Justin Mohn, a 32-year-old Pennsylvania man, is in police custody after allegedly murdering and decapitating his father, claiming the latter was a “federal employee” and a “traitor.” Before his arrest, Mohn posted a 14-minute video to YouTube in which he displayed his father’s severed head, proclaiming: "This is the head of Mike Mohn, a federal
my most favorite game when i find a conservative is to ask them point blank:
and they squiiiiiiirm
I like asking to play a game of who can list more politically-motivated homicides for each ideology and conservatives strangely never want to play.
Let’s be real. No one wants to play that game.
I would answer anti-fascist, but if someone asked me “Are you communist or anti-communist? Pick one” I would answer “neither”
You could pick either. There’s no problem with having communist ideologies or being for capitalism.
There is a problem with fascism, it’s not comparable to communism. A closer example would be asking someone if they are a racist or not.
We should be taking a hard line at certain ideologies and anyone that hesitate is suspect imo.
Racist or anti-racist, really. Many people can answer “I’m not racist, but…(insert racist statement)”
I’m not racist, but sourdough is the best bread for a grilled cheese.
Ah, so you just have ill will toward the French!
I’m not racist, but have you tried substituting mayonnaise instead of butter on your grilled cheese sandwiches? It levels then up nicely.
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I’m not racist, but I prefer Formula1 over NASCAR.
Dammit if I’d just looked one centimeter down I’d have avoided making the same comment
Great minds think alike.
Alternatively: We are Borg
The point is that “neither” indicates someone who does not agree with an ideology but also does not see it as a threat.
You are of course free to treat that person accordingly.
Compulsory alliance is sort of a core feature of fascism so you really must be either fascist or anti-fascist.
If fascist government is in power, it will creat a system in which non-partisan participation furthers and advances the fascist state, so one cannot “opt out”. Since a fascist system won’t entertain neutral, the question “Are you fascist or anti-fascist? You can only pick one.” Is not inherently disingenuous.
Communism does not force people into supporting it, there “neither” is an acceptable answer to “Are you communist or anti-communist” in a way that cannot be applied to fascism.
Well, Communism doesn’t force participation as long as you don’t ask the tankiis, but fuck the tankies.
A great point well made.
If you live in a Communist state you won’t exactly have any way to “opt out” of it any more than you can just “opt out” of paying taxes.
That’s true for a culturally conservative Russian state that claims to be “communist” the way North Korea claims to be “democratic”.
The USSR sucked ass because it was made of the same kind of Russians that we’re still fighting against today. The label they wear as a disguise, communist, capitalist, kleptocracy, or whatever “the commies” are calling themselves these days is irrelevant.
Like I said, Fuck the tankies.
Leftist political theory can get very complex, and when people say communism they can mean a lot of things.
Technically, Communism as per Karl Marx in the Communist Manifesto, Communism isn’t a government. Communism is a state of anarchy in which people naturally share resources and the means of production communally and provide ownership does not exist as a cultural concept. So going by the original definitions “Communist Government” is an oxymoron. Explaining what the hell happened in Russia is a whole conversation.
When people talk about communism or communist elements in a government, they are probably talking about some form of socialism.
The same is true of the UK monarchy, yet plenty of Brits are neither for nor against it.
I’m not familiar with the British Monarchy so I can’t really comment on how appropriate your framing is.
What I can point out is that your statement is logically inconsistent on its face.
One can’t be neutral towards a fascist state because the fascist state won’t allow one neutral. In such a condition, anyone who claims to be neither for fascism or actively anti-fascism is pro-fascism because the condition of fascist power will direct all the labour and efforts of participants to the support of the fascist state. In such a condition, pro-fascist is the default condition, and anti-fascism can only be achieved through conscious effort and educated and effective praxis. There is no neutrality. One is not neutral in the face of fascism simply because one declares to be so.
So, if the same conditions essential to fascism are true of the British Monarchy, then the nature of the political situation is stopping Brits from being neither for or against Monarchy. If your assumption that fascism is like the British Monarchy is true, then one could only be pro-monarchy, or achieve anti-monarchy through conscious and intentional effort.
You are not making any distinction between those who would want a fascist state to endure and those who would be indifferent to replacing it with something else. But I think that distinction gets to the heart of the question.
You are also assuming that fascists and anti-fascists are only concerned about their own condition. Suppose you asked an American their opinion of Mussolini and they responded “He was terrible”. That’s clearly anti-fascist. But what if they responded “Never heard of him”? That’s neither pro or anti fascist, yet the neutral response won’t advance a fascist regime.
Um… Yes I’ve made that quite clear because both have the same effect on a fascist state. If you’re just going about your business, working your job, not being political, being a centrist, then you are furthering the fascist state, just as you were a foaming at the mouth supporter, because fascist states co-opt the labour and effort of their citizens towards the growth of the state so there is no neutral. In such a situation, you are helping the fascist state to grow unless you are very intentionally fighting it.
You have no idea what I’m talking about. I have no idea where you got the idea “ I’m assuming that fascists and anti-fascists are only concerned with their own condition.” What comment are you reading?
Your supposition about asking an American what he thinks of Mussolini seems entirely tangential to me. I was talking about one’s actions within a context of a fascist state, not regarding foreigners looking in, so what are you commenting on?
Also, having an opinion or talking crap isn’t an into-fascist in any sense of the word. Fascist states need to be combated with direct action, such as economically divesting in financial systems that benefit and fund a fascist state. It’s not germain to my previous comment, as I was talking about people living in a fascist system, but even as a foreigner to a fascist system, allowing a fascist system to function unchecked is effectively the same as supporting it, because fascist government aligned themselves with capital and will use economic output and trade to fund themselves.
So, once again, it doesn’t matter what you say or don’t say. It doesn’t matter what you think or don’t think. You have to take intentional and carefully considered actions to combat fascist states. In this way, thoughts, opinions and statements cannot be anti-fascist. Only actions can be anti-fascist.
The opposite would be authoritarian or anti-authoritarian, it’s possible to be conservative without being a fascist just like it’s possible to be a socialist/communist without being authoritarian.
I say “I’m personally a communist but understand that it isn’t right for most people.” I would have been awesome at communism. I’m a minimalist in a lot of ways and was good at science and math in school. I’d have probably been working at Roscosmos and then happily going home to my little apartment for my daily ration of vodka and potato bread.
Or maybe I’d have been an Olympian. I was small but athletic growing up so had no chance of playing after high school, really, but they were given athletes zoo animal growth hormones and the good steroids back then. I might have come out of the Yaroslavl Oblast Youth Olympic Reserve School the size of Arvydas Sabonis.
I saw a post recently - pretty sure it was in nottheonion - of a screencap of a Fox News segment, where they were interviewing someone that the caption described as an “anti-anti-fascist”.
Though to be fair, Fox News viewers aren’t likely to put two and two together. Or, for that matter, realize that an anti-anti-fascist is just a fascist.
I got it right here, old bean.
How do you convince them, that “neither” is not an option? What if they say they care about neither?
It’s an equivocation trick. Not all anti-fascists are associated with the movement that calls itself antifa.
Are you pro-life or anti-life? You only get to pick one.
Fuck outta here with this nonsense. Stop trying to score points and try to have conversations with people.
Antifa isn’t a movement, it’s a label.
There’s no organization, no overarching political goal - it’s literally just a term for people opposing facism through word or action.
There’s organizations that use that label in their name (like antifa of XYZ), but there’s no movement to associate with - fox news made that the fuck up
Take this example “antifa blocks off campaign event”. Fox news reports it as “members of a group called antifa has…”
A more accurate description would be “a group of people describing themselves as anti facists has…”
When people take on the term, they’re not describing their alignement to a movement - they’re describing their motivation
All the conversations have already been had, this is just prelude to war
Eh that’s like asking “Are you Pro Israel or Pro Hamas, you only get to pick one”
It’s really not, though. I am anti-Hamas and anti-Israeli government. I am pro-civilian - a group comprised mostly of Palestinians and Israelis in your thought experiment.
You see, neither Hamas nor the Israeli government have their people’s interest in mind. However, you can’t really cherry pick aspects of Fascism and anti-Fascism and say, “sEe? BoTh SiDeS!”
Nope. Israeli citizens are not all bombing Palestinians, and Palestinians are not all Hamas.
You’re so close to getting it
Are you saying antifa is equivalent to Hamas?
If the question is whether you’re pro/neutral/anti fascism, I think being anti-fascist is the only reasonable answer personally.
Anti-fascism is a political movement with a lot of political theory. Its not the same thing as saying you’re against fascism.
Wrong.
What?
That’s exactly what it is.
No it’s not It only is to people on the right who want that to be the case, The only theory that goes into play into being anti-fascist is thinking fascism is bad.
No, it is not. I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume ignorance instead of malice. What you’re saying is literally verbatim right wing propaganda.
The only thing “anti-fascism” or even “antifa” means is “against fascism”. That’s it.
No.
What’s the opposite of fascism?
While I’ve seen many binary choice questions that are loaded questions, I think the above is a good example. A follow up (or two) if the person balks at the question itself is the following:
Do you know what fascism is and how to spot it?
Do you think antifa is a single entity and not a general ideology?
If it’s an entity, can you name or even lookup it’s leadership?
Do you believe everyone who espouses an anti fascist value system is a member of that org?
Good binary questions can help guide a discussion and expose biases and misunderstandings held by each side in the discussion. Seemingly paradoxically, nailing down specific stances using those types of questions, you can explore the nuance of certain positions.
Ex: on abortion
Question 1 may just be a way to reframe the stances from “pro-life” / “anti-life”
Q2 helps bring the reality of what enforcement of that person’s stance may entail.
Q3 shows that big companies go unpunished for the same (or worse) violations of restrictive abortion laws and other laws that are used to punish women who miscarry.
Q4 helps bring focus on the fact that anti-abortion laws that are currently being passed and enforced are written so poorly that they are forcing doctors (through threat of imprisonment) to deny what would be routine procedures which would otherwise prevent suffering and permanent injury to women.
These are all excellent questions to lead into a good discussion. Assuming you have someone who is open to approaching in good faith and who trusts you to do the same. I have a friend who I try to have similar dialogs with.
I don’t suppose you have looked at street epistemology. Sort of the same vibe of exploring beliefs in a less/not confrontational way.
Just an anecdote about this: I once asked a pro-lifer question 4a and their response was that there’s no such thing as an ectopic pregnancy (said it was made up nonsense/propaganda) 🤷
At that point I stopped viewing them as a rational being… Forever (I still know them). Now when I think about them… “were they like this from birth or did some combination of events lead to this insanity?” And sometimes even, “should they be committed? There is definitely something wrong with this person.”
Then I remember that a great many humans have been like this for thousands of years. Rational thought and critical thinking are probably the outliers in our evolution and maybe rather than trying to somehow teach everyone how to research things and examine evidence properly we should instead focus on taking away sources of misinformation (by force, if necessary).
I’m in favor of the corporate death penalty for any media company that is caught intentionally lying or misleading their audience. For example, the day Fox News admitted under oath that they intentionally lied to and misled their audience should have resulted in that entire organization being shuttered forever.
“But that would eventually take down many news organizations!” To that I say, “yep.” Let new ones into the market that can keep their shit together and tell the truth.
Then the question could have simply have been phrased as “are you for pr against fascism.” Everyone know that Anti Fascism is a political ideology that goes beyond just simply being against fascism. And that’s why people don’t want to identify with that term
yeah if i was sitting in gaza. which were not.
i dont think its crazy to expect the electorate to know the definition of fascism. its also a bit hyperbolic to compare full on genocide with electing a fascist.
Did you fall asleep in history class or something? How do you think genocides happen?
Tbf, particular nations elect fascists, said nations commit genocide.
What I’m saying is that if you are asking a question that pigeonholes people into two categories sometimes they pick the worst one out of spite. It’s not really am indicator of what that person believes. Kinda like saying if you don’t support BLM you’re a racist, and guess what happened? A bunch of people started saying “well I guess I’m a racist now”
No it’s not the same. A better equivalent would be are you racist or anti-racist. Are you pro or anti rape. Are you pro or anti slavery.
Facism is defined as a violently oppressive form of government. It shouldn’t be a hard question if you’re not a piece of shit
If you read Ibram X Kendi’s treatise on anti-racism you’d know that example is not helping your argument
They were always racists. They just decided it was okay to admit it.
“Whoopsie I got caught guess I’ll quit hiding it.”
The reason I brought up the Palestine Israel example was because it was a real question in a survey (NYT I think?), more that 50% of the people under 30 responded they support Hamas and under 20 years old it was as high as 70%. By your logic, all of these people are terrorist, and always have been.
Please show how that is my logic. Do those people all call themselves racists?
No, they call themselves pro Hamas. At least in that survey, but I doubt they actually believe it, more likely they picked that answered because they were pigeonholed.
What does that have to do with your spurious claim that people call themselves racists out of spite and not because they’re racists?
What at all does that have to do with being a fascist or an anti-fascist? A shitty survey asking people which of two awful groups of people they prefer is not at all the same as asking what one’s opinion on fascism is.
Fascism is very clearly defined. There is no pigeonholing here, there is no third option being left off the table like there was in that survey. You’re either in favor of fascism, actively by supporting it or passively by not resisting it, or you are anti-fascist and resisting the rise of fascism to the best of your abilities. There is no in-between.
BLM is a specific organization. Fascism is an ideology. It’s more like saying if you’re not for civil rights you’re a racist.
But really, you’re spending a lot of time and energy trying to explain why you’re, at best, neutral on fascism.
No, I’m spending energy trying to explain to an echo chamber that forcing people to take binary extreme positions forces neutral people to take extreme positions. It’s a matter of politics and getting policy passed, if you call a neutral person a fascist, the will not vote with you. Calling people names is not a way to get their support. I can tell that people really have not learned anything these past 8 years. A lot of Trump support in 2016 came from exactly this type of rhetorical mechanisms. You want to keep on going this way? Go ahead, but you will not get the support you need, but at the end of the day you can just say those people were fascists and racists anyways, right? Extremely convenient
You think being against fascism is extreme? That should be a baseline position.
And I’m not going to coddle Trump supporters just because they act like contrarian children when they get called out.
If some anonymous nobody on the Internet is making you support Trump or embrace hate because they said something you didn’t like or called you a mean name and you want to pwn them, you were just looking for a reason to support it anyway and need to grow the fuck up.
You and I both know that the term “Anti-fascist” carries a lot more meaning than simply being against fascism. If you were to frame the question “Are you for or against fascism” you’d probably would get a more accurate answer
So now you’re going to argue linguistics as a reason to not come out against fascism? That’s really just supporting my stance of “grow the fuck up already.”
If they pick fascist ‘to spite’ me they’re very clearly in that camp. Not because the question was asked but because of their intent in answering.
“they were forced” lmao what a gaggle of shit
the two are not logically exclusive. a correct comparison is
“are you Pro-Isreal, or Anti-Israel” and “are you Pro-Hamas or Anti-Hamas”.
You are also so close to getting it.
And you, clearly, are in another postal code entirely.
“are you a fascist or are you an anti-fascist?” is exclusionary, you can only be one. You cant both be fascist and anti-fascist, nor can it be 1 and not 1, they are logically exclusionary.
“is the number of gumballs odd, or not odd” “you are so close to getting it” “yea… that’s not an answer”
"“Are you Pro Israel or Pro Hamas” is not, and proposing that as an example shows a complete lack of understanding on basic syllogism.
NVM, just saw you said this multiple times to everyone who raised a point you cant refute.
Worst made up genocidal criminal thieving country
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Easy choice.