What is the Alt-Right? Maybe you should ask one.

[jamil]

"proximity+diversity=war"

Yeah.

That's kinda true in a sense of people getting along well. I mean, you show up and unpack your bags in Missippi, and when they come to welcome you to the neighborhood with a bowl of currants, and you make a funny face when you chomp into one thinking it's a giant grape? Well, you may reach a détente, but there just ain't gonna be a friendly relationship there. But that's not actually a fighting war. That's just cultural differences. We can mostly deal with that.

 

[Ericpwp]

Like most ideologies, they're not always practically well thought out. For example, if they're serious about #10, they should all move back to Europe and give America back to the natives.

Hah, that's what I though after the read.

It sounded very European, anti mass-immigration when I read it. Then I saw the author was American.

 

[chipbennett]

Here is a very well-written take on the alt-right, much of which I find myself in agreement with:

The Alt-Right Is The Mirror Image Of The New Left

To wit:

I share many concerns with the self-styled “alt-right,” writing for years about the dangers of a superficial “diversity project” and an academically enforced “multiculturalism” that at its core is authoritarianism dressed in sanctimony. I foresaw a rekindled racial divide in this country in President Obama’s rise to national power.
I’ve openly criticized the breakdown of our immigration system and the risible claims that importing low-skilled labor into a country where leftists control entitlement programs — largely because establishment Republicans are content not to act, or will act on behalf of those who most benefit from cheap labor — would be anything other than a vote-buying scheme.


Our system was designed for assimilation and naturalization. The complete corruption of that system and the usurpation of its intent by those who redefine it in the terms of transnational progressivism are largely responsible for the resurgence of the white nationalism at the heart of the alt-right’s identitarian “philosophy.”
Concerns over a loss of sovereignty or the overdetermined influence granted preferred minority groups are legitimate, despite the putative conservatives who pretend they are not, or parrot an establishment apologia that waxes poetic about “inclusivity” and “economic growth” while Americans are increasingly self-segregating and an entire generation of young people will struggle to find a way into the workforce. I can read crime statistics, and have watched states turn blue as the result not of good Democratic Party governance but entitlement promises and the logistical changes that inevitably follow. Libertarian economist Milton Friedman knew well that you can’t have an open borders-type immigration system tied to a welfare state. That’s precisely what we now have.
Still, there are fixes to our national maladies that reside in the constitutional system of government we each inherited as our birthright as American citizens. American exceptionalism, which neither Barack Obama nor Donald Trump understand or can articulate, was born of our founding. This exceptionalism is found not in its genetic makeup (after all, we fought other white Europeans for our independence) but in a collage of Enlightenment ideas our Founders pulled together to create what became our national portrait.
To reclaim our birthright, we need only reclaim the Constitution. We need to re-embrace American exceptionalism and reject the kind of toxic identitarianism the Left uses to divide us, manage us, and place us into needy voter blocs they then collect to win elections, and through which an institutionalized progressive cancer spreads to eat away its bones.

It is a good read.

 

[HoughMade]

....But that's not actually a fighting war. That's just cultural differences. We can mostly deal with that.

Yes, we can...and this self-styled voice of the Alt-Right, I believe, is talking about an actual shooting war.

 

[jamil]

4 guys at a table in Denny's talking about the Alt-Right over pancakes is not extreme. Anything larger than that only needs a match. There are sufficient combustibles available.

Why? Aren't people free to dare think differently from you? Even if you think what they think is dangerous or horrible. It's not dangerous until they try to bring force with them. Until then, debate them if you disagree. That's how the world can get along without strife over belief. Everyone gets to believe. No one gets to force belief. Agreed?

 

[jamil]

Yes, we can...and this self-styled voice of the Alt-Right, I believe, is talking about an actual shooting war.

Well, I haven't really seen that. But if they start talking about bringing guns and ****. It's time to seriously deal with that.

 

[Kutnupe14]

In a binary electoral system, it depends on the other candidate. If the Alt Right candidate is not a leftist, a criminal, and a pathological liar, and the other candidate is, I might have to wear a clothespin and vote for the Alt Right guy.

But lets say we had a ranked order voting system where there's 15 candidates, one of which is alt right, and another is a leftist, criminal, and a pathological liar. I would rank the criminal last, and depending on the other candidates, I might rank the Alt Right candidate just above the criminal.

Does that answer the question?

So, can you answer mine? What parts of the Alt Right do you find disturbing?

From the Breitbart vision, or the one you posted? I honestly think that this whole alt-right movement is simply a game of smoke, mirrors, and coded words, with the intent to make white supremacy more palatable to people with biases, who don't think they are racist, and giving them plausible deniability based on the dual definitions of the phrasing.

 

[jamil]

From the Breitbart vision, or the one you posted? I honestly think that this whole alt-right movement is simply a game of smoke, mirrors, and coded words, with the intent to make white supremacy more palatable to people with biases, who don't think they are racist, and giving them plausible deniability based on the dual definitions of the phrasing.

I could say the same thing about BLM. I think I have, though not with those exact words. You disagreed with me. I think I disagree with you, although I have to say I am suspicious of the Alt Right.

I'm not convince they intend to make white supremacy more palatable. I need to hear them speak more off the cuff. I need to see how they react to all sides, including actual, self-described, white supremacists. But I can understand why you think it's coded words.

 

[Kutnupe14]

I could say the same thing about BLM. I think I have, though not with those exact words. You disagreed with me. I think I disagree with you, although I have to say I am suspicious of the Alt Right.

I'm not convince they intend to make white supremacy more palatable. I need to hear them speak more off the cuff. I need to see how they react to all sides, including actual, self-described, white supremacists. But I can understand why you think it's coded words.

If you were trying to hide white supremacy with more acceptable wording, how would you differ from the 2 descriptions of the alt-right we currently have?

 

[Birds Away]

Kut blames it all on racism. Boy, I sure didn't see that coming.



In all seriousness, I personally don't believe there is an alt-right movement. I think, just like the left is coming up with every which excuse they can to explain this inexplicable outcome, some smart boys and girls on the right have decided to co-opt this phenomenon for their own purposes.

 

[jamil]

If you were trying to hide white supremacy with more acceptable wording, how would you differ from the 2 descriptions of the alt-right we currently have?

I don't know how I would word it. I'm not a good apologist. I have to really believe in the things I advocate. I can't put myself in that place. And maybe that makes me less capable of seeing the coded words.

But nevertheless, if I really believed in the 16 points made in that article the way it's stated, I might use much the same wording. And in that case I wouldn't be a white supremacist. So I think Occam's Razor helps here. Without more evidence, I have more reason to take it at face value, and just think it's misguided and the reasoning not all that logical, than to assume there is some nefarious attempt to hide real racist intentions.

 

[seedubs1]

The alt right contradicts itself. Hopefully they move back to their country of origin since "it supports the right of all nations to exist, homogeneous and unadulterated by foreign invasion and immigration." Well, unless they're native Americans, that is. But it doesn't seem they're Native American since they "must secure the existence of white people and a future for white children."

I think it's pretty clear to most people they're a bunch of cult like silly racists.

 

[Alpo]

Why? Aren't people free to dare think differently from you? Even if you think what they think is dangerous or horrible. It's not dangerous until they try to bring force with them. Until then, debate them if you disagree. That's how the world can get along without strife over belief. Everyone gets to believe. No one gets to force belief. Agreed?

You've misread what I wrote. There are such things as powder kegs and contributing factors.

Two months ago, was I locked and loaded because BLM was going to start throwing gas bombs in my neighborhood and now I have to go to Defcon 1 because Alt-right is implementing a roving star chamber?

A pox on all.

 

[jamil]

Kut blames it all on racism. Boy, I sure didn't see that coming.



In all seriousness, I personally don't believe there is an alt-right movement. I think, just like the left is coming up with every which excuse they can to explain this inexplicable outcome, some smart boys and girls on the right have decided to co-opt this phenomenon for their own purposes.

There are plenty of reasons to believe there is an alternative right, which is a subset of the right. They're there. They speak about themselves. They proudly refer to themselves as the alt right. I have no reason to doubt their existence when people claim they are that. But, just like the TEA Party existed, the left attacked that too. And the left will attack this because the Alt Right opposes the left and the Alt Right helped Trump get elected.

 

[HoughMade]

Kut blames it all on racism. Boy, I sure didn't see that coming.

In all seriousness, I personally don't believe there is an alt-right movement. I think, just like the left is coming up with every which excuse they can to explain this inexplicable outcome, some smart boys and girls on the right have decided to co-opt this phenomenon for their own purposes.

I don't know if there's a movement, however that would be defined. From what I can tell, these guys are thinking and posting and thinking and posting and possibly doing less real-world political activity than (small "L") libertarians. They didn't win the election for anyone and I think its intellectually dishonest for anyone to posit that those who are self-described as "Alt-Right" and know what the core principles are (assuming the OP describes them) had any widespread affect on the electorate.

 

[Birds Away]

There are plenty of reasons to believe there is an alternative right, which is a subset of the right. They're there. They speak about themselves. They proudly refer to themselves as the alt right. I have no reason to doubt their existence when people claim they are that. But, just like the TEA Party existed, the left attacked that too. And the left will attack this because the Alt Right opposes the left and the Alt Right helped Trump get elected.

The left took the air out of the Tea Party by making it synonymous with racism. It didn't matter that the claim was patently untrue. The leftists made it stick by sheer repetition. They can do the same to just about anything or anyone.

 

[Birds Away]

I don't know if there's a movement, however that would be defined. From what I can tell, these guys are thinking and posting and thinking and posting and possibly doing less real-world political activity than (small "L") libertarians. They didn't win the election for anyone and I think its intellectually dishonest for anyone to posit that those who are self-described as "Alt-Right" and know what the core principles are (assuming the OP describes them) had any widespread affect on the electorate.

I agree. But, they are certainly smart enough to jump in and claim victory.

 

[jbombelli]

I wish we could all just be good Americans instead of having to be labeled something or other. I don't need a label to know who I am or what I believe. There is, and I suspect this is true for a lot of us, no label that really defines me properly.

See my sig line.

 

[Kutnupe14]

So now, we're making this conversation personal?

 

[jamil]

You've misread what I wrote. There are such things as powder kegs and contributing factors.

Two months ago, was I locked and loaded because BLM was going to start throwing gas bombs in my neighborhood and now I have to go to Defcon 1 because Alt-right is implementing a roving star chamber?

A pox on all.

Well, I kinda think you can move back to a more peaceful position. Keep it locked and loaded anyway, that should always be SOP. But in my estimation, thus far, it's much ado about not much. As far as having to go to Defcon 1, I'm way more concerned with the nutty dumbasses protesting and refusing to accept the election results than I am about the Alt Right. I mean, c'mon. Conservatives had to accept Obama TWICE! They didn't pull all this nonsense. We didn't like it. But we didn't riot, for cryin' out loud.