🐱 How to stop someone becoming radicalised online

How to stop someone becoming radicalised online

Fears are growing about the seemingly unstoppable descent into alt-right radicalisation many young men are falling into. A visiting expert says it doesn't have to be like that, reports Sophie Bateman. Since the Christchurch mosque attacks, a number of urgent changes have been made in New Zealand:

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Fears are growing about the seemingly unstoppable descent into alt-right radicalisation many young men are falling into. A visiting expert says it doesn’t have to be like that, reports Sophie Bateman.

Since the Christchurch mosque attacks, a number of urgent changes have been made in New Zealand: semi-automatic weapons have been banned, media guidelines for reporting terrorism have been updated – and people are finally taking the threat of online far-right radicalisation seriously.

Before March 15, most of us were blissfully unaware of the darkest corners of the internet. But now a whole host of phrases and imagery – and the violent ideology behind them – are grimly familiar to us all. The 8chan logo. The finger and thumb curled into an ‘OK’ symbol, a blur in courtroom footage. The phrase “Subscribe to PewDiePie”.

Everyone is desperate to understand the surreal and many-layered world that can poison a mind. Media outlets have run countless articles dedicated to decoding memes and explaining how anonymous message boards work, alongside profiles of prominent neo-fascists.

For four months now, the country and wider world have been trying to work out what it all means to prevent it from happening again. In an Auckland University lecture theatre on Monday evening, a crowd gathered to hear the insights of someone who’s made it their business to figure it out.

Hailing from the Arizonan borderland of immigrant detainment camps and roaming paramilitary militias, Emmi Bevensee has witnessed firsthand the alarming re-emergence of American fascism – and their doctoral research is dedicated to how it happened.

To help make sense of the chaotic dynamic we’re navigating, Bevensee says we should think of the current global resurgence of fascism as the latest wave of many throughout history.

“Fascism tends to gather power, then people realise it doesn’t make the trains run on time and it falls into disfavour,” they say. “How bad does it get during that period is what we have to figure out.”

The room Bevensee addresses is charged with the kind of electricity that only comes from fervent engagement with the topic at hand. There are nods and sighs, chuckles and groans from around the room at each mention of Pepe and Kekistan and Richard Spencer. This is an internet-literate (mostly) young audience well-versed in the minutiae of the far-right technosphere. What they need to know is how these memes can form the stepping stones to mass violence.

Bevensee theorises online extremists are trying to “shift the Overton window” – the realm of acceptable public discourse – to the right. Edgy jokes are a strategy to push the boundaries of acceptability under the guise of facetiousness.

It’s a “malicious form of cheekiness”, they say, a world apart from the “naughtiness” Arundhati Roy discussed at the Auckland Writers Festival the previous week. Whereas the Indian polemicist’s playful political activism challenges the status quo, the online right’s sense of mischief seeks to preserve it while maintaining its paradoxical self-image as a disruptive punk movement.

In his 2004 book The Anatomy of Fascism, historian Robert Paxton defines fascism as “Dictatorship against the Left amidst popular enthusiasm…” The rapid growth of progressive social movements advancing the rights of the marginalised (in turn helped along by the internet) has generated a counter-movement made up almost entirely of straight white men.

Why is this particular demographic, which has enjoyed the lion’s share of cultural and political power in the western world for centuries, so vulnerable to extremism?

“You have a lot of people for the first time experiencing a much less extreme mirror of the alienation that marginalised people feel,” Bevensee explains. “If you have someone who’s never been a minority in their life, for the first time feeling like ‘Oh my God, I’m unwelcome in this space’, or ‘I am not able to dominate this space in the way I’m used to’, that can feel like being affronted.”

So how can the left fight fascism and entice away its potential recruits? By embracing radical niceness and empathy, an inherently anti-fascist notion. The trouble is, Bevensee explains, that’s just not as appealing as the transgressive delight of being in on an edgy joke.

“Unfortunately empathy is very cheesy. It’s so true that it’s obvious, and in its obviousness it’s very uncool to say out loud because everyone knows it. It’s not a viral meme in the way edgy irony is. Bitter, detached irony has this quality of ‘I’ve seen some great mystery I can show you, that’s why I’m so dark and can play this game’. It’s almost like a cult, I have access to this hidden wisdom but I don’t even care.”

Unlike ISIS propaganda which sells recruits a utopian vision of happiness under a radical Islamic caliphate, the far-right sucks people in by feeding into their melancholy and discouraging hope. Someone locked in a hardened shell of loneliness will likely find this brand of cynicism relatable – but the far-right hardly has a monopoly on misery.

“It’s not like leftist communities are all kittens and rainbows,” Bevensee says. “We’re all struggling, we’re all experiencing existential dread. We’re all horrified at the state of the world, climate change. That’s why people get into movements, whether far right or left. So it’s not as if we don’t have access to that darkness, we’re just seeing that nihilism and saying ‘Okay that’s a part of reality, but I want to hope for something better’ or ‘I want to try to make something better’. And even if it’s hard, in that experience we’ll learn a lot and build social fabric and experience new better forms of being in interaction with each other.

“And that’s quite powerful. It’s quite beautiful. But it’s hard to condense. It’s not a meme in the same way. It’s not simple. Fascism is good in that it has hot takes, one liners you can just throw out. It appeals to a lot of human things like condescension, which is very emotionally satisfying.”

They say someone who embraces the far-right isn’t just a danger to the marginalised members of their community, but to themselves.

“Appealing to those dark drives, while it has that viral quality, it destroys the host. You just go further and further into feeding that part of you that wants to dominate other people. It’s a corrosive force. So we have to learn how to healthfully engage with it.”

It’s crucial for people to recognise when a friend or relative crosses over from healthy intellectual curiosity into embracing a violent ideology. But that’s easier said than done. It’s impossible to say for certain that a teenage boy who watches a few Jordan Peterson videos is going to make the leap to Steven Crowder to Stefan Molyneux to Stormfront, but there is a clear pathway laid out for him thanks to the YouTube algorithm.

Bevensee says it’s common to watch someone creep “further and further through the curiosity lens” into full-blown white nationalism, but only those close to that person have the ability to stop them.

“It’s quite contextual. If it’s in your immediate community, you have to pay attention to people and we can’t expect minorities to explain their experience and deradicalise everyone and do all this super hard work. We have to look after our own communities and we have to learn together and rebuild social fabrics and integrate what we preach into how we actually live, so that countering white nationalist extremism seems like the beneficial choice that it is.”

Leftist activists have known the extent of the threat of online fascism for a long time, yet those who identify with right-wing ideology tend to know little about the left beyond stereotypes. Bevensee has spoken with a number of Peterson fans who were astonished to learn that discussions about male rape emerged from feminist communities, or that leftist activists are constantly debating flaws within their own movement. This discrepancy in each side’s knowledge of the other seems to prove which one communicates its ideology to a mass audience more effectively.

“The alt right was an internet movement, born from the internet, an internet fluid movement,” Bevensee says. “So they’re quite good at the internet, utilising the sardonic irony, the detached ‘I’m just joking but not actually’ way that memes work. Whereas a lot of leftist movements are born of dusty books or practices, and you only gain them through having been embedded in social movements.”

However they reject the notion that the right is better at the internet, citing a burgeoning online leftist movement led by creators – such as YouTuber Contrapoints – who deftly engage with far-right rhetoric and disarm it with wit, charm and humour.

The internet is a limited sphere and fascism does spill from the screen to the street. The same university at which Bevensee spoke has come under scrutiny for a perceived unwillingness to act on reports of increased neo-Nazi activity on campus since March.

A student in the audience says that as a dark-skinned Sri Lankan, he’s felt victimised by white faculty members and students who don’t respond well to being challenged about racism. There’s a ripple of agreement around the room – and a bristle of annoyance at a man in the back row who calls the student’s comment racist itself, before trying to argue with Bevensee about anti-fascist violence.

Extremist rhetoric grows online, but the real world is where its impact is felt. It would seem getting wise to the far-right’s recruitment tactics is of limited use if institutions won’t take action. But Bevensee, who has experience in grassroots anti-fascist organising, isn’t surprised by the allegations of apathy.

“If you rely on authorities to protect you from fascism, you will be disappointed.”

It’s up to the students themselves to stamp it out, they say, by outnumbering far-right extremists when they do reveal themselves and try to gather and dominate public space. Fascists attract fans by signalling strength, so humiliation is an effective tactic to reduce their power – a photo of a sodden Richard Spencer elicits gleeful audience speculation that he may have just been milkshaked.

“I don’t know that we’ll ever be completely free of fascism, but if we can make it a weird fringe group no one takes seriously like Flat Earth, that might be the best we can hope for.”

 

[Ineedahero]

I would say that it is worse with people who would describe their alma mater as "the school of hard knocks" aka barely made it out of high school, but I actually experience this more with left leaning people with some college or a Bachelor's. They assume that one class on e.g. intro to American Government, intro to International Relations, or intro to Economics makes them an authority on policy and policy making.

Which lines up with the research that shows that education is negatively correlated with ability to comprehend the right for the left, to the point where a left wing person is less likely to be able to enunciate the positions of the right the further away from a high school diploma they get.

Obviously Paxton wrote a whole book about this and quoting a single line from said book - specifically the line meant to present fascism as a reaction to communism - is disingenuous on the author's part and only serves as a neat soundbite. A military dictatorship can be "against the Left" too, but as Paxton himself says later in the book, "Most military dictators have acted simply as tyrants, without daring to unleash the popular excitement of fascism. Military dictatorships are far commoner than fascisms, for they have no necessary connection to a failed democracy and have existed since there have been warriors". Though Paxton says that every country in the world, including the US, is vulnerable to fascism, he also admits that "the United States would have to suffer catastrophic set-backs and polarization for these fringe groups to find powerful allies and enter the mainstream".

Later in the book, an actual definition is given:


Discussing warning signs of developing fascist movements potentially rising to power, he says:

I'm not really seeing much of this. Opposing mass migration isn't extreme nationalist propaganda, there's no political deadlock, conservatives (in the US at least) probably aren't threatened by the left's clown show, I don't believe due process and the rule of law are being abandoned (unless you count Democrats trying to one-up Trump by any means necessary, I guess), tweets about Baltimore don't count as seeking mass support by nationalist and racialist demagoguery, and so on.

You aren't seeing much of it if you look at the right. Strip the nationalism out however, and it basically describes the current left to a tee - plenty of deadlock in times of crisis (impeachment bill, everything aoc and co do), terrified and looking for tougher allies ( 'antifa is cool' articles) and ready to do away with due process (kavanaugh, blm, covington catholics) shitloads of racialist demagoguery, and the nonstop use of fascist techniques, and mobilising passions etc

 

[Chadley Dickinson]

People who disagree with that (not me) are purposefully muddying the difference to make themselves right. Even if it was true, it wouldn't be common sense because "difference between gender and sex" is something that has to be taught.

Anything you could highlight as "common sense" which isn't simple survival instict driven by biological processes "has to be taught".

No one is born with "common sense" because "common sense" is just another term for world view, framework, paradigm etc. And when you accuse someone of not having "common sense" all you are accusing them of is being wrong within your own framework.

Another term this happens with extremely often is "rational actor".

 

[UQ 770]

You aren't seeing much of it if you look at the right. Strip the nationalism out however, and it basically describes the current left to a tee - plenty of deadlock in times of crisis (impeachment bill, everything aoc and co do), terrified and looking for tougher allies ( 'antifa is cool' articles) and ready to do away with due process (kavanaugh, blm, covington catholics) shitloads of racialist demagoguery, and the nonstop use of fascist techniques, and mobilising passions etc

The current left is with certainty bending the law to their own means and attempting to circumvent due process, but that shit happens all the time. Their vocal anti-Trump rhetoric and constant deprecation of the opposing side as Nazis and regular censorship as well as appeals to people's emotions are far too undirected and disorganized to classify as fascism. What you see the left engaging in right now is actually populism realized to its full extent. Their nasty, hysterical rhetoric and attempts to whip the masses into a frenzy are very much unlike the militarized (militarized, not merely "militant"), highly nationalistic, extremely rigid doctrines of a true fascist ideology.

This isn't meant to minimize any of the tactics they engage in or the growing problem of Antifa becoming a violent gang (much like their older predecessors), but calling it outright fascist is just stupid. Populism was what many political pundits on both sides of the political debate attributed to Trump's victory (I think there was more to it than that but pundits are braindead anyway) so now the liberal side is attempting to mimic what they thought he was doing, just with their own ideology and their own talking points instead. Its not working because they don't really understand that it wasn't just 100% populism that got Trump into office in the first place.

Its worth noting that populism can transition into fascism if a leader seizes power comprehensively enough, but the liberal-leaning side is not in a position to do that. Even if they were, they still have no strong centralized figure to rally around and bring the others to heel so they can be directed more constructively.

 

[LyapunovCriterion]

The old "right-wing" boogeyman. A drop in an ocean of muslim and cartel violence. When people start looking for violent individuals behind frog and wojak posts, you know they're searching for "hair on eggs". These people are so sheltered that it makes me sick, they've never been to a slum and seen what violence looks like and how shitty life can be. Makes me angry, really.

 

[Ineedahero]

The current left is with certainty bending the law to their own means and attempting to circumvent due process, but that shit happens all the time. Their vocal anti-Trump rhetoric and constant deprecation of the opposing side as Nazis and regular censorship as well as appeals to people's emotions are far too undirected and disorganized to classify as fascism. What you see the left engaging in right now is actually populism realized to its full extent. Their nasty, hysterical rhetoric and attempts to whip the masses into a frenzy are very much unlike the militarized (militarized, not merely "militant"), highly nationalistic, extremely rigid doctrines of a true fascist ideology.

This isn't meant to minimize any of the tactics they engage in or the growing problem of Antifa becoming a violent gang (much like their older predecessors), but calling it outright fascist is just stupid. Populism was what many political pundits on both sides of the political debate attributed to Trump's victory (I think there was more to it than that but pundits are braindead anyway) so now the liberal side is attempting to mimic what they thought he was doing, just with their own ideology and their own talking points instead. Its not working because they don't really understand that it wasn't just 100% populism that got Trump into office in the first place.

Its worth noting that populism can transition into fascism if a leader seizes power comprehensively enough, but the liberal-leaning side is not in a position to do that. Even if they were, they still have no strong centralized figure to rally around and bring the others to heel so they can be directed more constructively.

A) I was applying the definition of fascism written by the guy I was quoting.
B) It's also worth noting that in 2014 we were looking at the eternal reign of Obama and Clinton, and the republicans could never beat them because they didn't have a strong leader to keep them in line. And now we live in Trump's fascist America. Indeed the history of politics is littered with examples of strong leaders appearing out of nowhere to sweep the votes and institute a dictatorship. Which is part of why people confuse populism and fascism, as well as why the left has gone so bugfuck nuts of late.

Everybody assumes the left is too retarded, or too crazy, or too nice (not so much around here but in general) to get power, let alone go full dictator, even as we dissect every nanometre of the right to make sure they don't do it, to the point where people are afraid of incels, of all people. And the crazy part to me, is that all of these articles explaining the warning signs and things to watch out for apply almost one for one to the way the left behaves, and yet people can't even fathom the idea of the left going bad. Everything gets massaged - Stalin wasn't true communism, Venezuela is fine, this is populism not fascism (I know that wasn't your point, but that's how I usually see that phrase) - until you have people saying 'punch people whose words you don't like, they are fascists' without a hint of irony or self awareness. And nobody reins them in.

C) fascism is just a snarl word, like Orwell said. It doesn't matter what definition you use, the reality is that fascist means bad guy to pretty much everyone, and we should be happy to call the left fascists when they do this ridiculous shit - after all, nothing scares a bunch of narcissists like threatening their image.

 

[UQ 770]

Everybody assumes the left is too exceptional, or too crazy, or too nice (not so much around here but in general) to get power, let alone go full dictator, even as we dissect every nanometre of the right to make sure they don't do it, to the point where people are afraid of incels, of all people. And the crazy part to me, is that all of these articles explaining the warning signs and things to watch out for apply almost one for one to the way the left behaves, and yet people can't even fathom the idea of the left going bad. Everything gets massaged - Stalin wasn't true communism, Venezuela is fine, this is populism not fascism (I know that wasn't your point, but that's how I usually see that phrase) - until you have people saying 'punch people whose words you don't like, they are fascists' without a hint of irony or self awareness. And nobody reins them in.

You know, something I find both darkly amusing and quite exhausting about modern politics is how both sides seem to have the same interpretation of their opposition: The other side is unified, shrugs off infighting easily, is too large, gets away with things too easily, and is always one step ahead and poised to seize more power for themselves.

I think the reality is much closer to being that politics is a mess of bickering power-hungry bureaucrats and some of them have microphones. Every once in awhile someone able to make some headway floats to the top, but inevitably inertia will exhaust them and they'll drop back down again. People aren't neccesarily on the same side just because they share talking points and rhetoric. If anything, the more similar any two of these people are in their ways of thinking, the more likely they are to clash and try to out-compete each other. The system may or may not have been deliberately designed to encourage this kind of paralysis.

One more thing to note is if you're looking for potential sources of fascism in the USA, there's a pretty clear possible source of it. This country has become highly militarized over the decades, and, most dangerous of all, the military is viewed favorably or at least with indifference in the eyes of all but the most absolutely hippyish anti-war peaceniks. I'll fully admit I have a much higher opinion of the military than I do any other institution in this country, including political parties, and I have zero personal connection to it outside of very distant relatives. That exact combination of public trust and vast resources is generally the way militaries seize power and establish dictatorships.

I don't think that's going to happen over here any time soon though. The level of influence and public trust the military commands also means they stand to lose a great deal if they overstep their authority. But if politicians can't calm the fuck down and cooperate better, people may eventually be sick enough of their shit that they'll cheer when that boot comes down. Particularly if shit hits the fan with the economy.

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

You know, something I find both darkly amusing and quite exhausting about modern politics is how both sides seem to have the same interpretation of their opposition: The other side is unified, shrugs off infighting easily, is too large, gets away with things too easily, and is always one step ahead and poised to seize more power for themselves.

I think the reality is much closer to being that politics is a mess of bickering power-hungry bureaucrats and some of them have microphones. Every once in awhile someone able to make some headway floats to the top, but inevitably inertia will exhaust them and they'll drop back down again. People aren't neccesarily on the same side just because they share talking points and rhetoric. If anything, the more similar any two of these people are in their ways of thinking, the more likely they are to clash and try to out-compete each other. The system may or may not have been deliberately designed to encourage this kind of paralysis.

One more thing to note is if you're looking for potential sources of fascism in the USA, there's a pretty clear possible source of it. This country has become highly militarized over the decades, and, most dangerous of all, the military is viewed favorably or at least with indifference in the eyes of all but the most absolutely hippyish anti-war peaceniks. I'll fully admit I have a much higher opinion of the military than I do any other institution in this country, including political parties, and I have zero personal connection to it outside of very distant relatives. That exact combination of public trust and vast resources is generally the way militaries seize power and establish dictatorships.

I don't think that's going to happen over here any time soon though. The level of influence and public trust the military commands also means they stand to lose a great deal if they overstep their authority. But if politicians can't calm the fuck down and cooperate better, people may eventually be sick enough of their shit that they'll cheer when that boot comes down. Particularly if shit hits the fan with the economy.

I mean, we know for a fact the democrats got away with exposing classified emails on a homebrew server, illegally wiretapping an opposing candidate...

The media very obviously carries water for the democrats. Hey when did you first hear about kids in cages at the border?

I mean, yeah, it's not absolute, and there is personal infighting and backstabbing. But I definitely think one party "gets away with" more than the other.

If we start seeing the military get at all interested in politics we should be nervous about what you're talking about, but they've been very very good at not doing that. But yeah, we do have the 2nd amendment for a reason, and it's not that militaries are always dependable.

 

[UQ 770]

The media very obviously carries water for the democrats. Hey when did you first hear about kids in cages at the border?

There have been eras where the media was largely biased towards traditionally conservative viewpoints. There is a tremendous left-leaning liberal bias in the media these days but that's mostly due to where the money is currently sitting. Silicon Valley also leans pretty heavily towards liberals since, unsurprisingly, nerds that preferred to experiment with pointless technology tended to be viewed unfavorably in an era where one was expected to learn a more practical trade. Now that every human being alive is addicted to their phone and living on a computer has become the norm, I suspect we'll see a shift away from that. Its potentially already happening.

If we start seeing the military get at all interested in politics we should be nervous about what you're talking about, but they've been very very good at not doing that. But yeah, we do have the 2nd amendment for a reason, and it's not that militaries are always dependable.

Any question of gun control aside, I rather doubt the utility of the 2nd Amendment in an era where the military can just level someone's house with a drone strike and the NSA can hack your phone and listen in on every conversation if they need to. Planning an effective resistance in those conditions is pretty much impossible let alone executing it. Besides, my point was that popular support for the military is quite high right now. If the military did take over during a crisis, a lot of average people would be inclined to trust them. Even those who would choose to resist or interfere would probably think twice about potentially blowing up their son/uncle/nephew/grandkid since it seems like just about every family in this country has at least one relative who is either a veteran or in active service.

 

[los pepes]

There have been eras where the media was largely biased towards traditionally conservative viewpoints. There is a tremendous left-leaning liberal bias in the media these days but that's mostly due to where the money is currently sitting. Silicon Valley also leans pretty heavily towards liberals since, unsurprisingly, nerds that preferred to experiment with pointless technology tended to be viewed unfavorably in an era where one was expected to learn a more practical trade. Now that every human being alive is addicted to their phone and living on a computer has become the norm, I suspect we'll see a shift away from that. Its potentially already happening.



Any question of gun control aside, I rather doubt the utility of the 2nd Amendment in an era where the military can just level someone's house with a drone strike and the NSA can hack your phone and listen in on every conversation if they need to. Planning an effective resistance in those conditions is pretty much impossible let alone executing it. Besides, my point was that popular support for the military is quite high right now. If the military did take over during a crisis, a lot of average people would be inclined to trust them. Even those who would choose to resist or interfere would probably think twice about potentially blowing up their son/uncle/nephew/grandkid since it seems like just about every family in this country has at least one relative who is either a veteran or in active service.

The Taliban and the sand niggers in Iraq seemed to do alright against drone strikes and NSA snooping. Whichever side was in power that the military ended up removing would drop any loyalty or "thank you for service" worship and start propagandizing them as stormtroopers which would work pretty well to galvanize their side against them. At that point it becomes just another insurgency. Some win, some lose. Don't think anyone can truly predict who would win but aside from the 2nd amendment you'd have Russia, China, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, North Korea, and anyone else on the outside of the globalism tent funneling massive amounts of light weapons and explosives to supplement the abundance of rifles already in the country. Hell they may even send advisers. They don't care which side ended up in rebellion, they just want the federal government to lose so partition permanently prevents the US from spending its time dicking around in their back yard and enforcing world order.

 

[UQ 770]

The Taliban and the sand niggers in Iraq seemed to do alright against drone strikes and NSA snooping. Whichever side was in power that the military ended up removing would drop any loyalty or "thank you for service" worship and start propagandizing them as stormtroopers which would work pretty well to galvanize their side against them. At that point it becomes just another insurgency. Some win, some lose. Don't think anyone can truly predict who would win but aside from the 2nd amendment you'd have Russia, China, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, North Korea, and anyone else on the outside of the globalism tent funneling massive amounts of light weapons and explosives to supplement the abundance of rifles already in the country. Hell they may even send advisers. They don't care which side ended up in rebellion, they just want the federal government to lose so partition permanently prevents the US from spending its time dicking around in their back yard and enforcing world order.

Afghanistan and Iraq's insurgencies were helped along considerably by the fact that local forces didn't intimately know or understand the culture. In some cases soldiers were forced to rely on dubious translators to relay information between the locals and the occupying force. Compounding this is the total lack of infrastructure in some locations, either because we demolished it or because it was never there to begin with. In Afghanistan's case their society is and remains highly traditional and highly stubborn. On top of the fact that the invaders were a clear and obviously different enemy with a different language, culture, uniforms, equipment, etc.

If resistance were to develop against this hypothetical military takeover, it would be very slow and gradual, probably internal, and very bureaucratically focused. Of course, in any realistic scenario, if the military did take over they wouldn't rule directly for very long. As tends to happens in their cases, the military eventually relingquishes authority, but not power, to an autocratic civilian government, but the damage is done and the spectre of military interference in civil affairs essentially never fades away. This dynamic is generally why people piss themselves when the idea of using the military to solve some kind of civil conflict is even suggested.

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

Any question of gun control aside, I rather doubt the utility of the 2nd Amendment in an era where the military can just level someone's house with a drone strike and the NSA can hack your phone and listen in on every conversation if they need to. Planning an effective resistance in those conditions is pretty much impossible let alone executing it. Besides, my point was that popular support for the military is quite high right now. If the military did take over during a crisis, a lot of average people would be inclined to trust them. Even those who would choose to resist or interfere would probably think twice about potentially blowing up their son/uncle/nephew/grandkid since it seems like just about every family in this country has at least one relative who is either a veteran or in active service.

Well there's a difference between the military going insane and genocidal vs a coup. Yeah, if the military were willing to just kill everyone, the 2nd amendment doesn't do jack shit. If the military wanted some people to rule over after the coup though, they can't do that.

Also consider the military is made up of volunteer americans. Are they really going to be willing to just start killing fellow americans after their top brass illegally takes over?

That's why I'd imagine it more as an occupation, which is extremely vulnerable to partisan action. You just have constant attrition, the locals getting sick of the violence (and often turning on the military), the military getting sick of being there...

 

[Fcret]

They get this when it is about Muslims and black men, but when you say exactly the same thing about white men suddenly they play dumb.

They know exactly what they're doing. The magic minority coalition that'll give democrats unchallenged rule for a century is a pretty common belief in leftist circles, and it's so fervently held that it almost borders on the messianic.

 

[UQ 770]

high tech and heavy weapons are good at fighting foreign enemies, but lousy at cracking down on your own civilian population. you can't enforce a curfew with drone strikes, you can't guard government buildings with battle tanks, you can't take control of urban or suburban areas with aircraft carriers, you can't carry out arrests with jet planes.
to enforce military control on a population, you need infantry, and infantry is and will always remain vulnerable to small arms fire. any random person with a rifle has - in principle - the same firepower that infantry soldiers themselves use, and poses a potentially lethal threat to them.

the massive arsenal of high tech heavy weaponry the military has is almost entirely useless in such a scenario. only if the leadership goes completely off the rails and starts engaging in massacres and genocide do these things begin to make an impact, but i don't think the american army would ever carry out a genocide against the american people.

Hence my point above that realistically they'd leave the actual rule of law to a puppet or at least extremely friendly civilian government after awhile. Its also worth noting that in the last two wars the military has been honing its techniques for fighting insurgencies on the ground in far more hostile conditions than we would ever see present in America. The Taliban in particular was a tough insurgency to combat because they were perfectly willing to just hide in caves or leftover underground tunnels from the Soviet-Afghan war. Overwhelmingly the average American these days is certainly not accustomed to just picking up their essentials and moving out into the woods for months or years at a time. There are some militia compounds out west, but they aren't very secretive and the FBI already knows those groups inside and out.

A homegrown resistance movement would face a lot of attrition. Also, Iraq and Afghanistan's populations turn to insurgency partly because they have little to occupy themselves in a country devastated by total war. It can be debated whether or not the military would turn its guns on American civilians, but what we can presume with certainty is that they would work to maintain American infrastructure and maintain control of that infrastructure rather than just blowing it up. A military regime probably wouldn't have to massacre civilians as long as they kept the lights on, the water running and people could still buy food and browse the internet. Some nut with a rifle occasionally popping off a guard on watch or one of the Unabomber's bastard children turning his pickup truck into an IED would happen from time to time, but it wouldn't take much to pacify the rest of the population.

 

[Drunk and Pour]

Anything you could highlight as "common sense" which isn't simple survival instict driven by biological processes "has to be taught".

No one is born with "common sense" because "common sense" is just another term for world view, framework, paradigm etc. And when you accuse someone of not having "common sense" all you are accusing them of is being wrong within your own framework.

Another term this happens with extremely often is "rational actor".

See, I have to disagree with you here. Now we're talking about instincts, learned behavior, and actively teaching. If a kid touches a hot stove, it learns that heat causes pain. It's not a born instinct, and it isn't taught to them, yet it is something universal that we all know not to do. It's a common sense. Maybe people are taught who Mamma and Dadda are, but as social creatures we grow up with other people and start to learn that girls like to play house and boys like to throw Tonka Trucks at each other. And then when we hit puberty, our biological instincts kick in and most people want to rub their genitals against the genitals of the opposite sex. It's something that humans have been doing since they became genetically modern humans.

I don't know how we got into this. I was actually arguing about why Peterson has so many fans when his critics say he's just saying things that are common sense.

And I have to disagree, some people are irrational, and everybody knows this because everybody tries to stay away from that person.

 

[UQ 770]

oh yeah, im not trying to argue that military administration is impossible or anything like that
i just disagree with the "your rifles are useless because the government has nukes, might as well give up your guns" line of argument

Personally the technologies I think would make resistance virtually hopeless are more in the surveilance sector. There are all sorts of hacks and gadgets that would expose a resistance's every move right away. But even if all of that failed and a resistance managed to gain and hold any significant chunk of territory then the tanks and drones would come out. They'd come at them with everything they have and tear them to pieces, with whatever fitting cover story they could use to characterize the movement as genocidal. Or maybe they'd claim they were smuggling drugs, which would be an easy story to convince people of since most resistances we know of actually do turn to smuggling drugs to finance their operations. Have all the guns you like, but by no means should the 2nd Amendment ever be seriously considered as an effective tool for defending democracy.

 

[UQ 770]

yeah i don't think that would happen. you'll have a hard time convincing an american army general to order his artillery to bombard a major city, killing tens of thousnads of americans in the process, in order to smoke out rebels in the city.

Unless the cops turn against the military regime in this situation, I pretty much consider the idea of militia taking even a moderately sized American city unthinkable.

 

[Drunk and Pour]

A) I was applying the definition of fascism written by the guy I was quoting.
B) It's also worth noting that in 2014 we were looking at the eternal reign of Obama and Clinton, and the republicans could never beat them because they didn't have a strong leader to keep them in line. And now we live in Trump's fascist America. Indeed the history of politics is littered with examples of strong leaders appearing out of nowhere to sweep the votes and institute a dictatorship. Which is part of why people confuse populism and fascism, as well as why the left has gone so bugfuck nuts of late.

Everybody assumes the left is too exceptional, or too crazy, or too nice (not so much around here but in general) to get power, let alone go full dictator, even as we dissect every nanometre of the right to make sure they don't do it, to the point where people are afraid of incels, of all people. And the crazy part to me, is that all of these articles explaining the warning signs and things to watch out for apply almost one for one to the way the left behaves, and yet people can't even fathom the idea of the left going bad. Everything gets massaged - Stalin wasn't true communism, Venezuela is fine, this is populism not fascism (I know that wasn't your point, but that's how I usually see that phrase) - until you have people saying 'punch people whose words you don't like, they are fascists' without a hint of irony or self awareness. And nobody reins them in.

C) fascism is just a snarl word, like Orwell said. It doesn't matter what definition you use, the reality is that fascist means bad guy to pretty much everyone, and we should be happy to call the left fascists when they do this ridiculous shit - after all, nothing scares a bunch of narcissists like threatening their image.

What would people consider left wing authoritarianism? Is the difference between right wing fascism and left wing authoritarianism that right wingers do it for love of country, and left wing doesn't care about the country, just power?

Any question of gun control aside, I rather doubt the utility of the 2nd Amendment in an era where the military can just level someone's house with a drone strike and the NSA can hack your phone and listen in on every conversation if they need to. Planning an effective resistance in those conditions is pretty much impossible let alone executing it. Besides, my point was that popular support for the military is quite high right now. If the military did take over during a crisis, a lot of average people would be inclined to trust them. Even those who would choose to resist or interfere would probably think twice about potentially blowing up their son/uncle/nephew/grandkid since it seems like just about every family in this country has at least one relative who is either a veteran or in active service.

I think the flip side of that would be true as well. How many soldiers would think twice knowing a relative might be part of the "resistance"?

Personally the technologies I think would make resistance virtually hopeless are more in the surveilance sector. There are all sorts of hacks and gadgets that would expose a resistance's every move right away. But even if all of that failed and a resistance managed to gain and hold any significant chunk of territory then the tanks and drones would come out. They'd come at them with everything they have and tear them to pieces, with whatever fitting cover story they could use to characterize the movement as genocidal. Or maybe they'd claim they were smuggling drugs, which would be an easy story to convince people of since most resistances we know of actually do turn to smuggling drugs to finance their operations. Have all the guns you like, but by no means should the 2nd Amendment ever be seriously considered as an effective tool for defending democracy.

Not taking the 2nd Amendment seriously just further helps people who want it appealed. Sure, citizens armed to protect themselves might not stand a chance against the more well armed military, but it sure would make it more of a pain in the ass. Taking over a helpless population is much easier than a population that can defend itself.

As for technology and surveillance, why is the mafia and MS13 still around. There are ways around technology, and that's why many people like to have as little a digital footprint as possible. This is what I don't like about the Left and their technocratic tendencies. I don't want to give my phone number to set up a Facebook account. I'd rather just not have a Facebook account.

yeah i don't think that would happen. you'll have a hard time convincing an american army general to order his artillery to bombard a major city, killing tens of thousnads of americans in the process, in order to smoke out rebels in the city.

like, america didn't even go to those lengths when the cities in question (fallujah for example) were on the other side of the globe and populated by sandniggers that american soldiers don't care about. i very much doubt that they would go to those extremes against their own countrymen. realistically, i'd expect such an order to result in widespread mutiny and desertion throughout the armed forces, across enlisted ranks as well as officers, and a lot of defections to the rebel cause.

This is why a sense of citizenry is important. This is why there is a necessary process to becoming a citizen. This is why we can't have millions of illegal immigrants come into the country, automatically grant them citizenship and also talk about how this is really their land that white people stole from them. More and more, it sounds like "Diversity is our strength" really means "Division furthers our grip on power".

 

[UQ 770]

I think the flip side of that would be true as well. How many soldiers would think twice knowing a relative might be part of the "resistance"?

Considering they're trained and militia aren't, i'm going to go with "definitely more of them than there are militia members".

As for technology and surveillance, why is the mafia and MS13 still around.

Because they're profitable and have a complex web of connections spanning multiple countries. Also, while they are extremely violent and prone to causing chaos (especially MS13), toppling entire governments is rarely in their interests. They're just in the game to make some cash and score some blow. Knocking down a government is bad for business and generally they only resort to that sort of thing when conditions are very favorable or when they feel that absolutely have no other choice. On top of that, we all know the CIA is in on the dope industry and skimming off the top of it. If they let the FBI eliminate all the gangs, where would the bureaucrats buy their cocaine and heroin from?