What is most alarming about Joe Biden saying in last week's
debate that
antifa is just an idea, is that he seems to think that makes it harmless. Just an idea... hey Joe, what do you suppose that organizations are organized around? What do you think it is that motivates people, to organize organizations, to begin with?
For example, here's a couple other things that Joe might pass off as being... '
...you know, the thing...', that've spawned some exceedingly real and substantial organizations:
Each one of those catchy phrases, though '
just an idea', led to some momentous movements and organizations, one of which became the United States of America. The other two ideas, unfortunately, though they too were '
just an idea', led to the deadliest and most destructive states in all of human history - from the Terror, to Communism, Fascism, Nazism.
That antifa is '
just an idea', is hardly a meaningless statement. The Tea Party was '
just an idea' without formal or uniform organization, yet millions of people were able to rally behind it and alter the well laid plans of government. The question to ask is, what kind of idea is it? Is the '
just an idea' in question, one that, like the Tea Party, values human life, does it stand for people living in an expectation of liberty and justice? Does it recognize the fundamentals of the American system, such as this mere idea of
from John Adams':
"Property must be secured, or liberty cannot exist."?
, or does
Antifa & BLM use simple ideas to intimidate people, such as '
check your privilege', and to undermine the basis of their lives with '
It's only property!', does it lead the people who have '
just an idea' in their heads, to force people to obey and to conform and to submit to the power of those massed in the streets, does it endorse accosting and intimidating people, demanding that they bow and '
say their name!,' proving that they accept the new revolutionary social standards. This too was '
just an idea' of
Rousseau's,
"whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be compelled to do so by the whole body. This means nothing less than that he will be forced to be free"
, but that idea in the head of Robespierre is what drove the French Revolution's Terror and sowed fertile ground for the deadly weeds of the 20th Century. Just an idea. Here's a collary of these ideas, which history demonstrates over and over again, that '
by tolerating property being destroyed, innocent men are and will continue to be killed'.
I have some good friends, and virtual friends, who think Antifa & BLM are swell, that they are 'doing good' and that while they destroy property, it's warranted and excusable. The fact that the actual fascists intimidated people in the streets, destroyed property, and caused injury and even death, doesn't cause them to check the premises of their ideas in the least, they seem comforted by the fact that antifa and fascist are different names. When I point out that it doesn't matter if the names are different, when, where it counts, they are the same, they laugh '
Antifa aren't fascists, they fight against fascists!'. Try and pin them down to what they mean by that, and they refuse to say what, if anything, they think it means. They're not, you know, gonna be pinned down by me and my terms of truth & liberty, they reply, in so many words, that they have,
"...contempt for fixed categories and those who claim to be the bearers of objective immortal truth..."
, they are for relativist concepts, that 'my truth' isn't 'their truth', or as Joe Biden might've put it, 'Ya know... the thing...', which doesn't surprise me at all, because another fellow who expressed much the same frustrations, and expressed an admiration for relative truths, unconcerned with how they might be practiced in one place or another, said:
“... relativism is simply a fact.... Everything I have said and done in these last years is relativism by intuition. If relativism signifies contempt for fixed categories and those who claim to be the bearers of objective immortal truth … then there is nothing more relativistic than Fascist attitudes and activity... From the fact that all ideologies are of equal value, that all ideologies are mere fictions, the modern relativist infers that everybody has the right to create for himself his own ideology and to attempt to enforce it with all the energy of which he is capable...."
Unfortunately, for the meaning of the name 'antifa', that fellow was
Benito Mussolini describing ('Diuturna', 1921 (pg 374-377) what was '
just an idea' of Fascism.
And you know what? It doesn't matter much whether you put a name to it or not. It is easiest to understand an idea by seeing the results of it being put into practice, and though it is hard to believe it needs to be said, it does: The disregard & denial of Individual Rights is the defining nature of Tyranny, and whether you name its practice as being Antifa, Alt-Right, Fascists, Nazis, Communists, KKK, Black Panthers, etc, each by any other name would reek as foul. Whether the tyrant prefers to tyrannize by race, class, religion, economics-are but fashion choices -Tyrants they are, and those of you who won't '
say their name' will be their target.
Or are you one of those saying
"No hold on, no one's advising fascism, we just think you should be more pragmatic about these matters with antifa"
Funnily enough, both
Mussolini and his ghost-author and intellectual guru, Giovanni Gentile, were also
deep admirers of the Pragmatism of William James & John Dewey, you know, no '
dogmatic principles or ideals', just doing what works - that was what they saw Fascism as being - taking action to do what works. The problem is, that despite the efforts of tyrants to peddle their notions as '
just an idea', those ideas, when men attempt to organize around them, the nature of those ideas tend to organize men into unprincipled, undependable, passionate forces of despotic violence and destruction.
Let's be clear: If you think that roving gangs of ideological zealots, masked and armed to intimidate and injure, should be the arbiters of public speech, then
you are a fascist. If that gang calls themselves 'anti-fascists', the only fascists they oppose are the other competing brands.
One of the best reasons for not voting for Joe Biden, is the fact that he brushes off a group of people who've self organized around passionately tyrannical ideals, as '
just an idea', without the least inkling that that idea is the stuff of apocalyptic nightmares.
Idiot.
