'Unmasking Antifa Act': Proposed US law could imprison masked activists - Polidicks

With luck this law will neuter the KKK as much as it does Antifa. Altright counterprotestors also tend to wear masks when doing illegal shit

No, they tend to wear masks to protect their identity from rabid counter protesters. You're pinning a violent minority to a peaceful supermajority. And considering this is aimed solely at ANTIFA I really doubt KKK was even an ounce of focus.

Just wear clay or epoxy filler on your cheeks and chin to make a square. You don't need a mask to fuck with identification.

Like that famous squidward picture

Imagine this was being pushed when people where out in Guy Fawkes/Anonymous masks a few years back..

Reading this thread made me curious about the situation regarding other countries (here there were proposals to criminalize face coverings in public assemblies since 2006 to curb hooliganism, but it only materialized in 2012). Turns out Canada has a rather similar piece in its Criminal Code (Disguise with intent), and in most EU member states there is some form of legislation in place prohibiting face coverings (either only at public assemblies or generally in public). As far as I could find out threre are only 6 members of the EU28 where protesting with a covered face is legal: Cyprus, Ireland, Poland, Portugalia, Slovenia, UK (except special cases). In Sweden and Estonia its only legal when there is no disturbance (or its immediate risk is not present). In other member states its usually or always illegal (no idea about Croatia). src:[1, p.239.] [2] [3]

I like how you include throwing shit at police and damaging property (which is already illegal FYI in case you didn't know) but don't even touch the super-vague and problematic "oppress, threaten, or intimidate" parts. The shortsightedness and outright dishonesty of some of the people in this thread is astounding. Nobody wants violent protesters hurting people but this isn't the way to go about stopping it and will set a chilling precedent on future rights.

Yeah? And what's the alternative? It's not an internment camp because we didn't single them out and forcibly remove them from Mexico just to lock them up in a detention facility. They came to us by an illegal byroute, one way or another. What would YOU do with them? Do you even have a solution that doesn't involve dooming innocent children to another dangerous journey or simply letting people come into the country illegally? It's even funnier that you completely ignore the fact that a "healthy starving diet" is probably the first good food at all for many of these people who probably haven't even seen quality food in weeks, and seem to think that giving kids medical treatment = "we're drugging the kids!" I'm not going to sit here and plug every hole in the "border internment camps" argument because we're already veering way off topic, but I think if someone simply sat back and looked at the reality of what's going on south of the border they would realize that calling the border detention centers an "internment camp" is far divorced from it. I think so. I watched footage on Liveleak of things happening in the periphery of UCB at the time I was knocked out, and I remember seeing some Antifa guys repeatedly beating some poor schmuck on the head with his face down in the asphalt using metal shovels. He was completely motionless. I would honestly be surprised if he made it. From my understanding this bill is at the core just an extension of the KKK mitigation policies already in place. In fact regulations that targeted the KKK have already been used to arrest and prosecute Antifa in certain regions, since they're both extremist political groups that use masks to hide their identity while committing violent acts. On trafficking and child abuse: We have cases on record where traffickers were involved with trying to sneak kids past the border, including the most prominent one in which a woman unbeknownst to the father, hired a trafficker to take her daughter from central america to the US border. Plus, you can't ignore that children on this journey have an incredibly high risk of being physically and sexually abused to where it's basically a near certainty. On Russian shitposting: Yes, it's shitposting. It's propogandic shitposting but it's still just shitposting. And don't forget that they played both sides of the political spectrum during the campaign too, Russia is not necessarily trying to "prop up" Trump. Especially when you consider that Russia Today in particular has a heavy left wing bias, I don't see how anyone can even make the point that Russia specifically is supporting him especially when you consider the president has publicly criticized them and has made it clear he wants to squeeze cooperation out of Russia on various foreign policy issues. On dying on hills: I said fabricated, twisted, or overblown. If you are trying to say that Trump is literally hitler for making some disagreeable economic policy which the original poster was, then you have to apply that kind of charge to all the other presidents ever who have made a disagreeable economic policy. And here's the thing: we have tariffs on our exports to some of the countries that Trump is targeting. We've already been in a trade war for a while in many cases. Saying that he is out to get the media when the media is so obviously out to get him is fair enough. Trump is not making policies to remove free press, he is just calling out abuse of free press and he has every right to do that no matter how wrong or right you think he is. I find a lot of the other "hills" you're pointing at to be disagreeable also, but I've gone off topic long enough. Look, I'm not saying that this bill is the optimal way to deal with antifa, or that it's totally good for a society that values free speech. But trying to paint them as some kind of heroic saints when they're exactly the opposite is foolish, and trying to say that they NEED to hide their identities because of political persecution is also bullshit. I saw someone earlier trying to say that the alt-right has been tracking leftist activist members, but is that any different than how the left does the exact same shit to the right? Just reap the crop you sow honestly. Getting harassed for your political beliefs is becoming the norm now and if it's going back to bite left wing activists in the butt then it's only fair. All I can say is that the result of asking antifa to remove their masks typically results in violence being completely negated. And that's because the mask is for them to maim people and destroy property and get away with it, not to "peacefully protest". at the same protest? you mean the one that I literally just stated was aggravated by antifa?

So what you're saying is this law is literally 100% irrelevant to begin with since most of those things are already illegal? (And the others are subjective enough that this law is a clear path for abuse.) Glad we got that settled. This law can only serve to be abused. Even more so considering the underhanded and shady party putting the bill forth who has shown no qualms about disregarding morals and ethics entirely when it benefits them.

This dude thinks ANTIFA caused the issues, not the white supremacists screaming for ethnic cleansing and actually causing all of the violence. Must be great to substitute reality and replace it with your own.

*beats black person with metal pole* Why did Antifa do this?

Communists are part of the problem.

Look in my source, alt-right are causing the violence to justify their agenda. Groups like ANTIFA are reactionary and rarely form up by themselves. In part, they are a bit of the problem, but the source is neo nazis or facists spreading reactionary hate.

So to put it simply they're a symptom of the problem and not part of the problem itself. So attempts to get rid of Antifa without dealing with the actual problem is like trying to cure someone's illness by treating the symptoms and not the underlying illness.

Antifa is not innocent, as far back as April 2016, during Obama's presidency, the Department of Homeland Security and Federal Bureau of Investigation circulated an intelligence assessment of Antifa that deemed them a violent threat. It noted that Antifa were arming themselves with crude weapons and even crude explosives and attacking symbols of authority, capitalism, and racism. The assessment believed that Antifa were the primary instigators of violence at the time, and that with the rise of the far-right, Antifa too would rise and become a more significant threat. The DHS were also very concerned about the potential for violence between the far-left and far-right, with Antifa instigating attacks and it noting that the far-right would be quick to respond by bringing stronger weapons and launching their own attacks. The assessment's greatest fear is that it could escalate to both sides showing up with firearms, and the unanswered question of how the police are going to handle that. https://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/01/antifa-charlottesville-violence-fbi-242235

I think you are mixing some people up here. Unless your student loan debt collector is actively taking part in facist demonstration or gathering and antifacist action is already there, this encounter will not happen in any country. Although it's possible that antifascism might intersect with free tuition advocates on an individual basis, assembling as antifa to attack the tax man would make zero sence.

I dunno, you might be on to something. You could intimidate the opposition with sheer chiselled jaw lines and prominent cheekbones alone this way. War has changed.

The law conveniently ignores all the LARPers with shields and shit who went to counter protest the "families belong together" event.

Your source is not really descriptive of why they're here, it's not the causal factor here. Antifa is not targeting domestic terrorists and nobody on the far left was aware of Dylan Roof, they have not cropped up in response to those events which stretch back well before the Trump era. Your source even states the right made up a minority of killings in 2016. What originally birthed them was feeling threatened by Trump rallies then being emboldened by anti-Trump protests and whatever excesses or clashes they were involved in, they otherwise only existed in even more marginal spaces like the black bloc of anti-capitalist protests. They aren't just a bit of the problem, they're very much a part of it especially if you want to win independents and the middle. They should be addressed as our politics degenerates, intelligence/security services do the real job while communists and anarchists just agitate conservatives, divide and piss off the public, and make the center-left helpless. This is exactly what happened in Spain and Germany, and the fact they haven't learned anything from history doesn't mean we shouldn't. Just saying they are reacting to others borders on just echoing their own apologia. We know they're bullshitting people when they say this because A) Exactly because, as you say, they are reactionary and based on mob tendencies, they show up in a wide range of political events and target a number of people on the wider right as part of a natural mission creep that inevitably happens when you give zealous moonbats the power of a label that justifies violence. Berkeley was not caused by nazi hate or whatever, it was targeting a Breitbart journalist and GG anti-feminist guy and associated pro-Trump rallies, then later a Jewish conservative guy that constantly attacks intersectionality. B) They have existed and been a problem in the West for decades and decades because it's one of the few places in society the far-left can gather. They exist regardless of what's going on and make up excuses as they go along. C) There's no equivalent movement on the right vying for power in the streets. This isn't Weimar Germany where you might actually have a case.. You don't have a right-wing militias going around beating up people at left-wing rallies.

But yet no one has been slain by them. Both groups you mention have the same thing about groups like the KKK and even harmless ones like ICP. A lot of groups are considered dangerous to the FBI, but rightwing terror is extremely prevalent compared to groups like ANTIFA.

I didn't say that those particular blokes weren't responsible for their actions, but when Antifa is going around starting these violent brawls it's only paving the way for innocents to get caught up in the fighting.

Antifa isn't reasonable and is as permissive of violence as its fascist counterparts. This law isn't at all the defacto indicator that the government dislikes antifa - them being marked as a terrorist group was that indicator. I do hope this law gets applied in a manner that shuts down both masked sides in violent protests, there's a ton of right wing vandals that wear masks as well.

Communists and anarchists, who have never held a majority in the house or the senate, who have never held the presidency are the real problem somehow.

It does? How?

Its not very common with Anarchists creating Political Party of their Anarchist ideologies. But yes, Sadly not in Two-Party system where two parties control government and everyday life throughout its history.

Being masked in public "with the intention to commit violence" has been illegal here for a couple of decades and we haven't turned totalitarian in that time. Basically means the police can arrest masked demonstrators immediately if they carry weapons or visibly try to start a fight. I think it has worked in keeping troublemaking demonstrators in check.

Only time that is appropriate to be violent towards a Fascist is if they're being violent towards others. imo.

That should kinda be illegal to begin with???

Being masked at a riot has been illegal in Canada for years, and frankly I agree with it. Fuck assholes causing property damage and assaulting people and thinking they can get away with it because they hid their face.

poor nazis being made to beat up black people, stop aggravating them