The Trump Presidency

[Bacon McShig]

For the "counter-protestors are just as bad as the protestors" crowd:

RUCKERSVILLE, Va. ― Susan Bro sat in her darkened home on Sunday, tearing up as she smiled.

She was thinking fondly of her daughter, 32-year-old Heather Heyer, who was killed in Charlottesville, Virginia, the day before, when a man drove his car into protesters against the “Unite the Right” rally, a gathering of white supremacist groups.

Heather, a paralegal who lived in Charlottesville, was determined to stand up to injustice, her mother told HuffPost. There was no question that she would protest throngs of neo-Nazis and other extremists who had descended on her town.

“She always had a very strong sense of right and wrong. She always, even as a child, was very caught up in what she believed to be fair,” Bro said. “Somehow I almost feel that this is what she was born to be, is a focal point for change. I’m proud that what she was doing was peaceful. She wasn’t there fighting with people.”

She recalled that her daughter was charitable and reached out to the underprivileged. Bro said Heather used to invite friends who were “having a hard time” to stay with them, sometimes for months. Anyone who needed help received it from Heather, Bro said.

Others who knew Heyer expressed similar sentiments. A neighbor in Charlottesville told HuffPost that “she lived her life like her path ― and it was for justice.” A GoFundMe page set up in Heyer’s name by a family friend said that Heyer was killed “while protesting against hate.”

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) sent a message of support to Heyer’s family and said that “her bravery should inspire us all to come together.”

James Fields Jr., 20, was arrested and charged with second-degree murder over the crash. Fields was in Charlottesville attending the “Unite the Right” rally and was photographed with a shield bearing a white supremacist emblem hours before the attack.

“I think he’s still very young, and I’m sorry he believed that hate could fix problems. Hate only brings more hate,” Bro said. “Heather was not about hate, Heather was about stopping hatred. Heather was about bringing an end to injustice.

She began to cry as she added, “I don’t want her death to be a focus for more hatred. I want her death to be a rallying cry for justice and equality and fairness and compassion. I’m very sorry that [Fields] chose that path because he has now ruined his life as well as robbed a great many of us of someone we love very much.”

“No mother wants to lose a child, but I’m proud of her,” she said. “I’m proud of what she did.”

Friends and colleagues echoed Bro’s message.

“Heather was such a sweet soul, and she did not deserve to die,” Marissa Blair, a friend, told The New York Times. She was a “very strong woman” who fought against “any type of discrimination,” added Alfred A. Wilson of the Miller Law Group in Charlottesville, where Heyer worked as a paralegal.

She had a knack for helping people in financial distress, said the firm’s president, Larry Miller. The Miller Law Group handles bankruptcy and debt relief cases, among other matters.

“She’d hold their hand and make sure they would get the stuff in timely, that way we wouldn’t have any issues,” he told the Daily Beast. “She was really good at that.”

“They a lot of times are embarrassed about having to do something like a bankruptcy,” Miller said, “and Heather was always saying, ‘It’s going to be OK.’”

Sounds like a real monster. Good riddance, amirite?

[Fe 26]

Man, I had this guy before my parents would let me have the expensive transformers

Click for full size

[Frogacuda]

I'm not sure how I feel about the southern people upset about the Robert E Lee thing being conflated with the Nazis who are also present. Lie down with the dogs you get fleas I guess?

I feel like you're confused about the nature of this rally, which was not so much an issue-focused protest about the statue as it was a much hyped joint effort between a few dozen extremist hate groups, with a lineup of Neo-Nazi speakers, all designed to explicitly promote white nationalism. If there were people there who weren't racist but just wanted to support the statue, they were at the wrong place...

It's like looking at a book-burning and saying "But what about the people who were just cold?"

[Fe 26]

For the "counter-protestors are just as bad as the protestors" crowd:

Sounds like a real monster. Good riddance, amirite?

The first thing that jumps out at me is that the other side probably doesn't see themselves as promoters of hate. IRL, cobra and the decepticons do not know they're the bad guys.

[Frogacuda]

Yeah, these guys are self-identifying as Nazis, but the left also calls anyone who voted Trump, sings an NWA song out loud or questions immigration a Nazi. The intolerance on both sides is preventing any productive dialogue.

They don't but there's a lack of nuance to how they talk about things, and there's a really harmful tendency to focus on character rather than policy or action.

Like, they're content to simply say "This person is a racist" for a comment they made. And that comment might have actually been kinda racist, but in making it about the PERSON and not the action, you put everyone in this iredeemable category, and dismiss them outright. And anyone you do that to isn't going to suddenly see it your way, they're just going to be "Hey, fuck you too." And some might even start to empathize with the other people getting the same attacks leveled at them. It's really destructive.

I don't disagree with the cause of identity politics, but it has to be policy-focused to have any meaning. This culture of "calling out" is a byproduct of social media, and it's totally disconnected from and distracting from actually accomplishing anything to improve the lives of disadvantaged groups.

[Doc Holliday]

For the "counter-protestors are just as bad as the protestors" crowd:

Sounds like a real monster. Good riddance, amirite?

That's a sweet story, but https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/anecdotal

[YellerDog]

I feel like you're confused about the nature of this rally, which was not so much an issue-focused protest about the statue as it was a much hyped joint effort between a few dozen extremist hate groups, with a lineup of Neo-Nazi speakers, all designed to explicitly promote white nationalism. If there were people there who weren't racist but just wanted to support the statue, they were at the wrong place...

It's like looking at a book-burning and saying "But what about the people who were just cold?"

Then the news is doing a poor job reporting on it. I'm shocked.

[Yoshi]

I feel like you're confused about the nature of this rally, which was not so much an issue-focused protest about the statue as it was a much hyped joint effort between a few dozen extremist hate groups

Does anyone think he realizes he just described every pre-election "protest" perfectly?

It's like looking at a book-burning and saying "But what about the people who were just cold?"

No, wait. Now it's perfect. We needed that free speech suppression reference.

[Bacon McShig]

That's a sweet story, but https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/anecdotal

I mean if you've got a quantitative scientific measure showing that people unwelcoming of Nazis are mostly just a rabble of unreasonable troublemaking scumbags, then whip it out, you tease.

[Doc Holliday]

Berkeley? Every jack ass who revels in "Punch a Nazi!"

I argue the guy who punched Richard Spencer and all those who applaud him are responsible for the injuries and death on August 12.