disillusioned

There's a great documentary available if anyone is interested...

@Joshpantera, I'm tired of this, so I'm basically out. But there are a couple of things to clear up. First, I never said that we have a video of Trump saying "I'm a nazi!". I also never said he was a nazi. I actually don't think he is. But there is plenty of video evidence which can be used to make the case that he is a closet nazi based on his actions, and on things which he has said that are aligned with parts of the nazi agenda. There's some of this kind of thing even in your most recent post, when you refer to Marxists as "roaches". I don't think you're a nazi either, but this sounds very much like the language of Mein Kampf. So no, it's not a direct comparison, but it isn't a stupid one either. You may, of course, disagree if you like. This is an accessory point. Second, it seems patently obvious to me that just saying "I'm a Marxist!" does not make one a Marxist. Saying "I'm a Christian!" also does not make one a Christian, although this one is a little trickier, because Christianity is not as well-defined as Marxism is. But either way, both of the assertions that I just made are easily demonstable: I just said both sentences out loud, and it remains the case that I am neither a Christian nor a Marxist. Case closed. The key point though, which you are ignoring, is that Marxism is codified in the fairly recent writings of Karl Marx (who, apparently, you regard as "an entitled little shit"). It is clear and explicit. Christianity is a mish-mash of poor translations of ancient writings of unknown origins. It is self-contradictory, and generally incoherent. To claim to be a Christian, if one wishes to be consistent, one must pick and choose. This is not the case with Marxism. This is a bad analogy on the face of it, and even if it wasn't, your conclusion is false as demonstrated above. Third, Marxism is essentially and explicitly based in class issues. Its central assumption is literally that societal issues are inherently class issues. You literally cannot have Marxism without it being based in class issues. This is just a simple contradiction in terms. Incidentally, nazism is essentially race-based, and nazism and Marxism are diametrically opposed to the point where Hitler viewed Marxism as a manifestation of the Jewish problem, which brings me back to my earlier point about how disturbing it is to see you referring to Marxists as "roaches". But I digress. Finally, I hope it's very clear that I'm not saying that everything about the current state of either the left or the right in the US is agreeable to me. Clearly the recent unrest is making people upset. My point is just that Marxism is a clear, explicit doctrine, and that while the BLM platform does have some similarities to some aspects of Marxism, it contradicts and neglects others, and hence it is not actually Marxist. This remains the case even though its leaders have claimed to be "trained Marxists". At this point I think I've either made this point or not, so I'll shut up and let you guys get back to whatever it is you were doing.

A common critque of the arguments of atheists is that they haven't quite dotted all their Is, or crossed all their Ts. To which I like to reply, concern yourself with the dot on your own i. I am much more intersted in the log of mine. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_logarithm)

@Bhim, yes, perhaps "Marx-inspired" would be a more accurate term. But, then, that doesn't sound nearly as frightening. Marxism is a failed system, but that doesn't mean that Marx didn't have some good ideas and insights, which could inspire other potentially good ideas. Most serious people, I think, realize this. Don't mistake me: there are certainly things about the official agenda of BLM that I take issue with. I think there's some good there, but there's also some bad. But here's the really important point, which I raised in the other thread as well: I think that the founders of this movement, when they claim to be "trained Marxists" (whatever that might mean...) are just trying to trigger people. They're trying to generate hype. And clearly it's working.

I noticed this as well. I'm not sure if she doesn't realize what Marxism actually is, or if she's just trying to use it as a buzzword to generate publicity. I suspect the latter, although it could also be both. If this is the case, then those who object to this movement, and nevertheless insist on referring to it as a Marxist movement, are actually playing her game and generating even more hype for her. Just food for thought.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/07/08/theres-nothing-marxist-about-black-lives-matter/

I don't agree with this, but I don't particularly care to get further entrenched here. Carry on.

@Joshpantera, point of order. There are plenty of videos of actual neo-nazis voicing passionate support for Trump. There are plenty of videos of Trump plainly catering to them. There are plenty of videos of Trump praising dictators, questioning and even outright defying the constitution, threatening and advocating for violence, and so on. But somehow when people on the left express concern about this, they are told they have Trump Derangement Syndrome. Disrupting the system even while professing Marxism does not equal Marxism. Carrying out the Marxist agenda does. Similarly, disrupting the system while professing neo-nazism does not equal nazism. Carrying out the nazi agenda does. Also, I'd hazard that most of the people who do profess Marxism don't actually mean Marxism per se. They are, as you say Thomas Sowell was, "something of a marxist". But you can't really be something of a Marxist. If you are not for total communism, no private property whatsoever, etcetera, etcetera, then you are not a Marxist. It doesn't matter if you think you are, you aren't. Marxism is a clearly spelled out doctrine. It isn't a la carte. If you take a few things that you like from it and leave the rest, you're not a Marxist. So no, I don't think this is an authentic Marxist movement. There's no one behind the scenes pulling strings here as far as I can see. Just a lot of fearmongering and a lot of panic. On both sides.

Yes, but that in itself does not make it Marxist. The Marxist agenda is to overthrow capitalism and replace it with total communism. I don't know of any prominent figure pushing this today. I'm certain that the majority of the activists don't want this. Calling this a Marxist venture is akin to calling Republicans Nazis. Are there certain similarities? Yes, in both cases. But it's called the political spectrum for a reason. If every view that is contrary to our own is labelled extremist, then we're not only engaging in technical inaccuracies with respect to labels, we're actively driving each other further and further apart.

I'm sorry, I don't find this to be terribly coherent. Marxism is a very specific ideology. It doesn't rely on subterfuge. Yes, it preaches a revolution, but it does so in the name of very specific goals. Centralized everything. No private property at all. And so on. If you are not explicit about these being your goals, you aren't a Marxist. These protests, as far as I can see, have nothing to do with Marxism. Perhaps a great deal of cultural upheaval is happening. Perhaps even a revolution is in the offing. So what? There have been lots of revolutions in the history of civilzation. Precious few have been Marxist revolutions. The suppression of speech is also not unique to Marxism. Not by a long shot. It just doesn't follow from the fact that some people want to disrupt the system, and perhaps suppress some speech, that they are therefore closet Marxists. This seems to me to just be fearmongering.

I think it is silly to present cultural change as being a thing which is generally logical. It's nearly always driven by emotion. Cultural changes occur when people feel sufficiently disadvantaged, hard done by, offended, or whatever that they decide to do something about it. The current cultural changes that are underway are no different in this regard. Also, when cultures change, there is always a group of people who wish that they wouldn't. These people have an emotional attachment to the way that their culture currently is. So they make a lot of noise about how they don't like the way that society is progressing. And this is also driven by emotion. Things which are driven by emotion are not inherently bad, and things driven by logic are not inherently good. The world is not a neat and tidy place, and societies do not always function logically, nor should they. In a certain sense, representative democracy is far less logical than a dictatorship, but I strongly doubt that anyone here would be eager to make the move from one to the other. In any case, it seems to me that labelling people that you don't agree with as being idiots is neither helpful, nor a substantive objection to their position. It's just an emotional reaction.

In this day and age, I'm not sure that there's a real distinction anymore between things that you say away from company premises, on your own time, and things that you say in a public domain. The world is the public domain now. If I say something, someone else may tweet it and credit me. They might record me, and post the video. And so on. You just never know. This may be regrettable, but it is the world we live in. We should be cognizant of this. From the employer's perspective, it doesn't really matter if I intended for my speech to be plastered on the internet. If it ends up there, and it reflects badly on the company, the damage is already done.

@Bhim, thank you for your honest response. I appreciate you not ducking the question as many people might have. Your acknowledgement that if we ought to have laws governing who may be fired then we also ought to have laws governing where we should shop is significant. More on this below. It seems to me that this argument cuts both ways. Could it not be similarly said that individuals may have the right to absolute freedom of speech, but for the broader health and sustainability of society it may nevertheless be beneficial to curtail those rights where racism is concerned? This sort of idea underpins hate speech laws in a number of countries (including mine...), as I'm sure you are aware. A couple of things to note here. First, as I mentioned before, I appreciate your willingness to follow your view through to its logical conclusion. I will grant that termination of employment is a more detectable outcome than refusing to shop in most cases, but not in all. Also, clearly laws governing the circumstances under which an individual may be terminated are inherently difficult to enforce. If I wish to fire you because of your racist speech, but there is a law preventing me from doing so, I may simply fire you for a different, manufactured reason. I mention this because you seem concerned with the practical aspect of how we may know why someone is refusing to shop at my store. Very well. How can we know why someone was fired? In most cases, if you really want to fire someone, you can find sufficient justification. Moreover, most people who get fired will not take legal recourse. So, if we are arguing on the basis of practicality, I must ask, where is the practicality in a law which prohibits the termination of employees for racist speech? Second, and more importantly, it seems to me that you are arguing here that terminating employees due to racist speech ought to be avoided because it leads to tribalism. I have to say that I find this very ironic, given that racist speech is an explicit expression of tribalism. If we are in the business of curtailing rights for the betterment of society and in the interest of avoiding tribalism, wouldn't it be more efficient and efficacious to simply curtail the right to racist speech? Nip it in the bud, as it were. I follow this, but I'm afraid that I don't accept the underlined or the bolded. Regarding the bolded, I think there is an implicit slippery slope fallacy here. What evidence do we have for this? Which societies have collapsed because of specific laws governing the situations under which individuals may be terminated from employment? It seems to me that history is littered with examples of functioning societies which have allowed people to be terminated for all kinds of reasons. I understand your concern, but I don't see how laws which allow someone to be terminated for racist speech specifically will lead to the collapse of society. Regarding the underlined, I would simply ask where the responsibility truly lies. Has a life been altered because of my decision to fire my employee, or has it been altered because of my employee's decision to engage in that kind of speech? I posit that speech is a form of action, and freedom of speech does not mean, and has never meant, freedom from the consequeces of your speech. It just means that the government does not curtail your freedom of speech. But, as we've already established, it is very problematic to accomplish this in practice. In fact, you have here been arguing that the government should curtail freedom of speech, in the form of passing laws which govern the situations under which individuals may be fired. Personally, I take more of a "buyer beware" approach. Engage in racist speech if you wish, but understand that there may be social consequences, including potential termination from your employment.

Dave says he's out, and that's fine. But his disagreement with my characterization of the law raises some significant questions in my mind. I'm wondering if anyone else feels that I've misrepresented the law as being merely a collection of people's opions about what people should do, and would care to express why they feel so. I'm honestly asking. This is quite an interesting topic to me. It may be tangential, and we can do it elsewhere if necessary, but I think it's relevant. I'm sure LF will let me know if we're getting too far from the topic at hand, and we can start a new thread if need be.

Yes, I'm talking about what people feel, but not in the way that you seem to think. The law is, at the end of the day, just a collection of people's opinions about what other people should do (read: an expression of certain people's feelings regarding the behaviour of other people). I'm not asking what the law says. Bhim says it should say "X", and I'm asking on what grounds he says that. And I'm asking him to justify it in a consistent way. That's all.