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Comment by ycmbntrthrwaway | Hacker News Reader

That is what happened in Russia. First they got nazis, fighting people with armature, knifes and acid in the streets (car in USA). Then antifa (autonomous action etc.) stand up and start opposing nazis. Then nazis kill people (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anastasia_Baburova, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Khutorskoy). Then government suppresses both nazis (many of them got life sentences, especially those from BORN) and antifa, with the support of people (those like you). Then you have no activists in your country, Putin/Trump reigns forever.

Nazis are intolerant and should be opposed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

Update: the website used to track nazis is still alive: https://nazi-watch.noblogs.org/ See archives section: it starts in 2008 and ends in 2013. Now antifa in USA are doing the same thing, exposing nazis to their employers and doxing them. USA is repeating Russian history.

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Trump doesn't reign, he barely has control of the executive branch of government over which he has direct authority. He is opposed by his own party, congress, and big business. There is no collusion of power behind Trump like there is behind Putin. They are both seen as strong men but only one is really a strong man.

Second, classifying ANTIFA as a terrorist organization is nothing like Russia cracking down on Nazis. In the US you have free speech even if the government believes you are a terrorist organization. Now if the left wing get's their way and starts imposing hate speech laws, then ANTIFA needs to watch out because then they will be silenced by the government.

Finally, there is a deep respect for protesting in the US but not for people who do it hiding behind masks. Ghandi didn't wear a mask, Malcom X didn't wear a mask, the kids at Kent State that were shot by the police didn't wear masks. A mask indicates you are there to do harm. Sometimes harm is warranted, but we respect protesters who actually practice Civil Disobedience, part of which is owning up to what you did.

My only point here is that I believe Antifa would get more support from the American people if they could convince the 10-20% of members that show up dressed in black and wearing masks to just dress down and lose the goon squad apparel.

> Trump doesn't reign, he barely has control of the executive branch of government over which he has direct authority. He is opposed by his own party, congress, and big business. There is no collusion of power behind Trump like there is behind Putin. They are both seen as strong men but only one is really a strong man.

Yes, because in Russia it is history, you can study it and learn how nazi and antifa theme was used to attack free speech. That is what Trump is doing now by all means (fake news etc.). The result in Russia was anti-extremist law [1], see SOVA reports, they monitor it: http://www.sova-center.ru/en/misuse/ This year it was even used to take to court a child [2] because someone (likely a policeman in fact, account was fake and action was taken this same day) posted emoticon with swastika on his page (the guy has a pro-libertarian YouTube blog).

> A mask indicates you are there to do harm.

It indicates they fear being identified by nazis and/or government.

[1] https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/anti-extremism-poli...

[2] https://tjournal.ru/57191-kurganskogo-shkolnika-obvinili-v-e...

> He is opposed by his own party,

He is opposed by a significant fraction of the other elected officials in his party in some issues, but he's also carrying out a campaign to bring he party to heel (and has not been especially constrained in taking extraordinary executive actions by the intraparty opposition, though that has limited his legislative success.) While his public support is weak overall, it's mostly concentrated in the committed electoral base of the party. So he's actually positioned better than one might expect for the intraparty struggle. If he remains in office through the midterms, I wouldn't be surprised to see him in relatively undisputed control of the party after them.

> Ghandi didn't wear a mask, Malcom X didn't wear a mask, the kids at Kent State that were shot by the police didn't wear masks

Another thing that all those people have in common is being shot for their activism.

And they are deeply respected...

Just saying Antifa would get a lot more support if they changed their look. People in black masks busting up Starbucks are not who anyone wants in charge. They just do Trump a favor.

> People in black masks busting up Starbucks are not who anyone wants in charge.

They don't want to be in charge, most of them are anarchists (but only a minority of anarchists are antifa and not all antifa are anarchists).

The majority in the rioting mobs don't have a clue what they really stand for. They might be able to articulate, haltingly, what they are against - which is whatever the loudest mouth in the mob has told them they're fighting - but if you ask them what they really stand for the answer is generally some incoherent rabble of buzzwords.

They are like Lenin's 'useful idiots' [1], although the question is what use they serve to whom.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot

The left wing has been instigating violence since the start of the last election cycle, at every Republican rally it could, and has escalated said violence dramatically since their "side" lost.

The "nazis" who came out in VA recently are a tiny group with little support. One moron carried out vehicular homicide and is being dealt with appropriately by the law. If he hadn't carried out those actions though I'm sure your narrative would be the same.

I hope both groups are suppressed in equal measures, and I hope those carrying the hammer and sickle are dealt with as equally as their comrades carrying swastikas.

Apparently some people think that we won't be able to engage in politics without political violence between competing groups at protests. And further, in this vacuum of rational thought, being against any particular group committing violence it makes you in 'support' their opposing tribe and/or in support of the reigning powers.

Because clearly the solution to tyranny is fringe extreme groups committing violence, supressing speech, and property destruction, the vast majority of the time against other citizens not even the state... (do I have to say /s?).

A solution ripe with all the drawbacks and dangers of vigilante justice (misidentification, no due process, excessive violence, unrelated crime being masked by the mob, etc).

I've always known politics was a mind killer but I never thought it could reach new levels of absurdity.

> Apparently some people think that we won't be able to engage in politics without political violence between competing groups at protests.

Straw man argument. Nobody said this above.

Suppressing groups (nazi and antfia) for violence of its members is the problem.

> One moron carried out vehicular homicide and is being dealt with appropriately by the law. If he hadn't carried out those actions though I'm sure your narrative would be the same.

The government needs some reason to claim some movement "terrorist" and suppress it, otherwise violation of freedom of speech will not be tolerated by ordinary people. "If he hadn't carried out those actions" government would have to wait until either "left" or "right" side does something similar.

> I hope both groups are suppressed in equal measures, and I hope those carrying the hammer and sickle are dealt with as equally as their comrades carrying swastikas.

The point is to make people tolerate suppression of groups based on their ideas. Then you only have to chop both sides equally by silencing the most active activists as "extremist" until there are no "radicals" and all political parties look the same.

By this token if the only activists we're supposed to have are antifa and nazis the situation is already borked up beyond any repair.

We do have more activists, it's just that the US has a tendency towards political dualism, so reporting and dialogue tends to frame the narrative in terms of two opposing forces, "Nazis vs. Antifa", "Left vs Right", "Blue vs. Red" etc.

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