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What happened after my 13-year-old son joined the alt-right
161–170 of 514 posts
Re: What happened after my 13-year-old son joined the alt-right
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Serious question: can you give an actual example of this because I can't think of a single one. A lot of commentators without thinking seem to call the nazi's a 'left' party -- I assume because of the word socialist in the party name -- there are many books on the history of the nazi party, and reading any of them should be enough to clear anyone of this misapprehension.
It's not just about the word "socialist" in the party name. Policy actually fits, on that and more.
They were into government intervention and social spending.
They had gun control. (a prerequisite for hauling off the Jews)
They shipped an ethnicity off to prison camps, just as FDR did. FDR is on the left, is he not?
They had the Sturmabteilung to break up opponent's political meetings, rather like the violent protesters that were sent to attack Trump supporters at campaign events.
So it seems you may need to clear up a misapprehension. I suspect the mistake arises from the desire to maximize political distance from the Nazi party for yourself, while minimizing that distance for your opponents. You might also wrongly associate nationalism with racism. They are not the same. Both can be found on both sides of the political divide.
It is fair to say that the Nazi party was to the right of communism, the popular alternative at the time, but of course everything is to the right of communism.
Re: What happened after my 13-year-old son joined the alt-right
#163Why are Americans so obsessed with Nazis? I mean, I'm from Europe and I don't recall growing up worrying about everyone being a secret (or overt) Nazi, which, unless promptly punched in the face, would somehow take over. WWII and Nazis destroyed Europe. Are Europeans worried about Nazis? Not as far as I can tell. Yet all I see from American news is Nazis this Nazis that. Can someone explain?
That's because Europeans have their heads in the sand like ostriches about all forms of societal change.
I'm a Canadian that just moved back after 4 years in Europe, and I found it impossible to have a progressive-minded conversation with most europeans (not all, but much higher ratio than at home) - about feminism, rape culture, about racial discrimination, about unconscious bias, about migration and immigration.
Europe has figured out a pretty good well-balanced society for its' citizens, and is incapable of reacting to change.
This is why nationalism, racism, and yes - fascism - are on the rise throughout Europe. Because nobody worries about it, and nobody pays attention to it. They just see brown people at the train station, get nervous, and ask no follow-up questions.
Re: What happened after my 13-year-old son joined the alt-right
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
Presumably the author & son are alluding to the middle-aged man holding the poster, which I should hope is obviously nowhere near the same as antifa.
Well, I don't know if I think a middle-aged man who goes to a rally to hold up a sign saying "NO TRUMP. NO KKK. NO FASCIST USA," is progress over the alt-right. To me it's the exact same thing -- an overly zealous person who takes politics as a tribal game and has no sincere intention of changing anybody's mind.
I'm reminded of the "is it OK to punch a 'Nazi'" debate.
Re: What happened after my 13-year-old son joined the alt-right
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
Presumably the author & son are alluding to the middle-aged man holding the poster, which I should hope is obviously nowhere near the same as antifa.
Well, I don't know if I think a middle-aged man who goes to a rally to hold up a sign saying "NO TRUMP. NO KKK. NO FASCIST USA," is progress over the alt-right. To me it's the exact same thing -- an overly zealous person who takes politics as a tribal game and has no sincere intention of changing anybody's mind.
> an overly zealous person who takes politics as a tribal game and has no sincere intention of changing anybody's mind.
But he did, didn't he?
Re: What happened after my 13-year-old son joined the alt-right
#166What resonated with me is how impossible it is, as a kid, to make sense of being in the school system. The interaction with an administrator was school discipline gone awry... but it could have easily been something else. (Discipline is the most likely, there are tons of misguided zero-tolerance policies.) I'm lucky that my parents were advocates and organizers and that they knew people in the school administration.…
What drove me crazy about K-12 is that all the bullshit zero tolerance policies affected mainly the normal kids. The real problem kids didn’t care, and continued to wreak havoc. It’s the main reason I send my kids to private school, even though the public schools where I live are good.
Re: What happened after my 13-year-old son joined the alt-right
#167It’s a very well written piece, but it just feels too well written, to the point of feeling to precise, too calculated, too... contrived. Aside from the opinions expressed, the ideological concerns, the relevance to the current political landscape - these are all relevant and interesting explorations, but the whole narrative is just too picture perfect and too close to a screenplay. It just feels like good fiction.
Re: What happened after my 13-year-old son joined the alt-right
#168[flagged]
Re: What happened after my 13-year-old son joined the alt-right
#169> Sam pledged fealty to the idea of men’s rights because, as he said, his former administrator had privileged girls’ words and experiences over boys’, and that’s how all of his troubles had started in the first place. I wonder how common this dynamic is now.
Hasn’t it always been like this? When I was at middle school, the Teachers used to lock the classrooms during lunch time, and I had some tennis balls in my desk so I asked my teacher for the key. She gave me the key and said “just get your things and don’t forget to lock the door, so not let anyone else in the room”. When I left the room one of the girls from the class tried to enter. I stood in the doorway because s…
Reminds me of the time me and my friend were sent to the principal's office for talking about Nerf guns. Because obviously 2 second graders were plotting to shoot up the school. Or the time a girl said I threw something at her when I said she couldn't have it.
Note that I don't think this was something about girls lying, I think everyone lied equally at that age or maybe even boys lied more. But the way school administrators deal with these issues is insane and certainly seems to damage kids far more than whatever they fear will happen if kids are allowed to have a little freedom. I can say with high certainty that the number of times I was sent to the principal's office as a kid for things I didn't do was the primary cause of my constant trouble making behavior for most of elementary and middle school
Re: What happened after my 13-year-old son joined the alt-right
#170It's an interesting story. I find the conclusion not unsurprising. The author seems to assume the existence of `alt-right` as a monolithic group with a specific agenda. As far as I can tell that's not true. These groups may come out together to protest because they've been lumped together by the media. If they weren't all branded `alt-right`, would they connect? If you want to disarm them, divide them! Don't label th…
People don't go to radical groups for the ideology: They come for the emotional outlet and camaraderie. Some radicals will flip flop enormously during their "career." They are activists. The guy with anarchist and nazi symbols is not an unusual sight. He's a perpetual misfit without the creativity to fashion his own ideology, someone looking for an edgy support group, who wants to be both with people and distinct from society at large.
People actually interested in ideas might end up thinking radical (as in, things other people find strange or upsetting) things, but they'll take a different path and won't engage in activism. They are philosophers, and if they write and are original enough, maybe the best of them will be remembered and appreciated sometime after their deaths.