My Thoughts on the Recent Escalation in Violence from the Alt-Right

       The alt-right is a movement that was started with an unwarranted sense of victim-hood. It was founded by people who feel as though they are the "master-race" but have gotten the short end of the stick, whether it's from immigration or from the mixing of races. They are under the illusion that because there are more minorities in modern day America, the white race has started to die out, and they have to preserve their "supremacy" by essentially doing away with anyone that does not look like them. Coming from some one who is of mixed race, nothing can be more disgusting than this bigoted, hateful ideology.

       The way I view it, Nazism is just extreme cowardice. These people are ignorant and fearful of anyone who is not like them. As we all know, this can be a very dangerous mix. 

                                                Neo-Nazi Terrorist, James Alex Fields Jr.

       A very grave, horrific event unfolded on Saturday at a counter protest to the NeoNazi rally that was taking place in Charlottesville, VA. A terrorist attack, carried out by a Neo-Nazi, killed one woman, Heather Heyer, and injured 19 others. The perpetrator, named James Alex Fields Jr., was arrested and is being tried for second degree murder.

                                        Heather Heyer, the victim of this brutal attack

                                     You can read more about the incident here 

 

       As much as I hated seeing this guys face, I came across a YouTube video of Richard Spencer a few months back. It was a response to the event that took place during Trump's inauguration where a man who was with the antifa protesters punched him while he was giving an interview. Of course I was curious as to what he had to say about it. I was a little shocked by the language that he used in the video, but I dismissed it because I didn't think anything would come of it. I was absolutely wrong about that assumption.

 

        This violent outbreak from the Neo-Nazis stems from one punch in the face to their dear leader. In Richard Spencer's own words, the alt-right and the left are engaged in a "civil war." He was careful to imply in the video that this was only in self-defense, but the way he described the anti-racists made them seem hysterical and barbaric. His followers undoubtedly will take that to mean that they should be even more terrified of the protestors, which will make them more likely to violently lash out. In this video that he did, Spencer said that he had gotten a "literal and figurative punch in the face" and that "Now [anti-facists] are getting seriously violent." He talks about how "things are changing" amongst the antifa crowd, and that they need to up their security. The alt-right fundraised enough to get bullet-proof vests, shields, weapons and tiki torches for their rally in Charlottesville.  

       Of course, as you know, that rally was peaceful by no means. There is no doubt in my mind that these NeoNazi rallies are going to pop up more frequently and with more ammo and violence than previously. This "Unite the Right" rally was only an excuse for violence for them. They viewed it as a battle. The answer to this is not to fight against them physically. They want violence. What is wholly ineffectual is to give them everything that they want. Since the antifa protesters seem to have gotten larger and more outspoken, there is a heightened sense of victim-hood from the alt-right community. Laugh at them, scoff at them, treat them like the ignoramuses they are, but please, whatever you do, do not treat them like they are a serious threat. Please do not escalate to unprovoked violence. Violence breeds violence and when we use it offensively against them, innocent lives are at stake. These simpletons can turn into terrorists really fast if they feel threatened.

 

Richard Spencer video

 

      

      There is absolutely no justification for the monstrous act that was taken out by this low-life, scum of the earth, cretinous murderer on Saturday. However, this man thought that it was the right thing to do to ram his car into a crowd full of peaceful protesters, undoubtedly with the intention of causing a great amount of harm. He thinks that he is the moral one in this circumstance. This victim complex this man had was obviously the result of Richard Spencer's dehumanization of the left and his unjust sense of victim-hood. My advice to everyone would be to just let the movement die out. Protest them, let them know that you are completely disgusted by them and everything that they stand for, but do not become the aggressors in this situation. Of course, by all means defend yourself, but please do not let them have the satisfaction of being able to claim victim-hood. We do not need to give these morons relevance. My plea to every one of my fellow leftists is that we do not encourage the radicalization of this monstrous ideology with the use of offensive violence.

Defending Free Speech for Odious Beliefs

        Free speech is a human right and should always be considered non-negotiable. Noam Chomsky once said, "If we don't believe in freedom of expression for the people we despise, we don't believe in it at all." If the only expression is one that we agree with, then there really is no freedom of expression. Of course there are going to be controversial ideas out there, but if you honestly believe you're right, why not challenge them instead of suppressing them? It may be hard to hear the odious beliefs that some people may have, but to shut down another person's speech is to shut down any opportunity of discourse that may have changed that person's way of thinking. If we don't have an open dialog with people whose ideas that may be controversial to us, there is no way of evolving our ways of thinking on either side. I would much rather have a free-market of ideas with some odious ones than a shut-down of conversation. The people who have an unpleasant way of thinking are often-times the people who need conversation the most. A great example of someone who was reformed from an unpleasant belief-system by open dialog is former Westboro Baptist Church member, Megan Phelps-Roper.

      

What's really ironic about the case of Megan Phelps-Roper is that her church goes all around the country trying to draw people into their religion. They hold these egregious, offensive signs, attempting to convert people into an ideology full of judgment, scorn and oppression. Various people have been reformed from the Westboro Baptist Church. These people were engulfed in this toxic ideology from birth. I view them as victims more than anything else. They were literally just following the teachings of the bible in which they were told to believe was sacred. All they knew was that way of thinking, so of course it would be up to other people to show them a different way. How could they have been reformed if we had suppressed their speech? What reshaped Phelps-Roper's way of thinking was open communication with people over the internet. This quote from the speech she made on Ted Talks tells us how it all started, "Someone would arrive at my profile with the usual rage and scorn, I would respond with a custom mix of bible verses, pop-culture references and smiley-faces, they would be understandably confused and caught off guard, but then a conversation would ensue." Conversation is all that was needed in Megan Phelps-Roper's case. The open-mindedness of the people she was engaging with over the internet swayed her into a more open-minded belief-system. We need to show the people we disagree with the correct way of thinking with open dialog, instead of suppressing speech.

       To defend another person's freedom of speech, even if they have a bigoted and hateful way of thinking, is not to agree with them. It may be hard to empathize with someone whose ideology is the antithesis of yours, but that's exactly what you have to do. Imagine if you were somehow living a completely conservative country, and your ways of thinking were considered barbaric and damnable. As an atheist, I would be considered a terrorist in Saudi Arabia.


                                                           Full article from DailyMail

 Of course Saudi Arabia is an extreme example, but if you believe in thought crimes, then you agree a lot more with Saudi Arabia than you think you do. Your agreement with conservative ideology is even more apparent if you think that committing acts of violence against people that you disagree with is the right thing to do.

 

  


    If you cheered the act of violence that were made at the well known alt-right leader Richard Spencer, you are obviously in favor of thought crimes. Not only is offensive violence just completely immoral in principal, it encourages violence against the people you may agree with. Do the you think violence against the alt-right is more likely to reform the people with that hateful ideology? Of course not. It's obviously going to make them more hostile towards their enemies, and more likely to commit acts of violence towards them. Why would you resort to violence when you have any other option? When you use violence against the people you disagree with, it discredits you as an intellectual person, and victimizes them. The last thing anybody needs are victimized Nazis. Authoritarian tactics have no place in a free society.

       Responding to closed-mindedness with closed-mindedness is a dead end. It gets you nowhere. Taking away rights is not going to win over the hearts and minds of the people you disagree with. In fact, it may make them even more extreme in their hateful beliefs. It is vital that we do not revert to oppressive, conservative tactics to further our agenda. If we are striving for a free and open society, suppressing speech, no matter how odious it may be, is the wrong way to go about it.

The Nefarious Agenda Behind Money in Politics

  In the United States, we are struggling to achieve populist policies such as a living wage, universal healthcare, and free college. The reality is, those policies are actually internationally centrist. If you compare the United States to any other modern nation, you can see that they have better healthcare, a higher education rate, and overall happier citizens. That's because democratic socialist policies in those countries are considered nonnegotiable. In the US, politics have shifted far off to the right because of the Oligarchy-like system we have in place. The so-called American "centrist" is actually center right on the political spectrum, and that's just how the corporations like it. The corporatist agenda is to keep American economics at a stand-still, or even to roll it back a little bit in order to keep funneling money from the American citizens right into their pockets.

Here Is an excerpt from the New York Times about just how much the top one percent is worth compared to average Americans

      

      

       

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       Corporations like the the Pharmaceutical industry and for-profit colleges are wholly against universal healthcare and free college. They would like us to believe that those policies are unobtainable, so that they can get an even more disproportionate amount of wealth, while regular citizens like us are struggling, burdened with lack of quality healthcare and unequal opportunity. If you actually look at some of the opinion polls, those ideas are very popular with the American people. To say that those policies are unobtainable is to dismiss every other modern country that has made those policies work. The 2016 presidential primaries is a great example of just how popular those policies are

       In the democratic primaries, Bernie Sanders was the left wing candidate with an anti-corporate, populist message. Going up against Bernie, was Hillary Clinton, a well known corporate democrat and the former First Lady and Secretary of State. She had a few huge advantages on her side. Hillary had a ridiculous amount of name recognition and corporate cash out the wazoo. In fact, the Clintons had taken a total of 3 billion dollars from corporations in their political lifetime. Not to mention (as we learned from WikiLeaks), the DNC and the Clinton campaign colluded to prop up Hillary Clinton and bring down Bernie Sanders. A lot of the attacks on the Sanders campaign from the establishment painted him as a fringy "pie in the sky" leftist. Despite those very important variables, Sanders chipped away at Clinton's gigantic lead in the beginning, bringing it from 57 points to just an 11 point lead, according to national polls. In the end, Clinton won over Sanders in the primaries. However, Sanders stirred up a lot of enthusiasm amongst millennials and grassroots voters, that is still going strong today. Right at this moment, Bernie Sanders is the most popular politician in the country, while Hillary's favorability rating has dropped considerably.

 

This image shows the favorabilty Bernie Sanders, mike Pence, and Hillary Clinton via PolitiFact

      Then we had the republican primaries, and as you may remember, Donald Trump was a right wing, populist, anti-corporate candidate who spoke with a simplicity and frankness that made him seem like a trustworthy, down-to-earth guy. His opponent, Ted Cruz, was a man with a very theocratic ideology, who had a clear record of being led more by his faith and his corporate donors than the will of the people. Ted Cruz was the establishment guy, so of course he was the one that was being propped up in the republican race. The establishment dismissed Trump as unpresidential because of swear words and his xenophobic, misogynistic rhetoric. Of course, you know how that went. Donald Trump demolished Cruz in the primaries. Even the overwhelming majority of the evangelical vote went to Trump. The establishment had a losing strategy. Attacking Trump on things that would have been considered "PC outrage" to his supporters did not make them shy away from him, in fact it probably helped him in many ways. There were many people who actually voted for the first time ever just so that they could vote for Trump. Trump was almost revered by his supporters, and they blindly accepted him as someone who would wave a magic wand and somehow "Make America Great Again." Although a lot of the mainstream media pundits wrote him off, Trump's victory was completely predictable and even obvious. He had a populist, anti-corporate message, which is something that resonated with the American people. Even though he may have had rhetoric that could have been considered unpresidential, his populist message was what elevated him as the Republican presidential candidate. As you probably know, Trump went on to win in the general election against corporate democrat Hillary Clinton, which gives me a huge takeaway. The American people are tired of being the second choice to the establishment's corporatist agenda.

      Unfortunately, Trump has proven himself to be a corporate puppet, by going back on a lot of the populist rhetoric that he campaigned on. He has appointed three former Goldman Sachs people into his cabinet and is now attempting to roll back the advances we  made in healthcare with the Affordable Care Act. Of course, all of Trump's advisors are corporate stooges, and he has listened to every word they have said. Instead of moving forward into the direction that is better for average American citizens, Trump is rolling back social safety nets, and pleasing his corporate overlords. We're on our way to even more of an Oligarchy-like system.

       As I said before, countries that have adopted democratic socialist policies are reportedly much happier. Here is a list of the happiest countries in the world, along with an excerpt from this article from CNBC

   

        As you can see, the United States is all the way down at number 14 on that list. Numbers one through ten all have something in common. They have universal healthcare, free college, and a much higher pay for their workers, with some additions such as free daycare and paid family leave. That is what the corporations are directly fighting against .Our politicians are being bought by corporations and doing their bidding, and in turn, creating a less happy republic for the people they are supposed to be helping. As the wealthiest nation in the world, there is no reason why our citizens should be suffering with a lack of healthcare, unequal opportunity, and low wages. In order to create a better society for our citizens, money in polics has to go.

Is Feminism Still Necessary?

           Feminism is rooted, in America, at a time when women could not vote, achieve a higher education or even go out into the workforce, let alone receive equal pay. Women were seen as second class citizens. Back then, advocacy for equal rights was badly needed. Fast forward to today and you can see that feminism has made huge strives, giving us women's suffrage, the right to a higher education, and reduced the pay gap greatly. That being said, I do believe that feminism still has a role in the United States. Women are still overwhelmingly the majority victims of domestic abuse. The idea that women should play the traditional gender role of being a homemaker and not have the option to go a different path is still alive and well in the minds of a lot of people around the world. There is definitely a need to fight back against those gender norm stereotypes. It goes without saying that women still experience sexism today. However, it seems as though feminism has taken a sharp turn into something that is a lot different than the original ideology. I've gotten the impression that many feminists have started to look for things to nitpick on that have nothing to do with the core messages of feminism.
       Feminism has taken many different forms these days. Some branches of the feminist movement have wondered off into the weeds, criticizing video games, for example, for the "sexualization" of women. As someone who has played video games with such characters in them, I can't emphasize enough as to how much I just do not care. It had never even crossed my mind. I say that to ask this question: How are sexy women in video games contributing to the oppression of women? Wouldn't it be a better use of your time, energy and platform to focus on issues that actually do affect oppressed women? If anything, the sheer silliness of the non-issues that some feminists have chosen to focus on has turned a lot of people away from feminism, which is frustrating to me. In my mind, feminism is a basic humanistic position. If you were to ask most people in the United States whether or not they think that women should have equality in the workplace and under the law, most of them would say, "Yes, of course."  That is the definition of feminism. In the western world, we have come a long way in terms of equality for women. As one of the leading nations in the world, we need to set an example for other countries that are in dire need of feminism. In theocracies such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, feminism still has a big role to play. As someone who cares greatly about equality, I feel that it's crucial that we get back to the core of the feminist message, not just for the equality of women in the United States, but for the equality of women around the world as well.
        There is still a lot of work to be done in regards to feminism in many countries around the world. In a lot of Muslim countries, women are required to wear a Hijab. In Saudi Arabia, women can't even drive, and they have to have male guardians wherever they go. That is just ludicrous! Women are literally treated like property. It reminds me of somebody taking their dog out for its daily walk. I can absolutely see people scoffing at the idea of feminism when we're over here "advocating" for less sexy women in video games, while the women of Saudi Arabia are treated like pets. The amount of oppression that women in theocratic governments have to endure is just unthinkable. Here in the western world, women are nowhere near that amount of oppression.
    Of course the fight for equality is still needed, but in some ways, the feminist movement has become authoritarian, which is the antitheses of what feminism was originally founded on. Feminism is not a radical idea. We must stop making a mockery of it by going after unimportant issues. If we care about making real change, we need people on our side, and this ridiculous amount of nitpicking alienates people from the feminist movement. We have to remember the roots of feminism, recognize how far we've come, and adjust our views accordingly.

An Introduction to Humanistic Infidel

         I'm starting this blog as a free-thinker, looking to speak my thoughts and opinions on topics such as politics, religion, race, gender, current events, and philosophical ideologies. I have a strong urge to express myself at this point in time, especially with all of the hysteria and conspiracy theories that have been surrounding the new administration in the White House. I would like to be a reasonable voice, looking at things from an unbiased, evidence-based viewpoint.

        As I said before, I like to think of myself as a free-thinker. That being said, I do not subscribe to any kind of religion. I identify myself as an agnostic atheist. My belief system is based off of scientific knowledge, so because there is no scientific proof of a higher power, I do not believe in one. However, that is not to say that I am not a philosophical person. A big assumption that's been going around about nonbelievers is that we are smug and narrow-minded. That is just completely ridiculous. I've found that I can be more open-minded and tolerant because I am not subscribed to a holy book. Without the strict guidelines and embedded biases that may come with religion, it's easier for me to be more fluent in my thought process.

     Given everything I've said thus far, you've probably already concluded that I'm left-leaning on the political spectrum. I find myself agreeing with the idea of social democracy more than anything else. Socialism already has a place in our government, and I think that a civilized society has to have a social safety-net for people who weren't born into wealth. An overwhelming majority of citizens are not born into wealthy families. If we're operating under the pretense that everyone is created equal, then social democracy is the only way to create equal opportunity. In contrast, a purely socialist society is unfavorable because there would be a lack of strive to be innovative. Everyone would essentially have the same level of income. On the other hand, a purely capitalist society puts too much power into the hands of the rich, and makes it even more difficult for people with low income to better their situation. That's why I think a mixture of the two is the best option. Social safety-nets insure that not all of the wealth is in the hands of a few people, but we also have a healthy dose of competition. In my opinion, social democracy is not only more practical than any other political ideology, it's simply morally superior.

     I hope to give my unfiltered and unbiased opinion on every issue. I try to look at everything objectively. I encourage discourse, and I would love to hear your feedback.