I am glad I was not the character that question was posed to.
Of course not, but there are many cases where violence was not the thing that brought the change. Apartheid is also an example.
Often when violence brings the change, you go from one evil into another, here there are also many examples, like Cuba, Iran...

Ktb

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #69 on: October 27, 2020, 02:12:00 AM »
I will not condemn the counterviolence perpetrated by America's left in this day and age.

Quote
Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.

- Assata Shakur

Non-violent protesters who are beaten by the State authority (in this case heavily militarized police) gain sympathy from the public at large. The American public supported the peaceful protests of the civil rights era because they witnessed savagery perpetrated by the State. The news media of the right failed to maintain control of the narrative that violence was occurring and have spent the better part of 53 years preparing for the inevitable reignition in this conflict for rights. And now the media has an unprecedented ability to deny that peaceful protest is taking place, or spin the peaceful protests as riots. Pacifism does not work when the public does not see it.

When the police claim there was a riot, the news media reports on that information to appear non-biased and then nobody of a comparable size or weight to the authority is brought on to say "No. Obviously this was not a riot." The protesters may have been peaceful does not align the general public against the authority as well as the protesters were peaceful.
And, given a story to enact in which the world is a foe to be conquered, they will conquer it like a foe, and one day, inevitably, their foe will lie bleeding to death at their feet, as the world is now.
- Ishmael

wili

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #70 on: October 27, 2020, 02:44:36 AM »
This happened just a few blocks down from my house, and I knew from first hand and from many accounts from friends, neighbors and others, that much of the arson (and attempted arson) in my neighborhood was planned and carried out by rightwing hoodlums.

As time has gone on, this observation has been more and more, finally, confirmed in the major press, though probably too late to change the perceptions of many, especially on the right, that this was a case of people in my neighborhood basically deciding to burn our own neighborhood down.


‘Boogaloo Boi’ charged in fire of Minneapolis police precinct during George Floyd protest


Ivan Harrison Hunter, a Texas rightwing extremist, bragged about helping to set the fire then was seen shooting 13 rounds at the building


https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/23/texas-boogaloo-boi-minneapolis-police-building-george-floyd

Quote
A rightwing extremist boasted of driving from Texas to Minneapolis to help set fire to a police precinct during the George Floyd protests, federal prosecutors said.

US attorney Erica MacDonald said on Friday that she had charged Ivan Harrison Hunter, a 26-year-old Texas resident, with traveling across state lines to participate in a riot. The charges are the latest example of far-right extremists attempting to use violence to escalate national protests against police brutality into an uprising against the government, and even full civil war.

The case also reveals the extent of the coordination between violent members of the nascent far-right “Boogaloo Bois” movement operating in different cities across the country....

Hunter is the third alleged “Boogaloo Boi” to be charged in connection with protests in Minneapolis.

Across the country, the “Boogaloo” movement has been linked to more than two dozen arrests and at least five deaths this year, including the alleged plot to kidnap the Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer.
"A force de chercher de bonnes raisons, on en trouve; on les dit; et après on y tient, non pas tant parce qu'elles sont bonnes que pour ne pas se démentir." Choderlos de Laclos "You struggle to come up with some valid reasons, then cling to them, not because they're good, but just to not back down."

Tom_Mazanec

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #71 on: November 08, 2020, 01:01:02 PM »
How long has the Alt-Right been going on?
Not the term, the phenomenon.
I recall a Dragnet episode on it http://www.tv.com/shows/dragnet/intelligence-dr-34-146380/
and since I was eleven years old at the time that is about as far back as I can remember.

The Walrus

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #72 on: November 08, 2020, 02:04:55 PM »
How long has the Alt-Right been going on?
Not the term, the phenomenon.
I recall a Dragnet episode on it http://www.tv.com/shows/dragnet/intelligence-dr-34-146380/
and since I was eleven years old at the time that is about as far back as I can remember.

Quite some time now.  I remember it was a growing thing in the 90s.  It probably existed well before then. 

Tom_Mazanec

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #73 on: November 08, 2020, 04:55:27 PM »
I know it did.
The Dragnet episode was 1969. And that show had a Right Wing bias imho.

Sebastian Jones

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #74 on: November 09, 2020, 04:49:00 AM »
Good old Wikipedia:

The alt-right had various ideological forebears.[39] The idea of white supremacy had been dominant across U.S. political discourse throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. After World War II, it was increasingly repudiated and relegated to the far-right of the country's political spectrum.[40] Far-right groups retaining such ideas—such as George Lincoln Rockwell's American Nazi Party and William Luther Pierce's National Alliance—remained marginal.[41] By the 1990s, white supremacism was largely confined to neo-Nazi and Ku Klux Klan (KKK) groups, although its ideologues wanted to return it to the mainstream.[40] That decade, several white supremacists reformulated their ideas as white nationalism, through which they presented themselves not as seeking to dominate non-white racial groups but rather as lobbying for the interests of European Americans in a similar way to how civil rights groups lobbied for the rights of African Americans and Hispanic Americans.[42] Although white nationalists often officially distanced themselves from white supremacism, white supremacist sentiment remained prevalent in white nationalist writings.

It also gives 2008 as the date the term was invented.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt-right

Tom_Mazanec

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #75 on: November 09, 2020, 12:59:40 PM »
Quote
It also gives 2008 as the date the term was invented.
I'd like to know the month...was it before or after Obama won?

RikW

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #76 on: November 09, 2020, 01:13:01 PM »
About abortion, how is birth control done in USA? In the Netherlands we have a lot of adds about using condoms etc. and we have universal health care were contraceptives and things like vasectomy are included. Is this something the ProLife movement encourages or is this also a form of abortion?

wili

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #77 on: November 09, 2020, 03:01:12 PM »
That's the...odd...thing. In the US, those opposed to abortion also tend to be vehemently opposed to any kind of sex education or prophylactics...

Go figure
"A force de chercher de bonnes raisons, on en trouve; on les dit; et après on y tient, non pas tant parce qu'elles sont bonnes que pour ne pas se démentir." Choderlos de Laclos "You struggle to come up with some valid reasons, then cling to them, not because they're good, but just to not back down."

Tom_Mazanec

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #78 on: November 09, 2020, 03:19:26 PM »
I am opposed as a Catholic but not as an American.
Civil society should not impose religious values except to protect the rights of other people. So the Church can prohibit contraception for its members, but I do not think it should be prohibited by law (it is not). But once conception occurs there is a new human life.
Mileage for other Prolifers may vary.

wehappyfew

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #79 on: November 09, 2020, 04:02:15 PM »
Abortion and reproductive rights are one of the many areas where the Judeo-Christian religious traditions got it right, both scientifically and morally.

Abortion rights are sanctioned in the bible and other religious texts, and for very good reasons. Childbirth is incredibly dangerous, time-consuming, and resource intensive. No pre-industrial society can survive without careful consideration and balancing of the rights of mothers, existing children and potential children. A pregnancy at the wrong time can be a death sentence for the entire family.

Unsurprisingly, successful early cultures came up with practical solutions for these tough problems, allowing abortion when necessary, while acknowledging the difficult moral choices involved in ending a potential human life.

They set the dividing line between potential human life and fully human life at "quickening" where a fetus could survive to breath on its own - roughly the 3rd trimester. This is a good choice, given the technology available at the time. Abortion before this point is allowed, after is murder.

Why the Catholic Church extended this dividing line to conception is probably a good discussion for religious scholars, but has little bearing on today's society. All the other mainstream Christian sects adhered to the original interpretation in practice, up until the 1970's when desegregation of public schools sparked a backlash against civil rights. Jerry Falwell and other Evangelical Christians developed a strategy to oppose Roe vs Wade as a way to install "conservative" politicians who would also, seemingly as a coincidence, oppose desegregation and civil rights for POC.

Falwell's church accepted abortion rights right up to the early 70's, before switching positions quietly. This fact has been written out their history and is never talked about.

Today's secular, scientifically advanced, technocratic society now has, of course, many more options than our Bronze-Age ancestors. We could make contraception freely available, and 100% reliable, while banning abortion after sometime in the 2nd trimester, except in cases of rape, incest, and medical danger to the mother. That would be close to my choice, but instead we will soon have the worst of all choices - a Supreme Court that effectively repeals Roe vs Wade, restricts contraceptive rights, and imposes a radical religious extremist position that came about originally to reverse Civil Rights and re-impose Jim Crow in the South.

"If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken" - Carl Sagan

Tom_Mazanec

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #80 on: November 09, 2020, 04:31:42 PM »
we happy few:
Bruce Steele called me out (correctly) on misquoting Obama without a source when I paraphrased him from memory.
I am calling you out. Please document Roman Catholic teaching that abortion is permissible until quickening in the 19 centuries before the Civil Rights Movement.

oren

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #81 on: November 09, 2020, 04:39:09 PM »
Please do not. Abortion and pro life pro choice is not to be discussed here as a value question.

wehappyfew

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #82 on: November 09, 2020, 04:49:04 PM »
Tom,
You misread what I posted. I specifically said the RC Church is NOT like the other mainstream Christian churches in their acceptance of abortion rights up until the 70's.

RC Church has always opposed abortion and contraception.

Mainstream Protestants have either explicitly or tacitly accepted abortion up until the 70's. Sometimes this acceptance was "under the table", wink and a nod, but abortion has always been available for those who needed it and had enough wealth and/or social capital.

For documentation of this abortion rights reversals by Evangelical Protestants in response to desegregation, see this article:

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133

There are numerous books about it as well. See David Neiwert, Francis Schaffer etc.

Oren,

Curtailing abortions rights was a Trojan horse by the precursors of the Alt-Right as a way to reverse Civil Rights, so I feel it is very relevant in this thread. In other threads, I agree, too much distraction. But if we restrict it to the narrow political question of how it came about and its context in the right-wing anti-Civil Rights movement, then I hope you will allow it.
"If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken" - Carl Sagan

oren

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #83 on: November 09, 2020, 05:03:46 PM »
I am not the moderator of this section, but in general yes, discussing its context in the political landscape is relevant. What is futile and to be avoided is whether it should or should not be allowed or controlled, based on one's values and beliefs.

The Walrus

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #84 on: November 09, 2020, 05:51:48 PM »
Oren,

Curtailing abortions rights was a Trojan horse by the precursors of the Alt-Right as a way to reverse Civil Rights, so I feel it is very relevant in this thread. In other threads, I agree, too much distraction. But if we restrict it to the narrow political question of how it came about and its context in the right-wing anti-Civil Rights movement, then I hope you will allow it.

Abortion has never been a major issue of the alt-right.  You may be conflating the alt-right with conservative Christians.  The alt-right actually promotes abortion as a method of reducing the non-white population. 

Tom_Mazanec

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #85 on: November 09, 2020, 06:18:39 PM »
Sorry for misreading you, wehappyfew  :-[
I was willing to take this to a thread dedicated to abortion but Neven shut it down. Of course, he allows Liberal threads in the Politics section. But I guess I will have to drop it.

etienne

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #86 on: November 09, 2020, 08:37:40 PM »
For documentation of this abortion rights reversals by Evangelical Protestants in response to desegregation, see this article:

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133

This article is really great. I really enjoyed reading it, but I don't believe that it provides a real picture of the different churches. I don't feel that the Evangelical people I know are racists, and I know many Catholics that are pro choice. Each Church has a right and a left wing. But the article provides interesting information about how the right wing has developed itself.

In University, I remember that there were teams paid by the different churches, and students would attend the different activities according to their beliefs, not according to their baptism.

Tom_Mazanec

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #87 on: November 09, 2020, 09:37:59 PM »
And "Right Wing" does not mean "Alt-Right".

wehappyfew

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #88 on: November 10, 2020, 12:10:16 AM »

This article is really great. I really enjoyed reading it, but I don't believe that it provides a real picture of the different churches. I don't feel that the Evangelical people I know are racists, and I know many Catholics that are pro choice....

I'm glad you found it useful.

I would argue that European Evangelical Christians are different from the American versions in their racism. It is impossible to understand American politics, history and even religion, especially in the US South, with seeing it through the lens of the pervasive racism against African Americans that is our country's original sin.

We have come a long way, on average, but the racist extremists here and now are little different from 1840's racists who argued then that black people were not capable of feeling pain, were not even the same species, could not hold a paying job without direct supervision, etc, etc... the list of repulsive racist acts and attitudes then, and still with us to some extent now, is so long I cannot go on without feeling ill.

There is a strong liberal Catholic tradition here in the US, but we also have the Opus Dei neo-fascist Catholics who literally do not agree with democracy, and would replace it with an autocratic theocracy.

The Evangelical version of Opus Dei, the Dominionists, are in a temporary alliance towards the same ends (but they view each other as heretics who would have to be liquidated eventually).

They are both very serious, very scary, and actively seeking political power. Look into "The Family" - a Netflix documentary.

I personally know some of the people associated with these groups. They are true believers, completely crazy, and very, very dangerous. They fit Voltaire's admonition perfectly - "He who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities".  Given power, these are people who will be ordering their gullible followers to commit the atrocities.

It CAN happen here, if we do not fight, and win, against these radicals who call themselves "pro-life" and "conservative".

"If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken" - Carl Sagan

Tom_Mazanec

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #89 on: November 10, 2020, 01:55:40 AM »
Quote
It CAN happen here, if we do not fight, and win, against these radicals who call themselves "pro-life" and "conservative".
There are radicals who call themselves "pro-life" and "conservative". but that does not mean that all who call themselves "pro-life" and "conservative" are radicals.

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #90 on: November 10, 2020, 02:46:23 AM »
Quote
It CAN happen here, if we do not fight, and win, against these radicals who call themselves "pro-life" and "conservative".
There are radicals who call themselves "pro-life" and "conservative". but that does not mean that all who call themselves "pro-life" and "conservative" are radicals.

Exactly!  Just like all who call themselves “pro-choice” and “liberal” are not radicals either.

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #91 on: November 10, 2020, 03:33:30 AM »
Tom,

You are exactly right. I consider myself pro-life and conservative. I cannot use those terms in today's political environment without being misunderstood because they have been coopted by these radicals.

For me pro-life means causing the least deaths, of all causes, for the present, and the future. The future is unknowable with certainty, but it sure seems like we have incurred a tremendous debt of climate change, and will pay it back with our children's lives. The radicals who deny the reality of this climate change debt cannot be considered pro-life in my opinion, and that means the way the Republican and Libertarian Parties are currently heading makes them objectively pro-death. They put the profits of fossil fool corporations above the lives of our children and grandchildren.

Add in the duplicitous obsession with abortion, started as cover for pro-segregation Southerners, now essential to goading the Evangelicals and Catholics into supporting the immoral policies of the GOP.

Add the refusal to allow safe, widely available, and effective contraception, making them essentially the cause of more abortions.

Add in the science denial of the Creationists who are in charge of the White House's COVID response... more deaths.

Add the denial of human rights to non-white citizens, killing Black Lives with impunity, and trapping them in lives of despair and crime with systemic racism.

And the illegal rejection of asylum seekers, reminiscent of the denial of Jewish refugees seeking asylum on the St Louis in the 30's, sending them back to die in the Nazi death camps.

And on and on...

The extreme racism of the Alt-Right is part of the continuum of racism that pervades the Republican Party, that leads directly to many of the deadly policies above. Not all Republicans are as racist as the extremists, but by voting for the milder racists, they gain power to enable further encroachments. The Alt-Right is attempting to normalize the worst racism and nationalism within the GOP.


"If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken" - Carl Sagan

Tom_Mazanec

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #92 on: November 10, 2020, 12:18:51 PM »
How did the party of Abolition and Emancipation get that way?
I remember an African-American teacher telling how a relative sobbed and wept when she changed her party from Republican to Democrat. What happened?

The Walrus

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #93 on: November 10, 2020, 02:29:40 PM »
Tom,

You are exactly right. I consider myself pro-life and conservative. I cannot use those terms in today's political environment without being misunderstood because they have been coopted by these radicals.

The extreme racism of the Alt-Right is part of the continuum of racism that pervades the Republican Party, that leads directly to many of the deadly policies above. Not all Republicans are as racist as the extremists, but by voting for the milder racists, they gain power to enable further encroachments. The Alt-Right is attempting to normalize the worst racism and nationalism within the GOP.

You must remember that what we call the alt-right today, was part of the Democratic party throughout much of last century.  White supremists, the KKK, and other racists (predominately in the South) were an active arm of the party, even to the point of endorsing candidates for office.  A century ago, most blacks voted Republican, a vote which they viewed as an opposition to the racist views of the Democrats, rather than agreement with Republicans.  The party split in the 1960s, with northern Democrats supporting civil rights laws and the southern Democrats opposing it.  This came to the boiling point during the 1968 convention.  The southern faction withdrew and threw their support behind George Wallace, an avowed racist, effectively guaranteeing the election for Nixon. 

Initially, the white supremists just left the party.  Eventually they aggregated towards the Republican party, more in opposition to the Democratic party than in any alignment with the Republican party beliefs.  Once a few found a home in the party, the rest felt right at home.  The party's refusal to call them out helped them gain footing.  I guess they would rather concede a few moral principles than alienate a large voting bloc.  No, most Republicans are not racists, but the refusal by some party leaders to condemn them is very unnerving.

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #94 on: November 10, 2020, 05:56:38 PM »
I believe that life has become much more difficult during the last 50 years. Medical costs, education costs... for example have increased more than the salaries. So some people who were proud to be able to manage everything on their own can't do it anymore and so they found that some solidarity makes sense, that taxes should be also paid by the riches...

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #95 on: November 10, 2020, 06:06:04 PM »
I believe that life has become much more difficult during the last 50 years. Medical costs, education costs... for example have increased more than the salaries. So some people who were proud to be able to manage everything on their own can't do it anymore and so they found that some solidarity makes sense, that taxes should be also paid by the riches...

I believe the opposite; namely that so many more options are available to the average Joe that were only available to the wealthy.

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #96 on: November 10, 2020, 06:20:43 PM »
Tom, how much of the history of the last 70 or so years do you want to go over?

If you want, you can blame Kenedy, Johnson and Humphrey. They took huge political risks to their party to start to turn their party into one that supports civil rights rather than supporting the 'solid south' white dem machine.

This, along with Wallace's proven ability to exploit this new political power gap, prompted Nixon and crew to devise his 'southern strategy,' turning his party into the new locus of the nation's most intense racism.  (Of course, pretty much all of US society has been rife with one sort of racism or another pretty much forever)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy

That's the thumbnail sketch...the full history is much more complex.
"A force de chercher de bonnes raisons, on en trouve; on les dit; et après on y tient, non pas tant parce qu'elles sont bonnes que pour ne pas se démentir." Choderlos de Laclos "You struggle to come up with some valid reasons, then cling to them, not because they're good, but just to not back down."

Tom_Mazanec

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #97 on: November 10, 2020, 10:17:25 PM »
So about 1968.
I was 10 years old and my mother died of cancer that year.
No wonder I don't remember.

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #98 on: November 11, 2020, 12:51:37 AM »
Right on Walrus,

There is a direct line from slavery/white-supremacy-version-1850, to Civil War, to resistance against Reconstruction, to Lost Cause mythology, to KKK, to Alt-Right today. Those were all Democrats up until the 60s and 70s. Johnson "lost the South for Democrats for a generation" due to the Civil Rights Act, but it turned out to be 3 or more generations.

But that is only part of the Alt-Right. There is another direct line - almost never intersecting the KKK line - from Know-Nothings, to Isolationists, to the John Birch Society, to anti-immigrant Trump. This line has been associated with the Republicans for much longer.

I fear there is a new line being developed. It reminds me of the line from WW I defeat, to Dolchstoßlegende, to Nazi Germany.

Trump is leading the Republicans into a rhetorical narrative of "fraudulent" Democrats stealing elections (without evidence). This sounds a lot like Dolchstoßlegende. His flailing attempts at a coup or court-room maneuvers to overthrow the results will radicalize the GOP into never trusting elections again. After his coup fails, he will whine incessantly that the election was "STOLEN" from him.

Already a poll has pegged 68% of Republicans as not trusting the results of this election. After stewing for a few years in TrumpTV propaganda, the Alt-Right will be ready for Civil War II to "take back" the country from those illegitimately elected Demoncrats.
"If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken" - Carl Sagan

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Re: The Alt Right
« Reply #99 on: November 11, 2020, 02:24:24 AM »
I believe that life has become much more difficult during the last 50 years. Medical costs, education costs... for example have increased more than the salaries. So some people who were proud to be able to manage everything on their own can't do it anymore and so they found that some solidarity makes sense, that taxes should be also paid by the riches...

I believe the opposite; namely that so many more options are available to the average Joe that were only available to the wealthy.
This is kind of like defining economic trouble
A economic downturn is when people you don't know are laid off.
A recession is when your neighbor or people you know is laid off.
A depression is when you get laid off.