PHILADELPHIA — Last week, a local Indiana chapter of Moms for Liberty attracted attention for quoting Adolf Hitler in its newsletter. After the local paper reported the story, the group added additional “context” but kept the quote. Eventually, after it faced even more scrutiny, the organization removed the quote and apologized in a statement posted to its Facebook group.
That, however, was a big mistake, according to advice at the Moms for Liberty national conference’s media training session Friday.
“Never apologize. Ever,” said Christian Ziegler, the chairman of the Florida Republican Party. “This is my view. Other people have different views on this. I think apologizing makes you weak.”
He advised the attendees to instead make it clear that the Hitler comment was “vile” but to immediately pivot to make the point that Hitler indoctrinated children in schools and that that’s what Moms for Liberty was fighting against. Ziegler warned that any apology would become the headline, so that should be avoided.
You read that right. He said to not apologize for quoting Hitler. That’s what we’re dealing with now.
I wish these vile people would just crawl back into the holes they crawled out of.
I rarely agree with or endorse or agree with violence. But the rise of the far-right shitbirds has really led me to believe that perhaps General Sherman really should’ve gone all the way to the sea.
If I learned anything from playing Civilzation, even when you win a neighoring city over to your side with culture or trade alone, they’re always going to be a problem. It’s better to just raze the whole damn thing to the ground and start over in the same spot.
edit: I also won’t fall victim to the paradox of tolerance. Punching Nazis is a net good. Superman does it, after all.
Get money out of politics. The Republicans fund these groups so they can push hate while maintaining plausibile deniability. Moms for Liberty can’t exist solely on grassroots funding. They are being paid by the richest among us to spread hate and keep us distracted from class warfare.
Now I’m doing a triple reply but I think it needs to be said.
There’s a huge difference between tolerating intolerance and tolerating the intolerant.
Right now I’m doing the best I can to be tolerant of you. But I will not tolerate your intolerance. It is utterly unacceptable.
Replying to your edit:
edit: I also won’t fall victim to the paradox of tolerance. Punching Nazis is a net good. Superman does it, after all.
You’re literally “jokingly” advocating for GENOCIDE!! What is wrong with you? Can’t you tell the difference between punching someone in the face, and murdering an entire population over a political disagreement?
And instead of at the very least qualifying your statement saying “It’s a joke, obviously I don’t mean this should be taken literally and I’m just venting without really noticing the full ramifications of what I’m saying”. Or something to that effect. You just double down on defending your statement.
At least when the Moms of Liberty were accused of supporting the Hitler quote, the modified their news letter to be double extra clear that they were condemning the Hitler quote. You can’t even do that much…
Lol he really hit a nerve😂 General Sherman is dead geniuses.
TLDR: If you find yourself defending the person hyperbolically calling for genocide against the person condemning it. It might be time to ask yourself “Are we the baddies?”
I can’t bring myself to give an actual example. But imagine this scenario, I’m hanging out with a couple of work colleagues. Let’s call them fixtionalJake and BroBroBro. Now were just chatting something comes up about all the vandalism that black people did during the BLM protest and fixtionalJake makes an obviously hyperbolic comment proposing that all black people should get murdered or that their ancestors should have. But the comment is a little bit indirect, and clearly absurdly impossible to implement. BroBroBro is laughing along.
I’m standing there thinking, that is some seriously messed up racist stuff right there. For sure fixtionalJake is a least a little bit racist, but maybe he didn’t quite understand how it came across.
So I say dude that was f’ed up that the most racist thing I ever heard, what the hell is wrong with you? His response is: “I’m not gonna get caught by this dumb rhetoric, if someone commits a crime, you put them in jail don’t you?”
Everyone in the company up to the vice precident smile, and agrees. BroBroBro, knows which the tide is turning and he wants to fit in, so he adds: “Yeah dufus, that thing he said is obviously impossible to do, what are you, ‘stupid’?”
I suspect that if you were in my place you would just conclude that both those guys and pretty much the entire company are at the very list raging racist assholes.
But not me, I have faith in humanity. Yes, every single thing they’ve done is consistent with raging racist assholes. It’s even consistent with the behavior of people who are genuinely hoping to find a way to genocide every black person.
But BroBroBRo’s behavior is also consistent with that of someone who’s just a little bit clueless and just a little bit too desperate to fit in. It’s probably consistent with many other kinds of behavior.
fixtionalJake is 99% chance a raging racist asshole, but maybe not really a genocidal one though. I mean he could, but it’s also possible that he’s not.
Either way, I’m quitting my job, working triple time for the competition at half pay. Just in case. just to make sure they don’t get the to snowball the funds to actually do it.
And that’s how I justify my behavior of posting all over this thread. Just in case. I want everyone to understand that indiscriminately killing all far right wingers is an abhorrent and evil thing to do. And I don’t want this to be a place where you can dog-whistle-advocate for such killings without getting called out on it.
It occurs to me there is no precedent for you to infer genocide from this joke, though. Sherman committed no genocide.
If I learned anything from playing Civilzation, even when you win a neighoring city over to your side with culture or trade alone, they’re always going to be a problem. It’s better to just raze the whole damn thing to the ground and start over in the same spot.
That’s genocide.
That’s not what he suggested to be done in real life. That’s a point about being unable to strike a balance between two groups who do not see eye to eye. His only real life suggestion was that a general should’ve continue his efforts further towards the sea. That’s not genocide, that’s simply war.
No one is calling for actual genocide. You’re condemning a joke, not the actual act. It’s not that serious, thus I truly can’t bring myself to read this fully.
Your hypothetical is racist. I would take issue with the racism.
Your comment which kinda jockingly advocates for genocide is one of the top voted comments on this thread.
Personally, I think you should be ashamed of this. And of this community.
I propose that to help make things better, you should perhaps apologize.
I agree. Based on your downvotes though, it seems the Reddit-liberal-never-does-wrong echo chamber persists.
Bro literally called for genocide, on a post about Hitler (someone hated for genocide), where the people quoted in the article said to not let the government indoctrinate your children, as it was a strategy Hitler used.
It literally cannot get any more ironic.
It literally cannot get any more ironic.
You missed the part where this particle gripe is how someone is refusing to apologize for wrongdoing. And they be out here doubling down on their stances that calling for genocide is perfectly fine if you label the people you want to genocide as Nazis.
The levels of irony here are shooting through the roof. And they seem to be doing it all with a straight face too.
I’m searching so hard for the slightest whiff of sanity and I’ve found absolutely nothing yet.
They won’t. Fascists have to be beaten back into these holes with the biggest, thorniest stick one can find.
They never learn, they infest innocent minds and laugh in your face when you call them out.
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Fuck off with that shit. Map was something right wingers made up, no liberal believes map is real, dumbass.
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Big talk from someone who’s leader openly talks about raping his daughter lmao
So, after viewing what America News has posted, it looks like it’s some garbage fear mongering shit posting channel. Congrats on consuming fake garbage, hopefully the rest of your opinions haven’t become twisted.
Unfortunately, maps is fake and made up by 4chan. But, like you’re the type of person to have their ideals challenged and change lmao
https://youtu.be/UjHyHsy7XAU too hardcore liberal for you?
Don’t feed a contrary bigot the morsels of your time and attention it craves.
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I vote libertarian and never win.
That’s because pretty much no one wants the world to be like the handful of libertarians out there want it to be.
Most people like the fact that their taxes go to keeping the roads paved and the meat inspected. But you do you.
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I hate to admit it but from an amoral point of view this seems to be something Trump really showed that shamelessness is a virtue in politics. Never apologize just keep plowing forward with whatever your bullshit is seems to be for the most part the way to go especially on a right-wing group. Left wing groups have to deal with more diversity and you probably can knock some support off that way, whereas RW groups are hurt by the apology more than the outrage.
I guess you’re right, but I hate living in a world where apologies are seen as weakness, especially by people who claim to follow the guy who said that it was good to be meek.
It’s awful to see this unfolding and accelerating. Thanks for sharing though, I likely wouldn’t have encountered it otherwise. I do feel it is important to be aware of these encounters, as ugly as they are.
This is indicative of a shitty rhetorical strategy. Really, the only way to hold someone accountable when they use this strategy is to insist on continuing to talk about your main issue, not whatever they want to say.
So, if they pivot to making a point against Hitler’s indoctrination of children, then take it back to their use of a Hitler quote that makes that point relevant in the first place.
I may be butting into a topic I don’t understand. I don’t know much about these Moms for Liberty except that I thing I’ve heard that they support trump.
The quote in question is: "He alone, who OWNS the youth, GAINS the future.”
It’s pretty ambiguous in its meaning and intent. In the context where it was used: advocating for parents to have more control over their children’s education: aka decentralize control of children.
But let me point you to a less catchy but far more horrifying quote:
I rarely agree with or endorse or agree with violence. But the rise of the far-right shitbirds has really led me to believe that perhaps General Sherman really should’ve gone all the way to the sea.
If I learned anything from playing Civilzation, even when you win a neighboring city over to your side with culture or trade alone, they’re always going to be a problem. It’s better to just raze the whole damn thing to the ground and start over in the same spot.
It has 2 upvotes and I’m the only downvote …
You talk about bad faith actors using shitty strategy to derail the debate. They’re affirming that parents should have more control over their children’s education, they unwisely used a Hitler quote without enough context in one of their publication and now that’s all you want to talk about.
I haven’t looked into it but I’m pretty sure that the greater context here is that these parents don’t want their kids to be taught that “it’s ok to be gay” and “kill the trans” is a bad thing to say. They probably won’t say it publicly, but that’s what I suspect is really going on.
And if I see them on the fediverse making these kinds of statements I might call them out on it. If I see them accusing the other side of acting in bad faith by acting in bad faith themselves, I might call them all on it. And if I see them almost directly calling for armed conflict, you bet your ass I’ll DEFINITELY call them out on it.
But guess who it is that I see acting in bad faith right now? You.
And guess who it is that I see kinda, “but really just joking”, advocating for armed conflict / quasi genocide? Someone on this thread getting upvoted that I won’t even give the respect of directly responding to.
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I can barely tolerate the unhinged comments I find here. I don’t think I would survive over there.
Is it too much to ask to have people try and be sensible. Show some kind of respect for the truth. And not try to set the whole world on fire?
undefined> Show some kind of respect for the truth.
The truth is that moms for liberty is a right wing group that is totally for grooming their children to only believe the right wing viewpoint, hates all of the lgbt+ and is also racist as all fuck.
It’s easy to pretend to be even handed but reality says…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moms_for_Liberty
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/moms-liberty
You don’t make the SPLC list unless you are a hate group.
So how about you have some respect for the truth?
I’m not disputing any of that. I haven’t looked into it, but it seems very believable that an extreme right wing group hates lgbt+ and is at least low-key racist.
What I’m disputing is the characterization of their use of a Hitler quote as being clearly in support of Nazism. When the context clearly indicates that they were comparing their political opponents to nazis, aka they condemning the quote.
But that’s not my main point of contention with the community here. My main point of contention with the community here is that in this thread there is currently a comment jokingly calling for genocide with 27 upvotes and no condemnations.
At the very least Moms for Liberty had the goods sense to publish a correction to make the intent behind their Hitler was that they were condemning. Meanwhile, you guys seem to be doubling down on promoting genocide.
I’m not worried about some post made on a random message board that 27 people agreed with. I’m more concerned with the well funded hate group attacking schools at all levels of government. You can get buthurt about a comment, I’m gonna go focus on the real issue.
It’s not a random message board. It’s THIS message board, THIS thread. The one that you’re contributing to right now. The one where you’ve decided to argue against the person condemning genocide instead of arguing against the person calling for genocide.
Show some kind of respect for the truth
Respect for the truth does not involve giving endless benefit of the doubt to obvious astroturf groups that spread lies and try to ban books.
But a group is composed of individuals. If you treat the misguided members of that group the same as their disingenuous leaders, especially if you’re playing fast and loose with the facts, then you’ll be pushing them towards their leaders and towards extremism.
That said, I also understand the value of discrediting an entire group as a whole. From a strategic and deterrence perspective where you’re trying to reduce the effectiveness and power of the group and you’re trying to cause people to second guess lending their support to that group by attacking their reputation. But also from a moral perspective if you’re going to lend support to a group that has nefarious objectives and produces harmful results, you have some responsibility for that regardless of your intentions.
But again, I’m most upset about seeing so much support and no pushback to someone sorta kinda jokingly advocating for genocide.
But also the irony of a person B grandstanding about how it’s not ok to derail a conversation. When really they’re trying to keep it on the derailed topic of the group’s original topic.
It’s like “oh nos what bad faiths piece of shits these Moms for Liberty are! We derailed the conversation fair and square to this Hitler quote that we may or may not have intentionally misinterpreted and now they want to derail it back to talking about your original grievance, we can’t let them get away with this kind of sneaky debate tactics”
I’m obviously exaggerating and paraphrasing here.
But also from a moral perspective if you’re going to lend support to a group that has nefarious objectives and produces harmful results, you have some responsibility for that regardless of your intentions.
Yes. Perhaps you should withdraw your support.
But again, I’m most upset about seeing so much support and no pushback to someone sorta kinda jokingly advocating for genocide.
That comment is gone. I haven’t defended it. You keep defending the Hitler quote.
“I may be butting into a topic I don’t understand. I don’t know much about these Moms for Liberty except that I thing I’ve heard that they support trump.” I mean, it doesn’t take that much effort to go to wikipedia, but here, I’ve even done it for you:
Mom’s for Liberty is so much worse than what you’re implying here. They’re not some innocent gathering of parents who don’t want certain things taught in schools. They’re an astroturf, highly GOP connected, right wing campaign that has supported many things like anti-vax propaganda, book bans, anti-LGBT legislature, and the rest of the “normal” GOP stuff. They have an extensive history of getting caught calling for violence against those they disagree with. They have 3 separate sections on Wikipedia about the different people they have been caught threatening with violence.
They were literally labeled an extremist group recently.
From the very few references to them I’ve seen, that’s exactly what I assumed them to be.
That doesn’t excuse the behavior I see in this thread. By not addressing their points from a charitable perspective, you’re playing right into the astroturfer’s hands.
If you have real evidence to present of their true agenda, then present it. Otherwise, fight their presented agenda directly and advocate against their hidden agenda indirectly.
But most importantly there’s a comment on here jokingly kinda calling for armed genocide with as of writing SEVETEEN upvotes. There’s something deeply wrong with this community and that’s what I object to the most.
“By not addressing their points from a charitable perspective, you’re playing right into the astroturfer’s hands.”
That’s the exact opposite of how this works. The GOP astroturfers want the conversation to be about “addressing concerns of these poor mothers, whose innocent children are being subjected to XYZ” meanwhile they get to keep fear mongering and raising money. You can tell these people that book banning isn’t a good idea for thousands of reasons but that’d be meaningless. They don’t care about book banning in the first place. They care about raising money and fear mongering as a way to do so.
And now you’re accusing them of being Nazi’s. But THEY know they’re not Nazis (well those of them that aren’t nazis think they’re not nazis). So who are you trying to convince? Yourselves? Now they’re worried because people are lying about them and what they want and then they’ll just donate to the astroturfing organization that’s protecting them from the unhinged lunatics accusing them of being nazis.
You need to fight on both fronts, you have to use a charitable approach to slow down grass roots recruiting. AND you attack the values and falsehoods behind the hidden agenda.
They have their public claims and they have their behind closed doors claims. You combat their public claims directly and proactively promote the counterarguments to their behind closed doors claims.
You also indict them for ACTUAL poor behavior that they’ve done.
This is the best source I could find for the original context for the Hitler quote. Sticking strictly to the context of that image, it’s classic: Hitler did this thing that the government is doing, that’s why we have to fight against it.
I don’t have the actual original before the yellow box was added, so I can’t say if the yellow box was the only change. But now all you’re doing by attacking them on this nothingburger of a Hitler quote, is you’ve given them ammunition to talk about how irrational and unreasonable the people opposing them are.
The accusation of ambitions similar to that of Hitler could be true, but your evidence doesn’t support it at all. All you’re doing is whipping up your side to an irrational fervor which will get noticed by the other side and then they’ll do the same thing.
You’re making things worse, not better.
I don’t know. That’s how I do advocacy, maybe it’s ineffective. I think it works on the people where something can work and doesn’t work on the people where nothing worse. This more unhinged kinda of advocacy is pushing away the people on whom it can work, helps turn the people on your side into lunatics and helps to turn people on the other side into even worse lunatics.
And now you’re accusing them of being Nazi’s. But THEY know they’re not Nazis (well those of them that aren’t nazis think they’re not nazis).
Well then maybe they shouldn’t intentionally cough over moments of silence for Holocaust victims.
And excusing that sort of behavior by claiming it’s not the group it’s just individuals is nonsense. The group encourages it. The group supports it.
Just from a couple of passing references in the passed, I already basically assumed they were far right anti lgbtq+ pieces of shit.
It’s just now when I see all the “evidence” you’re giving in support of that I’m almost reconsidering my original position… Ok, but not really.
They coughed during a moment of silent purportedly to be in recognition of the victims of the holocausts but the context is clear that the intent was just to humiliate this particular political group.
That’s not evidence of anything. It’s just another nothing burger.
What are you talking about? I never said anything about Nazis. You said you didn’t know who they were so I sent you a link to Wikipedia. Then you said something about treating a astroturfed company with alterior motives charitably. And I said that’s a bad idea. No idea where the rest of this is coming from.
But guess who it is that I see acting in bad faith right now? You.
Yeah, can you explain this a bit more?
From my perspective, I only said don’t let them change the issue being discussed because…well…that’s what’s being discussed, not their self-aggrandizing goals. And I offered a strategy to do that.
In contrast, you’re associating me with some quote about killing “far-right shitbirds” because…why? I’m not seeing the logic of the association between me and that quote or about how I’m acting in bad faith.
I accidently replied as a top comment here: https://kbin.social/m/politics@lemmy.world/t/133199/-/comment/522700
No one is getting genocided because a guy on lemmy suggested a dead general should’ve done more. To everyone but you it’s obviously a hyperbolic statement.
Fuck Moms for liberty, they are a hateful and harmful group and do not deserve any measure of tolerance or respect.
Are they teaching Narcissism 101? They should all be labelled terrorist organisations.
any apology would become the headline, so that should be avoided.
Great how that turned out. Now we have a headline how ignorant they are.
More importantly this:
This is my view. Other people have different views on this. I think apologizing makes you weak.
This is what cultivates the “never admitting wrong and always attempting to be right” on literally everything. Making people afraid or scared to be “wrong” is absolutely the most incorrect thing possible. We learn best when we self identify our own mistakes.
This whole mentality is literally the number one thing I hear people hate the most on the Internet. Trial and error is a fundamental method of problem solving and if you teach people that being wrong is “weak” then you literally subvert the most basic ability to problem solve.
There could not have been a more wrong bit of advice this person could have given. This is literally the number one thing that makes public discourse even harder to do. My bit of free advice is to literally NOT view apologies as weakness. You will always be an infinitely better person if you just simply DO NOT DO this one thing that Christian Ziegler has indicated.
apologies are strength. admitting you were wrong is strength. changing your mind when new facts are available is strength.
it’s easy in the short term to not apologise. it’s easy to just say no. it’s short sighted, it’s incredibly dumb, and it shows how weak you truly are: unable to display even the most basic of human decency.
Please help me understand. They used the quote in the newsletter to bring attention to the viewpoint of one of, if not the worst world leader in recent human history. They simply stated the quote; something along the lines of he who controls the youth controls the future. They followed the quote by saying to not let the government indoctrinate your children. Hitler, the highest member of the government, indoctrinated children.
How is it bad to say to not follow in Hitler’s footsteps?
Because to say this is bad advice is to say the government should be allowed to indoctrinate your children.
Do you think maybe they should have said not to follow in his footsteps? Because they didn’t. They just put the quote in huge letters in an isolated box at the top of their newsletter. Which sure looks like an endorsement.
Okay I can see how in the original it was just a quote all on its own (on the side bar) and it wasn’t until they added context that it made sense. Had to click through 3 articles to actually be able to access a copy of the newsletter. After adding the context bubble it makes total sense though. Definitely should have expanded on it at least a little in the original though.
“But guess who it is that I see acting in bad faith right now? You.”
Yeah, can you explain this a bit more?
Yes I can. But also, I have to apologize, saying “bad faith” was definitely going a bit too far. What you’re doing is being exceedingly and ironically uncharitable.
I’m guessing that the Moms of Liberty have quite a lot of statements to make the but the one in the newsletter that contained the quote was about giving parents more control over their children’s education. THAT is the topic of discussion (or at least what they present as their side of the discussion, their true agenda may differ).
Opponents to Moms of Liberty are derailing the topic of discussion by making it about quoting Hitler. This particular article quotes a member of Moms of Liberty advocating for not apologizing, because if they apologize that will become the story instead of the actual thing she wanted to talk about.
Then you come on here and say, don’t let them derail the conversation by bringing it back to the thing they actually want to talk about.
In contrast, you’re associating me with some quote about killing “far-right shitbirds” because…why? I’m not seeing the logic of the association between me and that quote or about how I’m acting in bad faith.
Because it is a quote by someone on this very thread with 14 upvotes. This is a member of your community and they’re popularly supported and you’ve done nothing to reign them in.
What exactly do you expect us to do to rein them in? What power do you think we have?
At the very least downvote it. There’s now EIGHTEEN upvotes, 2 boosts, and I’m still the only downvote on that comment. And I know people can find the downvote button because I can see how many downvotes I’m getting.
Moderators here don’t have a rule against calls for violence. I already reported it, but technically it’s not against the rules. Which I can understand in a politics magazine where war can be a topic of discussion, you don’t want to be banning people when for example the government is actively engaging in mass murder (e.g. like the Rwanda genocide) and a commenter is saying that the people should defend themselves with lethal force if necessary.
As the sidebar says:
Vote based on comment quality, not agreement.
The quality of my comments have been so abysmal I see. And jokingly calling for genocide is one of the best quality comments on this thread.
You keep coming back to defending their Hitler quote. As if it’s ever okay to quote Hitler regardless of context. You want us to discuss instead… Actually I can’t really figure out what you want us to discuss. But you want us to ignore the Hitler quote. You said that multiple times now. I think anybody who’s quoting Hitler should not be given the forum for debate. I’m not one that call a lot of people Nazis just for the hell of it, but if you’re quoting Hitler… Well then you’re a Nazi sympathizer at a minimum. I have no interest in what else you want to say after that point.
I may be butting into a topic I don’t understand. I don’t know much about these Moms for Liberty except that I thing I’ve heard that they support trump.
The quote in question is: "He alone, who OWNS the youth, GAINS the future.”
It’s pretty ambiguous in its meaning and intent. In the context where it was used: advocating for parents to have more control over their children’s education: aka decentralize control of children.
But let me point you to a less catchy but far more horrifying quote:
I rarely agree with or endorse or agree with violence. But the rise of the far-right shitbirds has really led me to believe that perhaps General Sherman really should’ve gone all the way to the sea.
If I learned anything from playing Civilzation, even when you win a neighboring city over to your side with culture or trade alone, they’re always going to be a problem. It’s better to just raze the whole damn thing to the ground and start over in the same spot.
It has 2 upvotes and I’m the only downvote …
You talk about bad faith actors using shitty strategy to derail the debate. They’re affirming that parents should have more control over their children’s education, they unwisely used a Hitler quote without enough context in one of their publication and now that’s all you want to talk about.
I haven’t looked into it but I’m pretty sure that the greater context here is that these parents don’t want their kids to be taught that “it’s ok to be gay” and “kill the trans” is a bad thing to say. They probably won’t say it publicly, but that’s what I suspect is really going on.
And if I see them on the fediverse making these kinds of statements I might call them out on it. If I see them accusing the other side of acting in bad faith by acting in bad faith themselves, I might call them all on it. And if I see them almost directly calling for armed conflict, you bet your ass I’ll DEFINITELY call them out on it.
But guess who it is that I see acting in bad faith right now? You.
And guess who it is that I see kinda, “but really just joking”, advocating for armed conflict / quasi genocide? Someone on this thread getting upvoted that I won’t even give the respect of directly responding to.
Do you think maybe if you’re going to quote Hitler and not want to be seen as a Nazi, you shouldn’t use a quote which is ambiguous enough to make people think you’re a Nazi?
