Christianity Today Op Ed

[oxmixmudd]

I'm not ignoring it, but the fact is, our own government has called Antifa a terrorist organization ...

I think this is a dishonest stretch of the truth MM. My searches for something to back this up so far are coming up empty. Mostly I'm seeing things like this:

"Some of its violent actions - and the musings of the president - notwithstanding, antifa is not a terrorist group. "

So are you turning some back handed comment by a politician into the equivalent of being on an official list by say the FBI as a bona fide terrorist group?

[Sparko]

I think this is a dishonest stretch of the truth MM. My searches for something to back this up so far are coming up empty. Mostly I'm seeing things like this:

"Some of its violent actions - and the musings of the president - notwithstanding, antifa is not a terrorist group. "

So are you turning some back handed comment by a politician into the equivalent of being on an official list by say the FBI as a bona fide terrorist group?

FBI, Homeland Security warn of more ‘antifa’ attacks

Confidential documents call the anarchists that seek to counter white supremacists ‘domestic terrorists.’

Federal authorities have been warning state and local officials since early 2016 that leftist extremists known as “antifa” had become increasingly confrontational and dangerous, so much so that the Department of Homeland Security formally classified their activities as “domestic terrorist violence,” according to interviews and confidential law enforcement documents obtained by POLITICO.

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/...nce-fbi-242235

[oxmixmudd]

FBI, Homeland Security warn of more ‘antifa’ attacks

Confidential documents call the anarchists that seek to counter white supremacists ‘domestic terrorists.’

Federal authorities have been warning state and local officials since early 2016 that leftist extremists known as “antifa” had become increasingly confrontational and dangerous, so much so that the Department of Homeland Security formally classified their activities as “domestic terrorist violence,” according to interviews and confidential law enforcement documents obtained by POLITICO.

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/...nce-fbi-242235

Thank you Sparko. That is helpful.

[Sam]

Thanks for proving my point.

I didn't but go off, I guess.

My thought looking at the picture in question was "traitors aren't heroes". Your thought was "Oh, he thinks they're defending chattel slavery."

If you want to think of it that way, you'd be on pretty decent ground and I wouldn't fault you for it. But, as I kept mentioning before you chimed in, the FB page was clearly an homage to the Lost Cause.

--Sam

[Mountain Man]

I think this is a dishonest stretch of the truth MM. My searches for something to back this up so far are coming up empty.

You can't have searched very hard. Typing "antifa terrorist" into DuckDuckGo returned this article as the first result:

US security officials have classified the left-wing group Antifa as "domestic terrorists", confidential documents have revealed.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has reportedly been warning about the growing threat of violence between left-wing anarchists and right-wing nationalists since 2016, amid claims Antifa's activity has become more confrontational, according to documents seen by Politico.

A confidential intelligence report by the DHS and the FBI accused the "anarchist extremists" of attacks on police, government and political institutions, along with any other symbols of the "capitalist system" or displays of racism, social injustice or fascism.

It described some of their activities as "domestic terrorist violence".

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-a7927881.html

So I was neither being dishonest, nor stretching the truth.

[One Bad Pig]

I didn't but go off, I guess.

My thought looking at the picture in question was "traitors aren't heroes". Your thought was "Oh, he thinks they're defending chattel slavery."

If you want to think of it that way, you'd be on pretty decent ground and I wouldn't fault you for it. But, as I kept mentioning before you chimed in, the FB page was clearly an homage to the Lost Cause.

--Sam

That wasn't my thought. I appreciate you continuing to prove my point, however.

[Sam]

That wasn't my thought. I appreciate you continuing to prove my point, however.

No other way to read your post: you presented two ways to "read" the picture, the worse of the two being a defense of chattel slavery, and asserted that I was imputing the worse interpretation onto others.

That's what you wrote, clear as day.

Which could be interpreted to mean that the flaggers really support black chattel slavery

...or could simply mean that the flaggers support states' rights. You appear determined to paint the opposition in the worst light possible, and decry the other side as being unreasonable?

--Sam

[Jaecp]

Don't ignore the dozens of other incidents of Antifa violence while trying to nitpick one.

Defending people is something I have never seen Antifa do (other than themselves when people push back). They just attack. Maybe your antifa are different than what we see in the news, but I doubt it.

I'm not going to be led around by the nose while you guys spam articles from all over the planet about anyone wearing a black bandana. I'm going to respond to things one at a time and if you share old stuff that's long debunked I'm not going to charitably just go to the next one when you're not acting charitably back

[Jaecp]

Oh, they deserved it. That makes it all better!

Did I say I was trying to be nice? False dichotomy ftw!

I can see that objectivity is not exactly your forté, which indeed makes discussion difficult. It rather boggles the mind that you're defending antifa as non-violent; your acknowledged association with them makes the charge of violence not wholly unreasonable.

FWIW, I've pushed back at both lpot and MM at times for taking things too far. They know my stance; I'm not going to keep repeating it just to make you happy.

Man, the idea that you think im defending Antifa as nonviolent when my first example of them is one of them tackling s guy about to pepperspray me baffles me. My comments about then being non violent were specifically about that clip he posted of someone blocking someone's footpath

And, no, you shouldn't do it for me. You should do it for you and you should have been doing it 5 years ago. You know full well that people like MM and LPOT make using this website a pain in the • Edited by a Moderator • when they pile on insults, misrepresenting arguments and the like. You guys remember how she was literally banned from my threads because she got so freaking obsessed with me? As Jim said, his worst day doesn't come close to her standard operating system.

It's a problem and it's been a problem for a long time. They don't take it seriously, your stance, and why would they?

[One Bad Pig]

No other way to read your post: you presented two ways to "read" the picture, the worse of the two being a defense of chattel slavery, and asserted that I was imputing the worse interpretation onto others.

That's what you wrote, clear as day.

--Sam

I did present two ways to "read" the picture, representing the span of ways to read it. Those are obviously not the only ways to interpret the picture. Your subsequent replies have merely affirmed my initial impression, that you were interpreting it rather on the worse end of the spectrum. I have no idea what the heck you're trying to say by "imputing the worse interpretation onto others."

[Jaecp]

Thank you Sparko. That is helpful.

That's an article from April of 2017. Law enforcement wasn't taking the threat of groups like the proud boys seriously at that time and I encourage you to focus on more recent information because there's a lot of weird fear about black clad folks that ultimately hasn't come to fruition. Like, that article talks about Molotov cocktails. Portland antifaschists threw milkshakes

[lilpixieofterror]

Man, the idea that you think im defending Antifa as nonviolent when my first example of them is one of them tackling s guy about to pepperspray me baffles me. My comments about then being non violent were specifically about that clip he posted of someone blocking someone's footpath

And, no, you shouldn't do it for me. You should do it for you and you should have been doing it 5 years ago. You know full well that people like MM and LPOT make using this website a pain in the ass when they pile on insults, misrepresenting arguments and the like. You guys remember how she was literally banned from my threads because she got so freaking obsessed with me? As Jim said, his worst day doesn't come close to her standard operating system.

It's a problem and it's been a problem for a long time. They don't take it seriously, your stance, and why would they?

“They deserved it.”
- Jaecp

[Sam]

I did present two ways to "read" the picture, representing the span of ways to read it. Those are obviously not the only ways to interpret the picture. Your subsequent replies have merely affirmed my initial impression, that you were interpreting it rather on the worse end of the spectrum. I have no idea what the heck you're trying to say by "imputing the worse interpretation onto others."

You presented two and said I was trying to paint others in the "worst possible light". That, I think everyone can agree, would be the defense of chattel slavery.

But my post never implied that. Nor does the picture allow for the "the Confederacy was bad but it was about states rights" best interpretation. It paints the "grey uniforms" as heroes. And, as I noted in subsequent posts, the VF Facebook page is replete with Lost Cause memes, iconography, and the like.

You, in other words, are the fella trying to paint others into dark corners they don't inhabit.

--Sam

[Sparko]

I'm not going to be led around by the nose while you guys spam articles from all over the planet about anyone wearing a black bandana. I'm going to respond to things one at a time and if you share old stuff that's long debunked I'm not going to charitably just go to the next one when you're not acting charitably back

Because you know that the Antifa are a bunch of violent punks who are more fascist than the people they claim they are fighting against.

Much better to ignore anything that proves you wrong, right?

[oxmixmudd]

You can't have searched very hard. Typing "antifa terrorist" into DuckDuckGo returned this article as the first result:

US security officials have classified the left-wing group Antifa as "domestic terrorists", confidential documents have revealed.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has reportedly been warning about the growing threat of violence between left-wing anarchists and right-wing nationalists since 2016, amid claims Antifa's activity has become more confrontational, according to documents seen by Politico.

A confidential intelligence report by the DHS and the FBI accused the "anarchist extremists" of attacks on police, government and political institutions, along with any other symbols of the "capitalist system" or displays of racism, social injustice or fascism.

It described some of their activities as "domestic terrorist violence".

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-a7927881.html

So I was neither being dishonest, nor stretching the truth.

True, you were not. I was using Google which seemed to pull up a lot of what I mentioned, but I did get lazy and just punted by asking you to give some justification rather than continue to look around. Maybe something for the Google bias thread?