🎓 Doc Freemo 🇳🇱 @freemo@qoto.org

@garbados I dont recall anyone killing in the name of republicans either. If Antifa actually directed their violence at groups that were violent you might have a leg to stand on. But I was comparing who is worse the violence of antifa, or of their victims (usually random trump supporters).

@garbados The reason you feel you are wasting breath is because I've already spent a lot of time figuring out where I stand on this before we ever spoke. I didnt go to a Trump rally or his inaugeration because I support him, I despise trump, I voted against him. I went to see for myself how the two most extremist ends of the political spectrum behaved. To witness how events unfold as an objective observer and draw my own first hand opinions on the people involved.

I did my field work, I know how people that fly the Antifa flag behave, and more often than not it is disgusting. I also know how the people on the extreme right behave, and they are just as bad.

So you will have to make a pretty good argument backed by something substantial if you want to change my mind considering the time ive already invested looking into this and being there.

@garbados I never said that treating wounds or protecting civilians is "mob justice". Those are not, however, representative of what Antifa does. While I am certainly glad that a few people from Antifa have done some good in one or two isolated incidents, that was never in question. The issue is that the bad they do far FAR out weighs any good they may occasionally do.

@garbados I never claimed the courts were perfect. Not sure why you keep using straw man arguments to make your point. They don't have to be perfect to be better than mob justice.

@garbados No you misunderstand. The issue is that most people are not very good at being rational when it comes to identifying fascism. There is a reason we have courts with all the due process and and impartial selection of jurors when we hand out a senstance. Vigilante justice has never worked and it likely never will. While the intentions may be noble it usually results in just a lot of violence against all the wrong people.

From what I've witness ed of Antifa that is exactly the case here. I havent actually seen you present any objective evidence to the contrary of this either, so I'm left relying on my own experiences with Antifa, and there are plenty of those experiences to draw on.

@garbados I have never seen them step in when a fascist was engaging in violence. I'm sure someone somewhere probably did at one point who called themselves Antifa.

But of all the incidents I saw I never once saw them stop violence and on several occasions saw them start violence.

@garbados It was neither a single expiernce nor a single protest. It was many expiernces, 4 of which resulted in violence, and many encounters two of the encounters happened to be well known events.

@garbados No one is arguing that Racist people arent horrible people. Too bad I never actually saw an Antifa member jumping in when real violence was going on. I have only ever seen them start violence against people who were unarmed and not even remotely fascist. In every case i saw Antifa commiting violence against people simply for being republican or showing republican support. Only violence I witnessed at any of their protests were always from them. So I can see them as a group standing up and stopping anything, just starting it.

@garbados The wikipedia introduction to Antifa actually explains the problem (and the intention of violence) rather wall. Notice the words violence and "militant" as the defining quality of Antifa (which differentiates it from anti-fascism in general):

The Antifa (English: /ænˈtiːfə/ or /ˈæntiˌfɑː/)[1] movement is a conglomeration of autonomous, self-styled anti-fascist militant[2][3][4][5][6] groups in the United States.[7][8][9] The principal feature of antifa groups is their use of direct action,[10] harassing those whom they identify as fascists, racists or right wing extremists.[11] Conflicts are both online and in real life.[11]

They engage in violent protest tactics, which has included property damage and physical violence.[7][12][13][14] They tend to be anti-capitalist[15] and they are predominantly far-left and militant left,[16][10] which includes anarchists, communists and socialists.[17][18][19][20] Their stated focus is on fighting far-right and white supremacist ideologies directly, rather than politically.[10]

@garbados Inaugeration, when trump visited philadelphia (where I lived at the time)

@garbados All I know is I saw 4 incidence of violence from the Antifa folks. As for the folks they claimed to be nazi's most of the time they werent nazi's, just some Trump supporters. I never saw any of their victims be violent at the events I attended despite seeing ample violence from the Antifa side.

I should point out I came there to observe both sides and I didnt go to support either side.

@garbados @js290 I assume you mean racist fascists when you say Nazi? I'd say the best way to stand up against them is to protest. Take an anti-racist standpoint but dont associate with the Antifa (capital A) specifically.

@garbados @js290 Well once I saw knives I left, who knows if i would have survived if I stuck around much past that.

I'm glad you had better expiernce with your antifascists. My guess is they werent antifa though, just normal protestors, rather than Antifa (capital A).