CNN Tracks Down Guy Who Made Trump Wrestling GIF, Threatens To Dox Him[twitter storm]

[Silver Pines]

Lol.... I don't think he knew what it really meant... ie how naïve he was.  It is now a leftie code word for really, really bigoted, racist and .... dare I say it? (I dare, I dare!)....

neo-Nazi-ish.

@XenaLee

Without naming the person, I'll say that I believe, after reading his posts since I left TOS, that he completely understands what it's about, and that its philosophy called out to him.

[Silver Pines]

Nah.   I'm just trying to clarify here.   ^-^

@XenaLee

Cool!   

[Maj. Bill Martin]

So Ben Shapiro is a leftist now too?

@Cripplecreek

No, Ben Shapiro is not a leftist.  He's a conservative who is going with a leftist smear because that particular smear -- the alt-right is racist - matches his own agenda.   And I think he's doing that without realizing that he's giving away more than he likely thinks.  So in that particular context, I'd say he'd fall into a category some might describe as a "useful idiot".  I don't think he's an actual idiot -- but I think that concept is the closest to what is actually happening.

The full leftist smear is basically a syllogism:  1) Trump supporters are the Alt-Right, 2) the alt-right are racists, 3) Trump supporters are racists.  If you don't think the left is pushing that, then you haven't been reading/listening to the same folks I have been.

I certainly think there are many people who self identify as "Alt-right" who are actual racists.  But there also are some self-identified alt-righters -- I know a few -- who are not racist.  And what I particularly dislike about the "racist" label in this context is that the left pushes a ridiculous definition of what it means to be racist.  If you say "All Lives Matter", that's racist.  Want to protect the southern border?  That's racist.  Slow down immigration from the Middle East?  Racist!  Heck, in some instances, just waving an American flag is racist.  The left lumps all those points of view into the same cauldron, and then attach a label of "white supremacy" to it.

I don't think Shapiro is doing that, at least not intentionally, but by going with the "the alt-right is racist" definition, he is actually supporting the screwy leftist definitions, and their efforts to convert all dissent on those issues into "hate speech".

This whole debate is why I don't like using the term at all. It is simply too imprecise, too ill-defined, and there is no gatekeeper to say who is in the "alt-right", and who isn't.

[Cripplecreek]

@Cripplecreek

An important distinction, IMO.

The German nazis were progressives and while people want to get bogged down with ignorant arguments about whether they were left or right, the fact is that they were both left and right. They were largely following the earlier American model of progressivism.

The alt right in this country want to follow the Euro right who aren't at all like the familiar right of the english speaking anglosphere. Daniel Hannan has been pretty good at pointing out the differences while refusing to become defensive when he hears someone say the nazis were right wing. He points out that the euro right are ethnocentric socialists who want top down control with their socialism working for their people.

A few years ago a far right party called The Golden Dawn was on the rise in Greece I believe. TOS was ecstatic that this wonderful conservative party was aggressively taking more and more power in Greece. All TOS cared about was that the golden dawn blamed immigrants on welfare for causing the Greek economic disaster. I decided to do some digging and found that the Golden dawn did blame immigrants for their problems but the ultimate blame was laid at the feet of Jewish bankers and the American mercenary military forcing muslims out of their homes. They wanted greater bottom up control of corporations, to destroy the globalism (again zionists). They wanted living wages and pensions regardless of employment, free health care, free college.

[Silver Pines]

Message boards generally don't operate by the rule that if you disagree with a posted article, you are required to just "pass on by".  At least not in my experience.  Usually, it's a point open for discussion or disagreement.

I think Shapiro unfairly lumps everyone who has ever considered themselves part of the "Alt-right" into the "racist Neanderthal" category.  While that description certainly applies to some people, it certainly doesn't apply to all.  And when you add that to the effort by the media to paint anyone who supports Trump as a member of the "Alt-right", you're then left with "if you support Trump, you're really a racist", which is what I think the goal of the left was all along -- delegitimize any effort to support Trump.

I don't, and never have, considered myself to be a member of the alt-right.  I don't even consider myself a supporter of Trump.  But I know an attempted leftist smear when I see one, and I don't think it helps to have other conservatives accept their characterizations so easily.

@Maj. Bill Martin

Apparently you don't, because it's more than that, though I suppose I understand the temptation to want to believe otherwise.  Ultimately, though, believing the alt-right is just a leftist smear attempt does nothing but give us a false sense of comfort while ignoring reality.

There was no "lumping together" in Shapiro's article.  What he wrote is pretty much what other serious conservative journalists, authors, and sources have written about the nature of the alt-right.  There's lots of reading material if you care to google, or not.  As Jonah Goldberg said, he has twenty years' experience dealing with those types, and Shapiro said the ADL lists him  as their number-one online target. 

Dismissing the alt-right as a leftist smear job means ignoring a lot that's right in front of you.  Steve Bannon said that Breitbart is the platform for the alt-right; he and others like him want to burn down conservatism and replace it with a new right.  He said as much.  The alt-right has stated that they oppose the left's moral relativism and identity politics.  Doesn't sound like a leftist conspiracy, does it? 

I recently read a letter from a boy in a private Christian high school who said that his fellow students were becoming champions of alt-right politics.  He said they weren't interested in Reagan conservatism because they were angry, and they wanted to blow it all up ("burn it down").  Kind of reminds me of a forum I used to post on.  They still identify as the premier conservative site on the web, but plenty of them post Pepe memes and screech the four letter word that starts with C and rhymes with duck.  They openly defend the alt-right or say they subscribe to its tenets.

That's not a smear job.   That's what's going on with some morons on our side.  Now of course the leftist media will try to use it to every advantage.  But reality is what it is.

[Maj. Bill Martin]

Steve Bannon said that Breitbart is the platform for the alt-right; he and others like him want to burn down conservatism and replace it with a new right.  He said as much.  The alt-right has stated that they oppose the left's moral relativism and identity politics.  Doesn't sound like a leftist conspiracy, does it?

The part that is the leftist conspiracy is characterizing anyone who opposes the left's moral relativism and identity politics as racist.  I don't like Steve Bannon at all, but I don't think he's racist either.
 

I recently read a letter from a boy in a private Christian high school who said that his fellow students were becoming champions of alt-right politics.  He said they weren't interested in Reagan conservatism because they were angry, and they wanted to blow it all up ("burn it down").  Kind of reminds me of a forum I used to post on.  They still identify as the premier conservative site on the web, but plenty of them post Pepe memes and screech the four letter word that starts with C and rhymes with duck.  They openly defend the alt-right or say they subscribe to its tenets.

You have completely missed the point.  I am not saying that there is no "Alt-right".  I am saying that everyone who self-identifies as a member of the "Alt-right" is not a racist.  You going off about conservatives who want to "burn it all down" is completely irrelevant to that point.  You can be an idiot who wants to "burn it all down" without being a racist.

[Silver Pines]

@Maj. Bill Martin

The part that is the leftist conspiracy is characterizing anyone who opposes the left's moral relativism and identity politics as racist.  I don't like Steve Bannon at all, but I don't think he's racist either.

The left has done that for a long time.  Where were you?  Then the alt-right gave them the reason they were looking for to double down.

Whether Steve Bannon is personally a racist becomes irrelevant when he openly gives them a "platform".  Have you ever seen the comments at Breitbart? 
 

You have completely missed the point.  I am not saying that there is no "Alt-right".  I am saying that everyone who self-identifies as a member of the "Alt-right" is not a racist.  You going off about conservatives who want to "burn it all down" is completely irrelevant to that point.  You can be an idiot who wants to "burn it all down" without being a racist.

Calm down, Bill.  You can't seem to grasp that racism/race politics/white supremacy/anti-Semitism in different combinations and degrees is the basis of the alt-right philosophy.  Like I said, you can educate yourself on it or not, but that's just the way it is.  Those who decide to embrace the alt-right don't care, or use it as a vehicle to let their own freak flags fly, as at TOS with the strain of anti-Semitism that can now be found there.

[DB]

Do you deny that now.... present day.... it is mostly used by the left to describe them... or anyone on the right that the left disagrees with politically?

A number of people on TOS were proudly calling themselves "alt-right". They were going on how conservatism had failed, bla, bla, bla...