Black Lives Matter, Antifa, and Other Fudge Terms – Opting Out

Divorced from any useful context, the statement “black lives matter” is uncontroversial. In this comparatively enlightened and egalitarian world, most of us in the West recognize that every individual has inherent value, regardless of race. So of course, black lives do matter.

It is from this common understanding that propagandists attempt to steer us toward potentially more controversial political aims. They do this by proposing or defending a specific action in the name of the uncontroversial claim.

If there is any opposition to this particular action or political goal, the defenders point not to rational argument in defense of this goal, but to the term, and present the critics as opponents of general good sense and reason. They thereby rally more people than they might have done into their political cause through fear of social backlash.

This is apparent in the case of Black Lives Matter, which is a cynical partisan political movement first, and an uncontroversial statement second.

Most people who are little aware of how politics work have in good conscience put their backing behind the Black Lives Matters movement. After all, the statement itself is sensible if a bit redundant, and it’s reasonable to feel sympathy for George Floyd who was killed without reason by the organized criminal gang that is the police force.

What they might be interested in knowing, however, that in the name of Black Lives Matter, that there have been a number of questionable things done. First, defended by blue checkmarks aplenty, rioting and property destruction. Then, the fact that donating to the nonprofit Black Lives Matter page means you are funding further donations to American Democratic Party presidential candidates.

It’s this latter fact that makes it known that Black Lives Matter is no longer a spontaneous movement of justifiably angry minorities, if it ever was. Spontaneous uprisings don’t assume without debate that the best thing to do is just give money to establishment political parties.

It’s not obvious that Democrat-led America has made any useful step towards curbing police brutality or helping American minorities.

But if you bring that up, the red-faced propagandists won’t defend the Democrats, they’ll try to paint you as in opposition to the idea that black lives matter. If you’re against Black Lives Matter, you’re saying that black lives don’t matter.

This is only believed by profoundly stupid people. Their game is to attempt to emotionally coerce you into supporting their stated political aims.

The group Antifa play this same trick. Antifa (Antifaschistische Aktion) as a moniker started in 1930s Weimar Republic by the Stalinist Party and has been taken on by the American far-left as a descriptor for direct action against perceived far-right activity.

This direct action has included damage to person and property. If you have a problem with that, then according to these leftists, you are a suspected fascist. After all, Antifa just means antifascist. Therefore, if you’re anti-Antifa, you’re pro-fascist.

So according to this logic, if John Doe were to start an organization called the Anti-Poverty Commission and then started burning down forests, any opponent of burning down forests in the name of alleviating poverty is probably pro-poverty.

The problems with this should be obvious, but seem to be lost on people who have far too much airtime. The name of an organization should not be equivocated with the generally accepted meaning of the term. Just because you call yourself something doesn’t mean you are that thing. Furthermore, everything you do in that name is not justified just because that name is something good.

Then another sect of these idiots, Antifa apologists that include left-libertarians, come back with “even if you think some people in Antifa have made mistakes, you’re still Antifa if you’re antifascist,” again demonstrating that they have little grasp on the real world.

Be pragmatic with your language, and don’t be misleading. The vast majority of people are antifascist, but comparatively few are Antifa supporters. What gives? Are most people pretending to be antifascists? No, the answer is that most people correctly identify Antifa as not an ideology or a sound principle, but a group of people, that are at best aimless halfwits, at worst, a bunch of thugs. They quite rightly want nothing to do with it. This has no bearing whether they oppose Hitler or not.