Incredible.
Jack Posobiec references the earliest version of antifa -- the anti-fascists in the Weimar Republic who were opposed to the Nazi Party -- as the bad guys.
My point is that not everyone who opposes kings is an antifascist. There’s lots of reasons why someone might oppose a king, for example, they hold a lot of power, and tend to hold on to that power, so if you want to seize that power, then you have to defeat them. In the same way the Nazis fought against colonial empires but it wasn’t out of opposition to colonialism, it was because they were in their way.
If the founding fathers had been acting out of a principled commitment to liberty and antifascism, then they would’ve freed the slaves. They did not.
In fact, they were very concerned about the idea of common people getting too much power and considered democracy to be “mob rule.” That’s why they set up things like the electoral college. After all, if the common people could do whatever they want, they might vote to free the slaves, or redistribute property or things like that. They (being wealthy themselves) were concerned with advancing and protecting their own positions before anything else.
Opposing a king because you want to replace him or opposing a king because he wants you to stop expanding into native territory and starting wars that he’ll have to pay for, those things are not antifascism. That’s just a monarch getting in your way.
Also worth noting that they had no reservations about accepting assistance from the French king, who was more of an absolute ruler than the British king, who shared power with parliament.
I understood that which is why I asked if you understood the importance of voting.
They were concerned not about “mob rule” but about a dictator rising up from democracy and taking hold - because Socrates in Plato’s Republic says that and advocates for a Republic to prevent this (and our government is based off these ideas). Obviously I disagree and often point out that the worst criticism of democracy is that it may become something else like fascism. That’s just funny - people hating democracy because it might end.
They literally believed the laws were living documents that should often be rewritten by the people.
People DID vote and advocate for freeing the slaves, to give people the right to vote, to give women the right to vote, to give disabled people rights, to give queer people rights - that we gained these actually proves via your own argument that this wasn’t a completely fascist set up. That it matters who can vote or not is huge, because jit means voting matters.
They had a list of why they opposed the king - things like no taxation without representation (aka fascism). Obviously the best (and arguably ONLY) representation is self representation.
Again, no one said they were perfect or even correct or even fully not fascist. But the progress they made and the actions they took indeed contributed to human rights and empowering the people, which resulted in what we would call today as antifascist actions.
And again, many indeed did advocate for freeing the slaves. And many more were selfish pricks who didn’t, and so as the future people, it’s our job to take the good things they did, learn from it, and address the bad stuff.
I think part of our disagreement is that we seem to be operating on different definitions of “antifascist.”
And again, many indeed did advocate for freeing the slaves
And many of those who advocated for freeing the slaves did so “in principle” while in practice owning slaves themselves and setting up a system that perpetuated slavery.
I think our disagreement is that you believe antifascism is a state or personality whereas I believe it is a series of actions and beliefs - and so my definition allows for people to take fascist and antifascist actions.
We see this in individuals. Eg JK Rowling advocates for womens rights (which is inherently antifascist except the transphobic part bc transphobia is misogyny which I’ll get to later) and at one time ran a campaign against disabled people chained to their beds unwillingly 24/7 (also antifascist), and many themes in Harry Potter are also blatantly antifascist. But she is overall labeled a fascist because she has made her biggest current thing to be gender fascism (transphobia). Everything she does in that realm is fascist, even though her own author name is ironically gender bent and she’s done it twice now with the intentionally “masc” Galbraith name and JK Rowling being intentionally unisex.
And we should dissect these things and look at them, because that allows us to look at ourselves and make progress.
They also set up a system that allowed slavery to be torn down in a way that had not yet happened for thousands of years in slave owning governments, giving rise to global human rights increases. Yes, they were horrible for owning slaves and those laws are horrible and have to be changed. It is quite literally against the human condition to have slavery or be a slave.
Would I personally call them antifa heros? Maybe to piss off conservatives, but otherwise no. Did they take actions that we can argue were antifascist? Yes
The original claim was that the founders were “antifascists.”
Personally, I wouldn’t call them fascist or antifascist because I disagree with the definition that extends fascism back to include all monarchies and such. I prefer to use a narrower definition of it, because the conditions of Germany, Italy, and other fascist countries were very different from the feudal system that had existed further back in the past, and it’s more useful and accurate to have a word that describes those conditions specifically. Otherwise, I think we’re diluting the term and making it much more nebulous.
Trying to fit the founders into one of these boxes of “fascist” or “antifascist” is projecting modern politics into a historical situation where it doesn’t really apply, rather than simply seeing what was. That broad way of thinking is something I consider wrong and dangerous, whatever the categories are. For example, during the Cold War, the US saw the world in terms of “communist” or “not communist” and everyone, everywhere in the world had to fit into one of those categories. Anti-colonial struggles, such as in Iran, were labelled as communist even when they weren’t. Reality is far more complex than such broad oversimplifications allow for.
The British system, for example, was a constitutional monarchy (still is) where power was shared between the monarchy and parliament. But even before parliament, feudal systems were more complex than just “whatever the king says goes,” there were layers upon layers of contracts between each level of noble that said what they could and couldn’t do, and a king that violated those contracts would likely face a rebellion from the nobility. Meanwhile, the system in Nazi Germany was designed to encourage different branches of government competing against each other, making it somewhat less cohesive and centralized than is often imagined.
Modern fascism came from feudalist practices though. Nothing exists outside of historical context.
The point isn’t to call them any specific label per se, the point is that these same desires that our country was built on would be labeled antifascist today by the current fascist government that is gaslighting us that they care about these laws and the founding fathers and constitution.
My point is that not everyone who opposes kings is an antifascist. There’s lots of reasons why someone might oppose a king, for example, they hold a lot of power, and tend to hold on to that power, so if you want to seize that power, then you have to defeat them. In the same way the Nazis fought against colonial empires but it wasn’t out of opposition to colonialism, it was because they were in their way.
If the founding fathers had been acting out of a principled commitment to liberty and antifascism, then they would’ve freed the slaves. They did not.
In fact, they were very concerned about the idea of common people getting too much power and considered democracy to be “mob rule.” That’s why they set up things like the electoral college. After all, if the common people could do whatever they want, they might vote to free the slaves, or redistribute property or things like that. They (being wealthy themselves) were concerned with advancing and protecting their own positions before anything else.
Opposing a king because you want to replace him or opposing a king because he wants you to stop expanding into native territory and starting wars that he’ll have to pay for, those things are not antifascism. That’s just a monarch getting in your way.
Also worth noting that they had no reservations about accepting assistance from the French king, who was more of an absolute ruler than the British king, who shared power with parliament.
I understood that which is why I asked if you understood the importance of voting.
They were concerned not about “mob rule” but about a dictator rising up from democracy and taking hold - because Socrates in Plato’s Republic says that and advocates for a Republic to prevent this (and our government is based off these ideas). Obviously I disagree and often point out that the worst criticism of democracy is that it may become something else like fascism. That’s just funny - people hating democracy because it might end.
They literally believed the laws were living documents that should often be rewritten by the people.
People DID vote and advocate for freeing the slaves, to give people the right to vote, to give women the right to vote, to give disabled people rights, to give queer people rights - that we gained these actually proves via your own argument that this wasn’t a completely fascist set up. That it matters who can vote or not is huge, because jit means voting matters.
They had a list of why they opposed the king - things like no taxation without representation (aka fascism). Obviously the best (and arguably ONLY) representation is self representation.
Again, no one said they were perfect or even correct or even fully not fascist. But the progress they made and the actions they took indeed contributed to human rights and empowering the people, which resulted in what we would call today as antifascist actions.
And again, many indeed did advocate for freeing the slaves. And many more were selfish pricks who didn’t, and so as the future people, it’s our job to take the good things they did, learn from it, and address the bad stuff.
I think part of our disagreement is that we seem to be operating on different definitions of “antifascist.”
And many of those who advocated for freeing the slaves did so “in principle” while in practice owning slaves themselves and setting up a system that perpetuated slavery.
I think our disagreement is that you believe antifascism is a state or personality whereas I believe it is a series of actions and beliefs - and so my definition allows for people to take fascist and antifascist actions.
We see this in individuals. Eg JK Rowling advocates for womens rights (which is inherently antifascist except the transphobic part bc transphobia is misogyny which I’ll get to later) and at one time ran a campaign against disabled people chained to their beds unwillingly 24/7 (also antifascist), and many themes in Harry Potter are also blatantly antifascist. But she is overall labeled a fascist because she has made her biggest current thing to be gender fascism (transphobia). Everything she does in that realm is fascist, even though her own author name is ironically gender bent and she’s done it twice now with the intentionally “masc” Galbraith name and JK Rowling being intentionally unisex.
And we should dissect these things and look at them, because that allows us to look at ourselves and make progress.
They also set up a system that allowed slavery to be torn down in a way that had not yet happened for thousands of years in slave owning governments, giving rise to global human rights increases. Yes, they were horrible for owning slaves and those laws are horrible and have to be changed. It is quite literally against the human condition to have slavery or be a slave.
Would I personally call them antifa heros? Maybe to piss off conservatives, but otherwise no. Did they take actions that we can argue were antifascist? Yes
The original claim was that the founders were “antifascists.”
Personally, I wouldn’t call them fascist or antifascist because I disagree with the definition that extends fascism back to include all monarchies and such. I prefer to use a narrower definition of it, because the conditions of Germany, Italy, and other fascist countries were very different from the feudal system that had existed further back in the past, and it’s more useful and accurate to have a word that describes those conditions specifically. Otherwise, I think we’re diluting the term and making it much more nebulous.
Trying to fit the founders into one of these boxes of “fascist” or “antifascist” is projecting modern politics into a historical situation where it doesn’t really apply, rather than simply seeing what was. That broad way of thinking is something I consider wrong and dangerous, whatever the categories are. For example, during the Cold War, the US saw the world in terms of “communist” or “not communist” and everyone, everywhere in the world had to fit into one of those categories. Anti-colonial struggles, such as in Iran, were labelled as communist even when they weren’t. Reality is far more complex than such broad oversimplifications allow for.
The British system, for example, was a constitutional monarchy (still is) where power was shared between the monarchy and parliament. But even before parliament, feudal systems were more complex than just “whatever the king says goes,” there were layers upon layers of contracts between each level of noble that said what they could and couldn’t do, and a king that violated those contracts would likely face a rebellion from the nobility. Meanwhile, the system in Nazi Germany was designed to encourage different branches of government competing against each other, making it somewhat less cohesive and centralized than is often imagined.
Modern fascism came from feudalist practices though. Nothing exists outside of historical context.
The point isn’t to call them any specific label per se, the point is that these same desires that our country was built on would be labeled antifascist today by the current fascist government that is gaslighting us that they care about these laws and the founding fathers and constitution.
That’s a very low bar. I don’t think we should let them determine how we use terminology.
? What? They aren’t being serious about it, it is pointing out the slide into fascism