Charlottesville VA Stuck Hosting (Arguably) Largest Hate Rally In Decades

a reply to: Abysha

Freedom of speech encompasses saying unpopular things, and it's a nearly absolute right. I don't much care if the person using their right is espousing racial purity or killing cops, it's their right to say it. The problem comes in when the incitement to violence happens, or when a protest turns into a riot. But I think that the suppression of unpopular ideas, whatever they may be, is a highly, highly dangerous thing.

Though ATS as a privately owned entity certainly has the right to do as they please with the flavor of the board.

As for Firefly: there's no right or wrong answer to that question. It's entirely amazing.

a reply to: Vdogg

You give a thing the attention it desires and you validate it.

So this group showed up with weaponry and shields. Maybe you should ask yourself why. It was likely because they knew ANTIFA was going to oblige them by showing up and creating trouble.

How stupid would they have looked if everyone had ignored them?

There is a reason why shunning is such a powerful weapon that people on the left no less decry it as horrific.

a reply to: face23785


Slavery was not complicated, it was a legal practice.


Why was slavery still legal when the Constitution says "all men are created equal...."? Til a war100 years later. Because the founding fathers didn't see Africans as fully human.

a reply to: Abysha

You've called out Nazi sympathizers in this thread. Don't be surprised when the Nazi sympathizers attack you.

David Duke warned Trump to shut up; Trump shut up.

I'm not a big fan of the crime of "hate speech" ... but there is ZERO DOUBT that the rally in VA yesterday was called, scheduled and organized to allow the American White Nationalist/Supremacist/Nazi movement to crawl out from under their rocks. We know this because of what Spencer, Duke, etc. said, openly. They believe (right or wrong) that Trump is their guy.

I still say this isn't about Trump, because he's mostly a buffoon that is signaling these fascists that their time has come for his own purposes. It's not about right or left or Republican or Democrat. It's not political. It's about calling out hateful, inciting speech for what it us It's about calling out domestic terrorist acts for what they are, REGARDLESS of the source. There are and have been laws in our country that defend the public from such.

Whining and crying about incitement being "free speech" identifies exactly who the sympathizers are. However, you're not going to see a change regarding these trends. We're going to have to stand against it as best we can by our own actions.

IMO.

originally posted by: MOMof3
a reply to: face23785


Slavery was not complicated, it was a legal practice.


Why was slavery still legal when the Constitution says "all men are created equal...."? Til a war100 years later. Because the founding fathers didn't see Africans as fully human.

Slavery was actually written into the Constitution. And you're absolutely right in your statement; they were 3/5ths of a person (at best.)

Re: Grand Compromise.

originally posted by: MOMof3
a reply to: face23785


Slavery was not complicated, it was a legal practice.


Why was slavery still legal when the Constitution says "all men are created equal...."? Til a war100 years later. Because the founding fathers didn't see Africans as fully human.

No.

It's because the Founders knew the country needed to be knit together or it would never stand against its enemies. So as much as many of them didn't like slavery, they felt a united front as a nation was more important. They also felt that future generations would get the slavery question right. I doubt they thought it would be as bloody as it turned out.

Also, yes, slavery was complicated. There were slave owners, like Lee, who knew it had to end but also knew that slaves were not prepared for freedom because of how they had been kept. To simply turn them loose was a massive social issue that would need to be addressed somehow. Some, like Lee, had illegal schools against that time they felt was coming.

But yes, there were others who were going to hold on to the bitter end and fight it. You will always find those types.

In retrospect, perhaps people like Lee were correct. Look at the chaos that was created by simply turning the slaves loose -- that was Lincoln's aim, and you'll note he only did so in the Confederacy, not the slave-holding Union states. Look at the system of sharecropping that came about afterward and other things that happened that further depressed black advancement.

They really weren't ready.

originally posted by: MOMof3
a reply to: face23785


Slavery was not complicated, it was a legal practice.


Why was slavery still legal when the Constitution says "all men are created equal...."? Til a war100 years later. Because the founding fathers didn't see Africans as fully human.

Yea actually it wasn't abolished because the southern states wouldn't ratify the constitution if it abolished slavery and were willing to destroy the country over it. There were plenty of founding fathers that saw slavery as abomination but believed it was something they could manage.

originally posted by: Gryphon66

originally posted by: MOMof3
a reply to: face23785


Slavery was not complicated, it was a legal practice.


Why was slavery still legal when the Constitution says "all men are created equal...."? Til a war100 years later. Because the founding fathers didn't see Africans as fully human.

Slavery was actually written into the Constitution. And you're absolutely right in your statement; they were 3/5ths of a person (at best.)

Re: Grand Compromise.

Ah, that fallacy.

You are not correct. It was counting non-free persons for purposes of voting representation. As blacks at that point were not allowed to vote, but would have been counted as persons for the purposes of determining Congressional representation ... you would have preferred them counted fully? I'm sure that allowing the Southern states to fully dominate the Congress with multiple representatives determined by a count of those who would never be allowed to vote on way or another on them was a much better solution to what was attempted and would not have influenced the direction of the country at all.

We might not have had the Civil War. Lincoln might not have been elected (too many Southern EC votes) prompting the South to secede. There might still be slaves today.

But you're right. I'm sure it is a terrible thing they did it the way they did.

I mean honestly, at that point, they didn't even let women vote.

a reply to: ketsuko

Held back and not ready are two very different things. What human is not ready for freedom and better off in chains?

I argued here, yesterday, that the Civil War was not about slavery ... because it wasn't. That claim, that the Civil War was about slavery is a ludicrously simplistic statement; it ignores economic and political realities.

I also argued that blanket condemnations of those that fought for the Confederacy are absurd, and they are. There is also nothing wrong with pride in your heritage, your culture and as it were the accomplishments of "your people."

BUT

There are several great American tragedies that we must face and fully acknowledge if we are to learn from the past: the dehumanization of the slaves, the genocide of the native peoples, the imprisonment of Japanese Americans during WWII among them.

There is ZERO justification for any of these. To do so is to ACTIVELY participate in crimes against humanity.

originally posted by: Kali74
a reply to: ketsuko

Held back and not ready are two very different things. What human is not ready for freedom and better off in chains?

The one without even a basic education? Perhaps even back then, the ability to read, write and do some basic arithmetic might have been useful to keep as many of them from getting fleeced into sharecropping for example.

I'm not saying keep them in slavery longer, but to simply turn them loose out of the blue without any preparation was in some ways just as cruel.

a reply to: ketsuko

Lol. I'm the 14th generation born in Mississippi. I was taught by my grandmother that n***** were not fully human. You guys keep being fools about human haters.

a reply to: ketsuko

You can justify treating humans as less than humans if you wish, Ketz.

I can't; it's disgusting.

a reply to: MOMof3

Spot on (from a 6th generation Georgian.)

a reply to: ketsuko

Of course the oppression was wrong but a lesser evil than slavery? No. Not ever. Control over where you place your feet, lay your body to sleep and when... I'd walk barefoot through the snow as illiterate as a newborn.

a reply to: Gryphon66

Today? Things are different today. You and I do not live then. Had we lived then, things might look different to us.

This is the problem with trying to judge the past through a modern lens. We aren't them. We didn't live their times or by their mores, and they don't live by ours. Trying to judge with our modern mores is a mistake and will always lead to a skewed idea of what they were doing and thought about things and will also always lead to improper judgment.

For example, given the commonality of child marriage across all cultures in his day and age, can you call Mohammad a pedophile? By our modern interpretation, sure he is, but he didn't live in our modern times, and to properly judge that, you have to judge him in context.

So ask yourself, what context you are judging in ... your own or theirs.

originally posted by: MOMof3
a reply to: ketsuko

Lol. I'm the 14th generation born in Mississippi. I was taught by my grandmother that n***** were not fully human. You guys keep being fools about human haters.

Just because your family is/was racist and ignorant doesn't mean everybody else was or is.

a reply to: RomeByFire

Oh please this crap has been happening every time their membership gets low or they get their dander up. The slight difference is the loose affiliation these groups have or the numbers of different groups. Virtually every time they do these little rallies they are met by overwhelming opposition. Has happened through out the south over the years, and they are usually roundly booed and defeated.

Like its been discussed here before it's stayed at about 2% for years, these organizations have been infiltrated by the police for years and the fact that there are these little splinter groups with different leaders and agendas they wont ever get organized or attract enough followers, there is always in fighting and power struggles.

but it is a fine distraction from other news,because it is such a flashpoint for America.

Hell if anything we are becoming more unified, these groups were met by a wide diversity of races, ages and socio economic backgrounds. They were basically slapped down, and instead of inspiring loads of support they were herded into little group protecting themselves with plastic shields and baseball helmets. They probably blew 80% on their budget just getting supplied.

a reply to: Kali74

Easy to say when you haven't face that situation.

My point is that there were people who did want to free their slaves but wanted to do it in a way that gave their slaves a chance to succeed at freedom. However, there were also laws that prevented them from the kinds of activities that would have helped.

I mentioned that Lee had an illegal school for his slaves. Educating slaves was pretty much illegal for the most part.

well i only read the first 20-odd pages and the last few, but i gotta say, there seem to be a lot less posters openly defending nazis than i would have expected given the tenor of these boards in the last year
so.... well done, ATS.
not the actual literal worst place on the internet. woo!