So here is the thing I'm struggling with about antifa at the moment

[kaberett]

It is all very well to say "if you are not with the [explicitly violent] antifascists, you're with the fascists" but what these explanations do not seem to include is actual detailed discussion of how or why I can operate on the assumption that these people won't decide that I'm the next target. "Because you're not a fascist!" Okay, right, no, try again. Try again. I have been told, by people still substantively respected and liked in my geographically local community, that being visibly autistic in public is oppressive. I want to know what the fuck system of rules you're working with that means I won't be deemed unacceptable and I won't be deemed an appropriate target.

"Try not being a fascist!"

Yeah, thanks, see above about "me being visibly disabled in public is oppressive". See every interaction I've ever had where my disabilities are an inconvenience to The Cause.

Try again.

I'm really not comfortable with the extent to which people seem to want to shout me down on this one, using that well-known abusive tactic of telling me that if I don't unquestioningly support them in spite of grave reservations rooted in, like, bare minimum historical literacy plus personal experience, I am all that is Bad and Evil.

I am struggling to articulate this any better because of the sheer visceral horror I'm experiencing at a lot of the rhetoric that's happening. But, like, if you want to engage with me on this -- and I am, very definitely, open to being talked to -- please consider starting from a point of "I see your concerns and they're valid, here's why I'm convinced", not "you're a bad person for having doubts".

If, however, you want to ask me how Very Dare I tone-police you on this, I request that you sit this one out.

Comments

[elf]

As long as antifa are defining "nazis we can/should punch" as "the ones marching under nazi and/or confederate flags and declaring that the 'white race' needs special protections," I think I'm fine with them.

When they move into "punch the people who declare those things away from public demonstrations," I'm more iffy.

When they move to "punch the people we believe are part of that movement, based on identifiers that have nothing to do with direct statements about the 'white race' and physical markers like flags," I think they've moved from "civil activism" and into "ordinary assault and battery." (Which doesn't mean I think the others aren't assault and battery; just that, there are times when assault and battery is a valid approach to a problem - details ideally to be sorted out by juries aware of nullification laws.)

[kaberett]

Yep! This is excellently put and I thank you.

[ewt]

This is a good and well-articulated metric; thank you.

[recessional]

Indeed.