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posted by martyb on Friday February 09 2018, @12:31PM   Printer-friendly
from the Where-is-Waldo-county?-dept. dept.

Small town Republican thoughts on refuting the alt-right. In The Republican Journal:

I want to make one thing very clear: The Waldo County Republican Committee absolutely, unequivocally condemns Nazi and KKK ideologies and actions, as well as any other kind of bigotry, and we encourage all of our voters and the community at large to do the same.

For fellow Republicans out there, worry not, we don't like Antifa's ideology and actions either, but we need to clean our own house; we need to worry about our own responsibilities.

Such honesty, and clarity of thought!

The most dangerous part of politics today is identity politics, trolling, pathos and a severe lack of critical thinking. You cannot defeat the insidious hatred of bigoted politics with more hate. By doing so, you morph the conversation away from policy and ideology to silly label syntax, eventually devolving completely into back and forth verbal gymnastics. Make no mistake, these trolls are ready for you as you stoop to their level, and they beat you up with mountains of experience.

So what do we do? Very simple. Stay neighborly by controlling your reaction. Seek out those with whom you disagree, try to understand them first, and politely offer your counter argument.

And it looks like the Republicans in Maine, if not in Illinois, are rejecting the alt-right.

The way to defeat Mr. Kawczynski is not by attacking him, but by attacking his ideas. Here are some flaws in his thinking: His immigration ideas are antithetical to the Maine Republican party platform, a section of which states, "We support the assimilation of legal immigrants into Maine society."

Kawczynski's ideas stand in contrast to Maine history and culture; in fact, it is white folks with racist ideologies who pose the greatest threat to Maine's foundation, not other races of people.

Another brilliant tidbit:

Ultimately, all you have to do is walk outside with your eyes open in this state to see that Kawczynski's fearmongering about "white genocide" is completely laughable.

Entire guest column is well worth a read.


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by meustrus on Friday February 09 2018, @05:05PM (8 children)

    by meustrus (4961) on Friday February 09 2018, @05:05PM (#635566)

    53 genders, wage gap myths, considering Islamists allies

    These kind of comments seem to be increasingly common around here, and while most Soylentils at least seem to be intelligent enough to ignore the straw man, there is one deeply concerning idea here that I believe meeds to be addressed before it infects the baseline of our discussion.

    Muslims in America are some of the most moderate Muslims in the entire world. There are entire communities of people that have been living here peacefully for decades, slowly reconciling the origins of their faith with American secularism. As a result, the American brand of Islam is not just moderate and peaceful; it is coherent, consistent, and most of all, ready to be exported to the rest of the world.

    Meanwhile, Muslims in the middle east are still fighting serious ideological battles. Sometimes through violence, sometimes through political oppression. Amid this conflict, extremist groups have devised interpretations of Islam that justify increasing violence and political oppression.

    These violent and oppressive interpretations are beginning to leak into America, sure. But their #1 opponent is the family members and faith leaders who can provide community and identity within the American theology that is more compatible with secularism. And not only do these faith leaders seek to spread their moderate and peaceful theology to Americans at risk of falling for more violent and oppressive interpretations, but they seek to spread their secular American theology to the rest of the world. If they were empowered rather than marginalized, their moderate and peaceful interpretations could leak back into the middle east, directly combating extremism at its source.

    Unfortunately, kneejerk reactions to Islam like yours seriously threaten this opposition to extremism. When we lump American Muslim institutions together with the extremists that threaten us and them, we seriously impede their ability to oppose extremism among their children. When we make going to mosque dangerous, we make it less likely that Muslims will get their information from other Americans and more likely that they get their information from ISIS recruiters on social media.

    So please cut it out. Stop trying to destroy American Islam, because it is our best hope of combating extremism.

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    If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by tangomargarine on Friday February 09 2018, @05:12PM (1 child)

    by tangomargarine (667) on Friday February 09 2018, @05:12PM (#635571)

    He clearly used the term Islamists and now you're whining he's anti-Muslim. Who's the real strawman here?

    --
    "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
    • (Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 09 2018, @06:37PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 09 2018, @06:37PM (#635639)

      Sure bud, cause the average conservative around here bothers with that distinction /s

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Friday February 09 2018, @05:21PM (1 child)

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Friday February 09 2018, @05:21PM (#635585)

    So we need to work to support one delusion over another delusion, because it's not as bad? How about not supporting and coddling any delusional beliefs? We have enough delusional people in this country with the wacky Christians of all stripes, and various other religious nuts. How about this idea: let's push rationality instead of religion.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 09 2018, @08:15PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 09 2018, @08:15PM (#635687)

      No one is pushing religion here.

      What IS being pushed is tolerance and understanding, not conversion. I would love it if religions went away and we got rationality and philosophy instead, but don't kid yourself.

  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday February 10 2018, @12:13AM (3 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday February 10 2018, @12:13AM (#635793) Journal

    Muslims in America are no different from Muslims anywhere. When they are less than 1% of the population, they keep a low profile, and conform. When they make up more than 5% of the population, they start getting noisy, and demanding special rights and considerations. At 10%, they get noisier still. Have you bothered to look at Europe? The denser the Muslim population, the more trouble they cause.

    Islam doesn't play well with other socio-economic-political forms.

    • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 10 2018, @12:32AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 10 2018, @12:32AM (#635803)

      Runaway's channeling Pam Geller again! Can someone bring his meds? Or at least turn off the Faux Noise!

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 12 2018, @07:08PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 12 2018, @07:08PM (#636780)

      Have you bothered to look at Europe? The denser the Muslim population, the more trouble they cause.

      That's because denser Muslim population means a denser immigrant population as well. Europe does not have a long tradition of assimilating immigrant groups - look at the Romani people for one huge example of Europe perpetuating huge problems due to cultural differences.