Antifa Calls for Revolution

And statistically, you're still safer with the NRA (5 million members).

 

I didn't read this - just thought I'd throw some wood on the fire

Antifa reveals its true self: thuggish and totalitarian | New York Post

 

Seeing how easy it is for a group of, usually, white guys to buy some army surplus and call themselves "militia", are you seriously suggesting there's one correct way to "characterise" them? Can you really deny some of them have rather nutty views? What they all do have in common is having weapons. Also, potential ties with law enforcement and veterans (because, as you noted, conservatives serve in much greater numbers than liberals - which is, admittedly, a strategic mistake on part of liberals). Things that most leftists, even, by your own analysis, shady "Antifa" types, lack. Maybe they should try to form a militia group - and see what would happen.

 

Berkeley Mayor Calls for Antifa to be Classified as Crime Gang After Clashes at Weekend Protest

When you've lost Jesse Arreguin...

 

Are you seriously trying to suggest every self-described conservative gun nut is NRA member?

Better question would be how many mass shooters used a legally obtained weapon. Quite a lot, actually.

NRA is not a radical group. It is not liked on the Left because of what they are - a gun manufacturers' lobby trying to boost sales, with little regard for people's safety. What I'm talking about is right-wing extremism, which is, while small, is probably bigger than left-wing counterpart - and appear to be better trained and armed. If "Antifa" (not an actual group, but a label for groups imitating earlier European ones - just like "militia" is not a single group) is a threat, these guys are as well. Do I believe either will threaten the Republic in serious way? No, I do not.

BTW, I do not have sympathy for the alt left at all: ideological garbage these guys consume make them potentially at least as good "useful idiots" for the Kremlin as the alt-Reich. Even supposedly mainstream ones like Jill Stein is a patsy, and we know Putinbots on social media specifically targeted Bernie fans. Even though Russia is a socially conservative, intolerant, nigh-Fascist thugocracy, it still uses "anti-Imperialist" tropes in propaganda, and the sheep on the Left respond - just as the sheep on the Right respond to the anti-globalist anti-PC propaganda tropes they also use. So, pox on both their houses. In fact, since opposing Russia was historically a cornerstone of hard-right discourse in Ukraine, a modern skinhead over there is much more likely to serve honourably in the country's armed forces right now than hard Left types. A fact some try to exploit to smear Ukraine (see negative coverage of the Aidar battalion).

 

Wait, you need to classify them as a crime gang?
The guys who attacked a peaceful gathering of Trump nuts all committed felony assault; ideally, enough of them should be arrested and prosecuted to deter these kinds of things. Also, if the Resistance is planning further mass protests of their own, they should think about forming or hiring their own security personnel, both to protect the protest from any right-wing thugs and to protect the public from any ostensibly "left" hanger-ons who could try to start stuff. They should cooperate with the police on both, btw. That was what the Ukrainian revolutionaries did, except cooperating with the police part (because police was busy protecting titushki thugs and intimidating the protesters).

 

They are explicitly anti-USA, not anti-Trump.

 

You can't arrest people for that. You can, however, arrest the ones committing violence. Also, anti-Trump groups should take steps to distance from these kind of groups. I'd recommend forming and training a disciplined Self-Defence and deploying them on any protest; that and working with the police.

 

He's under lots of pressure given what's been happening in Berkeley while the police are seemingly under orders not to intervene. I doubt if it indicates that Jesse is seeing the light, he's just trying to cover his ass.

But he does say some things that I agree with. The Newsweek story quotes him as saying: "I think we should classify them as a gang. They come dressed in uniforms. They have weapons, almost like a militia, and I think we need to think about that in terms of our law enforcement approach."

Of course I don't think that Arreguin really means it. In this latest instance last weekend, the Police Chief seems to have ordered his men to let the 'antifa' into a park where Conservatives were gathered, the Chief saying that a piece of grass wasn't worth a confrontation. Apparently the Constitutional rights of the Conservatives were no more important than a patch of grass. And despite the fact that a violent confrontation was precisely why the 'antifa' were there. The Chief just didn't want his cops to fight them but he apparently had no problem with them fighting the Conservatives.

The magazine article goes on to say:

"Under California law, a gang is define as an organization of at least three persons, with a common name, or identifying mark or symbol, which engages in criminal activity. Criminals who commit offenses for gangs can face tougher sentences in the state."

California Code, Penal Code - PEN § 186.22 | FindLaw

What I would like to see is a federal Justice Department civil rights lawsuit against both the Berkeley city government and the Berkeley Police Department brass, and maybe the University of California too.

 

Gun nut??

What exactly is a "gun nut"?

And quite a lot are obtained illegally; Columbine and Newton, just off the top of my head.

You're displaying your considerable ignorance about the NRA. A large portion of their budget goes towards gun safety and firearms training, including for law enforcement officers. It's the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization, without question.

 

Not a contradiction, btw. Does offering these courses help or hinder gun sales?
"Civil rights"? Good branding.

 

I suppose that there's a variety of guy who thinks of a gun as an extension of their penis. Something that gives them power and makes them bad-ass. But it seems to me that it's typically the criminals who think that way, especially some of the younger ones, the ones in the 15 to 25 age bracket (who are responsible for a disproportionate share of homicides). But these are almost all illegal firearms.

I expect that what's bouncing around Stanislav's head is some foreigner's caricature of the 'American redneck'. The people who, as Obama famously said, clutch desperately to their religion and their guns as the world moves inexorably to the left around them. What Hillary called the "deplorables".

As somebody who has traveled extensively through the vast America between the coasts and lived for some time in those regions, I rarely encountered anyone like that. You might find them drinking in certain bars, but there are obviously large areas of New York City, Washington DC and LA that can be pretty rough too. There are lowlifes everywhere.

What struck me about flyover-country was how friendly people so often were. Very unlike California, where people often don't even speak to their next-door neighbors.

Comes with the territory. Keep in mind that you are talking to a Ukrainian. His only information about the NRA comes from what he reads in the left-opinion media wherever he is (somewhere in Canada apparently). Again, it's an unfriendly caricature.

Right. I think that I'm going to join the NRA for both of those reasons. As a gun-owner, the benefits are tangible and I strongly support their civil-rights mission. (I've never met a police officer that didn't approve of the NRA, and that tells me something.)

 

Kindly provide me a list of all civil rights NRA supports, with evidence. Thank you.
As to tangible benefits, no contest there. It appears that if you're a gun owner, these make joining a logical choice. Doesn't mean that NRA is not a gun-peddling trade group though. It's not wrong to belong to a trade group if you have an interest in an industry, but their advocacy and lobbying efforts are by definition biased.

I do not know whether my acquaintance the gun enthusiast is a member (his only membership I'm sure about is the local, rather nice, Anglican church), but am willing to bet he is. NOT a "deplorable", though sadly likely have voted Trump as most Republicans did - I won't be asking.

 

You know I have to comment on this, right? Here's the relevant Hillary quote:

Now, she walked back "half" quantitative assessment. That was uncalled for, although sometimes I wonder whether that was uncomfortably close to truth (depends on how you define eg. "racist" and "supporter", or what the meaning of "is" is - that's my best Bill impersonation BTW).
The rest of the quote is accurate, and important. I can be blunt since I don't run for anything, so I'll just say this: if people identify with a group explicitly defined as "racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamofobic" - that's their problem, and who am I to argue? I mean, again drawing from Ukrainian experience: I appreciate the calls to "empathise" with people in the Eastern industrial region who felt they're stereotyped by the use of expression "Donetsk thugs" - but it becomes moot once they join a treasonous terrorist group and help Russian invaders kill their compatriots. I'll reserve my limited empathy for the real victims.

I believe you might be right here. Throw in the liberal stronghold of Toronto with California.

 

That is the milieu and not the mechanical device. I didn't see much gun fascination in the Army, not even among the experienced hunters. Firing your weapon meant cleaning it and few wanted that.

 

My dad was in the Army, and he has never owned any guns. I guess he got tired of tearing em down and reasambling them. I own a gun, but i hate cleaning the thing after i go to the firing range. I am not an NRA member though.

 

Neither, and how would that benefit the NRA, anyway?

It's the inconvenient truth you don't want to acknowledge. The NRA is the largest, most powerful, and most well-funded organization that's devoted to protecting the right to keep and bear arms, as acknowledged in the United States Constitution. And, they've done a fantastic job of it. The leftists have mostly given up on the idea of gun confiscation, although once in awhile a few of them forget to take their meds and make noise about it.

Now they've moved on to an easier target; the right of free speech. Antifa and the other leftist socialists openly attack anyone who disagrees with them, and they know that the ACLU are a bunch of dishrags when it comes to opposing any organization that isn't conservative, and will try to play both sides of the fence.

Leftists coming after the Second Amendment and the First Amendment.

Starting to see a pattern here?

 

They haven't lost Jesse. He's still blaming conservatives who dare to show their faces in Berkeley for triggering the black-clad violence against them and arguing in effect that conservatives need to be excluded from Berkeley so as to protect public order.

Berkeley Mayor Wants 'Free Speech Week' Canceled; Trump Supporters 'Wanted to Get Beat Up' by Antifa - Breitbart.

After melees, Berkeley mayor asks Cal to cancel right-wing Free Speech Week - San Francisco Chronicle

Kind of like blaming blacks for Ku Klux Klan violence several generations ago. After all, if blacks weren't present, then racist violence targeting them wouldn't have been necessary.

It's just axiomatically assumed, an unstated given, that antifa will be permitted by the authorities to do their thing as the left's enforcers, the muscle of the "resistance". Ordering police to arrest and/or forceably disperse the black-clad thugs, today's functional equivalent of Hitler's Sturmabteilung (SA) is clearly not even being contemplated.

There really needs to be a Justice Department civil rights lawsuit against the City of Berkeley, the Berkeley Police Department's leadership, and against the University of California, alleging violations of conservatives' rights of free speech and free assembly. The law (and UC campus regulations) seem to be enforced in a hugely biased manner as well, with favored political groups receiving zealous protection while unfavored political groups receive little or none. That's by design and it's probably a violation of the equal protection clause.

 

Oh for pete's sake... I hope you're wrong here. The effective #Resistance must have "muscle" component, but it must be way, way more disciplined than that. Among other things, it must self-police the movement to make sure idiots do not discredit the cause. In Ukrainian revolution of 2013, first task of Maidan Self-Defense was to prevent drunkenness, looting, and provocation in protester's own ranks... only after that, occupying buildings and warding off pro-government thugs... and only then, confront the police... and only because the police attacked first (sparking the whole thing). If anyone on the Left sees Antifa's actions as advancing the cause, they are sorely wrong. Won't be the first time, of course.