The Guardian has identified a trainee nurse and reported US air force reservist called Bailey Ross as the proprietor of a white nationalist publisher in South Dakota.
Ross was also a paid-up member of a white nationalist organization that marched at Charlottesville while enlisted in the United States Coast Guard.
Ross’s company, Agartha Publishing, is part of a wave of extremist publishers using mainstream e-commerce platforms such as Amazon to sell lavishly repackaged fascist and anti-communist books.
I think the general society I live in today would consider my viewpoints extreme, but I would not label myself an extremist, no. I don’t think most people think their own ideologies as being extreme.
Isn’t society in general the best judge of what is or is not extreme, considering that, as you say, it’s a relative description?
That depends on whether “best” is moral, which are often conflated as being the same thing. Antifascists were considered extremists in Nazi Germany and Italy by the general society, but for hopefully obvious reasons, you can see that Antifascism was a moral and logical response rooted in the survival of those they were persecuting.
I don’t recall bringing up morality at all. My question still stands.
My apologies, my previous statement was an implication and was not explicit.
I think that any form of thought or activity that lies outside of the acceptable norms of a society can be painted as extremism by the majority with disastrous results, and thusly the results are so abhorrent to conclude that society is NOT the best judge of what is extremist or not because calling something extremism or someone extremist often connotates moral judgment on said actions or persons.
I would dispute that you can’t disect moral judgent from the invocation of the term extremism.
Btw, if I were you, I would next point out that if my claim that society is not the best judgement of extremism, then ask then who or what is?
To which I would respond that we should throw out the term as it actually just refers to those who want changes to society that upset the paradigm under which it is founded.
My opinion is that a society that is based on inclusivity as its core value is probably better than the one we have right now. With the following caveats:
Said society would need to have an addendum that it need exclude those who would tout exclusivity and violently express the necessity of exclusivity in preferential treatment of one group over another. This society would have to fundamentally acknowledge that speech, left unchecked, can be violent even by inference.
I genuinely await your rebuttal.
What are your thoughts on capitalism in your utopian society? Are they allowed?
I’d like to take a brief reprieve here and field a question of my own, which is simply what are your thoughts on my arguments thus far?
As I said before I genuinely await your rebuttal. I don’t just want to have the ball punted back to me.
Im happy to field your most recent question regarding the role of capitalism in my hypthetical “utopian” society, as you put it, but I am curious to hear what objections you might have given the ammo I’ve fed you thus far.
I think the fact that you believe a just society is one where a belief, no matter how vile, makes it acceptable to be raped, murdered, tortured, etc. makes you an extremist. You haven’t given a second thought about how this would work in practice because if you had just saying something like that would bother you.
Thank you.
So in regards to the role of capitalism in my version of a better world, I’d say I’m no fan and wouldn’t endorse unregulated capitalism, and if I were to endorse capitalism, it would have to be very severely regulated to the point where certain industries it would be more beneficial to have it run by the state.
As far as considering the moral costs and potential horrific repurcussions of stripping one particular group of their rights, I do see your point. My only real retort would be that the cost to ending fascism would require an immutable definition of exactly what fascism is, which I believe haa already happened, and then working towards eradicating it. Yes, by any means necessary, albeit hopefully without those extreme scenarios you describe. I personally don’t think denying fascists rights would play out as you describe, but I’ll be the first to admit I can’t possibly know that for certain.
And, I’ll add, my beliefs are not immutable. I’ll not say it is anyone’s burden to convince me otherwise, but I’d be happy to hear not only your criticisms but also your solutions. I will say that if you offer NO solutions to the problem of fascist infiltrations into Democratic institutions, then I don’t value your criticisms much though.
There has to be SOME ideas put forward about how to solve this problem. I suppose ultimately I’m simply unwilling to accept even a small iota of fascism in the worldwide society, and desire to work towards eradicating it to as close to entirety as is possible. And I refuse to believe it isn’t at all possible.