White supremacists and counter protesters clash in Charlottesville

[Losty]

I know this isn't a funny thing, but it's really hard not to laugh when they're all carrying tiki torches...

[Catholic_Lady]

They are losers. Probably have no girl friends and spend all day playing video games. This is probably the only thing that makes them feel important or powerful, hence why they do it.

[Mr.wizard]

I know this isn't a funny thing, but it's really hard not to laugh when they're all carrying tiki torches...

It looks like they are about to roast a pig.

[Losty]

They are losers. Probably have no girl friends and spend all day playing video games. This is probably the only thing that makes them feel important or powerful, hence why they do it.

I do agree with this for the most part, but I think it's important not to ignore this kind of thing. They are terrorists, if we let them run around unchecked we are going to end up with a much bigger problem on our hands.

[Cecelia]

Now we are having to defend Black Lives Matter instead of condemning actual hate groups,  this is just the kind of deflection that Trump was going for.

Some conservatives can't go without attacking BLM.  It's almost as if they think black lives don't matter.  Actually, scratch 'almost'.

[johan]

So you're honestly saying that most of those who fought for the south were absolutely against slavery, but as much as they were against slavery, they were even more against those no good rotten god damned assholes from the North who had the nerve to come to their state in an effort to end the slavery they were actually against in the first place. Is that what you're saying? Because that sure sounds like that's what you're saying.

No.  I doubt very many Confederate soldiers were against slavery at all.  I'm saying, and their own diaries state, that slavery isn't the reason very many of them fought against the invading Union soldiers.  Most Union soldiers didn't fight to abolish slavery either.  They fought to preserve the Union.  Specifically to keep the Southern states as part of the Union. 

More and more Union soldiers added abolishing slavery as one of their personal reasons the longer they fought in the war though.

My mistake. I miss interpreted what you wrote earlier to take it as meaning diaries that were written after the war rather than diaries which remained after the war which I now assume is what you meant. 

That being said, I'm still not sure your earlier point carries all that much weight in light of your statement above, i.e. you doubt very many Confederate soldiers were against slavery. 

I mean you can try to define it however you like, but like many wars, neither the North nor the South wanted to go to war. And there was ample opportunity for the war to be avoided if the South got on board with abolishing slavery. But instead the South decided screw you, we'll form our own country rather than back down on the slavery thing and what'd ya know a war broke out. So whether the diaries of the soldiers explicitly state it or not, when the citizens armed themselves and went to war, they were doing so fundamentally over slavery. 

And honestly, I think those that hold a similar perspective on it to your own are part of the root of the issues we're facing today. That whole 'symbols of the confederacy are a heritage thing, not a racism thing' is a big part of this problem. And I'm not saying that every person saying that is simply lying because they don't want to admit that they're racist. Quite the opposite actually. I'm saying that if you genuinely believe that, you're wrong. Period. If you embrace those symbols as a part of your heritage, so be it, but those symbols are most definitely racist and if you choose to embrace them you are also embracing racism whether your like it or not.

I've had this discussion with guys I genuinely believe aren't racist. And they dig their heels strong into the whole you don't get it, its part of my heritage thing. To which I reply I'm German, that's my heritage. But I don't fly a Nazi flag off the back of my pickup. And honestly, I don't feel one little bit as though anyone is stepping on my ability to express my heritage because of the fact that it would be frowned upon socially if I were to fly a nazi flag off the back of my pickup.

Even though its part of my heritage, I don't fly a nazi flag because I don't agree with what it stood for. Some of the people I know from the South really seem to struggle with understanding that.

[Ravenshire]

The Confederate flag and statues of Confederate Generals are symbols of white supremacy. It would be a great gesture to take them all down. Put them in a museum (Holocaust Museum) for the next generations. Never forget!

They are also treasonous symbol of traitors.  I've always wondered how history of the Civil War was taught in the south.

Careful who you call traitors. Our founding fathers were traitors to the crown. Had they lost that war, they would have been hanged.

[Minimalist]

But they won.  And the Rebs lost.

See the difference?

[Catholic_Lady]

They are losers. Probably have no girl friends and spend all day playing video games. This is probably the only thing that makes them feel important or powerful, hence why they do it.

I do agree with this for the most part, but I think it's important not to ignore this kind of thing. They are terrorists, if we let them run around unchecked we are going to end up with a much bigger problem on our hands.

Wasn't suggesting otherwise, just speculating on the type of people they probably are.

[KevinM1]

Wasn't Black Lives Matter just awarded the 2017 global peace prize? You are only picking protests where violence occurred and ignoring the work that the movement does globally.

I would be curious to know. I associate the BLM with burning down buildings, rioting, blocking streets, and violence. Haven't heard much else about them except that.

Much like with the Occupy Wall Street movement (among others), most of the violence attributed to BLM wasn't actually caused by BLM members.  Instead, some of it was perpetrated by those looking for cover to be jerks (story: when I was a freshman at UNH, there were riots in the street after the first football game of the season.  Why? Because drunk out-of-state jerks decided that the crowd leaving the field would give them cover to commit vandalism and minor arson).  Some of it was perpetrated in order to specifically damage the reputation of the group.

In Charlottesville, the Nazis and Clansmen had their own militia forces with them in the street.  Those guys that looked like National Guard?  They weren't actually the National Guard.  They were there to protect the supremacists while also attempting to goad the counter-protestors into action, hoping that they'd add to the narrative that it's the radical left instigating violence.  While some of them had obvious indications of their allegiance (Confederate flags and other symbols), others did not (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/...90081.html).  In order to try to eliminate the confusion, the actual Virginia National Guard explicitly told people that they'd have MP patches on their gear (https://mobile.twitter.com/VaNationalGua...1067683841).

This kind of shadowplay happens a lot with protests, disproportionately with fascist groups attempting to discredit other groups by inciting them to violence.  And the mainstream media doesn't pick up on it, either out of ignorance or, worse, out of a desire for ratings by trying to create a binary story between two groups that aren't actually the same in either outlook or action.

And if you think I'm kidding about how these people operate, check out Storm Watch or 4chan.  They're literal havens/online meeting places for Nazis.  They applauded Trump's remarks and are trying to find a way to entice regular people (whom they call "normies") into joining their cause, with but one tactic being what I said above: to continue poking at counter-protest groups in order to appear victimized, thereby becoming sympathetic to those who consider themselves champions of the 1st Amendment.

Ultimately, no matter what BLM has or hasn't done, they're not 'just as bad' as actual Nazis.  There's no rational or moral underpinning that can justify a 'many sides' comment.  Nazis are a literal scourge, and they are not to be tolerated under any circumstance.  And they're engaged in an active campaign to make themselves look palatable to the masses.