Justin Mohn, a 32-year-old Pennsylvania man, is in police custody after allegedly murdering and decapitating his father, claiming the latter was a “federal employee” and a “traitor.” Before his arrest, Mohn posted a 14-minute video to YouTube in which he displayed his father’s severed head, proclaiming: "This is the head of Mike Mohn, a federal

  • MataVatnik@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Eh that’s like asking “Are you Pro Israel or Pro Hamas, you only get to pick one”

    • Orbituary@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      It’s really not, though. I am anti-Hamas and anti-Israeli government. I am pro-civilian - a group comprised mostly of Palestinians and Israelis in your thought experiment.

      You see, neither Hamas nor the Israeli government have their people’s interest in mind. However, you can’t really cherry pick aspects of Fascism and anti-Fascism and say, “sEe? BoTh SiDeS!”

    • donuts@kbin.social
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      9 months ago

      If the question is whether you’re pro/neutral/anti fascism, I think being anti-fascist is the only reasonable answer personally.

      • MataVatnik@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Anti-fascism is a political movement with a lot of political theory. Its not the same thing as saying you’re against fascism.

        • CodeName@infosec.pub
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          9 months ago

          Anti-fascism is a political movement

          Wrong.

          with a lot of political theory

          What?

          Its not the same thing as saying you’re against fascism.

          That’s exactly what it is.

        • BetaBlake@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          No it’s not It only is to people on the right who want that to be the case, The only theory that goes into play into being anti-fascist is thinking fascism is bad.

        • Perfide@reddthat.com
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          9 months ago

          No, it is not. I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume ignorance instead of malice. What you’re saying is literally verbatim right wing propaganda.

          The only thing “anti-fascism” or even “antifa” means is “against fascism”. That’s it.

    • LordOfTheChia@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      While I’ve seen many binary choice questions that are loaded questions, I think the above is a good example. A follow up (or two) if the person balks at the question itself is the following:

      Do you know what fascism is and how to spot it?

      Do you think antifa is a single entity and not a general ideology?

      If it’s an entity, can you name or even lookup it’s leadership?

      Do you believe everyone who espouses an anti fascist value system is a member of that org?

      Good binary questions can help guide a discussion and expose biases and misunderstandings held by each side in the discussion. Seemingly paradoxically, nailing down specific stances using those types of questions, you can explore the nuance of certain positions.

      Ex: on abortion

      1. Are you for or against the government mandated birth? (Seems loaded, right?)
      2. Are you for or against the government spending resources and citizen time investigating all miscarriages? 2a. Do you know how common miscarriages are? 2b. Do you know what the medical term is for a miscarriage?
      3. Are you in favor of the law punishing equally anybody who causes a spontaneous abortion or increases the likelihood of one? Even coal power plants?
      4. Are you for or against all abortions including those that are medically necessary to prevent undue suffering and/or injury to the mother? 4a. Do you believe an ectopic pregnancy is a condition that warrants an abortion?
      5. Are you for or against politicians making medical decisions on your behalf in the name of their ideology and/or gaining political points OR should the decision be left between the patient, their doctor, and the medical field’s understanding of the best standard of care?
      6. Are you in favor of all abortions at any time? 6a… Will a hospital in the states with the most liberal abortion laws perform an abortion on a woman with a healthy pregnancy at 8-9 months? 6b. If a fetus lacks a brain and no chance of survival, should the woman be denied the appropriate care?

      Question 1 may just be a way to reframe the stances from “pro-life” / “anti-life”

      Q2 helps bring the reality of what enforcement of that person’s stance may entail.

      Q3 shows that big companies go unpunished for the same (or worse) violations of restrictive abortion laws and other laws that are used to punish women who miscarry.

      Q4 helps bring focus on the fact that anti-abortion laws that are currently being passed and enforced are written so poorly that they are forcing doctors (through threat of imprisonment) to deny what would be routine procedures which would otherwise prevent suffering and permanent injury to women.

      • agent_flounder@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        These are all excellent questions to lead into a good discussion. Assuming you have someone who is open to approaching in good faith and who trusts you to do the same. I have a friend who I try to have similar dialogs with.

        I don’t suppose you have looked at street epistemology. Sort of the same vibe of exploring beliefs in a less/not confrontational way.

      • Riskable@programming.dev
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        9 months ago

        Just an anecdote about this: I once asked a pro-lifer question 4a and their response was that there’s no such thing as an ectopic pregnancy (said it was made up nonsense/propaganda) 🤷

        At that point I stopped viewing them as a rational being… Forever (I still know them). Now when I think about them… “were they like this from birth or did some combination of events lead to this insanity?” And sometimes even, “should they be committed? There is definitely something wrong with this person.”

        Then I remember that a great many humans have been like this for thousands of years. Rational thought and critical thinking are probably the outliers in our evolution and maybe rather than trying to somehow teach everyone how to research things and examine evidence properly we should instead focus on taking away sources of misinformation (by force, if necessary).

        I’m in favor of the corporate death penalty for any media company that is caught intentionally lying or misleading their audience. For example, the day Fox News admitted under oath that they intentionally lied to and misled their audience should have resulted in that entire organization being shuttered forever.

        “But that would eventually take down many news organizations!” To that I say, “yep.” Let new ones into the market that can keep their shit together and tell the truth.

      • MataVatnik@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Then the question could have simply have been phrased as “are you for pr against fascism.” Everyone know that Anti Fascism is a political ideology that goes beyond just simply being against fascism. And that’s why people don’t want to identify with that term

    • originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com
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      9 months ago

      yeah if i was sitting in gaza. which were not.

      i dont think its crazy to expect the electorate to know the definition of fascism. its also a bit hyperbolic to compare full on genocide with electing a fascist.

      • ElleChaise@kbin.social
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        9 months ago

        its also a bit hyperbolic to compare full on genocide with electing a fascist.

        Did you fall asleep in history class or something? How do you think genocides happen?

      • MataVatnik@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        What I’m saying is that if you are asking a question that pigeonholes people into two categories sometimes they pick the worst one out of spite. It’s not really am indicator of what that person believes. Kinda like saying if you don’t support BLM you’re a racist, and guess what happened? A bunch of people started saying “well I guess I’m a racist now”

        • Cosmonauticus@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Kinda like saying if you don’t support BLM you’re a racist

          No it’s not the same. A better equivalent would be are you racist or anti-racist. Are you pro or anti rape. Are you pro or anti slavery.

          Facism is defined as a violently oppressive form of government. It shouldn’t be a hard question if you’re not a piece of shit

          • MataVatnik@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            If you read Ibram X Kendi’s treatise on anti-racism you’d know that example is not helping your argument

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          and guess what happened? A bunch of people started saying “well I guess I’m a racist now”

          They were always racists. They just decided it was okay to admit it.

          • MataVatnik@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            The reason I brought up the Palestine Israel example was because it was a real question in a survey (NYT I think?), more that 50% of the people under 30 responded they support Hamas and under 20 years old it was as high as 70%. By your logic, all of these people are terrorist, and always have been.

              • MataVatnik@lemmy.world
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                9 months ago

                No, they call themselves pro Hamas. At least in that survey, but I doubt they actually believe it, more likely they picked that answered because they were pigeonholed.

                • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                  9 months ago

                  What does that have to do with your spurious claim that people call themselves racists out of spite and not because they’re racists?

                • Perfide@reddthat.com
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                  9 months ago

                  What at all does that have to do with being a fascist or an anti-fascist? A shitty survey asking people which of two awful groups of people they prefer is not at all the same as asking what one’s opinion on fascism is.

                  Fascism is very clearly defined. There is no pigeonholing here, there is no third option being left off the table like there was in that survey. You’re either in favor of fascism, actively by supporting it or passively by not resisting it, or you are anti-fascist and resisting the rise of fascism to the best of your abilities. There is no in-between.

        • AbidanYre@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          BLM is a specific organization. Fascism is an ideology. It’s more like saying if you’re not for civil rights you’re a racist.

          But really, you’re spending a lot of time and energy trying to explain why you’re, at best, neutral on fascism.

          • MataVatnik@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            No, I’m spending energy trying to explain to an echo chamber that forcing people to take binary extreme positions forces neutral people to take extreme positions. It’s a matter of politics and getting policy passed, if you call a neutral person a fascist, the will not vote with you. Calling people names is not a way to get their support. I can tell that people really have not learned anything these past 8 years. A lot of Trump support in 2016 came from exactly this type of rhetorical mechanisms. You want to keep on going this way? Go ahead, but you will not get the support you need, but at the end of the day you can just say those people were fascists and racists anyways, right? Extremely convenient

            • AbidanYre@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              You think being against fascism is extreme? That should be a baseline position.

              And I’m not going to coddle Trump supporters just because they act like contrarian children when they get called out.

              If some anonymous nobody on the Internet is making you support Trump or embrace hate because they said something you didn’t like or called you a mean name and you want to pwn them, you were just looking for a reason to support it anyway and need to grow the fuck up.

              • MataVatnik@lemmy.world
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                9 months ago

                You and I both know that the term “Anti-fascist” carries a lot more meaning than simply being against fascism. If you were to frame the question “Are you for or against fascism” you’d probably would get a more accurate answer

                • AbidanYre@lemmy.world
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                  9 months ago

                  So now you’re going to argue linguistics as a reason to not come out against fascism? That’s really just supporting my stance of “grow the fuck up already.”

        • YeetPics@mander.xyz
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          9 months ago

          If they pick fascist ‘to spite’ me they’re very clearly in that camp. Not because the question was asked but because of their intent in answering.

    • CanadianCorhen@lemmy.ca
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      9 months ago

      the two are not logically exclusive. a correct comparison is

      “are you Pro-Isreal, or Anti-Israel” and “are you Pro-Hamas or Anti-Hamas”.

        • CanadianCorhen@lemmy.ca
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          9 months ago

          And you, clearly, are in another postal code entirely.

          “are you a fascist or are you an anti-fascist?” is exclusionary, you can only be one. You cant both be fascist and anti-fascist, nor can it be 1 and not 1, they are logically exclusionary.

          “is the number of gumballs odd, or not odd” “you are so close to getting it” “yea… that’s not an answer”

          "“Are you Pro Israel or Pro Hamas” is not, and proposing that as an example shows a complete lack of understanding on basic syllogism.

          NVM, just saw you said this multiple times to everyone who raised a point you cant refute.