Your argument is a 1:1 match to arguments made by red fascists, ie tankies, ie authoritarian communists. It was easy for me to spot because I have seen it before. Hopefully it will now be easy for you to spot as well.

It calls for the preservation of an in-group by the extermination of an out-group.

=

Fascists deserve fascism, but they deserve to be the victims of it.

It’s not self-defense if the fascists haven’t done anything violent or destructive. Unfortunately the fascists in the US have been doing violent and destructive things and are close to completing their takeover of our democracy. As an exmaple, there were January 6th rioters and organizers who were arrested and imprisoned. However, there are plenty of people who would meet criteria that would make them varying degrees of fascists, but haven’t done anything yet.

There are overt fascists who espouse fascist ideology and talking points, but haven’t performed acts of domestic terrorism like January 6th. There are people who want their prejudices validated and want to return to an imaged past. There are people who have bought into the lie that minorities are the cause of their problems instead of systemic issues. There are people in the Republican Party who are neo-cons who want to work with the fascists. There are people who shout both sides further to the left of the neo-cons. There are neo-liberals who want to keep things the same despite our downward spiral into fascism.

A christo-fascist regime is being built primarily thanks to the actions and inactions of people using our system without directly hurting anyone or destroying any infrastructure. The fascist movement is spreading ideas, violating democratic norms, upending the guard rails in our democracy, filling the government with like minded individuals, and in the case of Trump, violating the law and stalling out the court system. The Supreme Court ended the rule of law on July 1st, 2024, not by shooting people, but with the stoke of a pen.

The fascists build the system to target groups for elimination in a way that doesn’t directly harm anyone until the system is in place. Your argument calls for the elimination of people based on political ideology.

they tend to target the least dangerous people first.

The enemies of fascists are at the same time both too strong and too weak. They claim the out-groups they target are both inferior to and a threat to the in-group. According to the fascists the out-groups must be eliminated to preserve the in-group. And the in-group is justified in eliminating the out-groups because of the in-group’s superiority. This is a contradiction, because a superior group should have nothing to fear from an inferior group.

The fascists divide the population into in-groups and out-groups as a mechanism of control, usually based on physical characteristics. As part of their crusade against out-groups they actually have to destroy the out-groups. But the fascists need an out-group to exist in order to stay in power. If there is no threat to the in-group, then there is no use in having a fascist strongman.

To solve this problem, fascists have to repeat the process of dividing the population into in-groups and out-groups. The Nazis divided people into a extensive racial hierarchy from the get-go. This process repeats itself until no one is left. It is not a slippery slope, but rather the nature of fascism as a self-destructive ideology. Inevitably the fascists are defeated military or destroy the entire population. In the end, no one meets the ideal qualifications of a superior human that the fascists imagine.

Your argument does the same thing with ideology. It calls for the preservation of an in-group by the extermination of an out-group. The out-group is both a threat to the in-group and yet inferior. Rather than striving for purity of the body your argument seeks purity of thought. It is the same outcome sold with a different scam. Once everyone considered to be too fascist to be allowed to live has been killed the next out-group will be on the chopping block.

There’s a popular adage that says, scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds. The neo-liberals will be deemed to dangerous to keep alive because they obstruct systemic change and their ideology leads to fascism. The progressives will be deemed well meaning, but under closer examination they aren’t left enough. Their policies don’t allow workers to seize the means of production.

The social democrats, while socialists, believe in democracy. And what is democracy to the far left but an incubation chamber for fascism. The democratic socialists are also open to a political socialist revolution, ie democracy, and cannot be trusted by the far left. What are socialists but people who believe in an ideology that is only a stepping stone to communism. Communists who want a stateless society are simply deluding themselves according to the authoritarian communists. The authoritarian communists believe only an authoritarian dictatorship can preserve the worker’s revolution.

We move so far left we end up wrapping around back to the far-right in the form of authoritarian communism. The most substantial difference between the red fascism your argument is proposing and the fascism we are seeing in the US today is that they divide people on different metrics. These ideologies are all self-destructive because there is no stopping point. No one is good enough by any metric, and so what these ideologies are really saying is that we are all better off dead. No one deserves fascism because life is worth living no matter our flaws.

We should defend ourselves from fascists who break the social contract of tolerance. However, if we preemptively target individuals based on ideology we end up with the same problem as the fascists.

Organizing people into a hierarchy based on political ideology has the same issues as a hierarchy based on any other metric. Each time the least desirable group is removed from the population the next group in the hierarchy is at the bottom. By the logic that the most far-right group deserves extermination, we eventually remove every group of people. Even the furthest-left group eventually becomes the furthest-right group by process of elimination.

At the core of self-destructive ideologies like fascism is the idea that we are all better off dead. By asserting that anyone can deserve fascism we are agreeing with that idea and we are conceding the idea that life is worth living.

I believe people are going to do the right thing this November. We need to be vocal and vote. But no matter what happens, no one deserves fascism. We’re all still people.

The rule of law just ended. Democracy will be next if Trump wins. So vote Biden!

One possible scenario for spillover into the population: a raw-milk drinker or a farmworker gets infected with this strain of H5N1 that’s moving among cattle and also gets co-infected with a human-adapted strain of influenza. In such a situation viruses can swap genes in a process called reassortment. A major fear about H5N1 has always been that it might do this. H5N1 has shown it can easily move from one species to another, acquiring new genetic material in the process.

Airborne diseases don’t acknowledge party registration, voting habits, or political identification. If H5N1 does reassort with influenza it’s going to be killing humans.

“The painful truth is that the project to which liberal Zionists like myself have devoted ourselves for decades – a state for Palestinians separated from a state for Jews – has failed,” Peter Beinart wrote in 2020. “It is time for liberal Zionists to abandon the goal of Jewish–Palestinian separation and embrace the goal of Jewish–Palestinian equality.”

https://jewishcurrents.org/yavne-a-jewish-case-for-equality-in-israel-palestine

After reading this guy’s article it would be nice to see his current views given all that’s happened since 2020. I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt that he was basing his views on the political reality in Israel at the time. It seems unfortunate that the Guardian felt the need to use an article from four years ago to assert what should be done now with the current political reality in Israel in 2024.

In his article from 2020, he seems to have come to the conclusion that a multi-ethnic/multi-racial/multi-cultural/secular nation state is how Palestinians and Jews would be safe. I would say this is true about any ethnic, racial, cultural, or religious group. Societies that include and protect the rights of all the people that live there is essential for the safety of all the people who live there. This is not in any way a zionist idea.

An inclusive, multi-ethnic state for Palestinians and Jews already living there should have been the goal from the beginning as opposed to an ethno-state for Jews. And colonization by foreign Jews should not have happened. In theory, the modern day Palestine and Israel could be one inclusive state or two separate inclusive states. The reason that we need two states right now, is that Israel is currently controlled by a far-right, fascist government. The current fascist government isn’t going to accept the current nation state of Israel being dissolved into a joint Palestinian-Israeli state.

In the absence of the ability to control Israel’s existence or actions, the UN needs to give Palestine full membership now. To make that happen, the US needs to stop waiting for Israel agree to allow Palestine to exist. The US needs to recognize Palestine’s current borders and stop using its veto to block the UN resolution. Israel is not negotiating in good faith right now and they will not do so as long as the government is controlled by fascists. The alternative is to allow the continued annexation of Gaza and the West Bank. Once annexation of a country is complete it becomes much easier for fascists to corral the out-group into death camps. At which point, only military intervention could help the Palestinians.

If people in Israel are motivated by the idea for a new joint Palestinian-Israeli state then by all means, encourage them to vote out the fascists in favor of candidates that will pursue this new nation state. However, I think the Palestinians deserve a solution now, that does not depend on Israelis wanting to dissolve their current nation state. Especially when Israelis voted in the current fascist government since he wrote his article and zionists still seem fixated on the notion that they need an ethno-state to be safe. Even as Israel is making all Jews less safe by committing genocide against the Palestinians. I think Palestinians gaining full control of their territory now, would not be a detriment to the creation of a joint state later. Palestinians shouldn’t have to wait for Israelis to embrace a joint state in order to enjoy human rights.

No.

it might have been restarted later, but it would have stopped first

Fascism doesn’t stop until everyone internalizes that fascism is a terrible ideology. And then keeps teaching that to new generations.

this happened. it was real. it likely still is real. atop denying history to spare fucking Nazis.

Killing people won’t kill their ideas. The myth of lost cause would still have been spread by non-slave owners. It just would have taken longer. People don’t have to directly learn about fascism from a 20th century fascist to become fascists. Even if every living Nazi, fascist, and confederate sympathizer dropped dead right now we would run into this problem sooner rather than later. Ideas and information are freely available on the internet. They circulate faster than ever before. If we don’t defeat these ideas then we will keep having this problem no matter how many people die.

so why are you arguing with me?

I was agreeing with you. I added my two cents.

hard disagree. it would have stopped. maybe somebody would have dug it up later and started it back up, but it would have stopped.

People who weren’t Nazis knew what fascism was. Fascists wrote books and gave speeches. Fascism would still exist in peoples’ minds as a concrete idea that can be communicated to other people even if no Nazis survived the war.

I met them. their grandchildren and great children, at family reunions. they worked hard to craft and propagate these myths. they were proud of it. expected their grandchildren to keep it up.

People who didn’t own slaves spread the myth as well. Killing entire families of slave owners would not have stopped this.

The fascists and confederate sympathizers of today aren’t necessarily direct biological descendants of those in the past. They are ideological descendants.

don’t think I referred to tfem as a race but I could have. I’m not super likely to bother scrolling up for a hezbarite though.

I was referring to the poster above you.

the ideas could have been spread by people who weren’t Nazis, but were I’m this actual extant timeline spread by actual Nazis.

My point is that killing all Nazis wouldn’t have prevented Fascism from spreading.

american civil war was the same. every one of those slaver families needed to die. every adult, and possibly the children, if they weren’t adopted out

Killing all slave owners wouldn’t have stopped the Lost Cause of the Confederacy myth which is responsible for the confederate sympathizers we have today. The myth is an idea and can be spread by people who don’t own slaves.

I thought one of the best lessons was that you don’t deal with an aggressive and genocidal nation through appeasement.

That was also one of the lessons. It’s why we are sending weapons to Ukraine to fight Russia and plan on defending Taiwan against China.

We should be fighting against Israel, not appeasing them.

It would be a lot easier to do that if we hadn’t be allied with Israel for over 75 years. It’s not normal for allies to turn on each other like that.

Regardless, there can be more than one lesson from a historical event. Fascism is an idea. It has to be fought with other ideas.

Israeli is not the same thing as Jewish.

Yes, I am Jewish, but not Israeli. I assumed most people referring to Israelis as a race are referring to Jews a race. It seems weird to confuse nationality with race in the 21st century.

Many Jewish people hate Israel.

I don’t hate Israel, because hating Israel is more taxing to me than it is to Israel. I think Israel is an apartheid state that’s committing genocide and war crimes in Gaza, Zionism is a fascist ideology, the current Israeli government is dominated by fascists, and that the concept that we need a Jewish ethnostate in order to be safe is ridiculous. Israel needs to change radically and it needs to change as soon as possible.

Typically when people are saying Jews are a race, they referring to the idea that Jews are not White, as in they cannot be White. Jews can be White, but they can also be Black, Native American or Hispanic. Jews are not in a racial category that excludes them from being part of these groups. That’s what I was referring to when I wrote race.

That’s not really the main point, I was agreeing with the person I responding to and adding some clarification. It seemed to have distracted from the issue at hand.

Killing people isn’t how we stop the spread of fascism in the modern day. We need to spread information, for example, that fascism is a self-destructive ideology that will destroy hundreds of millions of lives and that the Republican Party is controlled by fascists. I think most people know that on lemmy, but there are plenty of people who will check into politics in the months leading up to the election and form their opinions then. A misconception I see on lemmy is that some people assume we can defeat fascism with guns alone. That isn’t going to cut it. We have to reach more people with true information before fascists reach them with misinformation. Once a person forms an opinion they are unlikely to discard that opinion when presented with new information in the short term. That short term can easily last until the election, so these months leading up to the election are crucial. edit: capitalization

who the fuck mentioned Jews here? I’m talking about Israelis, cut your equivocating antisemitic bullshit.

If someone refers to Israelis as a race I would assume they are confusing Jews, an ethnic group, culture and religion as a race as opposed to confusing Israelis, a nationality, as a race.

we didn’t stop Nazism because we didn’t kill enough Nazis, on either side of the ocean. the fuckers who got social media in on it can be traced back to that. if we’d killed more Nazis then, we wouldn’t have these problems now.

Even if we had killed everyone who was a Nazi, the ideas could be still be spread by people who are not Nazis and then internalized and adopted by a new group of Nazis. Ideas outlive the people came up with them and believed in them. The best that would do is kick the can further down the road, but we still have to deal with this problem eventually.

Jews are an ethnic group, culture, and religion, but not a race. It’s a common enough misconception spread via the media. Also any given Jew is not necessarily all three.

The lesson from World War II is that war can only delay the spread of an idea, but not destroy it. Ideas have to be fought with other ideas. Killing Nazis only bought us time to think of better ideas, spread them, and deradicalize people. Thanks to conservative propaganda networks and social media, we’re on the verge of a fascist takeover. We are in an information race against fascists. The fascists are turning the US into a christofascist dictatorship, by controlling the narrative and driving the news cycle, not by killing anyone. We have to beat them in this race to stop them.

I did a reverse image search on google. It kind of looks like a photoshopped version of this logo.

edit: specifically this version

Despite your argument’s insistence to the contrary nowhere in my argument do I accuse Rowling of being anything. Whether or not Rowling is ignorant is irrelevant. Her actions are what matter. When presented with new information about the Holocaust her response was not to become more informed, but to deny the information. That is Holocaust denial and it is harmful. edit: typos

society as a whole and the power we give to racist stereotypical tropes in the first place

Ignoring racist stereotypes in fiction isn’t the solution. We should want to do better.

On a separate note, do you not think it’s a stretch to lump her in with holocaust deniers this quickly?

No. Holocaust denial is holocaust denial. It’s never too early to call it out.

Isn’t it a little too soon to categorize her lack of understanding that the concept of trans or books being burned occurred under nazis versus those who deny millions were murdered in general?

No. Valuable research was lost that could have benefited millions of people. Not to mention trans people were killed by the Nazis. The fact millions of Jews were killed does not diminish the harm in denying that other groups were targeted by the Nazis.

If anything, doesn’t that water-down the category of Holocaust Deniers?

Although Jews were the group who had the most causalities, the Holocaust affected many different groups of people. Denying any part of the Holocaust is harmful and calling that out in no way diminishes the seriousness of Holocaust denial.

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/mosaic-of-victims-an-overview

https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Holocaust-Facts-and-Figures

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/new-research-reveals-how-the-nazis-targeted-transgender-people-180982931/