I guess we don’t need to punch ’em now — there’s a worse fate in store for them. Below is a snippet of a video chat between Jason Kessler, organizer of that fizzle of a White Nationalist march that occurred last weekend, and Patrick Little, who I know nothing about other than the nasty bigotry of his anti-semitism in this clip. Listen in and be revolted at first, and then amused.
Unite the Right 2 organizer, Nazi failure Jason Kessler gets yelled at by his dad for being a Nazi while livestreaming w Nazi loser Patrick Little, who admits he may have to sell the boat he's broadcasting from at a loss because he needs money. pic.twitter.com/skmlmtdSAE
— FlyingOverTr0ut (@FlyingOverTr0ut) August 14, 2018
So they’re complaining about the Jews when Jason’s dad starts yelling at him to get out of his room. He’s been reduced to living in his parents’ house (in the basement, I hope). Little responds by showing off his boat that he had bought when he used to make good money, and thinks he’ll have to sell off to cover his legal bills.
Poverty isn’t funny, except maybe when racists use their hatred as a shovel to dig themselves deep into a hole.
Not the same instant gratification of the Nazi punch, but this is the much more preferable scenario. Hope it continues to get worse and worse for them.
Not that there was ever a need for it exactly…
I love the way he slowly has to admit that it’s his Dad.
So if he can’t get a job and is impoverished because he is a Nazi, does that mean he has to go on welfare? Like being a Nazi is a mental disability and he has to spend the rest of his pathetic life on disability because he’s unemployable.
I’m just kidding. Being a Nazi is a choice and there are plenty of groups out there willing to help reformed Nazis re-adapt to normal society.
Still wouldn’t be surprised if this asshat tried to go on disability anyway though. Seems like the type.
bwa hahahahahahahah big time nazi lives with daddy. and he has all that free time to play nazi
clearly no job!!!
heil deadbeat!
“Like being a Nazi is a mental disability…” It requires a complete lack of empathy for those different from you to be a Nazi, which does seem to qualify as a mental disability. However, I know a few sociopaths who feel no such empathy, yet are able to rationally understand that treating others well means they will be treated well in turn. It’s perfectly possible for an actual sociopath to behave like a decent person and respectable member of society. Nazis choose not to do that. Disability or no, fuck ’em.
Artor:
It’s fairly easy to feel no empathy (or little empathy) toward non-human entities. This is why dehumanization is a big part of most genocidal rhetoric. So no, Nazi’s (or anyone’s) lack of empathy toward other people isn’t a mental disability. It’s the expected result of a worldview that doesn’t acknowledge the humanity of the Other.
FWIW, I get (and agree with!) your broader point. I just wanted to highlight how genocidal lack of empathy isn’t some sort of cognitive malfunction, but rather the brain working as intended, given the appropriate stimuli (i.e., dehumanizing rhetoric).
I don’t believe in free will so I’m not sure anyone does have a choice about being a Nazi; I think a particular social or political view either makes sense to a given individual or it does not. Which is why, while it’s fun to argue about politics, almost never does anyone change their core beliefs, at least not without a major life changing event taking place. So perhaps the mental disability claim isn’t so far off the mark; if we can be non-judgmental about a schizophrenic who has conversations with dead people, why can’t we be non-judgmental about a nazi who thinks the Jews caused America to lose its manufacturing jobs? In both cases they believe things for which there’s no evidence based on a disturbed brain over which they may have little control.
Which is not to say nazis should be allowed to hold political power; they shouldn’t, for the same reason a schizophrenic who thinks he talks to his dead father shouldn’t hold political power. Plus the massive amount of harm and suffering they cause to other people. Being non-judgmental does not mean that you don’t take steps to protect other people. A rattlesnake has no choice about being a rattlesnake but that doesn’t mean I want it in my house.
All that said, I do think it’s a legitimate question to ask if you’re the master race, why are you still living in dad’s basement?
Dam, that probably also serves as an excuse for your crappy reasoning and posting…
++++
So the guy’s got three big beds to show off and still sleeps alone…
Giliell, No. 9, I accept your concession that you don’t have a substantive response to my post.
It makes sense to me. Some babies just subscribe to national socialism at birth.
thirdmill
Look at what I made you do now!
To be honest, I didn’t read past that first sentence, because 1) I had a 12 hour day, 2) the premise is bullshit so why should I read what follows? But really, this just shows how much you failed. See, as I don’t have free will you failed at making your post interesting enough for me to be compelled to keep reading. Don’t blame me, I didn’t make that rule.
It’s been awhile since we had a free will thread.
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/12/02/the-free-will-thread/
Acknowledging that free will isn’t a thing doesn’t mean choices aren’t a thing, just that they aren’t magical.
Either that or Giliell was born intolerant of insufferable twats who intimate Nazis believe what they do and killed millions because they just couldn’t help it. Me too, apparently.
Free Will!
Giliell, if you didn’t read past the first sentence I guess you wouldn’t know if I had a good argument or not.
If there’s actual evidence for free will I’d be interested in seeing it; my skepticism is based on not having seen any good evidence for it. Sure, it looks like people are making choices, just like it looks like the sun revolves around the earth, but in both cases that’s mostly an optical illusion.
And in the final analysis, does it make any practical difference whether the Nazis could help themselves or not? Those millions are just as dead regardless. And the rest of the world still needs to be protected from Nazis regardless. It’s not a contradiction to say BOTH that pedophiles can’t control being attracted to children AND ALSO that children need to be protected from pedophiles. Otherwise, it’s just othering, which I’ve read quite a bit about here.
Personally, I’m fine with othering Nazis.
Well, Giliell, is that because there’s a principled reason to make an exception for Nazis that would not also apply to, say, ISIS, or Trump voters, or priestly pedophiles? Or do you other those groups as well? Are there other people you are also fine with othering?
Here’s what it comes down to for me: Suppose I were to offer you a million dollars to believe in the Easter Bunny. You might pretend to believe in the Easter Bunny in order to get the money, but deep down in your gut, you wouldn’t, because you cannot volitionally choose what you believe. Something either makes sense to you or it doesn’t.
I can’t imagine just how broken someone would have to be to believe Nazi ideology, but deep down in their gut, they do, and trying to convince them to stop believing it will no more work than trying to convince you to believe in the Easter Bunny. The only thing to be done is to try to stop it from spreading.
Won’t somebody think of the poor Nazis?
Always remember Tucholsky
Yeah, I mean, believing in the Easter bunny, believing that Jews and blacks and gays and women are people, can’t seethe difference…
Giliell, the point of the analogy isn’t that the Easter Bunny is comparable to Nazi ideololgy; the point of the analogy is that people can’t volitionally change their beliefs, whatever those beliefs happen to be. And with as much harsh language as I’ve used about the Nazis in this thread, your poem is simply dishonest if you’re claiming it represents my views.
So I guess I now have to accept your second concession that you don’t have a substantive response.
Honestly, the free will argument is just like the simulation world argument to me. Whether we have free will or not, whether we live in a simulation or not, nazis still terrorise and kill people. If a simulated automaton keeps whacking me in the head, I don’t actually care that it’s not in control of itself, and I don’t care that it’s not really real – it’s hurting me, and I’m going to stop it.
If you really can’t see the difference, you’re even more stupid than I’ve taken you for – which is saying quite something. The latter, but not the former, is an inherently hateful and dangerous belief, which, moreover, the Nazi will do their best to spread and, we know from dire experience, may succeed.
In any case, if you think we don’t have free will, and that that means people don’t have real choices, anyone who is judgemental about Nazis doesn’t have a choice about that. So what point do you think you’re making?
You’re just making evcen more of a contemptible fool of yourself with this sort of stupid crap.
Thirdmill, are you the kind of person who claims to have won a fight because you groined your opponent in the knee?
Religion is a perfectly natural expression of human behavior involving beliefs and behaviours. People objectively change religions, become atheists, even become religious as atheists.
I’ve read many things about how hard it is to deal with a belief in creationism. People don’t abandon it all at once, it’s a poorly defined process. Yet the confrontations with creationists are an important part of dealing with creationism, though not the only part. High and low intensity aspects exist, introspection time matters, aggressive non-aggressive approches have their place and no one person has to do or should take a specific role.
Beliefs can be changed.
@21:
Or maybe people just don’t tend to change their beliefs instantly for money. Maybe it requires challenging deeper cognitions, flawed reasoning, poor memories, etc., but that people can and do change their beliefs over time when motivated to. Like, say, they’re a Nazi, they realize that it’s costing them everything they value, and they try to get help to conquer that hate.
The entire CBT literature would like to have a word with you.
Beliefs, aliefs.
Just a bit of a note… I changed my beliefs quite substantially… went from being an Ayn Rand-worshiping Objectivist who believed in God to being a proud, left-wing, semi/pseudo-Socialist SJW who no longer believes in God… so… I’m a decent example that people can, indeed, change their beliefs.
The question of whether or not the subconscious does it first is a fascinating one (there are studies where neurologists can predict a very simple choice you’re about to make before you’re even aware that you’re going to make that choice, but it only works with simple choices like what hand you’re going to lift or where you’re going to look or simple things like that; they can’t do it with more complex choices at the moment), but it has nothing to do with whether or not Nazis are evil.
Nathan, No. 29, I don’t know you so I can’t speak to your experience, but I’d be curious as to why you changed your beliefs, and are you sure that free will had anything to do with it? In my case, I was raised fundamentalist Christian and as a child I believed it, because children generally believe what their parents tell them to believe. But as an adult, once I started thinking it through for myself, I realized that the evidence just wasn’t there for at, at which point I stopped being a Christian. But I felt compelled by the evidence; it wasn’t a matter of making a free will choice that yesterday I believed X and today I believe something different.
Mark, No. 25, I declare victory when my opponent isn’t even bothering to respond fairly to the points I’ve made. Or thinks that verbal abuse is a substitute for making a sound argument.
thirdmill301,
Are you going to address KG’s post #23, specifically:
Looks pretty substantive to me.
thirdmill301, #18
You seem really confused about this.
Trying to convince me to believe in Easter bunny wouldn’t work because to believe in Easter bunny, I’ll need evidence. The Easter bunny doesn’t exist. That’s why trying to convince me won’t work.
Trying to convince a Nazi/racist person to see humanity in a different light can work and is absolutely nothing like the Easter bunny thing. In fact, do you honestly think no one in history who have subscribed to Nazi ideology or KKK ideology has had a change of heart?
Also, why do you think absence of free will implies a Nazi can’t stop being a Nazi? Show your work.
Thirdmill
Bullshit. Not all beliefs are equal. Not all measures people use to make folks change beliefs are equal.
I don’t believe in the easter bunny because there is zero evidence in favour of the easter bunny existing and quite some against it, like me having to buy and hide the easter presents. One million dollars is nice, but it is no evidence. Now, if that million dollar was hidden in my garden on Easter Sunday with a camera recording a bunny hiding it, that would be different.
You made an analogy where you chose something ridiculous as the belief and something unconnected in order to demonstrate that I cannot change beliefs as an analogy to “make Nazis stop hating Jews, at least in public by fighting against their bigotry.”
+++KG
Somehow, those things never work both ways. It’s just like all those people who always want us to be nice to incels, to politely debate Nazis, etc. Somehow they never show up on their forums and demand compassion and civility.
Thirdmill’s please for understanding only ever work in favour of the oppressors, be they conservative christians or Nazis.
Anyway, I actually think that whether or not free will exists is kind of not that interesting anyway, but that belief in a deterministic universe actively makes people worse because it excuses everything, from being an asshole to genocide.
+++
Mark Jacobson
That’s some coffee on my keyboard now.
It doesn’t really matter for the metaphysical issue of “free will” whether the universe is deterministic or not, because the only coherent alternative to determinism is a degree of randomness. No clear account of what is sometimes called “libertarian free will” (nothing to do with libertarianism as a political position, rather the idea that somehow people make choices which are neither deterministic nor random – I’d perhaps call it “magical free will”) has ever been given. I used to take the line Dennett follows in his books “Elbow Room” and “Freedom Evolves”, that libertarian free will has never been coherently formulated, but that we do have “free will” in the only senses it is worth having. I now prefer to avoid the term because it is so confusingly ambiguous, and simply say that we have agency: our intuitive belief that we make choices based on our preferences, beliefs and values, including choices to subject those preferences, beliefs and values to a variety of tests and to work on changing them, is true. People’s agency can be damaged, by conditions such as brain injury, dementia, psychosis, terror, drug use, etc., and it makes sense to take that into account in judging others, and in deciding how to respond to their actions, including expressed beliefs. Some expressions of belief are prima facie evidence that the person expressing them is subject to such a limitation of agency – for example, the belief that aliens are telling you to kill yourself. Others are not, for example, the belief in a world Jewish conspiracy and other typical Nazi beliefs – because we know that they are part of a shared, articulated worldview stemming from particular historical circumstances and motivated by hatred; and that they can in some circumstances be changed by exposure to evidence that the belief is false, or confrontation with its consequences.
It’s quite bizarre that thirdmill doesn’t see how this account completely undermines the nonsense they’ve been spewing. How can anyone think it would somehow be “free” to make an arbitrary decision to change what one believes for no reason, and not free to change one’s beliefs based on a process of rational enquiry that one has decided to undertake?
Oh and thirdmill, see, this is why I don’t actually think that you really believe what you say:
Now, there are two possibilities:
One, I do actually believe that Tucholsky’s poem represents your views.
In that case (which is actually true), you may not like it, and it may also not be true, but it is my honest belief. So, if I can neither choose nor change my beliefs, then there’s no reason for you to get so huffy and puffy, because I could not believe differently.
Two, that I actually believe that this poem does not represent your views, yet, for nefarious reasons, still chose to post it. Yet still there was no choice involved on my side. The word dishonest therefore does not make sense, because it implies that I could choose to be honest instead, yet you constantly use language that implies that other people could have acted differently but didn’t.
Except when they’re Nazis who killed a few million people, of course.
Thirdmill @ #30…
Making a free choice doesn’t mean doing so randomly and without forethought. I could not tell you the exact moment that I lost my faith, but I know I made the choice to go down the rabbit hole that led to my atheism…
that the majority of people in the US who call themselves atheists were at one time raised as religious in and of itself belies your inane proclamation.
why people even bother responding to your nonsense with anything but laughter is beyond me. boredom I guess.
Jeez… Not the “no free will” argument.
Look, folks throughout the world exist in a state of ambivalence, no? They don’t feel one way or another way.
Or even better, they feel conflicted. So, you claim that moving from a state of ambivalence to one of conclusion is also beyond one’s capacity of choice (which reduces your argument to complete an ad absurdum state) based on weighing multiple social and evidentiary factors.
Case in point: Do I create an account to write a post just to call out nonsense? “Oh…I’m sorry. I didn’t do it. I had no choice in the matter. T’was the Easter Bunny that made me do it.”
Shrug
Anyway, you are the one presenting a position (no free will), and so the onus is on you to support that position (one that cannot be refuted, hence is that ever dreaded circular reasoning that lead to logical dead ends). Me? I despise circular reasoning, so I’ll rely on the rich body of psychological evidence that demonstrates the dynamics of agency.