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Governor Rick Scott (R) has declared a state of emergency in the county where the University of Florida lay, due to a planned speech by Richard Spencer. According to NPR:
When Hurricane Irma was bearing down on Florida last month, Gov. Rick Scott declared a state of emergency. On Monday, he did the same thing in Alachua County, ahead of a speech by white nationalist Richard Spencer at the University of Florida in Gainesville.
"We live in a country where everyone has the right to voice their opinion, however, we have zero tolerance for violence and public safety is always our number one priority," Scott said in a statement. "This executive order is an additional step to ensure that the University of Florida and the entire community is prepared so everyone can stay safe."
"I find that the threat of a potential emergency is imminent," Scott declared in his executive order, noting that Alachua County Sheriff Sadie Darnell had requested the state's assistance. The order will make it easier for various agencies to coordinate a security plan for Thursday's speech at the university.
[...] No campus group invited Spencer to speak, and the university is not hosting or sponsoring the event. Spencer's group, the National Policy Institute, is paying the university $10,564 for facility rental and security.
And it looks like it could get expensive:
The speech and accompanying protests are also a major expense: The university as well as state and local agencies expect to spend more than $500,000 to provide additional security.
And the University of Florida can't demand that Spencer pay the full cost of protecting him, because of a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Forsyth County v. Nationalist Movement.
In that decision, the university explains, "the Court clarified that the government cannot assess a security fee on the speaker based upon the costs of controlling the reaction of potential hostile onlookers or protestors," under legal doctrine known as the "heckler's veto."
Well, that is the cost of free speech in a free country.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 18 2017, @09:47PM (43 children)
You see your country turning to shit and you make it into some partisan snipe session? Fuck you.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Sulla on Wednesday October 18 2017, @10:00PM (42 children)
If you cared you would also be ripping down the statues of Marx. But you aren't, so you don't.
My justification? No amount of horror is worse than the loss of one mans right to speak. No matter how wrong he or his ideals are, the rights put forth in our constitution are sacred and must be upheld.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 18 2017, @10:17PM (27 children)
Oh god your brain is like swiss cheese with propaganda stuck into all the holes. Marx wut? Lol
I do like your support of freedom of speech, but that is not the problem here. The real problem is a governor declaring a state of emergency over a university talk!!! Fuckit, the guy should telepresence in if it is so dangerous. Not waste probably millions of dollars over it. This is seriously fascist behavior and it is VERY sad you don't understand that. Just wait till those antifa folks have a more friendly president / congress and then you'll be crying foul.
(Score: 4, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday October 18 2017, @10:43PM (26 children)
I think you need to go look up the word "fascist" then take a long, hard look at which groups today actually fit the definition well.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Wednesday October 18 2017, @11:17PM (24 children)
Actually, "fascist" is a difficult word to define. One reason it's so hard to define that Benito Mussolini, the guy who invented the term, was never quite clear about what it meant himself.
Some of the usual features are:
- A merging the power of government and business to control society. The alt-right, as best as I can tell, is perfectly fine with this so long as they're the ones controlling the government and businesses. I mean, Donald Trump is clearly a merging of those two powers in his own person, as an active businessman with direct control of the government.
- A belief in a shared destiny for a privileged portion of the population based on inborn characteristics. For example, the Nazis talked about and made laws based on the idea that the pure-blooded Germans were justly the ruler of the world solely because they were pure-blooded Germans. From the point of view of a fascist, someone who is in that predestined privileged group who has accomplished absolutely nothing in their life is superior to the most accomplished person outside of that privileged group. Richard Spencer definitely thinks in those kinds of terms: in his case, the privileged group is white and probably male Americans.
- A willingness and even eagerness to use violence to gain power. This ranges from street fighting to full-scale civil war and international warfare. Based on the number of alt-right people who have showed up with lethal weapons to alt-right rallies and in some cases used those weapons, I think it's safe to say they're comfortable with the idea of using violence to get their way.
- Mixing politics and religion. Generally speaking, alt-right folks proclaim the superiority of Christianity in general and often Protestantism in particular over other religious viewpoints. The KKK and neo-Nazis definitely use religious symbolism regularly on everything they do.
So yeah, it doesn't take a lot of squinting to see the likes of Richard Spencer as fascists. Donald Trump is actually much more of a fascist than Spencer seems to be, in every sense of the word.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 5, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday October 19 2017, @12:30AM (14 children)
The left is as well. See Obamacare and every socialist and communist ever.
The left fits this far, far better than the right. They even have a race they're uber-keen on blaming for all their woes.
Antifa, BAMN, BLM, Ferguson...
Dictating religion or the lack thereof is more accurate, unless you don't consider Stalin or Mao fascists.
By your own criteria, antifa, BAMN, and BLM fit the bill every bit as well as Spencer. And they are far more numerous than white supremacists.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 19 2017, @03:35AM
Holy shit! Do you ever live in a fantasy world. Also, see "whataboutism", you fucking clown.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Thursday October 19 2017, @03:44AM (7 children)
I don't: The people who most defined fascism didn't consider Stalin or Mao fascists, neither Stalin nor Mao considered themselves fascists, and their ideology was substantially different from fascism. Those guys were communist dictators.
You seem to be confusing "dictator" with "fascist". They aren't the same thing.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday October 19 2017, @10:11AM (6 children)
Which would be a fine job of splitting hairs were it not also a logical fallacy. One does not preclude the other.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Phoenix666 on Thursday October 19 2017, @01:03PM (5 children)
The logical fallacy is yours, here. Saying "You seem to be confusing 'dictator' with 'fascist'. They aren't the same thing." is not the same thing as saying "One precludes the other."
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday October 19 2017, @03:59PM (4 children)
Reread his statement. It certainly reads as such to me.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday October 19 2017, @05:12PM (1 child)
It's really simple: Some fascists are not dictators (e.g. Adolf Hitler was originally elected into power). Some dictators are not fascists (e.g. Pol Pot). Some fascists are dictators (e.g. Franco). You are erasing that second category of people who are dictators but not fascists because you are trying to establish a completely false equivalency between people opposed to fascism, and fascists.
Making this equivalency, I might add, is a longstanding tactic of fascists: The Nazis, for instance, worked very hard to portray themselves as the completely necessary bulwark against the ravages of international communism, particularly after the Reichstag Fire.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday October 19 2017, @09:13PM
Funny, that last paragraph there was more or less my exact thoughts on seeing that you'd replied again.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday October 19 2017, @05:19PM (1 child)
Then your reading comprehension is impaired, as you so often like to say of others.
Except I don't think your reading comprehension is impaired. Rather, misconstruing your interlocutor's words and intent is your main rhetorical trick. You think you're laying traps to lure everyone into saying something damning, but it doesn't work when you do it. every. time.
Change it up. Save the smug tone for when you really have got someone. Else you're like the maroon who can't keep from smirking as you approach the punchline of a joke.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 19 2017, @06:48PM
Hey now, who else would tarnish SN so perfectly? Anyone with half a brain eventually sees through TMB's bullshit, might take a few weeks for the examples to pile up but it happens. He is like a mascot for the libertarian / alt-right, leading them towards retarded arguments. Maybe he's not the hero we need, but like the prez he is the hero we deserve. TMB for SN Precedent!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Thursday October 19 2017, @04:17PM (4 children)
Also, with regard to your other points:
So the funny thing about Obamacare is that it didn't actually come from the left-wing, at all. It's an idea that came straight out of the right-wing, starting its existence in the Heritage Foundation and first really tried by Republican Mitt Romney when he was governor. One of the greatest hoodwinks pulled by both the Obama administration and the Republicans who opposed him is making what had been the right-wing proposal into the left-wing proposal. The actual left-wing proposal was to say "screw the insurance companies" and go for something akin to the UK's National Health Service, with the more extreme folks aiming for something closer to what Cuba does.
As for the socialists and communists, both of them are all about breaking the power of business. The closest the US has ever had to a socialist president, Franklin Roosevelt, had this to say: "We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob. Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred." Yeah, real business lover there.
Who exactly is this privileged portion of the population? And how are they privileged? And remember, you're claiming that the left fits this better than a publicly avowed white supremacist.
And seeing as how white people in what is now the US have made significant formal and informal efforts to prevent non-white people from gaining the same power and privilege they have starting no later than the 1600's, I think they have a legitimate complaint. Based on your posting history, I can say with some confidence: You and your ancestors in the US were never enslaved. You and your ancestors were never segregated away from everyone else. You and your ancestors were never lynched by a mob simply for being who you were. You and your ancestors were never prevented from buying a house, and if your family did own a house at any point you got substantial government help to do so. You and your ancestors were never prevented from getting an education by force of arms. You have never been beaten up by cops for a minor traffic violation, and then seen the entire legal system pull together to ensure those cops don't get punished. You have never been unable to find work solely because of your skin color, and never been underpaid for that work for the same reason.
1. BLM and Ferguson are basically the same thing.
2. BLM has never condoned interpersonal violence. One guy shot and killed some people, the organization quickly denounced him and supported police efforts to take him down.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday October 19 2017, @04:49PM (3 children)
Actually, no, it came straight out of the lobbyists. Not one politician even knew what all it said before voting on it. But since the left passed it, they have to own it.
Two words: protected classes. Equality means either everyone is protected or nobody is. Picking and choosing makes you a bigot.
Right... It's purely a coincidence that everywhere they show up riots happen.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 19 2017, @06:54PM
You just can't handle reality can you? You're a pathetic excuse for an American, and I'm sure just about every WWII veteran would take you to town for your bullshit. Sadly most of them are dead, along with the ideals they fought for. No matter how many times people say they don't condone violence you repeat that "the left" is all about it. No matter how much evidence of violence being worse from "the right" you claim only the left is doing it, and you ignore everything done by the right.
Extremists on both sides, yet you only rail on about a single group. Even the murderous car driving fuck was getting some amount of a "pass" on this site. You're a broken record, a sad human being, and I wish this country was free of your ilk. Long live stupidity amirite?
(Score: 2) by chromas on Thursday October 19 2017, @07:25PM (1 child)
To be fair, blacks were rioting long before BLM was a thing.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday October 19 2017, @09:15PM
This is true. I stand slightly corrected.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 19 2017, @12:58AM (7 children)
fasces : (noun), a bundle of rods or sticks. Stronger than the sum of the strengths of individual sticks.
facism : political philosophy based on the idea that combining corporate and government power will result in a stronger, more efficient country.
The problem with Fascism isn't that the basic idea is so wrong, as that the concentration of power attracts the less savory sort of politician and it devolves into a brutal dictatorship. Much like many other "-isms" the problem is that in the real world people just aren't as nice as is required by the theory.
Fascism is actually quite a good system if your country is facing a massive external threat that can get everyone working together and you have effective leaders.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Phoenix666 on Thursday October 19 2017, @01:04PM (6 children)
Correction, "facism" means you support the philosophy and beliefs of faces, and generally oppose volumes.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 19 2017, @03:14PM (5 children)
This is why we can't have reasonable discourse. The alt right don't plat by the rules. Whether it is intentional or not they often respond with easily verified bullshit, move the goal posts, and straw man the fuck out of everything. They point at failed nor-real-communist countries as if that wins their argument. They are either far removed from reality or they are maliciously obtuse. Didn't know that last one was possible actually.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday October 19 2017, @03:58PM (2 children)
No True Scotsman, eh?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday October 19 2017, @04:42PM (1 child)
Not really, no. This is something that shows up in game theory, and it's a classic gambit at that: the one who either is, or acts, crazier will win more often, because the more rational party is kept off-balance. Push insanity as if you believe it, and normal people will seriously begin to wonder if their own views are skewed.
It's a very simple play. It requires no effort at all, really. It simply requires no morals, to paraphrase Heller. This is what is meant by "gaslighting." And it's happening on a nationwide scale. The day i heard that "reality-based community" thing from one of Chimpy McTortureface's aides was the day i knew this nation had well and truly died.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday October 19 2017, @10:55PM
I was referring to "They point at failed nor-real-communist countries as if that wins their argument." Which is as no-true-scotsman as it gets.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday October 19 2017, @05:22PM
It is. It's the tactic made famous by Colombo, and personified here by Buzzard. Except when watching Colombo we the audience are all in on the joke, and get to share in the hearty laugh at the villain's crestfallen discovery of his error. On SN, nobody is fooled at all, except Buzzard who fools himself into thinking he's fooling us.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 20 2017, @11:46AM
You idiot. He was humorously pointing out my typo in fascism, where I left out the first 's' making it facism.
- the ggp AC
(Score: 2) by arcz on Thursday October 19 2017, @06:31PM
1. a political theory advocating an authoritarian hierarchical government (as opposed to democracy or liberalism)
Antifa seems pretty fascist.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 19 2017, @10:09PM
the word fascist has been twisted, and given an entirely new meaning in mist modern dictionaries.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 18 2017, @10:26PM (3 children)
A man's sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental convictions.... He will always be attracted to the woman who reflects his deepest vision of himself, the woman whose surrender permits him to experience a sense of self-esteem. The man who is proudly certain of his own value, will want the highest type of woman he can find, the woman he admires, the strongest, the hardest to conquer--because only the possession of a heroine will give him the sense of an achievement.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 19 2017, @09:40AM (2 children)
YES! very good point! Umberto Eco's # 12 on the fascism list:
Good that you used the words "surrender" and "conquer", to stress your point.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday October 19 2017, @06:47PM (1 child)
Hence the fascist tendency of the ammosexual. Eco was a great philosopher, and a not half-bad fiction writer!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday October 20 2017, @02:23AM
Wow, that was some quality bullshit you just spouted there. Gun owners are the least authoritarian people in the nation. You know how you can tell? They have all those guns and nobody has shot you for polluting the gene pool yet.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 19 2017, @02:11AM (2 children)
I wondered it that was a thing.
Hmmm [googleapis.com]
Have to be more specific [googleapis.com]
Hey! Looks like I got a hit. Gotta zoom in.
Nope [googleapis.com]
Perhaps you could advise me on locations.
While you're at it, could you link to something that quotes the anti-White Supremacists saying something about the collective ownership of the means of production by The Workers?
Oh, and the skinheads aren't just racist, they're misogynistic as well.
Alt Right Leader Says Women Shouldn't Be Allowed To Vote [trofire.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by arcz on Thursday October 19 2017, @06:27PM (1 child)
Obvious political shill is obvious. Don't quote secondary opinion sources from media outlets from the opposite side to prove a point.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 19 2017, @11:00PM
Railing against the reporter doesn't change the fact that Richard Spenser is on the record saying that women shouldn't be allowed to vote.
Seems pretty clear that The Alt-Reich has a bad case of tiny penis--to match their tiny brains.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday October 19 2017, @09:33AM (1 child)
Hmm, Sulla, you are a profound thinker, and your words contain deep wisdom. Should we be tearing down the statues of the God of War? I think that maybe it is time. He has outlived his usefulness, and all those poor souls that died in his service, well, we should remember them without warshipping Mars. Good post, Sulla!
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Friday October 20 2017, @05:52AM
Good job, you actually made me look.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Thursday October 19 2017, @11:58AM
True patriots want to preserve & protect all our statues. The statues of Karl Marx, of Robert E. Lee, of Christopher Columbus, of 🎅Santa Claus, of Washington, and Jefferson. All of them. They are our American heritage, our history. We believe we should preserve our history, not tear it down. It has to be stopped. It's heritage. It's what makes us what we are. @RichardBSpencer is a statue protector. He understands that our glorious heritage is the foundation of everything we hope to achieve. We are united by the same enduring beliefs. Merry Christmas! 🇺🇸
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 19 2017, @03:32PM (2 children)
Harpo or Groucho?
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday October 19 2017, @05:14PM (1 child)
Given the anti-immigrant feelings of many in the US right now, I'd guess they'd go after Chico.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday October 19 2017, @09:20PM
I think you'll find, should you lower yourself to speak with them, that most of the people you just insulted are concerned more with the legality of immigrants than their mere presence. No stable nation on the planet has a completely open borders policy, for good reason.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by arcz on Thursday October 19 2017, @06:22PM
Isn't that non-sense. IF you care about the country you'd care about law and order which means NOT tearing down statues.
Really simple concept, lefties don't seem to understand it.