(Untitled)

[benchilada]

You thought I was kidding about how evil Hal Turner is?
You thought he's a simple ultra-right racist blowhard?

Comments

[benchilada]

Oh Erik...you know I love you. But you start by giving a damn. I know you're a philosophy major, but there's a difference between asking a question and being an ass. Honestly, let me return the question and ask YOU how YOU fight hatred? Or do you not at all, simply advocating the Elmer Fudd rule of "If I don't know about gravity, it can't hurt?"

How do I fight hatred? By giving a damn. By spreading the word about people like Hal Turner. By giving--time, money, publicity, et cetera--to organizations that can do thing I can't from Central Illinois.

In all honesty, I've gotten tired over the years of hearing "hate doesn't cure hate" and "well, what are we supposed to do about it?" and "free speech, man..." I call bullshit. If somebody can't be arsed to do something about things like this--or, at the bare minimum, not belittle another's effort to do something--then I put very little stock in how they feel about me as I do it.

Another question for you, Erik, is: Do you feel that you're asking what "we" should do out of a legitimate desire to do something, or are you just feeling pissy tonight?

As far as the Sir Reginald story goes: kiss my ass, it was cathartic to me.

Now, for some places YOU can go--all whilst drinking scotch and sitting in your underwear:

A) http://www.onepeoplesproject.org, who had this to say:

As many of you know, we have been dealing with Hal Turner's planned stunt to rally in Kingston, NY over a student at the high school there that was attacked by a black student who is currently facing charges. DLJ is is Kingston, NY right now, and he reports that after speaking with the mother of this injured teen, Turner called the friend of this mother who brought him to her, and told her her home address is now on his website for "harassing" her. We will have more as this develops.
And if any of our crew in Chicago know the number (630)XXX-XXXX, let us know something about the idiot that called from that number with a death threat. This is why we call them boneheads.

B) The Southern Poverty Law Center (Thanks, tully_monster) at http://www.splcenter.org

C) Tolerance.org's "Ten Things You Can Do To Fight Hate:" http://www.tolerance.org/10_ways/create/index.html

D) Help the Anti-Defamation League: http://www.adl.org

E) Check out the Anti Racism Net: http://www.antiracismnet.org/main.html

F) Feeling X-TREME!!!111shiftkey!! today? Get a look at: http://www.web.apc.org/~ara/documents/media.htm
How far is too far?

[mujina]

In response to the question of how you fight hatred, I'd like to say that there are many ways to spread love and understanding that do something to fight hatred. Personally I feel the Hal Turners are just symbols of larger problems that must be dealt with from the ground up. Does his vile thetoric make me angry? Yes, I can tolerate everything except intolerance. One can fight hatred without meeting it head on, by engaging in other activities that foster brotherhood and unity of mankind. I am not saying that other methods are bad, just that people do things about it in different ways.

[kraven251]

This may be imflamatory, it is not the intention.

How do you fight hatred. Peace, love, education and singing kumbaya, all good methods that have a tendency to work. When those fail you get wonderful film clips of tanks rolling over human skulls. You fight hatred the same way you fight any disease, you treat the symptoms, look for possible long term cures, but sometimes you take a scapel and cut it out.

[zentiger]

Oh Erik...you know I love you.

With that special, explodey kind of love, no less. Of course.

But you start by giving a damn. I know you're a philosophy major, but there's a difference between asking a question and being an ass.

I'm really not trying to be an ass here. I just think that getting angry about these things is a dangerous first step to take. As Ridgely pointed out last week, anger can be helpful - but as we all know too well, it can get out of hand.

Honestly, let me return the question and ask YOU how YOU fight hatred? Or do you not at all, simply advocating the Elmer Fudd rule of "If I don't know about gravity, it can't hurt?"

That's some cold shit, man. Seriously. I, as you pointed out, am a philosopher. I teach philosophy. I fight hatred with sweet reason, by taking my opponent seriously and trying to understand his arguments. It doesn't always work, partly because I get to people later in life than is optimal for this sort of thing, but once in a while it does.

In a less specific sense, I vote for politicians who will, I hope, make the right sorts of laws (laws that preserve freedom of expression while preventing the abuse of one person by another). I give money to the ACLU and tolerance.org, whose website you pointed out above. I encourage my friends and family to vote, and engage them even on issues they're uncomfortable discussing. Why? Because they're people with whom I stand a much better chance of making a difference.

How do I fight hatred? By giving a damn. By spreading the word about people like Hal Turner. By giving--time, money, publicity, et cetera--to organizations that can do thing I can't from Central Illinois.

This is good. But you know me, Ben. I worry about how things start and whether they'll work. In your first few posts on the issue here, it seemed like you were suggesting some sort of confrontation, which will very, very rarely change anybody's mind, and will much more often erupt into violence, and that's just not good at all.

Another question for you, Erik, is: Do you feel that you're asking what "we" should do out of a legitimate desire to do something, or are you just feeling pissy tonight?

I was actually in a really good mood, thanks. This morning I'm in a less-good mood, as the vegetarian chow mein I had yesterday seems to be fighting a guerilla action of some sort in my colon.

You've now cleared up what it is that you want people to do. That's all I wanted from you, because, as I mentioned above, it looked to me like you were at first encouraging people to confront this bullshit head-on, which is dangerous, and you're all my friends and I don't want you guys getting stomped on in a riot or whatever.

As far as the Sir Reginald story goes: kiss my ass, it was cathartic to me.

I loved reading it, too. But it only made me worry more about the unspecified methods you were suggesting to get involved here, though presumably you didn't intend people to conjure shotguns and drink Schlitz.

Finally, as you point out, there are limits to speech. You're not allowed to shout "Fire!" in a crowded theatre, you're not allowed to tell people to kill or hurt other people, you're not allowed to harm others by lying about them (unless, it seems, you're involved in politics - but that's another story). Hal Turner has, at least to the best of my understanding of the laws, probably violated one or more. And if that lame-ass "now, I'm not saying you should do anything violent, wink wink" gets him out of trouble, the laws need to be fucking changed - but that's the job of politicians.

I think that my whole worry with this comes from a broader worry that I"ve been dealing with lately - the collapse of the Rule of Law. When we have an administration that ignores the Supreme Court's rulings, it only seems natural that that sort of contempt for the rule of law will filter down and extremist nutjobs will take bigger risks to do worse things to innocent people. But if I'm right, then the way to fix (or at least help fix) the problem is just enforcement of the laws.

[zentiger]

Also, where I said I give money to tolerance.org, I meant the Anti-Defamation League, but for some reason my brain has the stupids today.