Discord Bans Servers That Promote Nazi Ideology (theverge.com) 456
A popular video game chat service with over 25 million users announced today that it had shut down "a number of accounts" following violence instigated by white supremacists over the weekend. Discord, the service "which lets users chat with voice and text, was being used by proponents of Nazi ideology both before and after the attacks in Charlottesville, Virginia," reports The Verge. "We will continue to take action against Nazi ideology, and all forms of hate," the company said in a tweet. From the report: Discord declined to state how many servers had been affected, but said it included a mix of old accounts and accounts that were created over the weekend. Among the affected servers was one used by AltRight.com, a white nationalist news site. The site's homepage includes a prominent link to a Discord chat which is now broken. The company said it does not read private messages exchanged on its servers. Members of those groups reported messages in the chats for violating Discord's terms of service, the company said, and it took action. "When hatred like this violates our community standards we act swiftly to take servers down and ban individual users," the company said in a statement. "The public server linked to AltRight.com that violated those terms was shut down along with several other public groups and accounts fostering bad actors on Discord. We will continue to be aggressive to ensure that Discord exists for the community we set out to support -- gamers."
Pulled the plug too soon? (Score:3)
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Race is bullshit anyway. It's just an arbitrary division based on a fairly random selection of traits. That's one reason why the ratio of non-white people is increasing - people who were white are now considered something else as the definition of race shifts.
Re:seems like a clear message (Score:5, Insightful)
Worldwide, whites are 12-14% of the population, and shrinking fast. (Projected to be around 8% in another couple generations.)
So... whites are being asked to share America and Europe. Okay, how about whites ask Africa and Asia to share too??
What? That's colonization??!
So why is it not colonization when whites are "asked to share" America and Europe??
Censorship is not the answer (Score:2, Insightful)
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Does this argument apply to ISIS? Is there no cultural group so terrible that we can't all agree it's not bad for a private company to refuse service to? Are you sure refusing them service doesn't hurt their ability to spread and reinforce their ideas?
This isn't a college de-platforming some people. This is a company choosing not to host Nazis. I think we can still have a nice market of ideas without encouraging companies to platform Nazis.
The elephant in the room (Score:4, Interesting)
There's an elephant in the room that no one's talking about.
"Unite the right" was not afforded the protection of law during their rally.
Furthermore, law enforcement purposely directed the rally-goers into the antifa crowd, putting them in significant danger.
The Antifa crowd was flinging urine, poop, and one ralley-goer suffered permanent eye damage [twitter.com] from having acid (!) thrown at him. The police were widely observed as doing nothing to stop the fighting.
Think about this for a minute: The government withdrew the protection of law from a group based on their political ideals. The state governor and the mayor simply decided not to enforce the law for an ideology they don't like.
This is a profoundly scary thought - that a political faction within the government can simply decide not to enforce the law in order to promote their narrative.
I'm going to have to side with the ACLU on this one. Hate speech is protected speech, and UniteTheRight should have been allowed to peaceably assemble.
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If only they'd managed to not have one of their "side" commit murder on video they might have been able to have managed to spin the event to their side. But they couldn't so as you would expect the spin goes with the message of the side who were on the receiving end of the murder. I admit I would expect the media to spin it against them anyway, but you can't really complain given what actually happened.
I agree they have the right to their speech and if that involves waving Nazi flags that is their choice. I
Re: The elephant in the room (Score:2)
Re: The elephant in the room (Score:2)
Antifa always counter protests with the utmost courtesy and leaves all their weapons at home when hunting for Nazi scalps.
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You know why that happened don't you? Because the police refused them protection. Remember what happened at berkeley? People on the right showed up and people got the shit kicked out of them, and maced. The second time there, known as the "battle for berkeley" was when the right showed up willing to defend themselves, and the little antifa and bamn shits learned what happens when you can't disappear into a crowd when you're assaulting people with bottles, bricks, sticks, steel bars, and bike locks.
Now w
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Which part? (Score:2, Troll)
do you have a source that is a reputable news organization for that?
Which part? The ACLU just confirmed that the police were told to stand down [rightforever.com], and the permanent eye damage thing comes directly from the victim.
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However, I think there's value in letting it go
Oh? What's the value in letting hate speech pollute an online gaming chat system? This isn't general chat we're talking about.
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Bullshit.
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Then let them have to work harder. It was far better when being a Neo-Nazi meant a lot of "wink wink nudge nudge" and secret meetings in basements, and having a subscription to racist literature produced via cheap mimeograph and sent in a plain brown envelope.
The problem now is that the "dispossessed" can find extremist literature far too easily; whether that be young Muslim men finding ISIS propaganda, or young white men being able to find Storm Front, and once they're there, the speed at which they can be
So. What shall I use instead? (Score:2)
https://tox.chat/ [tox.chat]
Seem like a good option.
https://wiki.mumble.info/wiki/... [mumble.info]
Likely safe from "we know better than you" trash-people.
https://wire.com/en/ [wire.com]
Maybe?
https://about.riot.im/ [about.riot.im]
Maybe?
http://www.teamspeak.com/en/te... [teamspeak.com]
Guess running your own server removes the issues.
https://ring.cx/ [ring.cx]
Seem like it could work.
https://www.evolvehq.com/welco... [evolvehq.com]
That's the stuff which came with AMD drivers before? Likely not safe for your freedoms.
https://app.twitch.tv/ [twitch.tv] .. Any
Curse was direct competitor to Discord before. But Twitch
Net Neutrality and the 1st Amendment (Score:2)
If you believe in Net Neutrality, should this also include 1st Amendment protections for content that is legal but offensive?
I'm not sure if we want to add ISPs to the (relatively small) list of entities where the First Amendment is explicitly applied. On the other hand, I'm afraid of the consequences if internet companies have unlimited rights (subject to other existing laws) to decide what content is and is not made available on the internet.
(Do Telephone Companies have to right to refuse telephone servi
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Net neutrality does indeed mean that if someone wants to create a NaziChat service the ISPs and backbone providers should not be able to shut them off.
Discord: IRC, but shittier. (Score:2, Informative)
It takes a few brain cells and an apt-get install to get an IRC server up and running.
Or just use one of the dozens already out there.
Re: Discord: IRC, but shittier. (Score:2)
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No IRC works like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Discord bans servers?? (Score:2)
Verge? (Score:2)
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How many websites were shutdown for Scalise? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Didn't you read the article? They already closed your account.
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Yes, yes, we get it. Everyone who disagrees with your viewpoint is a nazi. Now go play with your toys and let the rest of us discuss the issues rationally.
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https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DD... [twimg.com]
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We have been trying to warn you about the actual Nazis who are in your midst, but you keep having little fits of rage like that one.
It's in your own interest to acknowledge this problem and try to deal with it. This rally and the violence from the literal Nazis who where there has damaged both the alt-right and Trump. Is that what you want?
Re:What about left-wing extremists? (Score:5, Informative)
Here, let me help you with this. It's called False Equivalence: a logical fallacy in which two opposing arguments appear to be logically equivalent when in fact they are not. [wikipedia.org]
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Except they kinda are.
On the left you have a fringe group that want to actually exterminate all whites and a bigger group that cheers for "the whites not being a majority anymore" and do things to speed up the process.
While on the right, you have a fringe group that want to exterminate the blacks and jews and a bigger group that cheer for expelling the immigrants etc..
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On the left you have a fringe group that want to actually exterminate all whites [...]
Not saying you're wrong, there's plenty of nutcase to go around, but which group is that? I don't believe I've heard of it.
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Here, let me help you with this. It's called False Equivalence: a logical fallacy in which two opposing arguments appear to be logically equivalent when in fact they are not. [wikipedia.org]
For those of us above the left-right divide, the equivalence isn't remotely false. The "antifa" idiots have done far more damage than right-wingers in the last 7 months. Take a look at Berkeley when Milo was going to speak, for instance. Did anyone talk about taking down their servers because of violence?
I hate fascists - whether they're on the right or "antifa". When there's a boot on your neck you don't really care who it's attached to.
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The "antifa" idiots have done far more damage than right-wingers in the last 7 months. Take a look at Berkeley when Milo was going to speak, for instance. Did anyone talk about taking down their servers because of violence?
How many people have antifa killed? And how many have right-wing terrorists killed? Okay, now tell me more about servers and cancelled lectures.
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Hilarious, it is left wing racists that have murdered far more people in the last 40 years, destroyed property, glorify living like a savage.
Do you just have a feeling that should be true because it fits neatly into your world view or do you have any type of evidence?
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you're funny, you're blind to what is going on right under your nose on in the news.
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Today, you are just b
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I saw the news when Jeremy Joseph Christian stabbed two people on a train saying he was a patriot. I saw when Alexandre Bissonnette killed six people in a mosque. And when Dylann Roof killed nine people in a church while they were praying. When James Harris Jackson killed a black man on the street because he was afraid that interracial relationships were destroying the white race
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Re:What about left-wing extremists? (Score:4, Insightful)
If there were nazis that marched but didn't actually commit any violence, should they be denounced?
Yes. Because they are FUCKING NAZIS.
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Authoritarians want to eat the people's authority (Score:4, Interesting)
Hard fascism and hard socialism are not the same, but both are authoritarian. This puts them in the lower part of a Nolan chart [wikipedia.org], the upper part of a Pace News chart [wikipedia.org], or the right side of a Pournelle chart [wikipedia.org].
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Calling every association choice by a private company "virtue signalling" demeans the meaning of the phrase. Virtue signalling goes to intent, and claims about intent should be carefully made.
It strains credulity to think that you made an argument that white nationalists are not violent. If your claim is that the guy who ran a car into people was an outlier, nevermind that it was well documented that other marchers were violent, then where is your nuance when considering left-leaning protesters?
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that you made an argument that white nationalists are not violent
An insane majority of us aren't.
If we aren't supposed to threat Muslims like genocidal terrorists then white nationalists definitely aren't either.
Now go fuck yourself.
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An insane majority of us aren't.
Sure, an insane majority of you aren't. Plenty of you are, by implication. The post I was responding to, in case you may have missed it, was implying the white nationalists were not violent and the leftists were. I was asking, where's the nuance. I think you also demonstrated that you can't appreciate the nuance. In essence, you implied agreement with me while misunderstanding what I was saying.
Now go fuck yourself.
Re:What about left-wing extremists? (Score:5, Insightful)
An insane majority of us aren't.
So you condemn the violence that occurred, right? Because that's the problem in the Muslim world (I'm an ex-Muslim atheist, FYI).
Even reasonable, or secular, Muslims are often apologist towards violence or terrorism because a part of them feels it's justified by historical events (Western foreign policy, propping up dictators, toppling legitimate democratic governments, etc.). I have often told my Muslim friends that it was predominantly white Christians who fought and died to defeat the Nazi's, and so it must be Muslims who must unite to defeat Islamic Terrorism. The problem is internal to the group, so the group must fix it.
Muslim terrorists are terrorists. White nationalist terrorists are terrorists. Can we agree on that?
You describe yourself as a "white nationalist", and I'm not going to read into that in any way, it's just a label. All I'm asking is that if you are truly not violent, then don't turn a blind eye to those on "your side" who are.
Like with Islam, you may quickly find that if this minority becomes large enough (which can still be very small) it will usurp your movement, and you will find it very difficult to separate yourself from them. Similar to the secular/moderate Muslims, you may find your legitimate concerns or grievances being constantly overshadowed, and you will be unable to gain any real traction in achieving the change you want.
And, again paralleling Islamic Radicalization, you may find that you are their first target. The people who primarily suffer from Islamic Terrorism are other Muslims. I guarantee ISIS hates me more than they hate you, because I am an apostate. The first thing radicals do is eliminate the moderates within their own group.
Tread carefully, my fellow American. I mean that in all sincerity.
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Re:What about left-wing extremists? (Score:5, Interesting)
There is condemnation, for sure. And sometimes the media is not quick enough to report on it. And I am also happy to have seen more and more Muslims taking direct action recently. It pains me very much to watch my culture and my history be maligned and vilified, and I do not take this position lightly.
I am not lying, there are many secular/moderate Muslims who are the way I describe. Some are within my own family, who are highly educated (often in Western countries), and highly secular. They call themselves Muslims, they participate in Ramadan (generally), but they drink alcohol, don't pray 5 times a day (or even at all), and generally are like most Christians in the west. Like me, if they actually thought about it, they would probably become atheists.
Often they will make arguments along the lines of "The US invasion of Iraq was an act of terrorism, and that was much worse than ." Again, very similar to the right pointing the finger at BLM or whoever in response to what happened in Charlotte. It's not that they are right or wrong, but rather that it doesn't matter. You can't deflect from your problems by pointing out others' problems.
The War in Iraq was wrong. 9/11 was wrong. What happened in Charlotte was wrong. Period. Moderates on all sides must condemn violence in all forms, without hesitation and without caveat.
Many people are familiar with the Bill Maher/Ben Affleck/Richard Dawkins argument on radical Islam. After that episode aired, I showed it to my very devout (but completely OK with my apostasy :D) friend, Mohamed. He is like a brother to me. At the end of the argument, the comparison was made between fundamentalist Christianity and Islam. Bill Maher said (paraphrasing) "One is herpes, and the other is cancer." That is a very strong statement, and my initial reaction was to take offense, even as an atheist.
After that, Mo and I discussed the issue at length. It was very heated, although we weren't arguing against each other, per-se. At the end, he looked at me, his eyes misty, and said "I'm mad. But I'm mad because they are right."
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It is virtue signaling. If corporate execs cared about the bottom line, they'd be as a-political as possible. The public line would be "We love people who love our products."
Irrational belief often leads to violence, especially when other expression is suppressed. White nationalists/KKK are no different than BLM or antifa. They each have self-interested, identity driven agendas and try to claim the moral high ground, the former based on a claim of supremacy, the latter under the guise of equality. Idiocy
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Everyone is focusing on the people who were the victims of violence and ignoring things like the two police officers who the violent left got killed.
So you claim. Anything to back that up? How were they killed by the left?
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You can tell by the police response - the police generally left the Unite the Right protestors alone and only had to deal with the violent so-called "antifa" fascists who were there to cause trouble.
Yet are we seeing antifa websites taken down and Black Lives Matter servers shut down? No. No we are not.
You would see them taken down if members started driving cars into crowds of people.
Re:What about left-wing extremists? (Score:5, Informative)
Much in the same way the Taliban destroyed statues if the Buddha, destruction of history should always be opposed, or should we tear down mt Rushmore?
No, not like that at all. They don't want to destroy the statue of Robert E. Lee, they just want to put it somewhere else, e.g., in a museum.
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Much in the same way the Taliban destroyed statues if the Buddha, destruction of history should always be opposed, or should we tear down mt Rushmore?
No, not like that at all. They don't want to destroy the statue of Robert E. Lee, they just want to put it somewhere else, e.g., in a museum.
Really? I guess that's why they broke off a chunk of it and spray painted it red?
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Really? I guess that's why they broke off a chunk of it and spray painted it red?
Sorry, are you saying the Charlottesville city council did that? That would be a huge story if true.
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You mean after the Nazis ran protestors over, the remaining people who were still alive were a little pissed? My goodness.
Maybe you ought to work on your analogies.
Re:What about left-wing extremists? (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe it's more like not putting up a statue of Erwin Rommel in a Jewish neighborhood? You know, Lee didn't just fight on the losing side, he fought to enslave the ancestors of people who walk past that statue every day.
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I'm sure you'd be singing a different tune if a service dropped a BLM or antifa channel.
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What does "BLM member" mean in this context? Did he go to any meetings? Attend any rallies?
I honestly don't know, that's why I'm asking.
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Have you ever met a real Nazi? I have. And they aren't like in the movies. They are by and large likable people who love their country. I would never be a Nazi myself. For one thing, I'm not a joiner. But it is unfair to demonize them. They are just every day work-a-day Joes. Leave them alone.
Yes, they're people. We don't have to hate them to hold them accountable for what they support. We don't have to give them protection from being removed from a private company's service, either.
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You know those aren't just movies, right?
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It's hard out there for "white male discontent".
I'd say free speech is taking quite a beating.
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you cant just assault people for having differing views
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So all we have to do to remove rights from groups of people is stick them with arbitrary labels?
Neat. I can see no possible downside.
How about you, Mr. Neimoller?
Re:No safe spaces for Nazis (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, because when I think of peaceful revolutions, I think of the Nazis. It's not like they silenced dissent when they were in power, or that their entire ideology is based on the genocide of anyone deemed genetically inferior?
Does it still count as a peaceful revolution if you plan to commit terrible violence after you're in power?
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Well you can't ask Chavez so maybe send a telegram to Maduro. See what he has to say.
Re:No safe spaces for Nazis (Score:4, Informative)
I'm not sure I understand your point? There are other dictators who aren't Nazi's therefore...? Profit?
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It's not like they silenced dissent when they were in power, or that their entire ideology is based on the genocide of anyone deemed genetically inferior?
Does it still count as a peaceful revolution if you plan to commit terrible violence after you're in power?
If we are basing this on violence done in the name of revolutions , the communists and socialists have everyone else beat hands down. So using your logic they need to be shut down, their groups outlawed and demonstrations broken up.
You willing to call for outlawing socialists and communists ?
Re:No safe spaces for Nazis (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, if you think that Hitler's rise to power was peaceful, you need to seriously take a refresher in history. Ever heard of the brown shirts? Or the burning of the Reichstag?
Also, Communism is 'widely' accepted and tolerated? Where? Even in China they're Communist in name only.
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Well, they did rise to power peacefully, and might even have remained so had they not been so focused on the whole "genocide" thing.
Yep, except for a never ending string of violent rallies, attacks on the government, special powers introduced to defend pro-nazi functions from dissidence, and the arson attack on parliament with a few people sentenced to death here and there. Other than those *minor* details the nazis were perfectly lovely people until they gassed Jews.
Take a history lesson and also apply a bit of logic. When in history has a disenfranchised nation peacefully handed over absolute power to a government.
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So what? When did I say I was a part of or supported those groups or even that I was anti-Trump? Also, smear the Nazis? I'm pretty sure their reputation speaks for itself.
Unless of course you were also "smearing" the Communists?
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Tolerance is a peace treaty, it only works when all sides accept a live-and-let-live attitude. NAZIs literally define themselves by their unwillingness to let others live (here). They won't abide by the treaty, so they don't get protection under it.
And since, historically, their tactics have been murderous - punching them in the face is a very restrained response.
When somebody wants you dead and you ONLY punch him in the face, I admire your peaceloving nature.
Re: No safe spaces for Nazis (Score:3)
I'm not labeling people. I'm labeling an idea. People choose to adopt an idea and can choose to abandon it again.
But they cannot choose the things that idea labels them on. They cannot choose their color or their country of birth.
That makes using such labels evil by default with no possible redeeming value. But labeling ideas is inherently good and fighting evil ideas is called heroism.
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Assaulting people because they have different ideas to you is an evil idea.
Be a hero, punch yourself, you bigoted ignorant twat.
Re: No safe spaces for Nazis (Score:3)
A bunch of angry people with fasces and swastikas shouting "blood and soil" oh and killing people and I'm supposed to, what, assume they are there for a fucking kumbaya singing and a drum circle?
Re: No safe spaces for Nazis (Score:3)
You can't win a debate with the willfully ignorant. I do wish you luck, however.
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A problem for the AltRight movement is that it's been infiltrated by actual Neo-Nazis. I think it's similar to the problem GamerGate had, in which their message got mixed in with sexist and harassing behavior of women who posted their feminist-slanted treaties on videogames and culture. Those treaties were, in my opinion, at best pondered as an interesting discussion point, and at worst simply ignored. Whatever sort of "ethics in journalism" message GamerGate had was far overshadowed by those who used th
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Do you have some evidence that the shooter was involved with Antifa or BLM? You know, perhaps a video of him marching with them in their uniform?
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...says the person desperately trying to equate antifa and BLM.
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Says the fucking Russian troll. Fuck off.
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virtue signaling is when someone is trying to make sure his comrades know he doesn't agree with the politically incorrect position. He's not necessarily interested in actually making a point one way or the other or achieving anything relevant.
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Just lump them under 'authoritarian' and leave it at that.
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If you don't want to be outed as a Nazi, don't march with Nazis. At least the KKK had enough wits to wear hoods. Not that they often had to worry, since in many places the local government was either sympathetic or out and out members.
Still, if you're a proud White Supremacist, how could you possibly have a problem with your family, your neighbors, your boss and coworkers knowing that you espouse those views? I mean, aren't you on the right side of history believing that America is white and working to get