No Platform For Fascists - Discuss (1 Viewer)

[Carlow Punks!]

Why not? Are anarchists opposed to self defence now?

having a fist fight tends to get in the way of handing out flyers, if you don't believe me, try it out...

 

[headmuzik]

Good discussion here. I just wanted to give one WSM'er perspective on it...
I take a fairly "liberal" interpretation of this position paper, I regard our position papers as guidelines to our current thinking on a particular topic and not something to be rigidly adhered to in a dogmatic fashion. My personal feeling is that a "no platform" policy is potentially a very dangerous thing to have as it contains within it the potential to excuse physical force and violence as "OK" as long as the person being targeted can be branded with the label "fascist".

Many of you may remember the Justin Barrett "debate" that was called in UCD where the AFA crew prevented him from speaking at all. I personally felt this was a difficult issue to call since he was invited there specifically to engage in a "debate" with speakers being present from both sides. As such I did not see it as an attempt to "organise" and so did not believe that it fell within our "no platform" policy. Certainly, not everyone saw it this way. However, the challenge offered to me was... exactly when or how do you decide what constitutes fascist "organising" and "recruitment". Well I would say that if he, or any potential fascist group he was involved in was to try handing out flyers for themselves, or calling a meeting himself or anything that was clearly in the "organisational" bracket... this would fall within the "no platform" remit and I would see it as legitimate to oppose that.

I want to make a couple of points on the "violence" issue that has arisen from the very first post on this thread. The initial poster had said that " You can smash conflicting ideas with different ideas, not just violence." Well that makes up 99.9999% of what we do, (if not more) - promoting the ideas of anarchism - we have not abandoned it and just because we decide to physically prevent fascists from organising does not mean that we will ever abandon reasoned debate and a conversational clash of ideas.

"Attacking fascists on sight" is not in our position paper anywhere - we are referring specifically to fascists who are taking action themselves to recruit people to fascism. We do say that "Attempts by such organisers to exercise this 'right' will be opposed by us - physically if necessary." but one shouldnt read into this what is not actually there - physically opposing someone organising does automatically translate to bashing their head in with a baseball bat - fascists organisers distributing leaflets can be physically deprived of those leaflets and heckled until they go on their way, organisers who try to call a meeting can be shouted down or drowned out with noise from people banging on tables/pots/pans or whatever else... taking physical action to stop organising doesn't translate automatically to breaking some legs.

Maybe this goes without saying but I would take it as read that all possible physical actions as described above would be tried before anarchists would consider the necessity of physical violence to the fascist organisers themselves. Even with regard to the physical violence to the person I would think this would in most cases constitute the likes of bustling someone offstage so they could not continue speaking. I don't think that beatings or senseless violence is something the WSM is advocating, the objective should be always to ensure that fascists are prevented from organising, not that they are placed in an intensive care ward for life.

"The strange guy" has said 'Under what criteria must a person be 'smashed' and when should they be 'ignored'? - no-one is talking about "smashing" people - what the position paper says is that we will attempt to smash fascist GROUPS who are attempting to ORGANISE - meaning we will attempt to destroy the ability of that group to call meetings/distribute flyers propaganda etc. Perhaps the choice of language is unfortunate.

In general I believe the right to free speech should always be respected, but in cases where a fascist group is being preventing from organising this will necessarily infringe on the group members right to free speech. Obviously this can only be justified if one can be certain that the group IS fascist and ready and willing to use fascist means to gain a foothold ie physical attacks etc. Of course, mislabelling an organisation as "fascist" would run the risk of us infringing on a groups right to freedom of speech without justification. This is a definite area of concern and one that has to be taken seriously.

Again on David Irving, of course we are not suggesting that members go out and beat him up. He has enough problems even being admitted to countries at the moment and opposition to him is very strong even from liberal outfits like Amnesty and the like.

Denver Max and brianoak : "humanity is inherently fucked and always will be no matter what society becomes." - well, you've always got hopeless nihilism to fall back on, but its no argument against anarchism or anything else - it doesnt even work for helping get out of bed in the morning

 

[headmuzik]

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[Willie Willions]

SMASH PEOPLE

 

[WSM-bot]

If rulership is unnecessary and should be abolished, who or what gives you the right to curb these 'extremely important' rights? If the answer is 'we gave ourselves that right' then please explain how this is different from a government deciding who can express political opinions.

It is different because a government imposes its opinion through ordering people to carry it out. Anarchists, on the other hand, can only succeed in imposing their will if they persuade enough people that it is a desirable course of action.

The right to organise is implicitly inferred by the right to free speech. One cannot speak as a group if one cannot organise. All comments and ideas should be challenged and opposed, not just racist and fascist ones. However, one cannot classify or grade comments or ideas by 'correctness' or 'suitability' unless one sees themselves as a censor.

No rights are absolute. My right to swing my fists wherever the hell I like ends where your nose begins. Similarly nobody really believes that the right to organise or the right to free speech is absolute. Anybody who shouts fire in a packed cinema takes away my children's right not to be trampled to death. Anybody who organises a ring of paedophile murderers in my area seriously threatens my children's right not to be abused and murdered.

When rights clash social groups need to decide how to resolve the conflicts and there is a fairly universal hierarchy of human rights which allows us to generally resolve such conflicts. When the right to life conflicts with the right to free speech we always choose the right to life.

However, the complex nature of causation means that we never really can say that a certain action will have a particular outcome. This is particularly so when we come to questions of freedom of speech. Somebody who shouts out "I have a bomb" on a plane might have assumed that the public will take it as a joke and there is a debate to be had as to whether it is okay to shoot him or risk a panic-induced crash. However, it is also the case with fist-swinging. If I close my eyes and walk into a crowd with my arms flailing, I could argue that I never intentionally hit anybody and that it was simply their misfortune to be in the place where I was exercising my right to swing my fists. It's never entirely clear.

The WSM position on fascists springs from the idea that history shows that fascists are 100% likely to kill anarchsit activists as soon as they get the chance. Therefore we will defend our right to life by doing whatever we can to prevent them from getting into a position where they can kill us. As soon as we become convinced that somebody is a bona-fide fascist we will do whatever we can to hinder their ability to organise. However, it should be noted that we are extremely cautious in applying such a label and we always attempt to use the minimum effective force. It was only after Justin Barrett was pictured in the media attending openly neo-nazi rallies that we decided to oppose his right to hold meetings. Similarly, we support the actions of AFA/AY in breaking up the CW meeting as they were self-proclaimed neo-nazis. On the other hand, we have never supported the breaking up of Aine Ni-Chonaill's meetings since we have no evidence that she is a fascist and not just a right wing racist. We never even countenanced action against the racists outside st. pats since, despite the rumours, we had no evidence that any of those involved were active fascists.

You can smash conflicting ideas with different ideas, not just violence. You have said this youself in paragraph 6. Why does this not hold true in this paragraph? Seeing violence as a viable outlet can only lead to more violence. Once you have 'declared war' on your enemies, you will not always be the target for their violence be it out of frustration or sheer bloody mindedness. If you get to the point of attacking fascists on sight, they will take out their frustrations elsewhere. Unless you wish to start a police-style patrol group, you will not be able to protect their targets 24 hours a day.

We spend a lot of time and energy putting forward anti-racist and anti-fascist ideas. We have produced articles, pamphlets, posters, stickers and distributed them as much as we can. We have argued in debates, organised public meetings, handed out leaflets, held stalls in town. Much more than you have, so you are in a poor position to criticise us on that one. However, we are not pacifists and we also think that people should have a right to defend themselves when they face bullies. Fascism is bullying transformed into a political movement. We also spend time putting forward the idea that people should stand up to bullies and since we do not want to be hypocrites, we try to put the principle into action ourselves.

Would you consider a group that discriminates against other human beings on the basis of nationality and religion fascist? What if they were ultra-nationalists? What if they would use direct action against their targets, resulting in death, destruction and country-wide despair?

No. No and No.

I challenge you to use your physical policy on the IRA, UVF and all other military wings from Northern Ireland. Have none of you learned that using violence as a way of protecting minority groups can escalate into situations like Northern Ireland?

None of the groups in Northern Ireland are fascists (thank christ). If they were we would do what we could to oppose them although since they are much bigger and stronger than us we would probably end up dead. As it is, since they are not fascist, we have no reason to do anything other than argue against their ideas - which we do frequently.

We aren't protecting minority groups we're protecting ourselves.

Again, as a group that is defined by your refusal to acknowledge authority, how can you define yourselves as a moral authority? Who or what has given you the right to decide that those who disobey your rules must be punished - physically if necessary?

We don't define ourselves as a moral authority. We simply put forward arguments, they only gain authoity if a lot of people agree with them and put them into practice. That's simply persuasion and it is how humanity develops ideas.

Your definitions of what is permissible and what is not is vague. It's heartening to know you aren't out to censor everyone you disagree with, only some. You have already stated that small fascist groups must be smashed, but here you say that some members are 'best ignored'. Under what criteria must a person be 'smashed' and when should they be 'ignored'? When an attack takes place, it is a person who takes the brunt, not a group. Do you discriminate who must be attacked when you are 'smashing' a group, or should all members be beaten on sight by virtue of their attendence?

We are generally extremely slow to call somebody a fascist and only do so when we have irrefutable evidence. We further only consider action if we think that there is a serious chance that they might be able to organise something around themselves. In the last decade, the only people that we have supported action against are David Irving, Justin Barrett and the Celtic Wolves. Nutters like REO or Ni Chonaill are best ignored. The decision about what type of approach to take is purely a strategic one - what will be the most effective - although we generally err on the side of minimsing the amount of force.

David Irving, as despicable as he is, should still be given the right to speak. This is because, as you said, free speech is an extremely important right. You do not have the authority to censor. Perhaps I am not as well read on Irving as you are, but for which fascist group did he recruit for? I am well aware that he is a racist, a revisionist and a Holocaust denier. Because of this, he has been declared a persona-non-grata in at least four countries. He has also been publicly humiliated, his arguments torn apart effortlessly in the court case which bankrupted him. All of this, I believe, is a more fitting punishment than beating him up.

Irving has given "keynote" speeches at various "Aryan" organisations in the United States and in Europe. He has openly decleared that he sees his meetings as opportunities to bring together like minded people and that he sees himself as more of an activist than a historian (which was pretty fundamentally proven in court).

I am utterly confused by this paragraph. I agree that racism, the belief that human beings should be segregated by their physical attributes, and fascism, a totalitarian and nationalistic school of thought, are different. Why then do you see debate as a viable tactic with racists and also permitting them a platform, but not with fascists?

Because we are 100% sure that fascists will kill us as soon as they get the chance. Therefore, while debating with them is still useful, stopping them from getting into a position to kill us is more pressing.

What is, exactly, maximum democracy? Does this maximum democracy extend only to yourselves as a group? I have no doubt that were maximum democracy used in its literal sense (ie a national referendum) the people would not choose force and violence as a way of dealing with this problem.

"Maximum democracy", I think, conveys the concept that rights should only be limited when we can be fairly certain that they will conflict with the fundamental rights of others.

Or, to put it another way, society should limit the freedom of the individual only in those cases where her rights remove rights from others.

 

[taubstumm]

remember on that other thread, where i said that it'd be in the interests of the anarcho types to explain themselves rationally and persuasively? this is the shit i was talking about. might not agree with all of it, but fair dues, wsm-bot. thanks.

 

[pete]

remember on that other thread, where i said that it'd be in the interests of the anarcho types to explain themselves rationally and persuasively? this is the shit i was talking about. might not agree with all of it, but fair dues, wsm-bot. thanks.

THEY DON'T OWE YOU AN...

oh. never mind.

 

[the strange guy]

There's alot of people to respond to, so I'll split my replies into two posts in order to make it more manageable to read and digest. If I haven't replied to a particular point it's because, as Lala said, I'm on holiday! I'd like to put alot more energy into this thread but I want to enjoy myself in other ways too. Just quote to me the point that I missed and I'll get back to it when I'm online again in a few days.

Also I'd like to add that this debate was proposed to me by Weeler in an earlier thread. The least I would have expected was a lengthy reply from him on the first page, but he has been deathly silent as of late, only popping up to keep the thread on-topic and not adding to the debate. I'm not that surprised, really. Jump in at any time, W!

I'm delighted that WSM members have responded. This is a much healthier debate than the AFA/Anarchist Youth thread.

No amount of argument will convince me that it is wrong to punch nazis around the head. If it feels good do it.

Punching people around the head because they have opposing ideas isn't wrong because it feels good? We all know people who have been attacked or badly injured by people because of their political beliefs and/or the way they look. These acts aren't just commited by fascists, but by townies and police, jocks and other randomers. They don't all fall under a fascist category, but does that give us the right to attack them based on past experience?

I don't believe in rights as such. Rights are granted by external authorities - governments, councils, politacal groups etc

I disagree. I believe that freedom of speech and freedom of organisation and 'rights' in general are natural, not granted. The only thing that can be 'granted' (or should I say enforced) is restriction. There does not exist an entity which permits me the right to speak my mind, only to take that right away. Deciding who can and who cannot speak freely is unnatural. Therefore if freedom of speech is not a natural and effortless act it becomes an act which is monitored and enforced; this makes it un-anarchistic.

i would have thought the difference (between an anarchist group and a government deciding who can express political opinions) was that the actions were at a grass roots level.

It does not matter what name you decide to label censorship, be it from the Taoiseach to an anarchist group, the top level to the bottom level. The fact that you decide to name this instance 'grass roots' as opposed to, say, 'political policy' is immaterial. It is still a group making decisions for what others can hear or read. I agree that a group of people who believe they are in authority can make a joint decision to prevent others expressing opinions; I do not understand how anarchists can do this unless they see themselves as some kind of authority, whether they see it that way or not. Making decisions for how other people should act while simultaneously believing that nobody can make decisions for how they themselves should act cannot be possible.

personally i would class "maximum democracy" under direct democracy, which looks like what the wsm are reffering to in the situation that the group at hand reach consensus between themselves when acting upon anther group.

In my mind, full democracy involves 'the people', as in the entire population, not a relatively small group of like-minded individuals, but everyone. 'Maximum democracy' would mean the opinions of all members of the public, not one person excluded, being taken into account. 'Direct democracy' would mean the will of the entire population being acted out. I would absolutely not consider maximum democracy to mean 'deciding what should be done with opposing organisations after they have been met with force' as described in the WSM's manifesto. I think there is not only a quantitative but also a qualitative difference between democracy and a group decision. I would classify WSM's consensus as a group decision.

In my opinion I respect anarchists for working towards what they beleive in.

I'd like to clarify that, although I do not consider myself a typical anarchist, I am not anti-anarchist. I am genuinely curious about 'No Platform' policies and how they work cohesively within an anarchist framework.

 

[the strange guy]

The idea that anarchists should be absolute anti-authoritarians regardless of circumstances would be similar to Tolstoyan pacifism.

Should the Workers Solidarity Movement declare themselves to be semi-authoritarian, my questions will be answered and the subject closed. However, authoritarianism is a binary property, you either believe there should be some form of authority or you do not; there is no middle ground.

Should anarchists let kids play with knives because to take them away woulda be an act of authority?

Let's not get bogged down with semantics again. Neither being a good friend nor being a responsible parent means one is an authority, nor does it infer that one necessarily believes in authority.

We don't live in an abstract world, fascism doesn't exist in policy documents and internet forums, its exists with minorites getting their windows smashed or being attacked in hostels and B&Bs.

Fascism exists in the minds of human beings. If you do not believe that you can counter their beliefs and challenge their stance using only your mind then you are likening them to neanderthals, which is prejudiced in itself. Relying on physical might is what people do when they worry their mind isn't good enough.

AFA state that 95% of their work is hard politcal campaigning and that the violence end is episodal.

As pointed out in an earlier post, I have found zero material on AFA's website or magazine which would effectively counter a racist's beliefs. What you call 'political campaigning' I would call 'searching for supporters and money to maintain the website and magazine'. However, I admit that I could be wrong. If you can point me in the direction of AFA's anti-facist material aimed at countering facist beliefs with strong arguments, please do so.

edit:I forgot to reply to headmuzik initially (there's alot to get through here! Sorry). I may come back to their post another day, but for the most part I don't feel there's alot to argue with given the amount I've said here today.

fascists organisers distributing leaflets can be physically deprived of those leaflets and heckled until they go on their way, organisers who try to call a meeting can be shouted down or drowned out with noise from people banging on tables/pots/pans or whatever else...

I understand how these methods of opposition are physical without being violent, but I would still categorise these acts as censorship.

Anarchists, on the other hand, can only succeed in imposing their will if they persuade enough people that it is a desirable course of action.

You haven't answered the question. If censorship can only be imposed by an authority, how can anarchists, a clear minority, censor?

No rights are absolute... Similarly nobody really believes that the right to organise or the right to free speech is absolute.

I disagree; rights are absolute. All human beings enjoy the same rights, one of which is the freedom to speak their minds. If you do not agree to this then you are in a position where you are categorising humans by virtue of what they can and cannot say. If you are a true anarchist then it is impossible for you to bestow rights upon people, given that these are birthrights and not gifts awarded by you.

The WSM position on fascists springs from the idea that history shows that fascists are 100% likely to kill anarchsit activists as soon as they get the chance. Therefore we will defend our right to life by doing whatever we can to prevent them from getting into a position where they can kill us.

I think this is a very important point. Please explain how this pre-emptive policy against fascists is qualitatively different from the American government's policy against 'enemy combatants'.

As it is, since they (IRA, UVF) are not fascist, we have no reason to do anything other than argue against their ideas - which we do frequently.

I have trouble understanding how you find an armed, violent, ultra-nationalist group bent with plans of segregating this country's population by religion less of a threat than David Irving.

We don't define ourselves as a moral authority. We simply put forward arguments, they only gain authoity if a lot of people agree with them and put them into practice.

When you say a lot of people, how many do you mean? 10? 200? 1,000? More? How can you decide on which arguments become policy when there is little or no major opposition to them within your small group?

Arguments are not an authority, only its enforcers. Do you see yourselves as enforcers of ideas?

society should limit the freedom of the individual only in those cases where her rights remove rights from others.

This is the case right now in most countries in the west. The freedom of a threatening individual is limited by their incarceration after being found guilty in court. The difference between your ideology and the present one is that yours is more physical, more barbaric and without the consent of the general public. As mentioned before, if full democracy (of the population, not your small group) was in place with regards to the treatment of those who threaten the rights of others, I am confident that using violence would not be the vote winner.

 

[W.]

Should the Workers Solidarity Movement declare themselves to be semi-authoritarian, my questions will be answered and the subject closed. However, authoritarianism is a binary property, you either believe there should be some form of authority or you do not; there is no middle ground.

Of course there's a middle ground, authority is not a binary property at all. Anarchists believe all forms of authority must be questioned and must justify themselves but that's not to say that we are blindly opposed to all forms of authority. The example of using coercion to protect a child is an example of a justifiable authority. There is also authority which is part of a funtional hierarchy, an anarchist surgeon would still hold a certain amount of authority in the operating theatre for example.

Neither being a good friend nor being a responsible parent means one is an authority, nor does it infer that one necessarily believes in authority.

see above.

Fascism exists in the minds of human beings. If you do not believe that you can counter their beliefs and challenge their stance using only your mind then you are likening them to neanderthals, which is prejudiced in itself. Relying on physical might is what people do when they worry their mind isn't good enough.

Of course you can challenge their beliefs but when you have a group of fascists organised to attack people you don't always have the option of debating them. There are numerous examples from this year alone of european anarchists being murdered by neo-nazis in russia, germany and poland. Debate and countering their arguments are important but physical force is at times necessary.

As pointed out in an earlier post, I have found zero material on AFA's website or magazine which would effectively counter a racist's beliefs. What you call 'political campaigning' I would call 'searching for supporters and money to maintain the website and magazine'. However, I admit that I could be wrong. If you can point me in the direction of AFA's anti-facist material aimed at countering facist beliefs with strong arguments, please do so.

Although I was the one who linked you to their site/mag etc. I concede that they do not seem to have any clearly worded policy documents or similar. This is a problem that afa really need to face as they do need to back up their actions with ideas.

I disagree; rights are absolute. All human beings enjoy the same rights, one of which is the freedom to speak their minds. If you do not agree to this then you are in a position where you are categorising humans by virtue of what they can and cannot say. If you are a true anarchist then it is impossible for you to bestow rights upon people, given that these are birthrights and not gifts awarded by you.

Debating the nature of rights could have us here for another 20 pages. For me, your rights end at the point where they begin to infringe upon the rights of others, for fascists who wish to organise to remove all of our rights this simply means you won't be allowed to do that. The means by which you are denied this right depends on the situation.

I do apologise for not jumping in sooner oly, I wrote a big reply and then got the login screen and lost it all, smacks of bullshit i'm sure but it really did happen.

 

[WSM-bot]

Should the Workers Solidarity Movement declare themselves to be semi-authoritarian, my questions will be answered and the subject closed. However, authoritarianism is a binary property, you either believe there should be some form of authority or you do not; there is no middle ground.

That's just silly. By turning it into a binary property you actually turn it into a unary property (since nobody could possibly believe that nobody should have the authority to take a gun away from a psychopath). Any unary property is meaningless and useless.

Let's not get bogged down with semantics again. Neither being a good friend nor being a responsible parent means one is an authority, nor does it infer that one necessarily believes in authority.

Of course it does, unless you are using a unique meaning of the concept "authority".

Fascism exists in the minds of human beings. If you do not believe that you can counter their beliefs and challenge their stance using only your mind then you are likening them to neanderthals, which is prejudiced in itself. Relying on physical might is what people do when they worry their mind isn't good enough.

That's just silly. Relying on physical might is simply necessary sometimes, such as when somebody is coming at you with a big stick - you can't always convince people they are wrong and to limit oneself to intellectual arguments in all cases would create a situation where bullies always win.

disagree; rights are absolute. All human beings enjoy the same rights, one of which is the freedom to speak their minds. If you do not agree to this then you are in a position where you are categorising humans by virtue of what they can and cannot say. If you are a true anarchist then it is impossible for you to bestow rights upon people, given that these are birthrights and not gifts awarded by you.

By remaining in the realm of the purely abstract you can make such statements without coming across as instantly absurd. As soon as you apply them to concrete situations their absurdity is clear. If you believe that the right to free speech is absolute, you believe that everybody has the right to shout "FIRE" in a crowded room, you believe that I have the right to stand up at a funeral and start abusing the deceased.

I think this is a very important point. Please explain how this pre-emptive policy against fascists is qualitatively different from the American government's policy against 'enemy combatants'.

The US government has an enormously powerful mechanism for demonstrating guilt. The problem with its treatment of "enemy combatants" is that they choose not to use it because they don't actually have the required evidence to prosecute and hence they obviously do not have sufficently high levels of certainty to justify the restriction of rights - by their own standards.

I have trouble understanding how you find an armed, violent, ultra-nationalist group bent with plans of segregating this country's population by religion less of a threat than David Irving.

They are not likely to kill us now or in the forseeable future.

When you say a lot of people, how many do you mean? 10? 200? 1,000? More? How can you decide on which arguments become policy when there is little or no major opposition to them within your small group?

You missed the point. We argue that fascist organising should not be tolerated. If we fail to convince enough people that this is an appropriate restriction on their rights, we would soon find ourselves incapable of imposing the restriction.

Arguments are not an authority, only its enforcers. Do you see yourselves as enforcers of ideas?

No. We do, however, defend ourselves.

This is the case right now in most countries in the west. The freedom of a threatening individual is limited by their incarceration after being found guilty in court. The difference between your ideology and the present one is that yours is more physical, more barbaric and without the consent of the general public. As mentioned before, if full democracy (of the population, not your small group) was in place with regards to the treatment of those who threaten the rights of others, I am confident that using violence would not be the vote winner.

That's just silly. If somebody's actions take away the rights of others and they refuse to stop, you have to use force or else the bullies win.

 

[needtokill]

That's just silly. By turning it into a binary property you actually turn it into a unary property (since nobody could possibly believe that nobody should have the authority to take a gun away from a psychopath). Any unary property is meaningless and useless.


Of course it does, unless you are using a unique meaning of the concept "authority".


That's just silly. Relying on physical might is simply necessary sometimes, such as when somebody is coming at you with a big stick - you can't always convince people they are wrong and to limit oneself to intellectual arguments in all cases would create a situation where bullies always win.



By remaining in the realm of the purely abstract you can make such statements without coming across as instantly absurd. As soon as you apply them to concrete situations their absurdity is clear. If you believe that the right to free speech is absolute, you believe that everybody has the right to shout "FIRE" in a crowded room, you believe that I have the right to stand up at a funeral and start abusing the deceased.


The US government has an enormously powerful mechanism for demonstrating guilt. The problem with its treatment of "enemy combatants" is that they choose not to use it because they don't actually have the required evidence to prosecute and hence they obviously do not have sufficently high levels of certainty to justify the restriction of rights - by their own standards.


They are not likely to kill us now or in the forseeable future.


You missed the point. We argue that fascist organising should not be tolerated. If we fail to convince enough people that this is an appropriate restriction on their rights, we would soon find ourselves incapable of imposing the restriction.


No. We do, however, defend ourselves.


That's just silly. If somebody's actions take away the rights of others and they refuse to stop, you have to use force or else the bullies win.

you use force,you ARE the bully.

 

[headmuzik]

"need to kill", you're just hitting keyboard keys without giving any thought to what you're saying... I think we can both agree that if someone was to beat you to a pulp every day for 5 years and take your lunch money, that person would be a bully. Have you ever tried arguing with a bully who enjoyed picking on you? Of course it doesn't work. But yet, by your logic if one day you managed to fight this bully off successfully and thereafter he left you alone... this makes YOU the bully? C'mon, engage your brain....

 

[needtokill]

"need to kill", you're just hitting keyboard keys without giving any thought to what you're saying... I think we can both agree that if someone was to beat you to a pulp every day for 5 years and take your lunch money, that person would be a bully. Have you ever tried arguing with a bully who enjoyed picking on you? Of course it doesn't work. But yet, by your logic if one day you managed to fight this bully off successfully and thereafter he left you alone... this makes YOU the bully? C'mon, engage your brain....

"engage your brain"?

fuck off mate.Part of the reason I avoid these debates normally is because it's not as simple as somebody bullying you in school.It's not like that at all.

engage your own brain you knob.

 

[W.]

Less of the flaming.

"you use force,you ARE the bully."

Does this rule out the use of force in all situations then? Or just against fash? Perhaps it's better to be the bully in this situation.

 

[headmuzik]

Sorry didnt mean to offend...

 

[needtokill]

fine
but i'm keeping the signature if you don't mind,it made me laugh out loud in work

 

[Blackenedflag]

you use force,you ARE the bully.

Fuckin hippy. I'd shoot you first.

 

[ed in mouth]

sorry for the slightly abstract reply but i think that the issues of value have some importance. wont take you away from the direct repsonses for too long (ek..)...
the relevance of my earlier grassroots comment is that i feel that direct/ maximum/ full democracy can only be expressed by micro-societal groups where communities are afforded autonimous decision making capabilities where their needs are directly met by their self governance and unique insight into their own situations.
people all have differing values and its these values that prioritize rights. working in groups at a grassroots level is the only way i can see how anyone can legitimize these values, political policy being, in my eyes, an illegitimate source of social values. that is why it is no immaterial thing to point out the difference between political policy and grassroots consensus decision making here.
it is unreasonable to count on "the people" to unilateraly legitimize a uniform prioritization of natural rights due to radically differing sets of social values. (the state is erected to reconcile these differing sets of social values but instead it prioritizes the rights of a particular social class and in doing so smothers democracy (marxism 101 bla bla bla, sorry...)). i feel that it is more democratic to allow communities freedom to express and develop their own set of social values, rather than to defend liberal freedoms and individualism. (positive and negative freedoms etc...)
in cases of full democracy armed resistance and defence has been the "vote winner" in defending the rights of those within that social system.
the definition of direct democracy in this case, as illustrated by the discussion to date, depends on our own values (networked micro communities over unified globalised community etc...).
tying these tangents up in a relevant point, i feel that the actions of small groups such as those that have used force to deal with political organising they felt needed dealing with, is a direct expression of democracy, the idea of "the people" is an impossibilty and macro social systems inherently smother democracy, and that the arguments for and against here are more a matter of values and not logic or dialectics...

 

[headmuzik]

Yikes!, I was afraid someone would bring dialectics into this somewhere. I think we should try not to alienate people with academic marxist jargon. I've nothing against Marx per se mind, its just the word is needlessly obscure to those without a strong interest in left politics or economics.

There are many points made by "the strange guy" which I feel need a response, I will cover as many as I can.

You said:
>"I believe that freedom of speech and freedom of organisation and 'rights' in >general are natural, not granted"

No I disagree, the entire concept of "rights" is a human invention, there is nothing "natural" about it, there is nothing in our genes or anything that says all human beings have this or that definitive set of natural rights which must be respected. If we were all born with natural "human rights" there would be no need to debate which rights we do or don't have or make attempts to have them protected, they would just exist naturally. Of course they do not, they require a social framework or legislation etc to have any value at all.

Also:
>Deciding who can and who cannot speak freely is unnatural.
>Therefore if freedom of speech is not a natural and effortless act it becomes >an act which is monitored and enforced; this makes it un-anarchistic.

Not at all... even in the most basic meeting that any organisation might call, everyone cannot talk at once, otherwise no-one will be understood - someone needs to chair the meeting and they decide who will and who will not speak. Your speech would also quite often be monitored - in the sense that if you tried to go on for 10 mins straight, the chair would be very likely to cut you off (oooh censorship!) and ask you to make your point more briefly, purely in the interest of letting everyone get a chance to speak. There is nothing in the least un-anarchistic in this, in fact this is a good example of anarchy in action - everyone thus gets roughly equal time to speak and no-one gains an unfair advantage over the others. If you were aiming for speech to be a "Natural" and "Effortless" act, you'd be applying an almost Zen approach to it the american Beats were fond of - interesting in itself certainly but it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with anarchism.

>It does not matter what name you decide to label censorship, be it from the >Taoiseach to an anarchist group,

I think it does matter.... if the Taoiseach and government decide to censor something, their decision affects every single person in Ireland regardless of their current actions or stated intentions for society. If the WSM decide that censorship might sometimes occur as a side-effect of preventing fascists from organising, that decision will affect a vanishing small number of people (maybe 10 to 100 at the very most)- people who are actively seeking to acquire enough power and resources not only to deprive us all of freedom of speech but to deprive us of many other basic human rights as well. The analogy is not sound.

On the discussion of full democracy/maximum democracy etc.

>7. Racist organisations/individuals who physically attack people or who carry >out attacks on hostels, B+Bs or other accommodation used by refugees and >asylum seekers do not have the right to organise, to recruit for such >activities. In such instances, force should be met with force; with maximum >democracy used in deciding how particular organisations/individuals should >be dealt with.

I take "Maximum Democracy" here to mean that, before deciding on how to act, we would consult with those most affected by the decision - i.e. the aforementioned refugees and asylum seekers who are threatened by the fascist groups. Force would only need to be used if these criteria were satisfied:
(a) Force was being threatened or used by fascists against the above
(b) The asylum seekers/refugees felt this was a reasonable course of action
and
(c) we ourselves felt this was the right course to take (we would probably use a consensus decision making process to make the group decision)

"the strange guy" -on the term "direct democracy" - among anarchists this term has a very specific meaning - not quite the usual meaning of "will of the populace" but a method of decision making whereby an action is proposed by someone and then put to a vote, the outcome usually being decided by majority, but in some cases, consensus. Other features implemented on a large scale are delegation with mandate (not representation!) and
install recall in the incidence of a broken mandate.
The "group decision" made by the WSM in the case above would of course use direct democracy and the other 2 criteria would also need to be met for it to be taken up and implemented.

>authoritarianism is a binary property

No. It is of a greater usefulness to think of attitudes to authority as a scale - at one extreme you have "Authoritarianism", which is "characterized by or favoring absolute obedience to authority". On the complete opposite end of the spectrum you would have "Anti-Authoritarianism", which is characterized by a complete disregard for all forms of authority.
The WSM would be situated very close to "Anti-Authoritarianism" on this spectrum, but with the proviso that we only oppose a specific form of authority - this being hierarchical authority.

There seems to be quite a bit of confusion about this in the topic - people are under the impression that anarchists oppose ALL authority. This is not true, and indeed no-one could really hold this position - despite what you have said "strange guy", if you use force to prevent your child from putting their hand on a burning cooker you ARE imposing your authority. Obviously semantic arguments can be tedious, but we need to be clear on what we are arguing about - if two people have completely different ideas on what a particular word means, but are unaware of it, the logic of the argument will break down and debate becomes useless.

>Fascism exists in the minds of human beings.

No. Fascism is a political and cultural force which has taken real and concrete shape within recent history. It is not metaphysics or something one can have a dry academic debate about without having to think too much about its real-world effects.

>If you do not believe that you can counter their beliefs and challenge their >stance using only your mind then you are likening them to neanderthals,

I disagree - you don't have to be a neandarthal to have an unshakeable belief in something. Have you ever tried to argue with a Jehovah's Witness and convince them that their faith is misplaced? Many people hold beliefs which are not easily displaced by rational argument - they may have deep emotional attachments to them for any number of reasons which may make them reluctant to change. Not a big problem maybe with something like belief in ghosts, but if you believe other races are polluting the gene pool and need to be wiped out for the good of humanity... well... I think you see what I mean?

>Relying on physical might is what people do when they worry their mind isn't >good enough.

Absolutely, but sometimes the human mind is just NOT good enough... even if you're the most charismatic, convincing empathetic guy in the world, if someone pulls a knife and goes about trying to stab you and take your wallet, he's not very likely to listen to your brilliantly constructed arguments on the philosophical applicability of the golden rule to human interactions....
Its unfortunate, but sometimes in life, you really DO have to rely on physical might, unless you're quite happy to die as an out and out pacifist...

>I understand how these methods of opposition are physical without being >violent, but I would still categorise these acts as censorship.

Above was a reply to my suggestion of opposing fascists organising by banging on tables etc....
Yes I agree, this would be censorship, I am prepared to concede censorship as a side effect of preventing fascist groups from organising. My conscience is clear on it.

>All human beings enjoy the same rights, one of which is the freedom to >speak their minds. If you do not agree to this then you are in a position >where you are categorising humans by virtue of what they can and cannot >say.

There is only one category - this category containing people who are trying to organise a fascist group. The WSM agree that if people try to do this, we will try to stop them. During our attempts to do this these people will temporarily lose their "right" to freedom of speech. This is unavoidable if we are serious about preventing them from successfully organising. If we respect their freedom of speech absolutely, we will not successfully prevent them organising and we will certainly be unable to do so once the fascists have gained sufficient power. In addition, due to our inaction during the organising stage, the fascists group will then feel free to organise attacks on migrants/asylum seekers etc, so many other people may lose vastly more important rights like the right to life. Of course, one should keep in mind that a successful fascist group in power would be quite happy to deprive everyone of the "right to freedom of speech".