I Don't Speak German

Rhetoric about civil war was on everyone's lips in 2020. Both conservatives and liberals increasingly expected one. Conservatives were more 'ready' for one, being opposed to the status quo. Stating that you're prepared to fight for your beliefs in an extremely heated and increasingly repressive political environment doesn't make you responsible for that environment. This is a lot like the whining about Trump's 'fight' rhetoric which his defense skewered with their mashup of more extreme rhetoric from his detractors.

FWIW revolution was never going to happen though. Americans have no revolutionary potential.

> The shirts: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/the-go...

A handful of edgy shirts at a massive protest does not an insurrection make.

> "It's just a prank bro" doesn't really hold a lot of water when the actions taken at the event look indistinguishable from what the "real" version would look like.

I don't think you know much about what a "real" one looks like.

> Violent chat in their private channels: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/capitol-ri...

Again, a lot of empty hyperbole from a small minority, par for the course with 'the resistance', antifa, etc.

> An analysis and reporting of the Maga mob's garbage chats: https://idontspeakgerman.libsyn.com/77-capital-coup (audio)

I've had to sit through I Don't Speak German before. Garbage, unsubstantive regurgitation of bourgeois talking-points. No thank you.

And my criticism it isn't necessarily related to this specific episode.

BUT Sam Harris has been pretty credibly described as being islamophobic, sympathetic to fascists, amplifying and platforming "race scientists" aka: white nationalists attempting to maintain a veneer of respectability, and being a recruitment pipeline for the alt-right.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Harris

I know how well the "don't listen to Sam Harris" argument would go down around hacker news, but I'd say that one who does, should listen to him with the lens of being aware that he gives a suspicious amount air time to the online racist grifter community.

If that's the world's only source in the world on Renee Gracie, then maybe Harris is an ok choice.

I find it hard to justify giving bandwidth to a guy who gives so much bandwidth to nazi propaganda.

https://medium.com/@tedheistman/does-sam-harris-want-you-to-...

https://www.vice.com/amp/en/article/3k7jx8/too-many-atheists...

I'm not saying that Sam Harris is definitely a Nazi, but the venn diagram of online nazi content and Sam Harris' content has more overlap than one might generally expect to occur by chance.

https://idontspeakgerman.libsyn.com/episode-22-sam-harris-is...

> MAGA > Civil War > Jan 6th

"It's just a prank bro" doesn't really hold a lot of water when the actions taken at the event look indistinguishable from what the "real" version would look like.

The shirts: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/the-go...

Violent chat in their private channels: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/capitol-ri...

An analysis and reporting of the Maga mob's garbage chats: https://idontspeakgerman.libsyn.com/77-capital-coup (audio)

There's just so much actual, verifiable evidence of what happened that it is stunning to me that anyone would come along and say "no they were just upset at what they think was unfair"

But also why I don't really get involved in discussions with them anymore. If we can't come to terms around the existence of objective reality then anything further is a total waste of time.

:)