UK.gov To Treat Online Abuse as Seriously as Hate Crime in Real Life (theregister.co.uk)

The UK's Crown Prosecution Service has pledged to tackle online abuse with the same seriousness as it does hate crimes committed in the flesh. From a report: Following public concern about the increasing amount of racist, anti-religious, homophobic and transphobic attacks on social media, the CPS has today published a new set of policy documents on hate crime. This includes revised legal guidance for prosecutors on how they should make decisions on criminal charges and handle cases in court. The rules officially put online abuse on the same level as offline hate crimes -- defined as an action motivated by hostility or prejudice -- like shouting abuse at someone face-to-face. They commit the CPS to prosecuting complaints about online material "with the same robust and proactive approach used with online offending." Prosecutors are told to consider the effect on the wider community and whether to identify both the originators and the "amplifiers or disseminators."

Comments

Good, nazis need to pay

[Suiggy]

All nazis will pay the toll. A punch to the face and their scalp.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Mashiki]

The above is now considered "hate speech." You get to go first.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[MightyMartian]

Are Nazis now a protected class of person? That would be a switch, considering the Allied Powers spent a good six years shooting every Nazi they could find, and then had some trials in Nuremberg to hang or imprison the rest of them.

Ah, back in the old days where real men shot Nazis, and didn't march with them carrying tiki torches.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Opportunist]

Are you really publicly hating on people based on their political opinion?

Re: Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

And by Nazis you mean anyone who disagrees with you, even just a little bit.

Violence begets violence. Remember that you condoned it when it happens to you or someone you care about. You have ceded the moral ground entirely, and are just another violent extremist.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Opportunist]

Back in the day you could also shoot commies, only had to go to South East Asia. You could also just shoot every Chink there if you felt like it, nobody really asked. If someone did, just say you think it was a commie. Or in other words, if he runs, he's a VC, if he doesn't, he's a well disciplined VC.

Ah, yes, good ol' times...

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you really publicly hating on people based on their political opinion?

If someone says "I'm a Nazi, I directly support the policies of Hitler" then I have no problem hating on them.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[MightyMartian]

There was essentially an undeclared war between the US and China during the latter stages of the Korean War. So far as I recall, the Chinese weren't directly involved in the Vietnam War at all, so I assume you're talking about the Vietnam War, where, y'know, South Vietnam was a US ally.

Re: Good, nazis need to pay

[Suiggy]

Huh? There's nothing wrong with using violence to get peace. Antifa and ISIS are good. CNN said so.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/18/...

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[MightyMartian]

Since when did being Neo-Nazi get downgraded to merely a "political opinion"? I'm fascinated by the efforts by some of the Alt-right and their fellow travelers to basically rehabilitate Nazism. I can't for the life of me figure out why anyone would want to defend, overtly or tacitly, an ideology that is based upon racial superiority and cleansing a polity of certain ethno-religious groups. This normalization of Nazism as if it were the equivalent of say, Marxism, has me shaking my head. Marxism has its flaws, dire and numerous, but it certainly is not a nationalistic or racist ideology, just a terribly naive ideology. Nazism, white supremacy and white nationalism, on the other hand, ARE specifically racist ideologies, and I'd argue they are all the same ideology, it's just that the white nationalists have learned to couch their white supremacy and racism in clever terms like "European culture" and "immigrants", rather than outright saying the Aryans are the master race and the brown skinned people should either be eliminated, enslaved or exiled.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, this will end good. It's remarkable how fast people want to throw away free speech this generation, I'm ashamed to be born in it.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Suiggy]

Satire my friend. Someone has to point out the hypocrisy.

Re: Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

>And by Nazis you mean anyone who disagrees with you, even just a little bit.

That's absurd. Do you really believe that?

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

They will hit you back, and it will be self-defense and thus justified. The ambulance will drive you straight to jail, asshole.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[liquid_schwartz]

Are you really publicly hating on people based on their political opinion?

If someone says "I'm a Nazi, I directly support the policies of Hitler" then I have no problem hating on them.

Fair enough. Of course the vast majority of people being called Nazis currently do not meet that definition. They just happen to be anywhere to the right of what the Democratic party dogma.

Re: Good, nazis need to pay

[MightyMartian]

No, by "Nazi", I mean Nazi. In other words, a person who holds a fascist, white supremacist ideology, who advocates for an authoritarian nationalist government that will ensure the supremacy and purity of Aryan peoples.

You know, like the tiki-torch bearing thugs who marched in Charleston chanting slogans like "Sieg heil", "blood and soil", and "Jews will not replace us", while making Nazi salutes. Those are Nazis, and while I'll concede not all the "freedom of speech" marchers in Charleston were out and out Nazis, I'd say if you continued to march alongside people burying pro-fascist pro-Nazi flags and shields and who were chanting those sorts of slogans, if you're not a Nazi, then you're either deaf and blind, or have a pretty fucking screwy moral compass.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Opportunist]

I'm talking about the general sentiment the US displays towards East Asia in general. Basically you have a bunch of Chinks, they all look the same and some get used as temporary allies while someone else gets bombed. At the onset of WW2 it was China being the buddy to get a kick at the Japs, after that it was the good ol' North vs. South game. Twice, for good measure.

But take a look at how the US treated its allies.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Opportunist]

And that's exactly what is not happening. The label "Nazi" is being issued by people trying to silence their opponents by slapping that label onto them.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[__aaclcg7560]

That would be a switch, considering the Allied Powers spent a good six years shooting every Nazi they could find, and then had some trials in Nuremberg to hang or imprison the rest of them.

It took the Germans a few more decades to remove Nazi influence from daily life.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/08/20/why-there-are-no-nazi-statues-in-germany-215510

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Mashiki]

Political speech is protected in most places remember? You know what that means don't you? Yep, it's a two way street! The rules you use against someone else, will inevitably be used against you.

Ah, the good old days. Where people understood that freedom of speech means, you also have to defend distasteful and hateful speech. Not because you agree with it, but to protect your own.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[MightyMartian]

That is total bullshit. No one is saying every Republican is a Nazi. The people being called Nazis are, well, Nazis, and those who associate themselves with similar, if at least publicly watered-down ideologies, like White Nationalists, are rightfully being lumped in with their more vocal ideological neighbors.

I do not think Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz, Mitch McConnell, or most if not all Republican lawmakers at the Federal or state level are Nazis or white supremacists (there are a few, of course, but a damned small number), nor do I think the majority of Republican, and in particular, Trump voters are Nazis either.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Opportunist]

Very hard to pull off, Poe's law is in full effect.

Strange how it went from being a far right problem to being a far left problem. But I guess it's just an extremist problem altogether. There is no insane statement, claim or demand that would not be made by them, so making it in jest will be taken serious.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

Chinese supported north vietnam as well, though not with an entire volunteer army.

The north had equipment and military "advisors" from the ussr and prc

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing is, the alt left calls anyone who doesn't toe their line a Nazi. The word has thereby changed meaning.

Re: Good, nazis need to pay

[MightyMartian]

I don't recall CNN defending Antifa, and where exactly did the say ISIS was good?

The fact is that since before the Civil War, the phenomena of counter protests against racists have occurred. Some Abolitionists chose to be more vocal in their denunciations of slavery and white bigotry. Most people think John Brown, for instance was pretty naive and deluded in believing he could create a slave revolt, so his actions are condemned largely as sadly futile, but he still was on the right side of the debate. It's the same with Antifa. Their methods are counterproductive, and show a tendency towards the ends justifying the means, but their view of the evils of fascism, well, whatever their methods, I can't disagree with their views.

And that's where the attempt at moral equivalency between Nazis and Antifa fails. Both are thugs, but only one holds a perverse racist ideology.

Re: Good, nazis need to pay

[Iamthecheese]

By lumping all the people at the rally in with the Nazis who were also at the rally you're deliberately closing your eyes to important, pertinent facts. You are becoming as willfully ignorant as those you hate. Ignorant in precisely the same way. If X is with Y all X are Y.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

And that's exactly what is not happening. The label "Nazi" is being issued by people trying to silence their opponents by slapping that label onto them.

if you walk with the swastika flags in a parade then you are directly self-labeling as a full-fledged Nazi

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[MightyMartian]

In the good old days, the Allied Powers spent six bloody years killing Nazis and Fascists.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[someone1234]

Nazi speech is not political, it is hate crime. And remember, while religions are protected - even muslim, yet, ISIS speech won't be protected.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Bert64]

Referring to a german as a nazi is no less of a racial insult than any other.

Holding nazi beliefs is no different to believing in a religion. It may seem stupid and irrational to the rest of us but those who believe it usually do so blindly and will "feel offended" if you question their beliefs.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[MightyMartian]

When did I refer to Germans as Nazis? And you have a right to hold Nazi beliefs, but you do not have a right to be immune from being reviled for those views. That's what these "free speech rallies" are really about. They're not about the right to hold and express noxious views, as that right is guaranteed by the First Amendment, they're about trying to normalize those views, to make them socially acceptable.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? Doing the Nazi solute and chanting English versions of Nazi slogans and self-identifying as white supremacists isn't enough to be called a Nazi? Because that's what the people everyone is referring to were doing.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

Are Nazis now a protected class of person?

The premise of a "protected class" is disheartening.

That would be a switch, considering the Allied Powers spent a good six years shooting every Nazi they could find, and then had some trials in Nuremberg to hang or imprison the rest of them.

For the most part people were not executed or sent to jail simply for what they believed. It was what they actually did that triggered the reprisals from Allied aligned system.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Mashiki]

rather than outright saying the Communists are the master political race and those who don't agree should either be eliminated, enslaved or exiled.

Ah yeah, good times huh?

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Mashiki]

In the good ol' days, those same nazi's, fascists and authoritarians were also allowed to speak their garbage publicly. Until war broke out remember? Dust off a history book, you're arguing to ban/block speech because it's expedient. Hell the NYT even had glowing articles in the defense of not only nazi's but fascists, in those years.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Locke2005]

All New! "Swastiki" brand torches by Tiki Brand! Get yours today! All the skinheads are carrying one... do you want to feel left out?

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[MightyMartian]

And where did I say Nazis shouldn't be allowed to spew their hate? Providing they're not conspiring to commit acts of violence, they have that right, in the US at least (your mileage will vary in other countries). What I refuse to do is to normalize Nazi speech. They have the right to say it, and I have the right to judge them on their speech, and to act upon on my judgment within the constraints of the law (ie. not allow my property to be used to assist them in their speech).

Re: Good, nazis need to pay

[GrumpySteen]

You didn't actually read the article you linked, did you?

The article presents the facts about what happened and there are quotes from people who are for and against the behavior of Antifa, but the article itself avoids making any judgements.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Bert64]

It's a political opinion when it's a political opinion...
If you voice your support for hitler, and your desire for all non aryans to be exterminated then that's an opinion.
If you actually try to implement that policy then it's more than an opinion.

Also you will see many countries which implement racist policies, for instance the education system in malaysia has a quota system controlling the number of available places based on your ethnicity. Many african countries also have active policies of handing resources traditionally held by whites over to black residents.
While these policies clearly don't go as far as the original nazis did, many of todays neo nazis also advocate watered down ideology which only promotes preferential treatment for aryans rather than the absolute extermination of anyone else.

It's only really in the west where nationalism is frowned upon, many other countries openly want to promote their own people and ideologies at the expense of others. Immigration is also largely a western issue, the number of people permanently migrating *to* other countries is relatively small and generally tightly controlled by the government.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Mashiki]

Nazi speech is not political, it is hate crime. And remember, while religions are protected - even muslim, yet, ISIS speech won't be protected.

And now we get to see how easy it is to label something a hate crime. "You said so." And now to restrict, to censor, to hide, to let it fester. To show people "yes, we really are being persecuted. Join us because we do have answers ye downtrodden!" Living in Canada and having seen "hate crime" law in action, where the CHRC(Canadian Human Rights Commission) manufactured evidence to go after political opponents, this is why the censoring of non-harmful speech is so dangerous. It's one of the reasons that Section 13 of the CHRC was revoked.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

Very few people had Nazi flags in that protest, but EVERYONE on that side is being labeled a Nazi. There was no "I'm also protesting, but for free speech, I'm not a Nazi" group. You are either for taking down statues, or a Nazi, no middle ground allowed.

That's the problem. If your side is labeled the Nazi side, then you lose automatically. Be prepared to see the Nazi labeled thrown around everywhere to shut people up.

Re: Good, nazis need to pay

[MightyMartian]

You march alongside Nazis, you get lumped in with the Nazis.

Here's a tip, don't invite Nazis to your rally, and when they show up, join the counterprotesters in showing your contempt for the Nazis.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Mashiki]

And where did I say Nazis shouldn't be allowed to spew their hate?

When you implied that "real men shot nazi's" just like in the good old days. You didn't even see that slope you slid down did you?

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when did being Neo-Nazi get downgraded to merely a "political opinion"?

Since the alt-left started calling people nazis over any deviation from feminism and identity politics.

Re: Good, nazis need to pay

[Bert64]

Most people in germany during the 1930s were not nazis either...
They were normal, honest hard working german citizens living in a country that was falling apart and facing huge problems, where none of the established political parties were willing to do anything about it. So they voted for the only party that offered a solution, even if that solution wasn't ideal it was the only one they had.

Sound familiar? Because history is repeating itself... Society is rapidly falling apart and the only parties promising to do anything to help the average person are the extremeist ones.

Re: Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the moral equivalency holds. The ends don't just the means just because you say they do. Sorry, good and evil don't exist, and real life is a hell of a lot more complicated than you're making it out to be.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

That is total bullshit. No one is saying every Republican is a Nazi.

Sorry, you are being too reasonable.

Plenty of the "Alt-Left" on Twitter think all Republicans are Nazis - there is even a hash tag - #RepublicansAreNazis

https://twitter.com/hashtag/RepublicansAreNazis?src=hash

And more besides the hash tag:

https://twitter.com/search?q=REPUBLICANS%20ARE%20NAZIS%20-not&src=typd

And a writer at The Guardian says Republicans do "the bidding of white supremacists"

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/19/republican-party-white-supremacists-charlottesville

So, QED, your statement is untrue. Plenty call *all* Republicans Nazis.

Re: Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

Charlottesville was a giant put-up-job (the midpoint onward of this video goes into it) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52C5-GplKxg/ by the parties noted to get people to be divided and fight one another.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

That is total bullshit. No one is saying every Republican is a Nazi.

No? You sure? Oh, well...It looks like there are people saying every republican is a nazi and read the articles, it's got some choice quotes of plenty of liberals, democrats and progressives saying just that. That's the political elite saying that.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

And they supplied a lot.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

Very few people had Nazi flags in that protest, but EVERYONE on that side is being labeled a Nazi.

Blah-blah-blah, whining that you aren't a Nazi, how dare anybody point out you aren't wearing the finest clothes, you're the Emperor!

There was no "I'm also protesting, but for free speech, I'm not a Nazi" group.

Sure there was, the problem is, you just happen to be unable to distance yourselves from the racist bigots you fervently defend. See all of the "free speechers" who whine endlessly over the left, but can NEVER EVER muster up a critique of the right at all.

Not even against Mr. Corruption Itself, Donald, the Fraud, Trump.

Why is that you only defend the right-wing free speech? Why is it you never protest over the murder of a doctor who provides abortions? A black teen in his own home? A polluter getting away with it?

You are either for taking down statues, or a Nazi, no middle ground allowed.

That's nice. Have you heard what the pro-statue movement has said? They've claimed that modern-day Democrats are the party of slavery, that tearing down those statues means we have to tear down all other statutes, and all sorts of other vacuous and vapid defenses, like claiming that we should learn about history.

Ok, we did, and the history says those statues were put up to celebrate White Rule. Now what?

That's the problem. If your side is labeled the Nazi side, then you lose automatically. Be prepared to see the Nazi labeled thrown around everywhere to shut people up.

What are you, twenty years behind? Damn, you know that's a bad argument right?

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[AmiMoJo]

Apart from some trolls most of the people using the term "nazi" were warning the right that there were actual Nazis in their midst. Then Charlottesville happened and suddenly it dawned on people that the warnings were justified, and that there were actual Nazis and KKK wizards among them.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[vandelais]

What if he surfs?

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

People seem to forget this

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

HAHAHA what a load of drivel

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

Not what the poster said cupcake. Leftists have lumped all people who are centrist or right of center as part of hate groups and Nazi sympathizers. Don't try to deny it. Hard left communist progressives had their say but not for much longer. The US is still a center right country and payback is hell. The media is not your friend and you don't have good representation in government now.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[king neckbeard]

Everybody who was just okay with having Nazi flags around them was labeled a Nazi. Had half of the right wing crowd been telling the Nazis to fuck off, you might have a point, but I've seen no indication that that was the case.

Re: Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

oes this apply to marching with Anti-Fas?

Hint - they're not actually good guys. It's more like Weimar Germany, with street battles between various communist/socialist factions.

Of course, everyone on the left thought that the outcome, Hitler, was peachy, until Germany invaded the USSR....

Re: Good, nazis need to pay

[king neckbeard]

If those people didn't want to be lumped in with Nazis, they should have told the Nazis they weren't welcome.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

The people being called Nazis are, well, Nazis

MightyMartian is a Nazi rightfully being lumped in with their more vocal ideological neighbors.

See how easy this is? The more you challenge the assertion, the more you are a Nazi.

You are also stupid, hand-wringing piece of shit.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

When you implied that "real men shot nazi's" just like in the good old days. You didn't even see that slope you slid down did you?

I see that as correcting your misapprehension of the "good ole days" rather than endorsing it.

You really don't have as good a grasp of history as you think. It's almost as bad as your hypocrisy, since you were wailing over the mere existence of BLM not even a year ago, and are still pretending that you are opposed to rioting and vandalism.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[AutodidactLabrat]

And at no time did you have to, as a private citizen, tolerate hate being spewed into your air.
I give you the Klan march in Skokie.
Gov't banned the march
ACLU sued, won, Klan marched
Skokie citizens turned out in droves, making the Klan SLINK instead of STRUT
Legal as church, moral as saving a drowning dog.
The thing the Nazis at Charlottesville forgot is that you don't get to silence the opposition by MURDER.
So now the Nazi bastards are going to be watched, and POUNCED upon every time they display a gun against persons NOT carrying guns, under the Menacing laws.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

"Many african countries also have active policies of handing resources traditionally held by whites over to black residents."

Only Zimbabwe does that. Stop talking out of your ass.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[AutodidactLabrat]

What slope?
Nazis carrying guns and threatening may still be shot.
Leave the threats, or the guns, or the guns and threats behind.
Because self-defense is still cool

Re: Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

This.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[AutodidactLabrat]

Like driving into non-violent counter protesters, because the countering view was successful at vilifying the Nazis?
yes, that pretty much makes for a clear case of Political Murder and the various persons involved subject to reprisal

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Opportunist]

Yup. Too bad this is not what we're talking about now.

What happens now is that everyone who dares to be critical of full blown left wing rhetoric gets slapped with the NAZI! label.

50 years ago, anyone not doing the "USA fuck yeah!" dance was labeled COMMIE! The actors change, the strategy stays the same.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

That is total bullshit. No one is saying every Republican is a Nazi.

Other than FAIR and Salon magazine. I can find more references if you like...

Re: Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you fucking serious? I knew you were out there, but that takes the cake. Just go look at the Boston Antifa Twitter homepage for 2 minutes and then tell me you can't disagree with their views.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Opportunist]

When there is only two sides to choose from, and I don't want to choose the side that wants to silence those that disagree, you will end up with very, very odd bedfellows...

Re: Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't recall CNN defending Antifa, and where exactly did the say ISIS was good?

They softballed their interview with Antifa. They elected to not cover Antifa actions at all initially and made a massive stink against anyone pointing out objection to Antifa use of physical violence as promulgating equivalence of professing undying love of Hitler.

Just look at all of the strange tortured wording they are using now to belatedly cover Antifa so as to not themselves appear to be total hypocrites.

Their methods are counterproductive, and show a tendency towards the ends justifying the means, but their view of the evils of fascism, well, whatever their methods, I can't disagree with their views.

And that's where the attempt at moral equivalency between Nazis and Antifa fails. Both are thugs, but only one holds a perverse racist ideology.

The very definition of Fascism is what Antifa is doing explicitly using violence to suppress opposition to their ideology.

I personally don't believe in protected classes. I believe only in the concept of tolerance. To me refusal to tolerate others on the basis of what they believe is no different than refusal to tolerate others on the basis of what they look like. It's the same problem.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[king neckbeard]

There are only two sides to join in marching/protest. But that doesn't mean you are obligated to take a side. these people willingly sided with Nazis, and it's not as if anybody is surprised by their presence at this rally.

Re: Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

When you march with pedophiles you get lumped in with pedophiles. Here's a hint - don't invite pedophiles to your rally, and when they show up, join the counterprotestors in showing your contempt for peodphiles. Rather than electing the leader of your party from them.

Re: Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

More put up job evidence by "crowds for hire" being used for charlottesville with their craigslist ad shown https://www.infowars.com/why-was-this-crowd-hire-company-recruiting-25-an-hour-political-activists-in-charlotte-last-week/

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[king neckbeard]

Actually, the American people are centrist to center-left. The American political parties are center-right, and far-right. Please educate yourself on polling data and end your ridiculous delusions, so you don't continue to sound like an uninformed moron.

Re: Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

We still have the same situation. Now we shoot Nazis. See an older white guy you don't like? Simply call him a NAZI. It is ok to shoot Nazis.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[king neckbeard]

Yeah, except for you failed to correctly identify the actors. The new McCarthyism is claiming that everyone that you don't like is a Russian spy/shill. But it's not the "full blown left" that makes that claim. It's the corporate Dems.

The only group consistently conflated with the Nazis are Nazi sympathizers, and understandably so. This is, of course, excluding clickbait headlines and the internet's general tendency to call everything they don't like Nazis.

Re: Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

You really believe what you believe and I commend you for your determination. Just be aware that if you were living in Nazi Germany in 1938, you would instead be talking about how Jews can be Jews they just need to be rounded up and put into camps. People are people. There will always be boogeyman whom it is socially acceptable to hate. In the 80s it was faggots. In the 60s it was commies. Today it is Nazis. You are no different than the Germans that put Hitler into power. They are no different than you.

NOW go hate Nazi safe and secure in your righteous anger.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

What if he surfs?

Charlie don't surf...

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

"Actually...."

"Turns out..."

Thanks for the clarification, Van Ht.

So.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[benjfowler]

Never mind the fact that "McCarthyism" WAS actually invented by the Russians to make it harder to criticise them or their dirty tricks. What's known about Joe McCarthy is still highly classified.... they'd do a lot of good if they just came clean about what kind of hold the Russians had on him and why he acted the way he did.

I would take ANY accusation by Russia and their allies of 'McCarthyism' with a fist-sized grain of salt. Because it would'nt be the first time they've deployed dirty tricks to shut down criticism of their imperialism and reaction.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[king neckbeard]

Allies of Russia aren't really using the term. It's enemies of the corporate "left," because the corporate left are the ones making everything big and scary about Russia to distract from the fact that their party lost to a candidate less popular than lice.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Opportunist]

The alternative is pretty much saying that you don't give a shit about whether you can voice your opinion. I'm honestly surprised that Nazis would stand on that side of a fence, but just because those assholes have hijacked a topic means now that I cannot actually have that opinion myself? By that logic, all it takes for any kind of topic that I do not want you to be for/against, I only have to make sure that some asshole group is for/against a topic and by actually considering the topic important I may lump you into a group with the assholes.

I think last time this was attempted was when they tried to discredit MLK.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Nidi62]

Very few people had Nazi flags in that protest,

So marching around carrying torches chanting Nazi slogans doesn't make you a Nazi. You're only a Nazi if you carry a flag. Got it.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[king neckbeard]

No, I'm a free speech absolutist, but I can support someone's right to free speech without supporting them or their particular marches. Many people at the rally crossed multiple state lines, so they probably weren't coming to just to support the free speech of Nazis, unless they were working for the ACLU.

Re: Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

I think last time this was attempted was when they tried to discredit MLK.

Did you sleep through the 70s, 80s, 90s, and 2000s?

It was a regular feature on the news.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[CronoCloud]

That's a cop-out. If someone doesn't want to be lumped in with the Nazi's then don't march with them, do a protest a different day.

Now sure, most republicans aren't Nazi's...but...some of the same Republicans condemning Nazis were quite willing to turn a blind eye to racism or use racist dog whistles over the years. Including practically every neo-confederate southerner in the Republican leadership.

Even back in 2008, many Republicans turned a blind eye or condoned the nativist "know nothing" elements of the "Tea party". The "tea party" basically being the "heralds" of the modern "alt-right"

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Rockoon]

How about the Apartheid in Israel?

Shit doesnt get much more mainstream that having two classes of Citizens entirely based on their religion.

There are the Jewish. The most rights and freedoms.
There are non-Jewish that are Citizens. Significantly fewer rights and freedoms.

There are also the non-Jewish that are also non-Citizens. Fewest rights and no freedoms. All their rights are subject to the timely whims of the Israeli military, but I cannot hold a country to account for how it treats its non-citizens unless its extremely heinous.

This is a "Western" supposedly "enlightened" country here, not some 3rd world shit-hole, and its got bigotry baked right into the law. We can argue about if its right or wrong, but its a fact.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[s.petry]

The same slope you fell down. Anyone carrying a gun and threatening may still be shot. You seem to be promoting this against a single group based on your bias. What happens when your group happens to be the victim of someone else' bias?

I seem to remember a famous quote about this. Something along the lines of "First they came for the Socialists, but I was not a Socialist".... This is why we have History.

Re: Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, not really. The truth is that in the UK there were exactly the same kind of battles against fascist scum back in the old days before the war, too. And now we put up plaques celebrating their defeat.

Re: Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

An imaginary group said all that, eh? Try taking your meds.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[mi]

All nazis will pay the toll.

Don't forget the Communists/Socialists. A T-shirt with Hitler on it is no better than one with Che Guevara.

Light post for both, right?

Re: Good, nazis need to pay

[mi]

An imaginary group said all that, eh?

Let's play a game. You name a group and/or a prominent person, who did not endorse/vote for Hillary Clinton, and I'll find a group and/or a prominent person denouncing him/them as a "Nazi".

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[mi]

No one is saying every Republican is a Nazi.

In denial much?

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[mi]

Everybody who was just okay with having Nazi flags around them was labeled a Nazi.

There were far more Communist symbols and slogans around — and Communists are far more murderous than even the Nazis were. Was it Ok to shoot the Communists in Charlotteville and elsewhere? How about driving cars into their crowding?

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[chihowa]

This is a "Western" supposedly "enlightened" country here, not some 3rd world shit-hole, and its got bigotry baked right into the law. We can argue about if its right or wrong, but its a fact.

No we can't, which is sort of the point. Bigotry has an objective and well-defined definition, which changes with the political landscape to make sure that only the right "wrong people" are guilty of it. Anything but glowing support of Israel or Israeli policy is anti-semitism and hate speech.

Censor yourself or we will do it for you.

Re: Good, nazis need to pay

[MostAwesomeDude]

I think that Weird Al endorsed Bernie, but I'm not sure. I can't find anybody calling him a Nazi, although his song lyrics have referenced Nazis often enough that it complicates searching.

I like corner cases. Who has called Jill Stein, who almost certainly did not vote Democrat, a Nazi? I've found several nasty rants excoriating her, but nobody notable calling her a Nazi.

This game is fun! Your turn.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

Odd how mum's the word on Islamic Terrorism despite having an order of magnitude more victims in just the past few days.

Odd how speaking about it is racist and Islamophobic instead of "warnings [that] were justified".

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[not flu]

South Africa does too, only thing holding them back is that 90% of the farms given to blacks fail.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

The same slope you fell down.

You keep trying to push people, but for some reason, you don't get that you're actually shoving people uphill.

Anyone carrying a gun and threatening may still be shot.

There goes your pretense of morality.

You seem to be promoting this against a single group based on your bias. What happens when your group happens to be the victim of someone else' bias?

That's the problem with the Neo-Nazi White Supremacists here, they are trying to make people victims of their biases. Duh. Hence the counter-protests to them.

I seem to remember a famous quote about this. Something along the lines of "First they came for the Socialists, but I was not a Socialist".... This is why we have History.

Too bad you can't remember who they were talking about.

You can't run the world by pithy quotes, that's why we have books instead of one-liners.

I know, I know, you prefer slogans to real thinking, but that's easy to turn around:

First, they said I couldn't protest the King, because he was the Monarch, and the masses were just a rabble. Then they said I couldn't protest the Slave-owners, because that was intolerant and jealous, that the masses were just a rabble. Then they said I couldn't protest the Neo-Nazi White Supremacists because that was intolerant, and jealous, and that the masses were just a rabble, and they were the real victims.

Then I slapped them, because they were stupid enough to stare into the sun.

Just like you, for some reason you're so blind, you have become an apologist for the bigotry and intolerance of the right-wing.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

You truly are the snowiest flake.

Re: Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm center left, and I hate these motherfuckers. I would stand with white supremacists against Antifa, and I'm Jewish. Speech must be free. Violence against speech is terrorism.

Re: Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

They did. It was in Boston this weekend. They explicitly said that they do not support extremists or racism. It was a 1st amendment rally explicitly in support of free speech.

40,000 people showed up, threw bottles of piss on them, beat them with clubs, and called them Nazis.

Fuck you, liar.

Re: Good, nazis need to pay

[mi]

I think that Weird Al endorsed Bernie, but I'm not sure.

Well, I sure, that he voted for Hillary at the end.

Who has called Jill Stein, who almost certainly did not vote Democrat, a Nazi?

Ah, I forgot to mention this explicitly, but, of course, people calling others "Nazis" are exempt. And Ms. Stein did that arguing against "another Clinton in White House".

Re: Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

The article completely avoids fact. It says nothing about them murdering police, throwing piss on people, stabbing women and children at peaceful rallies... All of which happened. Google it before responding.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[lgw]

You seem to be stretching the definition of Nazi a bit far. About half the people at the Alt-Right march in Charlottesville were some sort of "white nationalists", but were any of them neo-Nazis? Pretty sure none of them were actual Nazis unless George Soros put in a surprise appearance.

What you should be asking is "why did the other half show up, willingly associate with white nationalists when they weren't themselves"? The answer of course is you and those just like you: you've abused terms like racist and Nazi so much that no one one the right (outside of DC) cares anymore if you call them that. "Why not march with racists and Nazis - I'll be called a Nazi racist anyway, so there's no downside in making common cause".

A dangerous new political coalition is forming and it's your fault.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[reboot246]

Back in the good old days (and still today) the New York Times was a left-leaning publication, so of course they loved the Fascists. And, yes, Fascism and Nazism are on the left. Just because they fought against the Communists doesn't mean they're right wing. They're all evil siblings and the offspring of Satan.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[king neckbeard]

Your questions are non-sequiturs. Would I feel reasonable calling those marching around those carrying communist symbols "communists?" Yes. That said, the protesters were more diverse, as people form many walks of life, including Republicans, are anti-Nazi. You can argue that there were shitty people in the protest groups, but this was a rally about white supremacy from a bunch of spoiled dipshits that aren't pure anything. But none of that has anything to do with your questions.

Re: Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. Nazis are now part of the LGBTQ2SN solidarity movement.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Opportunist]

You absolutely HAD TO ask, didn't you?

Re: Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

And then you learn about how those farms were illegally acquired by those whites on the first place, how much of the "aid" was either wrong information or equipment that was poorly suited for the environment, or about the Chinese moving in to build their own plantations.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

The writer at the Guardian is arguing that the Republican Party is being manipulated by white supremacists. That's - well, an argument, you can take what you want from it - but it's a very far cry from saying "all Republicans are Nazis".

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

No.

Look: "Nazi" has been a term of playground-level abuse since, approximately, 1939. I remember using it as a kid in the 1970s. We were kids, we didn't know any better.

But that's not the same as serious adults, speaking in public and with reputations to lose, using a word in all deliberation and full knowledge of what it actually means. Kids are kids, adults - are not. It's important to distinguish between the two.

If some whiny blogger calls you a nazi, that's - a kid, using the word because they vaguely know it's insulting, even if they don't actually know why. If a government employee, or a news outlet that lots of people pay money to receive, does it - that's another matter. Please don't conflate the two.

Re: Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

Ooh, I like games! Let's go:
  - George W Bush
  - John McCain
  - David Frum
  - Megyn Kelly

Now go. Find a person or group of remotely comparable prominence to any of these, denouncing them as "nazi".

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

Calling the Tea Party people Nazi is of course inaccurate and really actually misleading. Sure, some Nazis people agreed with the Tea Party, but the two aren't the same.

By suggesting the Tea Party is made up of all Nazis is like saying MLK was a Black Panther. He wasn't and most the Tea Party people aren't Nazis.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

you don't even have to go back that far, just go back 15 years

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[K. S. Kyosuke]

No, they spent six years killing Werhmacht soldiers. They had no idea if those soldiers were Nazis or not.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

Charlie don't surf

Re: Good, nazis need to pay

[ToasterMonkey]

An imaginary group said all that, eh?

Let's play a game. You name a group and/or a prominent person, who did not endorse/vote for Hillary Clinton, and I'll find a group and/or a prominent person denouncing him/them as a "Nazi".

Mike Pence
Mitch McConnell
John McCain
Mitt Romney
John Kasich ...

I mean, really ... I listen to an AM radio station ALL DAY, I know what stupid game you're playing. Every day it's New York Times said this, no good rotten failing New York Times said that, trying hard to be victims and beet pills.

Re: Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, I'm an older white guy and nobody has ever called me a Nazi in real life. I guess it's because I don't attend rallies chanting Nazi slogans while waving a swastika flag, or have expressed insane beliefs centred on my supposed superiority while advocating the extermination of an entire religion. So, you know, try to avoid doing those things and you should be fine. Except on the internet.

Re: Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

And, yes, Fascism and Nazism are on the left

Regardless of how many times you say this, you're still just as wrong. They are regarded as far right ideologies. In other news 2+2 does not equal 5.

Re: Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

were any of them neo-Nazis? Pretty sure none of them were actual Nazis

Thanks for asking that question. The ones waving swastika flags, wearing helmets with Nazi symbols, and chanting Nazi slogans, well let's take a guess here and say they were Nazis. Since the whole group was chanting Nazi catcheisms, kind of pegs it, doesn't it?

Re: Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

An imaginary group is calling people Nazis you say? Well, I can see how your echo chamber is really worried about that.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

The guy that ran that woman over was being attacked by thugs at the time who were smashing his car with weapons. It was an accident, not murder. Under US law, the ones smashing his car committed murder. If someone dies while you are committing a crime, YOU are on the hook for it, even if someone else did it.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[CronoCloud]

I didn't call the Tea Party Nazi's, I used the word "nativist" and "know nothing" and I called them the "heralds" of the alt-right. know your history.

And there was PLENTY of bigotry coming out of self-identified tea-party people, though I wouldn't call them Nazis

Re: Good, nazis need to pay

[CronoCloud]

40,000 people showed up, threw bottles of piss on them, beat them with clubs, and called them Nazis.

I doubt all 40000 did any such thing. maybe a few dozen tops?

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Mashiki]

It's almost as bad as your hypocrisy, since you were wailing over the mere existence of BLM not even a year ago, and are still pretending that you are opposed to rioting and vandalism.

You mean that organization that calls white sub-human, and caused the death of people? I can see why you'd post as a AC. Got a good idea who you are too, there's only 3-5 people on /. who have their panties so much in a twist over what I write.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Mashiki]

Apart from some trolls most of the people using the term "nazi" were warning the right that there were actual Nazis in their midst.

You apparently don't know that democrats in the US have been using this as part of their playbook since the 1960's. So have leftist political organizations in the UK, and in Canada since at least the 1970's.

Then Charlottesville happened and suddenly it dawned on people that the warnings were justified, and that there were actual Nazis and KKK wizards among them.

What warnings were that? When people get swarmed, they'll defend themselves? Or that when people show up wearing face coverings all in black just like the KKK did, they'll violently assault people because they have a facade of anonymity and belief that no one will discover who they are. Strange how you don't seem to be concerned about the G20 protest that just happened in Germany, where thousands of those nice little antifa people decided to show up and riot, just for the sake of it. Hey remember what happened during the last charlottesville gathering? There were a whole 50 kkk members, who were swarmed by 500 people. How about in socal? When 5 nazi's were swarmed by 80 people? Multiple people were stabbed in both cases, and in both cases violence was started by the "counter protesters." Just like at Berkeley...3 times, twice in Seattle. You figure out why people are showing up to defend themselves yet?

Or have the same belief that islamic extremists who've basically made terrorism a common occurrence in Europe, in the same group.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Mashiki]

Even back in 2008, many Republicans turned a blind eye or condoned the nativist "know nothing" elements of the "Tea party". The "tea party" basically being the "heralds" of the modern "alt-right"

So let's see if we can figure out the bullshit of the alt-right. We now have: It was created by the tea party, by 4chan, by 8chan, by gamergate, by MRA's, by /pol/ and I think two or three other groups.

And you wonder why nobody except those in a media hysteria bubble take what's being said seriously? You've been crying wolf for over a decade.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

It's almost as bad as your hypocrisy, since you were wailing over the mere existence of BLM not even a year ago, and are still pretending that you are opposed to rioting and vandalism.

You mean that organization that calls white sub-human, and caused the death of people?

That's right Mashiki, demonize them some more. Scream your rage. As I said, their mere existence offends you.

I can see why you'd post as a AC. Got a good idea who you are too, there's only 3-5 people on /. who have their panties so much in a twist over what I write.

Oh my, Mashiki, the thing you need to do is ask yourself why you don't care what you write?

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[AutodidactLabrat]

There's no slope here. If Antifa mutates into an armed thug battalion, something which has never happened, they get the same treatment.
What part of RULE OF LAW don't you get?

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[AutodidactLabrat]

Oh, humanity!
SOMEONE give this guy an Insightful +5!!!

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[s.petry]

There's no slope here. If Antifa mutates into an armed thug battalion, something which has never happened,

Well now, your bias is showing. Antifa has caused many millions of dollar in property damage, assaulted thousands of people, yet been given a free pass by democratic politicians.

I get rule of law just fine, you are simply blind to any facts which harm your side. (There are many dozens of examples like Berkley, but you don't care.

You are a bigot!

Re: Good, nazis need to pay

[lgw]

No, those are neo-Nazis. Actual Nazis are quite old these days, and don't get out much, but there are a few Hitler Youth still around.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

And plenty of people call all Democrats communists or some other stupid thing.

People are stupid like that. The human mind is lazy as fuck and likes to group things together and treat them as a single object so it doesn't have to exert itself.

Just look at all the tards here who strawman-up a group like "The Left" and then put everything they don't like about the world in it.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[CronoCloud]

All right “one“ of the “several“ heralds. Is that good enough for you? None of us are saying that the alt-right has only one source.

It is racist channers, right wingers in /pol/, tea partiers, gamergaters, nativists, so-called libertarian tech-bros complaining about h1b “indo-chimps“ and so on and so forth making common cause.

Re: Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

And I'd say the exact same thing about Antifa telling the communists that THEY aren't welcome... so we should consider ALL of Antifa communists as well, and we should hold ALL of Antifa responsible for ALL of the crimes committed as well.

Re: Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea and you had the communists fighting in the streets against the Nazis. Antifa is against free speech and protecting that is more important to many people than any other issue.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

If Antifa mutates into an armed thug battalion, something which has never happened

Right, the masked violent communists. HAHAHA

Re: Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that's a disinformation attempt, because that's not what happened. The guy reversed all the way up the street then accelerated all the way back down before hitting his victims.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

Well now, your bias is showing.

No, that's your bias, what with you making up stories.

Antifa has caused many millions of dollar in property damage, assaulted thousands of people, yet been given a free pass by democratic politicians.

I get rule of law just fine, you are simply blind to any facts which harm your side. (There are many dozens of examples like Berkley, but you don't care.

You are a bigot!

Oh s.petry, the more you make up lies and fabrications, the less believable you are.

You've never been able to produce these millions of dollars in property damage, no records of thousands of assaults, and no, not even Berkeley happened the way you claim.

It's as bad as when you were touting how clean the Tea Party rallies were, and how many people attended the inauguration, and it turned out that was as much a lie as the Pershing story or your plan for Afghanistan.

A whole bunch of hot air.

 

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

There were 20 million or more Tea Party supporters.
According to the SPLC, a far-Left anti-right orgranization, there are about 50,000 white supremacists (neo-Nazis, KKK, etc) in the entire US.
From those numbers alone, you can see your basic premise is bullshit. The fringe was ignored not because it was accepted, but because it basically DOESN'T EXIST outside of a media focus. Why do you think the media always talks about Duke and Spenser?

None of the Tea Party marches endorsed racism, or supported Nazis, or advocated for oppression of opposition groups.
On the other hand, the Communists and Anarchists have always had a strong presence on the Left, in Occupy, BLM, and now Antifa. Antifa, which has now been declared a domestic terrorist organization for their continued use of violence against civilians in the pursuit of their political goals...

Re: Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

The moral equation is unequal because although both groups employ violence against each other, only one group is by their very ideology driven to perform violence against others as well. As for the good and evil bit, didn't nihilism go out of fashion at the turn of the century?

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[dcw3]

How many lives has the US and how many trillions of dollars have we spent. I'm sure we're doing it to grab the land, or the oil. Oh yeah, that didn't happen. I've spent 40 years of my adult life in and around the military, a dozen of those overseas supporting allies. So let me just say that your opinion is just a bit off.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

There were 20 million or more Tea Party supporters.

I wouldn't rely on that polling.

According to the SPLC, a far-Left anti-right orgranization, there are about 50,000 white supremacists (neo-Nazis, KKK, etc) in the entire US.

And mysteriously, Republicans opposed it when the FBI presented a report on them. Fortunately, there are others.

From those numbers alone, you can see your basic premise is bullshit.

Your argument is merely your opinion, it isn't especially convincing. But other opinions exist.

The fringe was ignored not because it was accepted, but because it basically DOESN'T EXIST outside of a media focus.

Nope. It wasn't just ignored. The right-wing fought hard to have it buried.

Why do you think the media always talks about Duke and Spenser?

Why do you think those are the only people they talk about?

None of the Tea Party marches endorsed racism, or supported Nazis, or advocated for oppression of opposition groups.

That long-repeated claim is about as believable as the claims that the Tea Party rallies don't leave a mess behind.

On the other hand, the Communists and Anarchists have always had a strong presence on the Left, in Occupy, BLM, and now Antifa. Antifa, which has now been declared a domestic terrorist organization for their continued use of violence against civilians in the pursuit of their political goals...

Declared by who? You? That's not convincing.

But your own condemnation reveals your lies, so I know better than to expect you to admit your mistake. I remember that the Communists, anarchists, the NAACP, the Unions, Occupy, BLM, and now AntiFa, have all been denounced by the right, and condemned, no matter what.

It loses its punch after a while. Meanwhile, you ignore the right-wing violence, and even endorse it. But "blood libel" isn't something you mind spreading to others.

Re: Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

"crowds for hire" being used for charlottesville

No, they were not. They issued a statement that they were not involved. Why are extreme right nutjobs always paranoid conspiracy theorists? I guess crazy breeds more crazy.

Re: Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

No he didn't. Video shows him driving down the street at a slow speed, and accelerating only after someone hit his car.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

How many lives has the US and how many trillions of dollars have we spent. I'm sure we're doing it to grab the land, or the oil.

Well, somebody is. Trump practically boasted about it.

One of his stupider moments.

Oh yeah, that didn't happen. I've spent 40 years of my adult life in and around the military, a dozen of those overseas supporting allies. So let me just say that your opinion is just a bit off.

And that makes you a candidate for truth-telling?

If it didn't happen, why do all of the people complain about it? Are they just lying?

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[dcw3]

And while they shot a lot of them, many others were not. My great uncle was drafted into the German army. Fortunately for me, his older brother, my grandfather, had immigrated to the U.S. before the war. I met this uncle back in the 80s when I got stationed there with the USAF. Speaking to his wife my great aunt, their first real interaction in the war was when the Americans invaded, and as the linked article points out, she didn't see what all the fuss was about, Germans were doing well under Hitler...this lead to some long discussions between us on who she thought was doing all the labor, and who were those people in Dachau. She at least seemed to finally comprehend the problem. Somehow, him and many others I came across between 80 and the fall of the wall, had avoided the bullet between the eyes.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[dcw3]

Bravo. And this is why the idea of "hate crime" needs to die. Crime is crime period. Going down the path of being thought police is destined for failure. For example, let's just say we decided to make racism a hate crime. And now, you have to determine if we should convict Trump. You can certainly point to tweets, that could be interpreted as being racist. And while I think he's a loon, those are interpretations, and not judged the same by the vast majority of his followers. Even the NY Times couldn't find blacks that know him who would call him racist. Far too often, we attempt and fail at figuring out other peoples intentions when they haven't flat out stated them.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a free speech absolutist

Great! Can I come and start screaming obscenities in your face for the next 10 years?

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Mashiki]

That's right Mashiki, demonize them some more. Scream your rage. As I said, their mere existence offends you.

No demonetization required, they dug that hole all on their own. All on their very own, just like all extremist groups do.

Oh my, Mashiki, the thing you need to do is ask yourself why you don't care what you write?

The question you need to ask yourself is, why do you care so much? Almost sounds like you have an inferiority problem. Maybe you should try the "freedom of speech" path instead.

Re:Good, nazis need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

No demonetization required, they dug that hole all on their own. All on their very own, just like all extremist groups do.

Oh Mashiki, the more you try to tear them down, the more you demonstrate your own weakness.

The question you need to ask yourself is, why do you care so much? Almost sounds like you have an inferiority problem. Maybe you should try the "freedom of speech" path instead.

Oh Mashiki, I don't need to ask myself that question, but no surprise that you're resorting to self-important arrogance, and I know I don't want to walk your path, as it is paved with your hypocrisy, and I know right where it goes.

Sticks and stones may break my bones

[Anonymous Coward]

Sticks and stones may break my bones that's why the nanny state persecutes mountaineering.

What happened to sticks and stones?

[sandbagger]

Turn off the computer.

Go outside.

It's only crybabies and bullies calling names. What happened to the island that once said 'here and no further' and stood alone against fascism? They're now cowering because someone used strong language.

Did someone put something in the water?

Re:What happened to sticks and stones?

[MightyMartian]

That island you speak of hung one of the chief "sticks and stones" types at Wandsworth Prison.

Lord Haw-Haw

Re:What happened to sticks and stones?

[Opportunist]

It's not that easy. With the internet and social media playing an increasingly important role in the life of our kids, and the fact that the internet never forgets, you can easily destroy someone's life permanently that way.

Think back of your youth. I guess everyone here has done something they're not really proud upon, maybe even something that was the talk of the school yard for a while. But it blows over. Eventually. And people forget about it.

Remember the Star Wars Kid? That's been like a decade ago. Want to bet that you can still find videos today? What do you think, how easy he probably has it, finding a job with that reputation, hell, finding someone who'd want to date and maybe even marry an internet meme?

Re:What happened to sticks and stones?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for the link, never heard of him.

Wait, they tried him for treason against Great Britain because he had improperly obtained a British passport? That's a bit dodgy. Probably should have been shipped off to the USA, or maybe even Nuremberg, under a war crimes tribunal.

Re:What happened to sticks and stones?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the age of the crybully.

Re:What happened to sticks and stones?

[Baron_Yam]

As a Canadian, I'm pretty comfortable with where we usually draw the line - somewhere around "riling up people to cause harm".

What bothers me is that phrase in the summary... "anti-religious". Wow. So blasphemy laws then, where you're required by law to treat somebody's dangerous delusion with respect?

I say put some radical Jews, Muslims, and Christians in a room and let the lawsuits fly...

Re:What happened to sticks and stones?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then do punish people who spread personal information around without consent. Don't punish people for being "mean" in a chatroom. That's moronic.

Re:What happened to sticks and stones?

[CrimsonAvenger]

Remember the Star Wars Kid?

No.

What do you think, how easy he probably has it, finding a job with that reputation, hell, finding someone who'd want to date and maybe even marry an internet meme?

What, you check everyone you invite for a date (or get invited by for a date) on the Internet before you make up your mind? Jaysus, and here I thought just knowing them was enough to let you make up your mind one way or another....

Re:What happened to sticks and stones?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's only crybabies and bullies calling names.

who exactly is calling people crybabies and bullies in an online forum in an attempt to change the behavior of others?

Re:What happened to sticks and stones?

[Opportunist]

That we could agree on.

Re:What happened to sticks and stones?

[Opportunist]

The first time I probably won't. Only after the "don't you know who this is?" questions start.

Re:What happened to sticks and stones?

[alvinrod]

Yeah, but when everyone has all of their dirty laundry aired so to speak no one is going to care. We might see a kind of neo-Puritanism for a while and a few witch trials to go along with it, but eventually it will settle down because everyone's cringe-inducing crap from their younger years will be online and you know the old saying about people in glass houses.

Re:What happened to sticks and stones?

[TimothyHollins]

How does riling up people to cause harm differ from riling up people for a laugh? Can a prosecutor tell the difference? How many 14-year olds will get sent to youth care because an angry SJW decided that "someone had to take a stand against racism, bigotry, and transphobia"? What happens when the "right to be offended" finally overturns the "intent matters" clause?

You see the lunacy of the "anti-religious" point. I think all the points are the same, and just as easy to twist when you want to condemn someone. For those that care about the slippery slope stuff, this new ruling opens up a highway to the SocJus nation.

Re:What happened to sticks and stones?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's is a populist effort now to curtail the freedom of speech.

In 1930s, it was the popular-right Nazis. Now, it's the popular-left-socialists. (and I say this with a grain of salt, as I do support some form of socialism). But yeah, if you look at some of the initial tactics, they're no different. Nazis didn't become Nazis on day one... they first became extraordinary popular---so popular that anyone who disagreed with them was afraid to question them.... this is what's happening now! (e.g. Google dude dared to question the current-state-of-affairs, and got fired and perhaps became unemployable due to that... would YOU question something you don't agree with?).

Re:What happened to sticks and stones?

[Archtech]

Nice coinage! I like it.

Re:What happened to sticks and stones?

[CrimsonAvenger]

The first time I probably won't. Only after the "don't you know who this is?" questions start.

I'd just ask her, myself. But, hey, I'm an old fogy, so what do I know, right?

Re:What happened to sticks and stones?

[Bert64]

Hitler had it wrong, he shouldn't have sent his planes...
He should have sent some strongly worded letters insulting the brits instead.

Re:What happened to sticks and stones?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they hanged him because he was a Nazi collaborator. The passport was just the excuse to make any accusations stick judicially. Dodgy as fuck, yeah.

The point though is that if you argue for existential and moral nihilism, don't get surprised if people are fine with that when you're on one on trial.

Re:What happened to sticks and stones?

[Opportunist]

Unlikely. Far more likely we'll not get to hear who airs someone else's dirty laundry and what laundry becomes the dirty one depends again on groupthink and popularity.

Do you really want to live in a world like that?

Re:What happened to sticks and stones?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't google people, and put every facebook-related server I can on my hosts file.

But I actually expect that's common behavior among normals. Look-ups, I mean. Which is at odds with the tinderella hookups, but I don't particularly credit society's socializing with a lot of rational ability.

OT: This isn't really all that relevant to internet name-calling. You ugly, smelly motherfuckers.

I'm actually a bit uncomfortable with wall-of-shame tactics, but like nuclear weapons you can't uninvent it. I'm going to have to live with it, like I do with license plate readers hoovering what is technically public information.

And I certainly have nothing but mocking laughter for anyone who thinks policies can possibly define, much less control, such amorphous things.

Re:What happened to sticks and stones?

[Anonymous Coward]

umm i don't know what part of Canada you are in, but our wonderful substitute drama teacher seems to be contradicting you there with these wonderful laws on forced speech regarding gender identity. also given the most recent speeches concerning the refugees coming from the states over in Montreal, you better believe that similar laws are coming down the pipeline for us. These are staples of the liberal party that are used to distract the masses from the real issues we have at hand, Just like the conservative party works on policies geared towards older white people.

Re:What happened to sticks and stones?

[goose-incarnated]

That island you speak of hung one of the chief "sticks and stones" types at Wandsworth Prison.

Lord Haw-Haw

They also chemically castrated Turing for breaking the law. You'll have to forgive me if I don't automatically think that their laws are always justified.

Re:What happened to sticks and stones?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is astonishingly dimwitted and I am terrified it is flagged Insightful.

Yes. Ideologies become popular.

But you understand that we do not and should not treat all ideologies as equal just because they are all ideologies, right?

An ideology that says, where possible, men and women should be assumed to be the same, treated the same, and that maybe in the short term measures are needed to balance that out, is a tiiiiiny bit different from the ideologies of the early National Socialist party, which included that Jews were responsible for the first world war.

If you are unwilling to make this distinction because it suits your ends, you are a nasty fucking piece of work.

Re:What happened to sticks and stones?

[Anonymous Coward]

I do it all of the time, because in the current climate, I don't fear being shot in the head for political dissent.

When the military starts pulling people out of their houses and shooting them, full-stop, in the streets, then things will be different.

Until then, those who don't dissent are only adding fuel to the fire.

Re:What happened to sticks and stones?

[Anonymous Coward]

Millennial crybabies writing the laws now.

Re:What happened to sticks and stones?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ooh, you're calling everybody crybabies? I'm going to report you to the government!

Re:What happened to sticks and stones?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's easy to say "toughen up" when it's not happening to you. This "eventually it won't matter" crap is irrelevant; "eventually" is a long time away, not all of us will even make it that far.

"In the long term we are all dead." - J M Keynes.

Re:What happened to sticks and stones?

[Anonymous Coward]

"How does riling up people to cause harm differ from riling up people for a laugh? Can a prosecutor tell the difference? " Yes! Moron! But it's a JURY that DECIDES.

Re:What happened to sticks and stones?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the entire goal and point here is that you can't. It's easy to reframe anything as being abusive or offensive, as some professional victims have shown. Even refusing to believe that someone can be a woman today, a man tomorrow and a demigirl-agender the week after can be used to put someone in jail.

But that's the idea. This vague law effectively enshrines the concept of "thought crime". Politicians deeply offended by journalists, agencies annoyed by climate reports, 'industry leaders' trying to clamp on whistleblowers, all of these things can be twisted into abuse, hatespeech and criminal opppression.

You'll notice it will do nothing at all to protect victims of actual abuse, however. It will always be 'too uncertain' for those purposes.

Re:What happened to sticks and stones?

[Opportunist]

And, again, "eventually" is never on the internet. It's trivial for someone to dig up some drunk video of you that you thought was funny back when you were 16.

The internet doesn't just know what you did last Summer, the internet knows what you did in the Summer of 69. And it never ever forgets.

Re:What happened to sticks and stones?

[Anonymous Coward]

Blasphemy laws happen, first thing I will do is press charges against the heretical followers of Mohammad the Liar.

Re:What happened to sticks and stones?

[Cederic]

Problem is,

An ideology that says, where possible, men and women should be assumed to be the same, treated the same

immediately conflicts with

in the short term measures are needed to balance that out

People that demand equality for men, for atheists, for white people are getting demonised and shouted down, and yes, sacked.

This is astonishingly dimwitted

This is ironic.

Re:What happened to sticks and stones?

[AmiMoJo]

What does riling people up have to do with this law?

It's specifically about the use of homophobic, racist and sexist language. You can annoy people all you like, just don't call them a faggot or a nig nog while doing so.

Personally I think that's still too much and the law should require a higher bar, but it's not what most people where seem to think it is.

Re:What happened to sticks and stones?

[TimothyHollins]

"Riling up" was in response to GP.

You have given a great example for both how this law should look and how it should not look.
You say that one should specifically avoid words such as faggot and nig nog. The latter is an excellent word to avoid, and I would have no problem with putting that into a specific law ("One may not the use the word nig nog specifically"). The former shows the problem.
Faggot can mean many things. In old English it means a bundle of sticks, or the person that gathers the bundle of sticks. In British it can mean a cigarette butt. In large communities on the internet it means, I don't know really but something like "person" or "you". It can also be a reference to a homosexual, either used in a denigratory manner towards homosexuals, or used in a non-denigratory manner between homosexuals.

So when you prosecute someone, how do you determine which context was used? Perhaps it's crystal clear, but perhaps it's not. How do you stop someone from using this law outside of its intended context? How do you stop it from being used for political or ideological agendas?

Re:What happened to sticks and stones?

[AmiMoJo]

You missed the "call them" bit before the world "faggot". You have to use it as a homophobic insult for it to count, and the law doesn't enumerate such insults.

As for who decides, ultimately it is a jury. Aside from the question of it is a good idea to prosecute people for these kinds of insults alone, the main issue is that even if a jury finds you innocent the CPS' poor judgement can cause you serious problems.

Re:What happened to sticks and stones?

[KingBenny]

so that means big government gets to decide who can say what when and how with how many caps and exclamation marks and maybe what kind of mojis ?
Orwell weeps, how about some education instead

Re:What happened to sticks and stones?

[Opportunist]

The alternative is that you get a person's life ruined by making one mistake in his life.

Become a government informer.

[Anonymous Coward]

Inform on your friends and family, fabulous prizes to be won.

Was this inspired by the Rust community?

[Anonymous Coward]

Was this inspired by the Rust programming language community, by any chance? The Rust Code of Conduct and the Rust Moderation Team (which enforces the Rust Code of Conduct) both form the foundation of the Rust community, and have for some time.

It's all really quite odd. Despite claiming to be "committed to providing a friendly, safe and welcoming environment for all, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, disability, ethnicity, religion, or similar personal characteristic", in my opinion the Rust community is one of the least tolerant programming language communities I've ever seen. For example, it's absurd how they'll downvote you at Reddit or Hacker News, for instance, if you dare to express anything that might be considered criticism of Rust, no matter how slight.

This stuff coming out of the UK sounds a lot like the hypersensitivity we've seen from the Rust community.

Re:Was this inspired by the Rust community?

[Archtech]

Are you trying to bully the Rust community??

[Irony alert].

Re:Was this inspired by the Rust community?

[gweihir]

The idea is to enforce tolerance by threat of violence. Of course, "tolerance" here does mean "strict and unquestioning adherence to the principles laid out by the authorities". In effect, they have redefined "tolerance" to mean extreme intolerance of anything not explicitly allowed. A tried and true technique, as, for example, nicely illustrated in 1984 by Orwell.

Ultimately, this fails, because a community that cannot handle criticism can never produce anything good. Obviously so, as no critical discussion can take place there. The other effect is that anybody really competent leaves sooner or later because no smart person can work in an anti-discourse, anti-meritocratic environment. At the end, these "communities" collapse because they cannot perform.

The utterly dysfunctional "Rust Community" is an excellent reason to not touch this language at all.

Re:Was this inspired by the Rust community?

[Mashiki]

The utterly dysfunctional "Rust Community" is an excellent reason to not touch this language at all.

Should also be a shining example of why you don't let people who contribute nothing, write codes of conduct that will fundamentally fuck up your project so bad that not even fire can save it.

Re:Was this inspired by the Rust community?

[gweihir]

Unfortunately, that ability will be a major future factor in whether a FOSS project can survive. May mean that technologically inferior projects make it because they keep the SJWs out successfully.

Nobody has the right not to be offended...

[Anonymous Coward]

All those hatin' on haters are haters.
People gonna hate.
People gonna hate haters.
People gonna hate haters hating.
People gonna hate haters hating haters.
ad-nauseum..

Re:Nobody has the right not to be offended...

[liquid_schwartz]

People who smugly claim to only be intolerant of intolerance (sometimes stated intolerables), without a hint of sarcasm, will never cease to amaze me. It's like they can't follow the most basic logical premise.

Re:Nobody has the right not to be offended...

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe, just maybe, they are aware of the apparent logical inconsistency and use the expression in a knowing way with a little wink of the eye (which you see as smugness), understanding that the world is a complex place with many different shades of morality and meaning and no absolutes. It's not sarcasm, but it's also not a paradox unless you're no better than a natural language parser.

Re:Nobody has the right not to be offended...

[liquid_schwartz]

Or maybe, just maybe, they are aware of the apparent logical inconsistency and use the expression in a knowing way with a little wink of the eye (which you see as smugness), understanding that the world is a complex place with many different shades of morality and meaning and no absolutes. It's not sarcasm, but it's also not a paradox unless you're no better than a natural language parser.

Thinking that there are no absolutes is where the road ends for logic. See my last sentence ;-) The world is indeed a *very* complex place but even analog control systems have absolute limits.

Re:Nobody has the right not to be offended...

[Anonymous Coward]

Karl Popper was obviously skipped Philosophy of Logic 101 then.

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

Re: Nobody has the right not to be offended...

[Anonymous Coward]

Now you're comparing human morality to circuits. Please demonstrate absolute good or evil to me, it's ok, I can wait.

Online isn't the same

[Anonymous Coward]

It should be obvious to everyone that insulting or even threatening another person online is not the same as an in-person threat.

The person threatening or insulting you online can't actually do anything to you unless they can somehow pinpoint your physical location.

It boggles my mind how the UK can in any way equate these two activities as in any way comparable. They aren't. Period.

Re:Online isn't the same

[MightyMartian]

I'm not clear. Are you saying "Issuing a threat on a computer" should have no legal consequence at all? There's been enough incidents of doxing and online stalking and bullying to suggest that "threat by computer" isn't merely a bit of fun that should be ignored, and there are cases where such activity may, at least in a few cases, rise to the level of criminal activity.

Re:Online isn't the same

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not clear. Are you saying "Issuing a threat on a computer" should have no legal consequence at all? There's been enough incidents of doxing and online stalking and bullying to suggest that "threat by computer" isn't merely a bit of fun that should be ignored, and there are cases where such activity may, at least in a few cases, rise to the level of criminal activity.

In the cases where actual criminal activity occurs, punish the actual criminal activity. A simple threat or insult toward someone you've never met in person is, frankly, not a concern unless they somehow get ahold of your address or some other personally identifiable information. If you're doxed by the person, certainly be concerned. Otherwise, it's not worth pursuing as a crime because no actual harm has been caused.

Re:Online isn't the same

[Archtech]

Doxing and stalking are crimes in their own right - the use of a computer is irrelevant. As for "bullying", that's an extremely subjective thing. Every day, millions of people feel they are being bullied at work - but just let them try to convince a policeman, a court, an industrial tribunal, or even their manager or HR rep.

Re:Online isn't the same

[Cederic]

http://uk.businessinsider.com/... documents things that only happened online.

There were very real offline consequences.

https://vault.fbi.gov/gamergat... is 170 pages of collateral from an FBI investigation into things that happened online.

It boggles my mind how the UK can in any way equate these two activities as in any way comparable. They aren't. Period.

Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. That doesn't stop them having offline consequences, and doesn't stop the police assessing whether the law has been broken.

"Hate Crime"

[Errol backfiring]

Hate Crime

Is that a bellythinkful thoughtcrime?

Hate speech

[krouic]

When did I miss the episode where hate speech and hate crime became synonyms ?

Re:Hate speech

[MightyMartian]

In a number of European countries, hate speech is lumped in with hate crimes. Try being a public Holocaust Denier in Germany or Austria.

Not every country has the First Amendment, and the UK has traditionally had more restrictions on speech than the US.

Re:Hate speech

[Anonymous Coward]

Free speech is now redefined to consist with whatever the popular-left agrees with---and everything else is a form of non-protected hate crime speech. Even questioning this state of affairs is considered a hate crime for which you can be fired and publicly ostracized. ...yeah, it seems folks forgot what free speech is all about.

Re:Hate speech

[Anonymous Coward]

Not every country has the First Amendment

Whatever that means in a specific culture, interpretation or case-law.. If a country has a constitution and it has ratified UN resolutions and those of the Council of Europe, it most likely has the freedom of speech right there in the constitution, no amendments necessary. Denial of pre-publication censorship is also a view on the issue. One may speak freely but a court may have something to say about it afterwards.

Re:Hate speech

[Jahta]

When did I miss the episode where hate speech and hate crime became synonyms ?

Well you may have missed this episode, which is an important reminder that freedom of speech does not grant you some magical immunity from the consequences of what you say. You only have to look post-Trump USA, and post-Brexit UK, to see how racist (or sexist, homophobic) rhetoric has real world outcomes. As the WWII slogan says "careless talk costs lives."

Re:Hate speech

[MightyMartian]

Save that even in Liberal Democratic countries, the limits to freedom of speech will vary. As I said, a number of European countries have some pretty sharp limits on "hate speech", and even in my own country, Canada, there's a level of hate speech which can lead to prosecution (though it is pretty rare, and usually has to be contingent upon the prosecution proving some tangible and relatively immediate harm). The UN Declaration of Human Rights simply does not have the free speech protections that the First Amendment does.

Re:Hate speech

[Max Sinister]

I'm German and don't think this is that wrong. This isn't just an opinion or an insult. It's a denial of a pretty big fact and as important for some people a a thing can be,

Re:Hate speech

[Anonymous Coward]

So, essentially thoughtcrime.

Re:Hate speech

[Anonymous Coward]

The UN Declaration of Human Rights

I meant those as an influences and sources to adapt in various ways into the national legislations, not as a source prescribing the nature of the freedom as is. Every country assimilates them differently, and many with reservations.

free speech protections that the First Amendment does.

At face value, that protection is really ambiguously stated at the version of the US Constitution without the context. That was actually my point. Freedom and freedom may mean different things, and only the application of the law reveals which meaning the term gets.

Re:Hate speech

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope. It ceases being a thought when you open your hateful cocksucker and start making sounds with it. You can think what you want. Don't act or try to get others to act on it.

Re:Hate speech

[Anonymous Coward]

As the WWII slogan says "careless talk costs lives [loc.gov]."

LMFAO! This is the social media, not combat in a World War.

Re:Hate speech

[fafalone]

Ever since the far left extreme progressives declared that words were "literal violence" and they were therefore entitled to defend themselves from that violence by starting violent mobs to stop some right-wing nutters from speaking. They're really alienating loads of people who are very liberal but don't agree with throwing free speech and due process out the window; I can already see Darth Cheeto to be reelected in 2020 for that reason. That's why you've got those jackasses saying things like how they would just love for the left to keep hammering identity politics.

Re:Hate speech

[Anonymous Coward]

I could walk up to a pile of loose change on display in a holocaust museum, point at it and say "This coin was not minted until 1966. As it references an event that took place in 1963 it is not possible for it to have been in the possession of a death camp victim" and get done for holocaust denial. They are that absurd.

Re:Hate speech

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there a difference between hate speech and hate acts?

Not for some folks. I cannot legally commit the act of shooting the president in the head.

And from what I've gathered with "threat evaluation," I'm also not allowed to even suggest or imply that it would be a good idea for me, or anybody, to shoot the president in the head.

At least in some legal cases, act and speech carry the same consequences.

Morally, saying if someone doesn't act correctly your god will torment their soul eternally in hell ought to be regarded as hate speech also.

Re:Hate speech

[beastofburdon]

Much like the hatred for white males, which has been festering over the last couple of decades, has led to a resurgence of white nationalists.
Remember, your speech has consequences too.

It's just routine leftism.

[Anonymous Coward]

Did someone put something in the water?

What we're seeing is exactly what we should expect to see when a society has been infected with leftism.

Leftism is an ideology that involves a small elite who use a false sense of victimization, combined with control over information and the expression of ideas, to manipulate a much larger "disadvantaged" lower class.

Many Western nations have slowly fallen victim to leftism. It has started in academia, which we've gradually seen shift more and more to the left. At this point many institutions of learning could be classified as extremely leftist. This has resulted in around a generation of students who have been exposed to leftism from their earliest of years, through to their mid-20s.

Now these people have entered the workplace, and society at large. They've become more involved with politics. And so we've seen everything go to hell. That's the natural consequence of widespread leftism: the total destruction of the society which it has infected.

It doesn't matter if we're talking about the USSR, Mao-Era China, Cuba, Venezuela, Columbia, or other failed Central American and South American states. Leftism always destroys society. Western society is just as susceptible as those others were.

Re:It's just routine leftism.

[MightyMartian]

There is no single "leftism". There are a whole series of political and economic ideologies that fit into the "Left". The Social Democratic nations of Europe are viewed as left-leaning, but comparing them to Maoist China or Stalinist Russia is about as sensible as comparing Republicans to Pinochet's Chile.

Re:It's just routine leftism.

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish. Those people you call "leftists" are actually liberals, and they're the biggest obstacle to destroying capitalism.

Re:It's just routine leftism.

[CrimsonAvenger]

There is no single "leftism". There are a whole series of political and economic ideologies that fit into the "Left".

True of the "right" as well. Useful thing to keep in mind when you're hating on the "right"....

Re:It's just routine leftism.

[MightyMartian]

I agree, which is why I don't think being Republican is being a Nazi. I do think being a White Nationalist, however, if not outright making you a Nazi, makes you a pretty goddamned close neighbor.

Re:It's just routine leftism.

[Anonymous Coward]

And I suppose the solution you propose is adoption of rightism ? You know, christian fondamentalists, faschists, white supremacists, nazis ? After all, in all of human history, these people have NEVER been known to eradicate entire cultures, cause genocides, enslave entire races, start the bloodiest wars and cause millions of human deaths.

Yeah right. You're just another stupid Trump supporting moron.

Re:It's just routine leftism.

[Anonymous Coward]

Small variations on a theme, small variations on the same outcome.

Re:It's just routine leftism.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention the asinine in calling the right wing UK Tory government "leftist". This is actually unadulterated authoritarian right wing neo-puritanism, complete with reintroduction of "blasphemy" and all!

Neo-Nazis and other disgusting elements may be a convenient target for the moment but make no mistake. This isn't about them, it's more. This is about control, and the UK has been headed down the path to the authoritarian surveillance state for quite a while ranging from ubiquitous speed and CCTV cameras to snoopers charter and what not, with no end in sight.

Re:It's just routine leftism.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bad neighbourhood.

Re:It's just routine leftism.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Nazi" is short for "National Socialist".

They were leftists.

Re:It's just routine leftism.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh for fuck's sake I'm so fucking tired of this blatant ignorance.

Nazis may have been born as "National Socialist" but they were "socialist" by name only. They were facists, allied with Mussolini's facists in Italy, and all the values they upheld and promoted were associated with the extreme right: Racism, xenophobia, supremacy of the Arian race, etc.

Who do you think modern day nazis associate with ? The left ? No, you see them associating and marching with extreme-right groups like skinheads, facists, white-supremacists, the KKK, christian fundamentalists, etc.

Open your eyes, and learn your fucking history.

Re:It's just routine leftism.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fascism, Socialism, and Communism are Leftist/Collectivist brother-ideologies sharing more in common than they differ.

Open your eyes, and learn your fucking history.

Indeed. Back at ya!

Real men never march with nazis, then, now or ever

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, back in the old days where real men shot Nazis, and didn't march with them carrying tiki torches.

Real men would never march with Nazis, then, now, or ever. As to shooting nazis, well, we *could* legalize that ... just as long as there aren't any misidentifications...

Just wait until the pendulum swings back

[DeplorableCodeMonkey]

A MP from Labour had to step down because she wanted to have an uncomfortable conversation about incidents like Rotterham and then was forced to do the ritualized "so sorry, I'm such a racist, I'll go live in a secular convent while I do penance." All because she had the audacity to notice that apparently Rotterham is a large data point in a bigger trend.

Suppressing speech like this with force may make you feel noble, but it's not going to go away. Others will notice, others will talk. Eventually, the pendulum will swing back and the force it swings back on the smug, self-righteous inquisitors will be a function of how much force they put into the swing when it was on their side. The leaders celebrating this today could very well find themselves facing serious retribution.

Re:Just wait until the pendulum swings back

[Suiggy]

You've just been reported to the authorities for spreading this hate fact.

Re:Just wait until the pendulum swings back

[AmiMoJo]

Actually, that MP has been widely supported and her forced resignation condemned. It's true that she could have worded it better, but she definitely has a lot of support now. It may even have boosted her career in the longer term, and it certainly damaged Labour's leader for taking that action.

Re:Just wait until the pendulum swings back

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not going to swing back. The left control the media, the police, the Crown Prosecution Service, the education system and the senior management in most major companies. Anyone who acts against their agenda will be fired from their job, crucified in the media and imprisoned for "hate crimes". While most members of the public disagree with the liberal elite agenda, nobody feels safe voicing their opinions, so nothing will change.

The Times Educational Supplement published the results of mock elections in schools and Labour won in something like 80% of schools (can't find the article right now). The education system is churning out brainwashed leftists who are offended by everything, which is making this situation far worse and is strengthening the position of the liberal elite. I can well see Labour winning the next general election, and the pendulum will become stuck in a Venezuela style socialist dictatorship.

Personally, I'm looking at jobs abroad and intend to be well out before the next election. I'm actually rather enthused by all of this since the people who will suffer most will be the perpetually offended and thoroughly brainwashed millennials. I shall enjoy watching their suffering from afar.

The country is finished. It's time to abandon ship.

Re: Just wait until the pendulum swings back

[Anonymous Coward]

And the Soviet Union will never collapse. Oh, wait ...

Re:Just wait until the pendulum swings back

[Anonymous Coward]

The MP resigned from the Labour shadow cabinet, not as an MP, and then was given her shadow cabinet job back again.

Re:Just wait until the pendulum swings back

[liquid_schwartz]

Eventually, the pendulum will swing back and the force it swings back on the smug, self-righteous inquisitors will be a function of how much force they put into the swing when it was on their side. The leaders celebrating this today could very well find themselves facing serious retribution.

People forget how quickly it can swing too. I recall a few years ago when Obama was in office how quick liberals were to jump on if you don't toe our line on gay marriage we will withhold Federal funds. Fast forward a few years and the liberals are out of power and sanctuary cities were under threat of having Federal funds withheld. Funny how then it was suddenly immoral to withhold funds. Since the root cause of the instability is not being addressed (declining middle class / severe inequality / too much social change in a short span) expect more oscillations. Also expect that whatever you do to others will be done to you in time. The moral of the story is to not be too mean to others, don't be so quick to condemn and try and punish.

Re:Just wait until the pendulum swings back

[Anonymous Coward]

With respect, this as dumb as "Oh, so when YOU imprison people for murder, that's OK, but when WE imprison people for being Democrats, suddenly imprisoning people is wrong? Typical hypocrites!"

Why is it OK to withhold funds from cities that persecute homosexuals and transexuals? Because the government is meant to be protecting people from persecution, and cities are not supposed to persecute their citizens.

Why is it NOT OK to withhold funds from cities that don't do ICE's job for them? Because (1) that's not a city's job, and (2) because cities have 100% legitimate reasons to not do ICE's job for them, namely that it makes prosecuting real crime infinitely harder if witnesses are going to worry that they themselves will lose everything they own and be separated from their families permanently if they come forward.

The issue isn't withholding funds. The issue is punishing cities over something they shouldn't be punished for. Ever.

Re:Just wait until the pendulum swings back

[Anonymous Coward]

Congratulations, you've witnessed the beginning of the pendulum's return swing.

Re:Just wait until the pendulum swings back

[Rockoon]

I don't see any oscillations happening any time soon in America. The Democrats have continued to lose election after election while spending lots more money.

Its the Internet age - when your actions dont match your words - people wont vote for you - The least-liar wins current elections. This may change, or who the biggest liars are may change, but the Internet has brought a paradigm shift away from the Mass Media narratives holding anywhere near as much sway as they once did.

Re:Just wait until the pendulum swings back

[liquid_schwartz]

Glad to see that you missed the point. In both cases the root issue is go against the Feds and get penalized. When that is acceptable policy it's only a matter of time before it gets used against "your view". Not unlike how having vaguely worded hate speech laws could be used against [insert favorite cause] someday.

Re:Just wait until the pendulum swings back

[liquid_schwartz]

I don't see any oscillations happening any time soon in America. The Democrats have continued to lose election after election while spending lots more money.

Control flips, largely on the economy. In 2008 the Democrats won full power and in 2016 the Republicans won full power. Since the 1% will continue to squeeze the rest of us ever tighter expect public anger to cause it to flip again and again. Also expect more extreme people with each swing of the pendulum as the population becomes more desperate. At some point the system will topple because something has to give but there are several more "swings" I expect between now and then.

Re:Just wait until the pendulum swings back

[Cederic]

Although lets face it, someone guilty of domestic violence should never have fucking been shadow minister for equality in the first place.

Re:Just wait until the pendulum swings back

[Anonymous Coward]

Glad to see that you missed the point. In both cases the root issue is go against the Feds and get penalized.

Actually, that's the point that was explicitly and expressly rejected. It's not missed, it's being thrown out as trash.

When that is acceptable policy it's only a matter of time before it gets used against "your view".

Blah-blah-blah. Unless you are advocating for a powerless government, your position here is disingenuous.

Of course somebody like Trump would attempt to use coercive means, why wouldn't he? Because somebody else didn't do it? Hardly. You know he has no such scruples. In fact, the reality is that if Obama did something that could be used to excuse his behavior, Trump will do it, and if Obama didn't do something, that same argument will be used by Trump to do something.

Your argument is merely a false presentation that attempts to drive the righteous to impotence by deceit, not legitimacy.

A tiresome attempt, that only belies your lack of virtue.

Not unlike how having vaguely worded hate speech laws could be used against [insert favorite cause] someday.

Every law can be used against someone, somewhere, properly or improperly. Specific wording is as abusive as vague.

Like I said, your point is rejected. It's nothing more than bullshit, meant to exploit some naive stupidity, not a real and genuine sentiment you hold anyway.

It's not though.

[Locke2005]

You can't really harass someone online, because there is nothing forcing them to read the shit you write. Furthermore, most online services provide effective mechanisms for blocking a-holes. Also, computer systems keep a record of all messages, making harassment criminal complaints much easier to prove. (Has anybody gotten away with online harassment be using an anonymous proxy service?)

Governments are quite different...

[Archtech]

... they don't hate anyone - although you might think otherwise to hear or read some of their statements.

No, when governments kill individuals for resisting them, or millions for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, they don't do it out of hatred - or any emotion.

It's icy cold. Just business.

Re:Governments are quite different...

[gweihir]

And exactly that is what makes governments the most immoral and evil constructs known to man. If not kept on a tight leash, they will go off the rails and ultimately establish fascism. Unfortunately, current generations in the west have no idea what that means and are cheering them on.

Re:Governments are quite different...

[Rockoon]

Pretty sure Hitlers actions proved that he was more interested in Killing The Jews than he was in Winning The War.

I posit this simple argument:

If Hitler was rational he would have enslaved all the Jews and used them to bolster his war machine. Instead when things were going bad on the war front he significantly ramped up the killing.

Re:Governments are quite different...

[Anonymous Coward]

If Hitler was rational he would have enslaved all the Jews and used them to bolster his war machine.

He did. Do you not know your history? Jewish slaves built the rockets, the bombs, the V1 and V2 wonder weapons that killed tens of thousands of British civilians.

Ignoring morality for a moment, the problems with slaves used for a war effort is the same problem for all slave labor: they don't want to do it, they actively try to sabotage, and their work output sucks. Any other option is better.

Except when it's in the national interest..

[Anonymous Coward]

... and in the media spinning some BS to justify the latest regime change operation eh?

This sort of thing is aimed squarely at people who are speaking out against things like Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestine, and the BDS movement.

Trump will pardon James Alex Fields

[Anonymous Coward]

I hear you loud and clear Suiggy: Trump will presidential-pardon the terrorist that rammed the anti-kkk protestors.

I hear you, Fox News, RT, the NRA all trying to define the KKK as the true Republican voice and the protestors as a radical left extremists, and it's only a matter of time before Trump pardons the terrorist.

It's as clear as day. He'll use a presidential pardon.

Trump will paint Fields as a 'victim' of the 'alt-left' (even though many protestors were Republican) and Fox, the NRA, and a bunch of other right wing groups are shifting ever more to the extreme right to try to rescue Trump.

I watched a whole news evening on Fox, and they literally were reduced to digging up any clip of any black man doing back things to make the argument that it's not racism, black people are genetically bad people. That was the clear narrative. It's bad for their channel, it alienates their viewers, its puts off advertisers, but that is the narrative they're pushing to try to rescue Trump.

So Trump will pardon him, the KKK will be emboldened, a lot of Trump enemies will get shot. Sessions? Mueller? McCain? Bannon? Depends who Trump names as targets in his tweets. There literally is no bottom to this pit once he starts pardoning terrorists.

Re: Trump will pardon James Alex Fields

[Anonymous Coward]

Not gonna happen. That's a left-wing fantasy to justify the baseball bats and bike locks and other "heroism".

I have a bad feeling about current times

[Anonymous Coward]

The UK is putting in place more and more laws against free speech, bordering on thought crime.
The US is implementing the ministry of truth as we speak. Worse yet, the citizens are asking for it.
People in formerly communist countries must be shaking their head.

Re:I have a bad feeling about current times

[gweihir]

Defending freedom of speech and thought is so yesterday. Obviously, a police state and even more so, a totalitarian state is much preferable as there people will only behave well (as defined by the government) or else.

The stupidity and lack of understanding of history expressed in this is truly staggering. Apparently the fascists were not a historical accident, they are alive and well and can be found in the Government.

Sounds like a field day for trolls

[Rick Schumann]

Internet troll's new hobby: Baiting the UK's Crown Prosecution Service. Good luck trying to track some anonymous person down who is behind 7 proxies (or at least a VPN or Tor, or is using free WiFi from some random cafe or coffeeshop).

Re:Sounds like a field day for trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

And the trolls will therefore inevitably be responsible for the casus belli allowing the UK Government to implement their next step into authoritarian censorial nightmare -- requiring the site provide the ID of the poster and take down the post, or the site gets blocked in the UK. The law and infrastructure is already in place to block "hate speech" in the UK, and they have paved the way for this with their "ID required to access all porn, sites not complying blocked"

I can't see access to Slashdot surviving in the UK under the current regime.

Re:Sounds like a field day for trolls

[Rick Schumann]

'Casus belli'

LOL don't you think the trolls know that already, and furthermore know that regardless of what they do, the powers-that-be already have an agenda written down in ink and are going to implement it regardless of who does what? 'Fuck the police' is a thing, and they'll think that they may as well have their fun while they still can. Also, good luck to the UK Government, being drawn into an endless game of Whac-a-Mole (or perhaps 'Whac-a-Troll' is more appropriate here), because that's what it'll turn into: they can hide and pop up elsewhere faster than the cops can keep up; that's not even counting the 'word filtering' game of using creative and ever-changing codewords and abbreviations to get your meaning across. Where do you think 7334 (leet) came from? If the UK wants to take a fire axe to the entire UK Internet and destroy it, then that's what'll happen, they'll end up killing off any and all websites that you can possibly leave any sort of comments on. As usual, government and law enforcement types just don't understand the technology of the Internet.

Good to know

[Anonymous Coward]

Good to know that's how it works...

You support the political party that killed tens of thousands in an attempt to keep slavery, the party that oppressed blacks and tried to prevent them from voting and having equal rights, the party that didn't want women to vote, the party that put a KKK leader in the senate and celebrated him being in the senate for 60 years until he died a few years ago. The same party that took back 51 of the 54 Dixicrats from the 60s, for life, including Al Gore Sr and putting his son up for your presidential candidate. Your most recent one had the KKK Senator as her self proclaimed "mentor"

March with the racists, you get lumped with the racists. You are a bigot because you support them and their history, plain and simple. You racist. You support the people that made it possible for the KKK to flourish, and you refuse to acknowledge the good the GOP has done for blacks (ending slavery, civil rights, right to vote for blacks/women). So not only do you support the racists, you ACTIVELY attack those who have a long history of helping minorities.

I think people like you need to be banished from being allowed to express your opinion online anymore.

Re:Good to know

[king neckbeard]

HURR DURR I DON'T KNOW ABOUT HISTORICAL POLITICAL REALIGNMENTS HOLLYWOOD IS RUN BY REPUBLICANS.

This text is to undermine slashdot's anti-caps filtering. I'm just typing this so I can properly mock you with liberal usage of caps lock.

Re:Good to know

[Anonymous Coward]

Good to know that's how it works...

Obviously you don't know that we know how it works. You think nobody knows you pulled all of your rant off of an e-mail chain you got this morning? Trump's lawyer had it last week. Now you finally got it, and you haven't learned a bit.

You support the political party that killed tens of thousands in an attempt to keep slavery,
  the party that oppressed blacks and tried to prevent them from voting and having equal rights, the party that didn't want women to vote, the party that put a KKK leader in the senate and celebrated him being in the senate for 60 years until he died a few years ago. The same party that took back 51 of the 54 Dixicrats from the 60s, for life, including Al Gore Sr and putting his son up for your presidential candidate.

Oh horrors, you can't name Robert Byrd by name, let alone Strom Thurmond, but you can rail against Al Gore!

Because heaven knows, you just REALLY hate Al Gore even now. But you know, he's not the one going around apologizing for the KKK today, not the one getting praise from David Duke, and he's not the one who sucked us into two useless pointless wars in the Middle East.

Your most recent one had the KKK Senator as her self proclaimed "mentor"

You mean Robert Byrd, the man you're afraid to name, who repudiated the KKK, but who you can't let go of your personal animosity and hate towards? Gosh.

March with the racists, you get lumped with the racists.

Yep. That's the problem the GOP has now. They started going to Mississippi and it wasn't to visit the Casinos.

You are a bigot because you support them and their history, plain and simple. You racist. You support the people that made it possible for the KKK to flourish, and you refuse to acknowledge the good the GOP has done for blacks (ending slavery, civil rights, right to vote for blacks/women).

Actually, the GOP was hilariously incompetent at all of those. Clamoring during the Civil War that they weren't going to abolish slavery until years into it, trying to make the claim they were just trying to "preserve" the union, refusing to defend lost Civil Rights when the chance to take the Presidency in 1876 came along, ignoring the widespread disenfranchisement and segregation for decades since it didn't suit their own agenda.

So not only do you support the racists, you ACTIVELY attack those who have a long history of helping minorities.

No, arranging for illegal immigration, bombing their homes, putting them in jail, and denying them the right to vote is not helping Minorities. That's the GOP of today.

I think people like you need to be banished from being allowed to express your opinion online anymore.

Yes, yes, but what about yourself? Do you think after years of making the same faux excuses, you'd get around to facing the truth?

The Republicans of today ain't the party of Lincoln anymore, and there's plenty of corruption, malfeasance, and bigotry to be found in the history of that party.

PS, ole Trump praised Jackson as his hero.

Durp.

Re:Good to know

[Anonymous Coward]

Robert Byrd became a Republican? No
Hillary Clinton didn't brag about a KKK leader being her "mentor" while running for president last year? She did.

Nope, Byrd remained with the KKK, I mean the DNC. Clinton told everyone what a great historical and distinguished career he had.
No KKK members were leaders of the GOP, they wouldn't be welcome like they are by the DNC "we will take anyone to get a few more votes".

Glad to see you have to lie to make your points, I assume you also are a racist since you seem to be defending them. March with racists, you are a racist.

Re:Good to know

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean Robert Byrd, the man you're afraid to name, who repudiated the KKK, but who you can't let go of your personal animosity and hate towards? Gosh.

Trump takes 40 hours to repudiate neo-nazis by name, and he is declared their leader and life long racist (with no evidence)
Byrd, the LEADER of the KKK, the guy who filibusted the civil rights act, who remained in the KKK for a decade as a Senator, repudiated them over 10 years later and he is good.

Yep, you are a racist. March with the racists, you are a racist.
Good to know how it works now. DNC = Racists for refusing to repudiate Robert Byrd and Al Gore Sr. as the bigots they were.

Re:Good to know

[CronoCloud]

The two parties switched roles on racism in 1964 and you know it. The northern liberal wing of the Democrats basically purged the most racists. The Democrats which were once the "regional party" of the south and rural conservatives became the urban party and the Republicans went Southern thanks to the Civil Rights act and Nixon's Southern Strategy.

Which is why there are modern Southern Republicans who openly say that if Jefferson Davis was alive today he'd be a Republican.

Re:Good to know

[Anonymous Coward]

Byrd stayed in the DNC.
Al Gore Sr stayed in the DNC.
51 of the 54 Dixicrats stayed in the DNC for life.

The DNC nominated Al Gore Jr, the son of the racist.
The DNC nominated Hillary Clinton, who said Byrd was her mentor.
They are to this day celebrating their recent racist past. I don't see Trump doing that.

I know of no KKK leaders that were in the Senate for the GOP for decades, or that there were 50+ proud racists in the GOP at any time.

You too are a racist. You march with the racists you must be a racist, according to MightyMartian.

By the way, MLK's living family are overwhelmingly Republicans and call a lot of the DNC leadership racist. One topic being the number of blacks killed in Chicago and Rham doing nothing about it. Along with their support of Planned Parenthood, an organization that was started with the hope of aborting the blacks out of America according to their founder, Margret Sanger.

Go ahead, keep calling me names. I've got plenty of reasons you and the DNC are ACTUAL racists. I think its about time to educate the next generation about how evil the DNC actually is. Your made up history is NOTHING compared to the real provable history of the DNC.

Re:Good to know

[CronoCloud]

The DNC nominated Al Gore Jr, the son of the racist.

Yes, but Gore Jr is not his father.

The DNC nominated Hillary Clinton, who said Byrd was her mentor.

Yes, one of her many mentors in the Senate which she was in LONG after Byrd had apologized for his earlier membership in the Klan. Which IIRC, he did in the 1970's.

Along with their support of Planned Parenthood, an organization that was started with the hope of aborting the blacks out of America according to their founder, Margret Sanger.

That alt-right talking point was investigated and proven to be false.

Go ahead, keep calling me names.

I literally did no such thing. Look if you want to try to deflect from the Republicans being soft on bigotry by saying something like "Nuh uh, you are!" You're going to get laughed at by anybody with even the slightest knowledge of politics over the decades.

Re:Good to know

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump takes 40 hours to repudiate neo-nazis by name, and he is declared their leader and life long racist (with no evidence)

Yep, Trump took 40 hours after everybody in the White House pointed out to him his mistake.

Trump failed the test, he started off by equivocating, then tried a half-hearted, unearnest delivery, then railed that nobody just accepted it when he was so obviously resentful at having to do it.

Byrd, the LEADER of the KKK,

Oh my you keep mistaking this, as if you were trying to imply that Byrd was the central leader of the KKK? That he was even a state, or regional leader? That undercuts your own argument when you're so factually deficient.

the guy who filibusted the civil rights act,

Like Strom Thurmond? His was even longer. You embraced him. Give him hugs and kisses.

who remained in the KKK for a decade as a Senator,

Sure man, you believe that too? In reality, Byrd's membership lasted under a year.

repudiated them over 10 years later and he is good.

Good? A US Politician? Try again.

Yep, you are a racist. March with the racists, you are a racist.

Good to know how it works now.

You really don't. You're just making pointless political marks to try to advance a failed agenda, while expecting the rest of us to ignore the present, and you think nobody has ever seen this before?

You should look up the election of 1860. Or 1824.

DNC = Racists for refusing to repudiate Robert Byrd and Al Gore Sr. as the bigots they were.

Indeed, throughout a long period, the Democrats were suborned by the racists in the South, a position they took for political advantage, not that the Republicans did any better, like I mentioned, they jumped right to accommodating it by the election of 1876. Heck, you could find their reluctance in 1868 and before.

They were never committed to the principles of civil rights or equality.

And as soon as they saw that they could grab up the votes, well, there's a reason Reagan went to Mississippi. He saw the advantage.

Trump, of course, is merely the most boastful about it. He's got no subtly. David Duke is praising his name, and Trump pretends he can't even remember.

Re: Good to know

[Anonymous Coward]

By the way, MLK's living family are overwhelmingly Republicans and call a lot of the DNC leadership racist.

Name three. Source quotes.

One topic being the number of blacks killed in Chicago and Rham doing nothing about it.

Did you see the Civil Rights report the DOJ wrote about the Chicago PD?

Along with their support of Planned Parenthood, an organization that was started with the hope of aborting the blacks out of America according to their founder, Margret Sanger.

This is the same Margaret Sanger who formed Planned Parenthood as an organization to distribute contraceptive information, and whose first clinic was in her own neighborhood, and who died four years before Planned Parenthood performed an abortion at all?

Look, if you are trying to discredit yourself, that sort of lie is how you do it.

Re:Good to know

[Anonymous Coward]

March with the racists/bigots, you must be a racist/bigot. You are literally proving that point by defending Robert Byrd, who I believe would have owned black slaves if slavery had not been outlawed.

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make. We already established you are a racist by MightyMartian's rules, you are just re-enforcing that you are one.

As for Sanger Story. Go ahead and keep defending the worst of the worst.
Sanger Quote for Planned Parenthood

We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population.

This is the person you are literally defending. Congratulations on going there and cementing your position as a racist for everyone reading /.

Re: Good to know

[Anonymous Coward]

March with the racists/bigots, you must be a racist/bigot.

Yep, that is what happens. See the GOP's problem yet?

You are literally proving that point by defending Robert Byrd, who I believe would have owned black slaves if slavery had not been outlawed.

The quality of your delusions is well established. Yo might as well believe he would have had a pyramid built if he was an Egyptian ruler.

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make. We already established you are a racist by MightyMartian's rules, you are just re-enforcing that you are one.

The more you try this facile argument, the more you lose.

You've been pushing it to a decade, and it still doesn't work.

Seriously, what is it with the right wing, are you just so dumb that you think nobody can tell how bad your arguments are?

Why don't you try something smarter for once?

As for Sanger Story. Go ahead and keep defending the worst of the worst.

Keep on trying to convince us that supplying contraceptives is even a bad thing, let alone how you try to demonize her.

This is the person you are literally defending.

Congratulations on going there and cementing your position as a racist for everyone reading /.

Sure man, go back to 4chan, pass around some more Pepe memes.

Re:Good to know

[CronoCloud]

As for Sanger Story. Go ahead and keep defending the worst of the worst.

That's the story that was proven FALSE.
http://www.snopes.com/margaret...

In his 1992 book American Extremists: Militias, Supremacists, Klansmen, Communists & Others, author John George writes that this quote was âoeevidently concocted in the late 1980s for the purpose of trying to make the early birth control advocate seem a racist and anti-Semiteâ and that âoethis fabrication has been kept in circulation by antiabortion and anti-birth control groups.â

yeah anti-abortion and anti-birth control groups...like Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church and the newspaper it owns.....the Washington Times.

Re:Good to know

[Anonymous Coward]

This has been proving wrong time and time again, the switch is a myth and you know it.

Re:Good to know

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you just quote Snopes, a known liberal lying cover website, as "evidence". lols

You are also a complete idiot. I look forward to pointing out you as a racist over and over again for defending a woman who wanted to exterminate blacks in the US.

About religons

[Anonymous Coward]

There is NO proof of god or all the crap written about them.

We have the right to call it what it is, and a population control system, made up by the ruling elites.

jurisdiction

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm curious about the jurisdiction issue of it, will other countries extradite citizens to face the music in the UK or is the CPS only going to go after British citizens?

Re:jurisdiction

[AHuxley]

Re: "will other countries extradite citizens to face the music in the UK" Extradite would be difficult. Requesting a list of all UK users would then allow for UK users to be discovered in the UK.
A UK person living outside the UK using a VPN to comment on UK issues? Just ensure a return to the UK for any reason. The legal system will be waiting. Commonwealth nations and EU nations have agreements to support courts in the UK in many matters?

Finding a VPN that works in some nations could be an issue for UK users.
Once a site starts getting traction expect the UK courts and security services to start trying to collect all UK users ip's.
Different methods to make an average VPN covering an OS or browser show its UK ISP ip by requesting new connections a bit different to VPN supported http/https.
People without a VPN protecting their entire network could be discovered with a list of simple browser or application/OS supported networking requests.
Their UK isp ip would then be logged.
UK based CC payments to another nations VPN from within the UK would also be an issue to track if the status of using any type of VPN product in the UK was to change.
The main ability to detect an UK ip using a VPN service would be the legal agreements between the UK and the VPN nation.
The UK requests full international treaty support for a criminal facing many years in prison?
The VPN host nation could be obligated in their own nation to request the VPN to log the UK users given the nature of the request and any international/UK treaty they have to fully support.
For that full list of UK VPN account users the UK gov/mil would be very thankful to that nation.
Once that UK ISP and ip is found that user can be discovered in the UK.
The UK user lists will be extradited, discovered or logged.

What about child sex trafficking?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't pay any attention to silly things like British children being groomed, raped and pimped. But if you note the cultural similarities between the perpetrators, you've gone too far and must be punished.

Great! Now do the same for...

[gweihir]

... enemies of freedom, privacy, etc.!

Oh, wait, they would need to round up most of the GCHQ and of the Government. So that is not going to happen as Justitia has long since stopped being blind in the UK.

Good, leftists need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

Now we have the tools to deal with all of their class hatred!

Re:Good, leftists need to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

Well look whos talking! Hypocrite!

Prosecution of 'hate crime' is probably abusive

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the prosecution of 'hate crime' is probably an abusive practice, founded on a corruption of state prosecution power, as if wanting to invent a new criminal 'behavior' that is to be punished in ways, which is probably based on politics rather than justice.

I fear that 'hate crime' will be just another accusation, that is waged against someone, or a group, just to persecute people and maybe with no evidence or proof of real actions, and maybe even make it a thought crime of sorts, as if, being guilty by association.

I also can't help but wonder if 'hate crime' is a tool box for the state prosecution, for charging and punishing people enmasse, or even persecute organizations and its members, that has been singled out beforehand.

Why would the medium matter?

[Layzej]

And where did I say Nazis shouldn't be allowed to spew their hate? Providing they're not conspiring to commit acts of violence, they have that right,

Right. And the article doesn't say anything about changing the rules, It just says that they will apply the rules regardless of the medium. I would have thought that would go without saying. Death threats are death threats. "But I did it on the internet, not IRL!" can't really be a defense... can it?

You might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb.

[Max Sinister]

Not good. Even if it works, while the number of the offenders may fall, but those remaining will radicalize. Although in the first place I wonder how they're gonna enforce this.

Almost

[s.petry]

(declining middle class / severe inequality / too much social change in a short span)

These things are inexorably linked due to the ideology behind them. There are, and has been for a couple thousand years, 2 competing ideologies. One where the State is the most important part of society, and the other (which the US is founded upon) that the individual is the most important part of society. The USA succeeded because of ideology enshrining the individual. Now that we have a mass of politicians pushing for (and obtaining to a large degree) socialist/communist programs we are getting what others who taut the Statist ideology get. A 2 class system with the Peons and the Government Elites.

Compare Locke to Marx, or Hegel, or Dewy, or Crowley. The latter 4 all tell you that the individual is nothing without the State, while the former tells you that the State is nothing without the individual. (Same lesson from Plato, Cicero, and to a large extent Aquinas and Luther). The far left ideology is where we get concepts like "The living Constitution", and yes "Socialized" programs from the Government. The State, and the few elites allowed to run the State are all powerful. Everyone else is simply a servant of the State. (See Socrates' Allegory of the Cave [unadulterated version])

Europe as a whole is just getting this by the bucket full. People are supposed to be afraid to push back and take control, that's part of the movement selling you Statism as a religion. People are supposed to be brain washed, because that is how you keep control. People are supposed to be poor if they are in the "wrong think" camp, because if you have money you can push back.

It's too late to continue to claim "it can't happen here", because it's been happening. The push now, and we see it in the US, is to try and turn back from the coming cliff. Let us see if you can prove Rand wrong, or if you all fall to communism.

Re: Almost

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it is the statist authoritarians who prefer an "unliving" Constitution, as they benefit from usage of traditionalism and oppose change, though of course, they are freely hypocritical about it, and outright fraudulent.

You really are confused.

Re: Almost

[s.petry]

The State is not supposed to "change", confused AC. The State is supposed to be a body established by rule of law. This is why we have a Constitutional Amendment process which we are supposed to use to change the role of the State. Authoritarians can not exist following the rule of Law in the USA. We have this thing called a Separation of powers, which can only be omitted when people start talking about a "living constitution" which is directly opposing "rule of law".

Re: Almost

[Anonymous Coward]

The State is not supposed to "change", confused AC.

Wow, I will be sure to let the Founding Fathers know this, they were totally wrong to rise in Revolution, reject the Articles of Confederation and institute their own Constitution.

In reality, of course, the state IS required to change, it is necessary for it to change, and opposing that is the first recourse of the dictator. Life is change. Death is your path.

The State is supposed to be a body established by rule of law.

Thomas Jefferson reminds you otherwise, that the state exists under the consent of the governed, and that it is the People who established the Government, nothing else.

This is why we have a Constitutional Amendment process which we are supposed to use to change the role of the State.

James Madison reminds you that the Constitution was not instituted by law, but by an act of Individuals who sought to correct their prior mistakes, yet had no lawful authority to do so.

Authoritarians can not exist following the rule of Law in the USA.

Authoritarians love the false morality you espouse, it is so easy to corrupt, in fact, it is they who have abused it regularly and consistently. That is why you choose to embrace them, though, entirely and utterly, through hypocrisy and falsehood, through abuse and exploitation, through oppression and dishonesty.

It is funny, how you end up on the wrong side of history by citing it.

We have this thing called a Separation of powers, which can only be omitted when people start talking about a "living constitution" which is directly opposing "rule of law".

Keep telling yourself that lie, it lets you be beholden to tyranny and oppression. There is only one power, the People, and all are beholden to it. Notice how you fear to even admit it, though it is the directly stated in several of the State Constitutions. You want to suborn that, under false pretensions and hollow virtues, for your own covetousness, because most of all, you fear the People, you despise them, because you know when they are free, they are something you cannot exploit so easily.

You much prefer to put the People in chains. Bind them. Constrain them. Keep them from stopping your malignancies, because you are the one who hates the power that liberty offers.

Re:Almost

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that we have a mass of politicians pushing for (and obtaining to a large degree) socialist/communist programs we are getting what others who taut the Statist ideology get.

Where do you get this shit? The social safety net in the USA is thinner than it has been in many years. Where have all the sane Americans that want ultimate freedom for the individual but sane regulation and a reasonable safety net so that people can take chances and, statistically, more great new small businesses get created? Where did that ideology go? Sane, sustainable growth fostered in well-regulated capitalism that ensures transparency and competition so that markets can actually function as they should. The problem isn't growing socialism (as the right claims, and I don't see, quite frankly, except massive corporate welfare). The problem is that the government is becoming an end to itself, and, through the magic of CNN and party politics, this country has been cleaved in two parts that can't even talk to one another. The problem is that all the spending we do (which will benefit the creditors ultimately, such as China and the big banks) doesn't actually build a better world. We have failing infrastructure, weak economic growth (backed by some questionable policy, like minimal interest rates), more income inequality, more poverty for minorities, more people in jail, less freedom, more regulatory capture. The problem isn't the spending, necessarily (but it is a problem), and the problem isn't that we're unable to solve these problems. The problem is the country is divided, bickering over bullshit and meaningless ideologies, while those in power plunder the middle class's wealth for them and their buddies.

UK is a police state

[Anonymous Coward]

UK is a police state.
That's what she said.

If you can't handle the real problems...

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they should do something about the child rape in cities like Rotherham first. Maybe that would lead to less "hate speech".

Examples please

[rsilvergun]

And not just the occasional nut job feminist running a class on Gender Studies at your local community college. Show me a government agency using the label Nazi to directly attack an opponent. Bonus points if you can do it in the United States instead of Germany (who might just be a wee bit paranoid when it comes to Nazi's resurgence).

See, this is what gets me about the right. They're absolutely enraged that somebody with no power whatsoever (a professor, a low level bureaucrat, their postman) is a whackjob and somehow blitheringly unaware of the massive power exercised by billionaires, mega pastors and all of Wallstreet. I chalk it up to the fact that they can see their English teacher giving them a 'D' or the lady at the DMV who tells them that they need to fix their catalytic converter while the billionaire and his mega pastor friends who just screwed them out of a job, health care, clear air and water and education for their kids are far, far away...

Re:Examples please

[Opportunist]

A government agency? Please don't be silly, who cares about the government?

You don't need the government to fuck up your life. All you need today is someone writing your employer that you're (insert label here) and an employer who would rather fire you than deal with even the possibility of some loudmouth creating bad PR.

Doxing happened

[rsilvergun]

and the need to exist and maintain an online presence. It's 2017. The online and real world started overlapping in disturbing ways over a decade ago. Turn off your computer and go read some of Bruce Sterling's books. Or if you really want old fashion read up on Henry II. Pen mightier than sword and all that rot.

88

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't institute totalitarian communism and its godless religion, political correctness, until you make it illegal to tell the scientific truth.

A test

[Anonymous Coward]

This is only a test something is wonky with my account and I am trying to post anonymously.

We don't need to define Hate Crime

[Anonymous Coward]

A justice system should not care about hate crime. A fair one anyway.

There's already a part in the system for hate, and that's motive. The reason a crime is done should have no bearing on the consequence, only in determining guilt. If someone commits a crime of passion, is that not a hate crime? would they not be just as unreliable to lose their cool again, just like someone who hates someone else? What about someone who steals? They hate being poor and would probably steal again.

If we want to lock up all of the racists, then fine, let's address that sentiment. But being racist is not currently illegal, it's a thought crime. Hate crime definitions slowly deteriorate that line until we don't realize we basically just want to make hate illegal. Sorry, excuse me for thinking that laws should be rational and without bias.

Re:We don't need to define Hate Crime

[Anonymous Coward]

Hate crime comes into play to prevent people such as racists from generating an atmosphere of fear and intimidation. You're free to hold racist thoughts, but if you start shouting obscenities at people in the street based on their skin colour, or indeed on the internet, it only takes a small handful of deficients to generate that atmosphere, which has a real effect. Why a specific hate crime instead of general? Because you're targetting a group. If those same deficients target people at random, or a large majority, then the same atmosphere is not generated for them because there is insufficient focus. So we don't allow it, and it's a special case. It's that simple and certainly rational.

Now, why are some groups protected and others are not? Well, ultimately society decides. You'll notice that negative groups (criminals, paedophiles, and so on) are never protected since that behaviour is not condoned by society. However, normal harrassment laws still apply.

I think it's safe to say private orgs have a right

[rsilvergun]

not to associate with Nazi's. I suppose you could make the argument they should be a protected class (similar to Blacks, Latinos, Women and possibly Homosexuals and religions). I think you'd have a hard time making that argument. For one, Nazis have a history of advocating violence, racism, and solving racial issues with violence. For another, there's no reason to identify with Nazis besides that. There are plenty of other groups that you can identify with that lack the stigma of violence and racism.

Re:I think it's safe to say private orgs have a ri

[Opportunist]

The point here is not to associate with Nazis, the point is that someone who wants to harm you associates you with them and tells your employer that you are one, which will get you easily into hot water without you ever even considering associating with anything resembling a conservative, let alone an extremist conservative ideology.

All it takes today is to speak your mind and make it something that someone who is easily offended doesn't like to hear.

Great!

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't wait to report all those white-hating heterosexual-hating fucktards.
You better believe I will be and I will be damn fucking sure it goes all the way to the top of the legal system.
You want this game, fucking bring it, cunts.

Re: Great!

[Anonymous Coward]

With an attitude like that I'm sure you'll get your CRO in no time!