Yeah so basically the word “fascist” here is being used as an opening to allow violence. What Arcade is doing is threatening me with violence, by showing me that he can get others to agree that I’m a fascist.
It does actually prove my point quite nicely, because Arcade‘s reasoning for why I’m a fascist is … drumroll please … he doesn’t like me and wants me to shut up.
His next comment will double down on this “you’re scum” thing. It’s contempt coding. Demonstrate contempt for me, applying the frame of “gross thing, to be removed”.
This whole thread is bait for my comment of course. The baiting goes like this: Make an open-faced declaration of war against a category vaguely defined as “people we’d like to hurt but need a label for in order to justify it”. Then, when someone objects, on the grounds that “hey don’t you guys tend to just use that label as a dog whistle to mean people opposing you?”, you can threaten them with the label itself.
“Remember buddy, this is a room where we’re smashing fascists. We wouldn’t want to put your name on that list now would we?”
This whole sequence of moves is being played out again and again. Always the same message: get in our way, speak up in opposition or question, and we turn the violence on you.
Tactic as old as time. Arcade is playing an ancient role here.
reasoning for why I’m a fascist is … drumroll please … he doesn’t like me and wants me to shut up
i don’t like you and i want you to shut up, so i don’t see what the problem is.
remember folks, the winner is whoever wins. put your enemies in the fascist bashing room before they put you in it.
Parent was pointing to what you wrote because Nazis literally say “everyone one I don’t like is a Nazi” when people call them such. Seems like you’re trying to disarm people who are crying wolf. That doesn’t make you a wolf, just a tool.
Well said, that’s a good explanation of the pitfalls of this tactic. I’ve enjoyed many of your previous comments as well and I think you’re a cogent independent thinker, which is increasingly rare to find.
My only quibble is that I don’t quite agree that you’re being threatened with violence in this situation. It raises an interesting concept, which is that the internet allows us to essentially act out these debates and conflicts without the implicit threat of violence that has historically accompanied them, due to our anonymity.
Yes it’s true: I do have anonymity here and so any threats of violence are not that alarming.
But I am being threatened with violence here, given this thread contains two things:
- A call for violence against fascists
- A claim that I am a fascist
If you don’t see how those two things add up to a call for violence against me, I don’t know how to draw the connection for you.
