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America, American, campaign, Chicago, freedom, freedom of speech, freedom to assemble, politics, troll, Trump, violence, violence at rallies
The recent disputes happening at rallies seems to show troll culture has jumped from Cyberspace into the mainstream.
Trolls, in short, are folks who visit an online website, blog, or discussion thread they disagree with, but rather than just stating their points like a rational person, they seem to feel they are on some kind of crusade to disrupt, upset, and dismantle discussions that don’t suit them. They are self-appointed “thought police.” It’s as if other people having their own opinions is simply not allowed, are seen as a personal affront and threat to their own worldview rather than simply as an alternate one.
Imagine if Trump supporters started to attend rallies for his democratic opponents, heckling, destroying candidate signs, trying to jump on stage. Would the press blame the candidates themselves for those actions, or would they place the blame where it belongs — on the agitators who are on some vigilante crusade to “shut down” a legitimate and (like it or not) popular candidate?
Whether or not you or I agree with Trump or not, we should all be very, very disturbed by these events surrounding him, and how he is being blamed for those events rather than the blame being placed on those making their own choices to agitate in the opposing camp and yet expect impunity — or worse — validation or glory even. Not that I am justifying violence, but you don’t poke at a rattlesnake with a stick and then not expect a reaction, do you? What did they think was going to happen?
Because you know what? If troll culture gets a pass, we’ll start seeing it more and more often, like at this rally just moments ago for another presidential candidate!
The solution is not to allow more and safer disruption of people who really should not be there in the first place. We don’t need to protect the trolls, they need to be legally ejected or arrested if they are disruptive. To coddle them will only make things worse.
Whatever happened to agreeing to disagree? How did we get here? How do we get back to something a little more sanity based?
The slow slide of first amendment freedoms, of all personal liberties in fact, we have seen over the past few decades is not a good thing. It is not American. It is not freedom. It is not liberty. It is not justice for all.
Troll culture is not a step forward, it is a big step back.
Notes From a Red Pill Girl 
Extremism breeds extremism.
If you read Hayek, he makes a great argument that the rise of right-wing fascism in early 20th century Europe was actually a response to left-wing extremism. I think you are seeing a similar story today. Progressives on the Left think that by moving further to the Left, they can counter the Right. But the reality is that they are only making it worse.
There is a reason why Moderates are often views as the “voice of reason”.
Indeed, Copperfox. The middle is often the sweet spot, not the extreme on either side.
I don’t think it was really a jump of trolling from the Internet into the “real world”…rather, the use of thuggish tactics to suppress free speech has been normalized on university campuses over the last two decades, and it was inevitable that it would ooze out from academia into the general society. See for example my old posts Goon Squad:
http://photoncourier.blogspot.com/2008_10_01_archive.html#6307796779869467890
and The Dawning Age of the Thug:
http://photoncourier.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_archive.html#116083967904772971
Re CopperFox’s comment on left-wing and right-wing extremism: Sebastian Haffner, who grew up in Germany between the wars (and whose superb memoir eveyone should read), comments on two acquaintances, one Communist and the other Nazi:
“They both came from the ‘youth movement’ and both thought in terms of leagues. They were both anti-bourgeois and anti-individualistic. Both had an ideal of ‘community’ and ‘community spirit’. For both, jazz music, fashion magazines…in other words the world of glamour and ‘easy come, easy go’, were a red rag. Both had a secret liking for terror, in a more humanistic garb for the one, more nationalistic for the other. As similar views make for similar faces, they both had a certain stiff, thin-lipped, humourless expression and, incidentally, the greatest respect for each other.”
Haffner also describes the way that almost everything became politicized in Germany. When he joined a sports club, right after the end of WWI, it was a *right wing* sports club, and they regularly engaged in street fights against their left-wing equivalents (he doesn’t say who started the fights, it was probably mainly mutual.)
Free speech in the US today is under very serious attack from many sides, and neither of the two leading presidential candidates seems to be very much a supporter thereof. Hillary Clinton, by credible report, reacted to the Benghazi debacle by wanting to have an American filmmaker arrested. When the organizers of the “Draw Muhammed” contest were threatened with murder (which almost came off), Donald Trump was quick to blame the almost-victims at least as much as the Islamist would-be killers.
There is a problem, trolling works. When the Communists had rallies in Germany, Nazis showed up and beat the stuffing out of them.
What has to happen is something that didn’t happen in Germany at that time. The police have to come down on this like a ton of bricks. In Germany, they stood casually by. There are no shortage of laws that they can be prosecuted for.
Agreed Fuzzie, it cannot stand. These agitators are out of line, it’s beyond them wanting to express their own freedom of speech, it’s subversion.
To cite Sebastian Haffner again:
Haffner makes it clear that *the beasts* gained power from the reluctance of the authorities to deal with them severely. For example, Hitler openly threatened and insulted the judge of the highest German court, before which he had been summoned as a witness. There was no charge of contempt. Nothing happened.
“It was strange to observe how the behavior of each side reinforced that of the other: the savage impudence which gradually made it possible for the unpleasant, little apostle of hate to assume the proportions of a demon; the bafflement of his tamers, who always realized just too late exactly what he was up to…then also the hypnotic trance into which his public fell, succumbing with less and less resistance to the glamour of depravity and the ecstasy of evil.”
David agreed this seems to come from university culture, which in itself is deeply disturbing. When did colleges go from being a place where critical thinking, freedom of expression, and open debate flourished and were encouraged to a place where even being exposed to alternate viewpoints is considered assault? “Oh, my ears! I need protection! I am a victim! I need a designated safe space!” Give me a break!!!!
Bloom, hope you don’t mind me posting here especially since I don’t agree with you very much; twice in one day … lol. You may remember me from another site awhile back … and, no, if you remember I don’t mind standing out and taking a contrarian view … just sayin.
Anyway, I don’t agree at all that this is just “trolling” in real life. Its actually far more serious than that. As Foster and copperfox alluded too; its far more dangerious. Feminism allied itself with Socialism, progressiveism, leftism, whatever you want to call it. They have been at war with the mainstream and conservative beliefs since 2nd wave feminism began. They have won the wars. They took over media. They took over Academia. They took over most mainstream religions in the west (check out Dalrock). And most importantly they took over Government, politics, and the legal system. And the last one is important … the legal system is controlled by left wing fanatics … there is no rule of law anymore … just look how divorce courts treat men. I heard a stat awhile back its at that 92% of the time the court awards primary custody to women, 3% to men and 3% the children are taken away to foster care or another family member. Think about that … men get primary custody at the same rate as BOTH parents are incompetent, dead, or in jail. So yes they have destroyed marriage and destroyed the family. They have won.
So anyway, the leftists believe they have won. And they rigged the Nomination for Hillary and they have rigged the election for Hillary. They see Trumps popularity as a revolt against a sure thing victory and will stop at nothing to put it down. Remember the media is behind them and if you look at the media coverage of these “trolls”, many in the media are actually blaming Trump because people show up to deliberate cause violence. And remember the criminal system and the government supports this as well. They will look the other way, it the system gets what it wants.
There have been serious discussions on right wing blogs about Trump being similar to JFK or RFK. In other words he will be assassinated before he gets to office or short afterwards so that he CANNOT change the status quo and reverse the changes implemented under Obama and the leftists.
This is very serious and goes way beyond Trolls. The analogies to Hitler, Socialism, Nazi extremism are far more accurate. Very dangerous situation right now. Even many in the Republican establishment would look the other way if someone took out Donald.
Sorry to thread-jack.
@ Rocket post as often as you wish. Even if you disagree with me (which if so thanks for not making a big scene so far, lol!) Yes I do not doubt some of what you say, but calling them trolls makes it easier to feel there may yet be some hope. Things are dire indeed. We shall see if the trolls hold the bridge or not…. Much to lose, much already lost… But the smallest light can overcome dark, while the darkest dark cannot extinguish the smallest speck of light, and pure hearts can move mountains, because luckily the universe is aligned with it. So I believe all is not lost… I cannot believe it so long as I drew breath. Yet I am a realist too. It is bad, indeed…
Moderates are useless. They only ever attack their own side. When the left organizes massive rioting, they call on the right to surrender to end the violence. When the left comes after our rights, the moderates call for compromise, that we surrender some of our rights bow, and some later. Now that the left has moved on to discussing the extermination of whites, the moderates will surely tell the whites not to fight against the slaughter, because all that conflict is so unpleasant.
When I want to live and the left wants to kill me, the only compromise to be had is either that I kill the left, or that the left kills me. I cannot be half alive, so I refuse to compromise on my continued existence.
The left wanted this. They pushed it to this point, but behind them were the moderates, softly chanting about compromise and agreement and supporting the left the whole time. When it comes to blows–and it will end up there sooner, rather than later–then the right will kill the left, including the moderates. If they stay out of it, then they are neutral parties, but moderates are not neutrals, they are leftists, and the leftists must die.
The Shadowed Knight
tsk, I see what you mean, and I agree. Lukewarm is worse than hot or cold… by the middle I did not mean lukewarm, neutral is probably a better term. Instead of white, I would say West…
It’s anarchy, Bloom… there is corruption everywhere, very depressing if you dwell on it too much. I tell you this, it sucks being an LEO’s wife when there’s so much corruption (high up) and there are policies going forth to bring cities into chaos (and make police ineffective to stop the anarchy). I’m sure military families feel the same way (and have for longer).
As much as I am an optimist, I don’t think it’s going to get better (yet) anytime soon. I think worse is coming.
Europeans are the West. The only bits of civilization in South America are run by the descendents of Europeans. Africa. Ha. Haha. Asia is stagnant, and only moves when it is forced upon them by European advances. None of them can maintain or become the West.
A negro asking what value white lives have. A negro living in a white country, going to a white school, paid for by whites, and he asks what value they have. They want to kill us, Bloom. They are killing us. We will kill them all.
When it comes to it, when we decide the value of human life, it will be paid in the only universal coin: violence. Violence is golden, and he who has the gold makes the rules.
The Shadowed Knight
Ak Dragonfly, I do not doubt that. I suppose if so my only solace is the knowledge that even in the midst of collapse, life continues and one faces what comes day to day. Hopefully in those most difficult moments, one always clings to Him, and light…
Corrie Ten Boom comes to mind… even in the darkest of places, she found solace in the knowledge that there is a bigger picture than this…
tsk, you know I am a girl, right? I will cling to my silly idealism because to consider the opposite is just too horrifying… as a woman, violence simply is not my realm. It is hard for me to even understand, to be honest. Perhaps other girls feel this, too? Not that it makes it wrong, or even not necessary, but it is simply not something the female mind can truly grasp IMHO. Which is why women do not make very good combatants… sneaky sly combatants perhaps (maybe even the best of that) but front line? No…
I can’t even kill a rooster…even when the damn thing attacks me everyday. A guy? Done. Dead. No remorse. No thinking twice. It just has to be, and he knows it. That’s the difference…
I get it, Bloom. As long as when it comes to it, women stay out of the way. Battle is in my blood, bred into me almost as deep as family. It has taken me some time to anger, but now that my ire is raised, it will take as long to abate. This is going to be a job for men, though I doubt your idealism will survive what is coming.
The last nasty rooster on my farm met his end when he attacked me and cut up my leg. I beat him to death with a spade, and finished him off with the edge so that he would not suffer. One of my mother’s dogs bites when he gets excited. He chomps on when he gets wound up. After I laid him out a few times for doing that, he stopped biting me. My mother thought I was being excessive, but he still nips her and not me.
The Shadowed Knight
Tsk luckily where I live, it’s thick on the ground with men who will do the right thing, and who stand ready. I am blessed to live in such a place. If needed I will make sammiches, send encouragement, and stay out of the way. Oh and to try and keep the women folk productive 🙂
Oh and that rooster? Well after several months of my dithering about what to do my neighbor says he’s “found a good home” for it, supposedly w someone who wants a Rhode Island Red roo, even if he isn’t nice. Ummm, yeah… I wasn’t born yesterday. So the neighbor comes over, I get a box, we load it up, I say goodbye… Full well knowing but not wanting to say out loud, “you’re just going to take him to your house and off him like I should have two months ago, aren’t you?”
but it was dangerous, with my own kids plus families and people coming to my biz, he had to go. I just couldn’t seem to do it… I kept leaving the gate open hoping the coyote would! Lol.
TSK,
That Harvard student was blowing smoke. If he really felt that way, he would have kept his mouth shut. Blacks are about 13% of the population. From a manpower standpoint, they are not capable of it. Should they try, they would be annihilated. It would be like Wounded Knee all over again.
Bloom,
I have been waiting so long for the final installment of the rooster story that I had forgotten. It is good that the coyotes never got him. They would come back for more.
“It’s anarchy, Bloom… there is corruption everywhere, very depressing if you dwell on it too much. I tell you this, it sucks being an LEO’s wife when there’s so much corruption (high up) and there are policies going forth to bring cities into chaos (and make police ineffective to stop the anarchy). I’m sure military families feel the same way (and have for longer).
As much as I am an optimist, I don’t think it’s going to get better (yet) anytime soon. I think worse is coming.”
I try to be an optimist, too. Some days it’s harder than others.
A friend of mine works in areas with large “refugee” populations. I use quotes because we really don’t have the language to properly describe these populations: if a few million people are living for generations, stateless, inside another sovereign country, are they refugees? Not really. They’re something else. The same phenomenon now has commenced in Europe; 25% of French teens are Muslim. One can’t really call them French as they have created a competitor, parasitic state within the quaint 19th century nation-state that was France.
An inverted form of this dynamic is at work in the USA now. Anarchistic thugs believe half of the population is illegitimate and undeserving of the lives and rights the thugs claim for themselves.
The effort to create a liberal, fascist and totalitarian superstructure in the USA is far more than the mainstreaming of trolls. (Ditto Rocket, ASK, etc.) Putting a happy face on this effort is extremely dangerous and somewhat tedious, in the manner of women writing on manosphere blogs, repeatedly, that they are outlier exceptions to the social, legal, financial conditions that marginalize men and boys.
So what’s happening now is that in the USA, men and economic dissidents (e.g., men who don’t want to compete with illegals in the labor market) are becoming, themselves, refugees. There is a small nation within the nation emerging, facilitated by new and alternative media. When liberal fascists act, it is to a) delegitimize these dissidents; and b) ultimately criminalize them. Their endgame is to eliminate them, as men have been eliminated as equal participants in family law, or criminalized for their sexuality in the academy.
Just as women want to claim sexual victimhood (and rip their shirts off at frat parties*, and simultaneously claim that they can decide a year after fucking a dude that the act was criminal, so his life is destroyed), those on this totalitarian left want to claim “exploitation” and the simultaneous right to silence anyone who doesn’t affirm their control of society. To call such people trolls is to acquiesce and serve their ambitions. Their ambitions are to destroy civil society and replace it with one — conveniently, directed by themselves — that is analogous to what they have elsewhere achieved. Three percent of men, as Rocket notes, and that means 97 of children, have no rights to paternity. The leftists and feminists have a convenient rejoinder, of course: “I’m not really like that, and I’ll be nice this time.” Now that the academy, the family, the military, and the workplace are dangerous for men, is it really a good idea to call mob action in the public square a troubling inconvenience?
* http://nypost.com/2016/03/14/harvard-tells-its-women-go-where-the-rapes-are/
Fuzzie this was another rooster, sadly, the other one, same thing. I have had bad luck w roosters turning mean with the last several… Not sure why.
Trolls => Should be Insurgents.
Good post, BV.
Just looking at the swift business firearms business is doing, I think a lot of people instinctively understand this. Lately when we go to Kiffney’s gun range, we see a lot of foreigners (Canadians, Germans, etc). I think they instinctively recognize this, too.
Scary time to be a parent. 😦
“Scary time to be a parent. :-(”
Maybe this is why I’d like to believe they’re just trolls and it’s all going to be ok…
Lol! I know, Bloom. I feel the same. 😦
Syria demonstrates that if a sufficiently ruthless enemy appears, some women will take up arms. The all-female Kurdish units have had success at pushing back ISIS.
I think it’s a pretty human response to try to mitigate things.
People use humor as a palliative, for instance, sometimes even under harsh conditions. But the humor can be pretty campy.
(I’m reminded of those old, now contraband, fighter pilot songs from back in the day the life expectancies were pretty low)
True, Liz. What was the life expectancy of WWII fighter pilots? Like X flights, and it seems it wasn’t many. I once knew a man who was a WWII fighter pilot, but I was a teen then, and not aware of how special that was. I wish I could go back in time and talk to him about all that now… he told tales of wearing a heavy leather suit, non pressurized planes, how cold it was…
@ gumdeo, indeed. And if it came to that, I am sure I would channel my inner warrior, or do my best to. But again, I hope it never comes to that!
I don’t know that statistics, Bloom. I only know the odds weren’t good. I think the bombers were worst of all, with something like a 17 percent likelihood of surviving their first tour. The average life expectancy of a Spitfire (RAF) pilot in the big war was 4 weeks. The bravado in the RAF, from that high risk, seems to be a part of the culture (at least it did, but I haven’t known any RAF guys in quite a while so that might have changed just like the USAF has changed).
I visited a air museum last year and saw the stat, it was shockingly low…seems like 6 or something was the average number of flights one could expect. And that men went anyway…well I have incredible respect for that!
“If you read Hayek, he makes a great argument that the rise of right-wing fascism in early 20th century Europe was actually a response to left-wing extremism. I think you are seeing a similar story today.”
I’m curious to understand what right-wing fascism or extremism — in actual evidence — gives rise to the salaried brown shirt mobs shutting down political discourse last week.
Or does the writer think that the totalitarian left has inspired a “fascist” or “extreme” right wing response?
It’s very unclear. (Illustrative examples would be useful.) The virtue signaling is plain, of course. Perhaps that was the point.
Hitler was for the subversion of the individual, the removal of rights and freedoms, the subsuming of the needs of the people and the community for the need of the state, the militarisation of society and the instituionalisation of a regimen of education, indoctrination and politicisation of youth.
Sounds more like left-wing extremeism to me.
Liz, the Left (today) conveniently ignores the second word in the name of his political party: Socialist. Socialists brook no dissent.
An explanation of Nazi ideas, from a 1932 electoral piece by Joseph Goebbels himself. Worth reading:
http://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/haken32.htm
I always thought moderates lacked the brass to take a stand as in “extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
hitler was a leftist as it states right in the name nationalist socialist party… as BV was quick to point out
WOW. Just read an at the scene account of what the Chicago anti-trump demonstrations were like, With commentary, pics, and video. Bloom, Liz … this is what’s coming … putting a “nice, optimistic spin on it” ain’t gonna cut it.
http://www.dangerandplay.com/2016/03/16/chicago-trump-rally-what-really-happened-and-how-the-left-exposed-their-true-form/
@ Rocket, but what can Liz and I do but hope for the best? See what I am sayin’? Optimism is all women got. But women should heed optimism leading to ridiculous unreality, a.k.a. Merkel’s “open arms” policy.
In truth, the left is not all that threatening. They may have loud mobs, but give me several good men, and I could build a riot squad that would crush them. Show up with clubs or batons, on line, and start smashing heads. Study riot control techniques and close order drill, then beat them down to the ground. Stupid college kids that want free shit and to cause a scene are not going to hold against an organized assault, and negros are not interested in fair fights.
Once guns come into play, the left is going to die like flies. Who holds all the arms and serves in combat units? Who sit in classrooms and offices complaining about how hard life is? Which wins?
The Shadowed Knight
“But women should heed optimism leading to ridiculous unreality, a.k.a. Merkel’s “open arms” policy.”
Well, yeah. Optimism doesn’t mean lunacy or catatonia. 🙂
It’s going to be interesting if Trump gets the nomination.
I mean, I’d never go purposely looking for troule but if Hillary supporters make it a habit of crashing rallies I might find it therapeutic to…well turn medieval on the Hillary supporters. Since I missed out on all those punk raves in high school.
“purposely looking for trouble”. Typo above.
As a side note, just reading Dalrock’s last post about labeling Hillary for that mnemonic unpleasant association “thing” to turn off prospective voters.
He voted for “scold” someone else voted for “cranky” and so forth.
I vote for Cunctator.
It’s euphoniously illustrative, and unlike Cuntator a kid could wear it on a tee shirt to school.
Women having optimism isn’t a big deal; combing their silliness and the vote is sheer lunacy
@ Rocket I read that and it does not surprise me in the least! I figured as much that the “protesters” were anything but peaceful, or polite. I am surprised more haven’t gotten thumped on!
Oh, I have complete faith that DADDY will troll back as good as he gets! ❤
You know, what actually is the point of women voting? That’s basically what feminism started with, and all we got was more feminism, and now we’re just drowning in feminism. That would solve the Hilary problem. Call me what you want, but I think it’s a good question to ask.