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I am an atheist and a socialist. My disbelief in God offends people. My socialist views are widely believed to desire the enslavement of humanity and are blamed for the deaths of tens of millions of people in the twentieth century. There are people who find my views too offensive and dangerous to tolerate. Should I be censored?

If radical and extremist opinions are criminalized, then the state will have license to target atheists and socialists for repression, as they have in decades past. If it is widely accepted that dangerous opinions justify violence, then socialists and communists are at greater risk for violence, state and popular. If I assemble with others and publicly proclaim my politics, then anticommunists can say that my identity, my opinion, my presence, provoked the attack on my person, that I am to blame for their violent actions against me, that their actions are just.

It is absurd to argue that people understand the threat of fascism but see the good of socialism and draw a distinction. Don’t deceived yourself. That distinction does not exist in popular thought. Even if it were supposed to be otherwise, fascists may reasonably ask why their views are being suppressed while the views of socialists and communists are permitted an audience with understood immunity from violence. The moral character of communism will be viewed in relative terms, or in terms that uphold the status quo. Communism will be depicted—as it already is—as yet another dangerous ideology to be suppressed, by law or by force. This is why, in some states around the world, those that sacrifice their civil liberties, all “totalitarian” and “extremists” symbols are restricted. And don’t you anarchists think they won’t come after you.

Free speech and assembly is what allows me to meet and discuss politics with my comrades. It’s why I can write this post with a sense of a degree of safety. It’s why any of you can say what you want say.

The ideals of free thought and assembly to one side, it is of immediate practical interest to me, as an atheist, as a socialist, that the fascist’s right to assembly and free speech is protected and that the brand of anti-fascist ideology that seeks criminalization of fascism and advocates violence against fascists be marginalized. Those who argue for the suppression of speech and thought, fascist or anti-fascist, are, at the very least, equally dangerous to human freedom, however the ideology is dressed morally, because they undermine the grounds for free exchange of ideas and opinion. Anti-fascists who do not seek to suppress speech and assembly, who do not advocate violence against those expressing their opinions are not a threat to my interests.

There are two types of anti-fascists. There are the authoritarian types and there are libertarian types. I used to proudly proclaim my anti-fascism. But I have become cautious as the distinction between authoritarianism and libertarianism among those claiming antifascist politics is collapsing. For those of you who advocate aggressive violence, you imperil my freedom. But you also imperil your own freedom and the freedom of those you claim to defend.

We’re living in a dangerous time when confronting opinion with violence (not as metaphor or virtual play, but as actual physical action) is encouraged and celebrated. The advocacy of aggressive violence, albeit generally protected expression, increases the risk of more violence, including government suppression of assembly and speech. Those who respond to opinion with violence are in part responsible for pushing the nation towards the authoritarian path. Those calling for the suppression of speech and assembly are making a whip for their own backs. Those who believe in keeping an open and democratic society must therefore remind others of the morality and practical value and strategic use of violence and, by extension, nonviolence (see Martin Luther King, Jr. for the arguments concerning the use of nonviolence in political action; this essay focuses on the use and ethics of violence).

Violence may be an end or a means to an end. For those who like to fight, injure, kill, maim, and rape, it is an end, an expression of frustration or hatred or power, or a type of thrill. Committing acts of violence make some people happy, give them joyful memories, bragging rights, and trophies. In these instances, one may conceptualize violence as a means to such ends. The line is a bit blurry. However, this type of violence is rarely justifiable (except, perhaps, in sport, where both parties agree to combat). As a clear means to an end, violence can be right or wrong depending on the ends its users seek and how they use it. Violence used to obtain things that others genuinely need cannot be justified. Violence used to maintain the conditions of exploitation or oppression cannot be justified. Violence used to eliminate, punish, or silence others for their associations, beliefs, expressions, or lineages, on these grounds alone, cannot be justified.

There are three conditions that justify violence: (1) self-defense; (2) protection of targets of unjust violence; and (3) the overthrow of exploitative or oppressive conditions.

If you are attacked, you have the right to use force sufficient to end the attack and save yourself – after exhausting reasonable options (such as your duty to retreat). You are defending your right to life and health, which are essential to the freedom you have an inalienable right to. If a child is threatened with bodily harm, you have the right to use force to negate that threat for the same reason. If you are being oppressed, you have the right to overthrow your oppressor, again for the same reason. Slave revolts, for example, although illegal, are morally justified. The violent overthrow of capitalism is also morally justified—after all other avenues of obtaining liberation have been exhausted. The overthrow of tyranny is defense of freedom. All of these forms of violence are defensive acts.

The moral and practical uses of defensive violence have an associated ethics. Even when justified, violence must be used in proportion to the magnitude of the threat. You have the right to repel a threat. You do not have the right to pursue an attacker who is retreating. You do not have the right to engage in excessive violence in repelling a threat. You do not have the right to kill the deposed leaders of the toppled government. You do not have a right to be cruel or moved by malice or revenge. You cannot torture to save lives. Justifiable violence must be a rational exercise. To the extent that persons were using violence in self-defense or to protect others who were under assault in Charlottesville, violence exhibited on August 13, 2017 may be justified. However, much of the violence witnessed and documented was not. 

There are clear examples of white nationalists using wrongful violence in Charlottesville. Indeed, aggressive violence by white nationalists constitute the worse offenses that occurred in Virginia. The beating of Deandre Harris in a parking garage by white supremacists was a horrific display of racial hatred – and slow to get media attention. The murder of Heather Heyer and the maiming of scores of other persons by a white supremacist James Alex Fields, using his car as a weapon, appeared to be motivated by hate and politics. If so, this was an act of domestic terrorism. Fields has been charged with counts of second degree murder, malicious wounding, and hit and run with attendant failure to stop with injury. The US Department of Justice has opened a civil rights investigation. The US Attorney General has characterized Fields’ actions as terrorism.

The aggressive violence used by antifascists to silence white nationalism was unjustified. It is never appropriate to use violence against persons exercising their right to express an opinion, whatever that opinion it is, in whatever non-violent manner that opinion is expressed. Violence in these instances is a means to illiberal ends: the suppression of the rights to speech and assembly. Government’s duty is protect these rights. The fact that a person expresses hatred towards other people is not physical aggression. Expressing an opinion does not physically harm a person or others, nor does it represent an actual moment of oppression or tyranny. Ideas and words are not violence in themselves.

The potential for white nationalist violence is a perennial problem and there are indications that it is increasing. The government must act decisively to quell this threat through surveillance, education, and policing where violence occurs. Control over weapons is key to reducing the risk of death and injury. We already have models to deal with the potential for white nationalist violence (e.g. the tactics used to deal with the problem of Islamism). 

However, wrongful violence committed by anti-fascists is a growing problem, as well, and the state has a duty to protect people from this form of aggressive violence. Education is an important step in reducing the problem of anti-fascist violence (for example, emphasizing the morality of violence and the ethics surrounding its use). In the meantime, a larger police presence where anti-fascist violence is likely could reduce harm to persons and damage to property.

Two cases illustrate the problem of anti-fascist violence. In May, 2017, a teacher at Diablo Valley College in Berkeley, Eric Clanton, attacked and injured seven Trump supporters in the head with a U-lock bike lock. Some of the injuries were severe. A police search of his home turned up anti-fascist flags, indicia, pamphlets, and patches.   Clanton was charged with several felonies. In July 2017, Yvette Felarca, a Berkeley public school teacher and organizer of the pro-violence anti-fascist organization “By Any Means Necessary,” or “Bamn,” was arrested for attacking a man in June in Sacramento in June 2016 and for inciting a riot. Just as with the assaults by Clanton, Felarca’s violent actions were captured on videotape. In early August, 2017, she was arraigned on counts of assault, participating in an illegal riot, and causing a riot.

We condemn these actions, not because we disagree with the motivation behind them, but because the unjustified use of violence is wrong. The appropriateness of violence is not determined by the opinions or ideology people hold or express; the correct use of violence is determined on objective moral grounds that transcend politics and ideology. Action is governed by the universal and transhistorical logic of civil and human rights, the core of which is the right of all people, regardless of their attitudes and beliefs, to be free of suffering and safe from violence. 

The images, video, and eyewitness accounts of anti-fascists punching, kicking, bludgeoning, and pepper spraying white nationalists are particularly disturbing to those of us who operate with strict ethics in the use of violence because anti-fascists share so many of our values. We, too, condemn racial hatred and bigotry. We, too, are opposed to ethnic nationalism and white supremacy. We, too, protest injustice and prejudice and demand an end to discrimination. But we also observe the moral and ethical use of violence (and nonviolence).

Also disturbing is the ideological defense of aggressive violence and the shaming of those who object to it on moral grounds. If we are going to have moral authority in condemning the unjustified and unnecessary use of force and violence, then we must put aside ideology and hold all parties accountable for wrongful action. If it is wrong for one side, then it is wrong for the other side. This is a basic and timeless moral rule. Moreover, the ideological defense of aggressive violence sanctions violent action for those who share progressive values. Mainstreaming aggressive violence expands the risk of harm not only to white nationalists, but to peaceful protesters and bystanders. Not all, but a very active minority of antifascists believe they have a special right and moral authority to endanger people’s lives and wellbeing. They don’t.

Anti-fascist violence is counterproductive. As we have seen in previous events (for example, in Berkeley, in early February 2017, over the appearance of Milo Yiannopoulos), antifascists are eager to use violence. As in other places, they went to Charlottesville looking to rumble. Without violence, the world would have hardly been moved to think about a small group of white men (a crowd size of 100-200, even after widespread promotion of the event) gathered to proclaim support for a Civil War memorial and chant the atavistic desires of moral imbeciles who never went away (obnoxious white supremacy is not a new thing) but remain few in number. Now the racists enjoy a larger audience. And, for some observers, they look a bit like martyrs; antifascist violence created an opportunity for white nationalists to claim that their legal exercise of assembly and the free expression of their opinions was violently suppressed by those who do not have a legal or moral right to restrict their speech or to physically engage them.

The moral substance of the far right and the far left couldn’t be more different. It’s the difference between those who crave belligerence, rationalize inequality, oppress women, persecute gays, and wreck the environment versus those who seek peace, equality, and justice, and work to preserve the biosphere. Peacemaking expresses love of humanity. It’s the far right who deems members of certain groups unworthy of human consideration. The far left works with a different morality. This is why left-wing violence must be held to a higher standard. 

If violent antifascists and anarchists are actually agent provocateurs, then this needs to be exposed with hard evidence. Otherwise the claim will be dismissed as a manifestation of conspiracism. But there’s a problem here. Even if right-wing machinations could be shown to be true for some cases, is it plausible that this could be true for every case? If violent leftists are not agents of the state or right-wing groups, and it seems more likely they are not than they are, then the complaints about the media creating a false balance, while in substance true, is not only made possible by antifascist and anarchist violence, but by those who support it or fail to criticize it. Perception counts for a lot. Politics is about changing the public mind. If you don’t want the media focusing on left-wing violence, and using it to diminish the significance of growing white nationalism, then condemn it. 

Here are two basic rules to follow: (1) be out front in your support of free speech, association, and assembly; (2) be clear in your opposition to the use of aggressive violence from every side—the police, white nationalists, left-wing activists. 
There is a straw man being floated by those supporting violent confrontation that goes something like this: those who oppose aggressive or violent confrontation of persons exercising their First Amendment rights want to have a dialogue with white nationalists. Protecting First Amendment rights has nothing necessarily to do with the particular content of speech or the desire to engage in particular acts of dialogue. It has to do with the protecting the right of every individual to hold and express opinions, freely associate with others, and assemble publicly to share opinions—and that means seeing, hearing, and reading opinions as much as uttering and writing them.

What about defensive violence? Even defensive violence is problematic when persons using it put themselves in a position that makes resort to it more likely. Peacefully walking into a gathering of KKK members does not justify their use of violence against their opponents. But knowing that the resulting riot will be used by the media to paint both sides as problematic, perhaps it is unwise to make it possible for others to claim that the left is provoking an altercation with their presence. What is to be gained by showing the world that the KKK is violent? Is there anybody who doesn’t already know this? You can try to change the media frame by protesting it. Has that worked? Or you can avoid providing the media with material to frame. It’s not as if the media will explain to the public the difference between aggressive and defensive violence. 

Of course, law enforcement should protect the community from white nationalism, not from left-wing activism. Efforts must be directed at pushing the police in that direction. This is not helped by enabling situations where the police have reason to turn their attention to the left. The left should to set the peaceful example of public politics. The left should show the public why it is different from far right-wing protestors. Aggressive and violent confrontation, even if it reduces the frequency and size of white nationalist gatherings, is counterproductive to the goal of building a mass movement because it alienates potential participants. It reinforces the commitment of the passive majority to not get involved with popular action—or, worse, to support repressive police control of protests. Violent protests suggest to the majority that the left does not have a viable agenda for solving their problems (and, frankly, at this time, does it?). Remember, the left isn’t trying to help the far right. How are riots going to solve the difficulties families face in America? How will costumed street fighting help them pay their mortgage, hospital bills, and for college?

We need to be better teachers. Teachers who teach the people that speech is not violence, that violence is not an appropriate means to silence the opinions of others, and to respect the moral ground and consistently observe the ethical rules that govern the justifiable use of violence. We need a united front against the threat of white nationalism. This means enlisting members of the majority in moral concern about the risks to democracy and freedom extreme right-wing ideology presents. We need them to see the extreme right as the source of belligerence. The left should be the nonviolent and rational alternative. We aren’t trying to persuade Nazis. We’re trying to persuade the persuadable. They’re our audience.

Update (08-18-2024) In this essay from 2017, and in a previous one published two years earlier, Islamophobia has no Place on the Left, I make an argument about the absurdity of reducing rational fear of Islam to a “phobia,” that is to an irrational fear of something, by asking why criticisms of Christianity are not “Christophobia” (or why people concerned about fascism not “fascophobic”). I have made this arguments many times since, here and on social media. Like my comparison of gender ideology to Scientology, which I have been promoting for a few years now (for example, Dianetics in Our Schools and Step Away From the Crazy), the logic of my arguments and analogies find their way into contemporary discourse. Whether Dawkins was inspired by my analogy is beside the point. The point is that my analogies occur to people prepared to think clearly about the world.

The Truth About Islamophobia
by Richard Dawkins pic.twitter.com/lqosiuqGFr

— Ex-Muslims of Norway (@exmuslim_norway) August 16, 2024

To gain perspective, whenever you hear and read anything talking about Muslims, the Muslim community, Muslim-majority countries, or Islam mentally substitute the words “Christians,” “the Christian community,” “Christian-majority countries,” and “Christianity.” Does the attitude/argument still make sense? Can the point your making still be justified? Are analogous criticisms of Christianity “racist” or “bigoted”? Are they “Christophobic”? Are Christians being persecuted because liberals want a secular society? Is tolerating patriarchy and homophobia necessary because these hatreds are part of Christian doctrine? Must people refrain from making or enjoying humorous observations about Christian beliefs and rituals—virgin birth and walking dead, laying on of hands, speaking in tongues, pedophile priests, because these offend Christians? Should we allow Christian communities to have their own laws based on Judeo-Christian doctrine/values? Suppose they have customs that are oppressive to women, children, skeptics, nonbelievers. Shall we accept these as “cultural diversity”? Do what Muslim believe, say, or do sound problematic or troubling when you imagine Christians believing, saying, or doing the same?

If you are not already doing this, then you have either failed to recognize that Islam is, at the very least, a religion like Christianity, and that keeping a secular republic depends on a persistent and vigorous defense of religious liberty. If you are prepared to be a vigilant secularist with respect to the encroachment of Christianity into our public and private lives, and engage in vigorous criticism of Christian doctrine and politics, including satire and ridicule, if you are prepared to offend Christians with profane and sacrilegious utterances, then you must be prepared at a minimum to express the same attitude towards Muslims.

There is a growing effort across the United States to pass laws defining violence against police officers as a “hate crime.” That this idea is gaining traction tells us a lot about the authoritarian moment we are in.

Hate crime laws are reserved for acts of violence against members of groups identified along lines of race, gender, etc., identities perceived to be organic, marked by traits usually unalterable/imposed by society. This special class of law is aimed at deterring violence directed at minority groups/historically oppressed populations.

In contrast, being a police officer is an occupation, like a firefighter or sanitation worker. Or college professor. Occupations are not at all like race and gender. A firefighter is not like a black person. A person chooses to become a police officer. And when he is not on the job, he can take off the uniform. He is not a “Blue Life.” A black person is born black, dies black, and lives black in between.

There’s something disturbing about responding to black civilian deaths at the hands of cops by suggesting that risk associated with an occupation is comparable to the suffering of victims of race oppression. More than disturbing, frankly.

Cop violence against civilians is often marked by racial bias, yet how often are cops charged with hate crimes where the evidence is clear that it was the race of the victim that at some point motivated the officer’s actions? Racial profiling is not a form of bias? I know of no serious research that contradicts the general finding that racial profiling is a serious problem in law enforcement.

Imagine if we passed hate crime laws for teachers, sanitation workers, firefighters, mail carriers, and so on. Why don’t we? Because protecting these groups provides no ideological value for advocates of the police state. That’s right, the purpose of making “Blue Lives” a category akin to black lives is the perpetuation/promotion of law and order/crime control policies.

In this way, “Blue Lives Matter” functions like “Support Our Troops,” slogans designed to deter criticism of public institutions and policies. 

This is unfortunate, because, in a representative democratic republic based on individual liberty, those who have an official control function – who usually carry guns, Tasers, pepper spray, batons, and handcuffs – must be subject to strict professional standards, continual evaluation of performance, and consequences for behavior that imperils the public.

Even if we were to accept the (absurd and repugnant) premise that having a job in law enforcement makes the employee like a black man, the reality is, based on the data I have seen, it has never been safer to be a cop in America. Violence against police officers has been declining for years (this year is on track to surpass last year, but we have no way of knowing whether this is a trend or an anomaly). On the list of most dangerous jobs, police officer doesn’t crack the top ten. It’s much more dangerous to be a sanitation worker (or a lumberjack or a commercial fisher).

Such legislation is not about addressing a “wave” of cop killings across the United States. It’s propaganda designed to treat the police as a special class in order to reinforce the legitimacy of the coercive state apparatus. With the historic decline in crime in the United States, and with police violence against civilians rising, an ever growing number of citizens are wondering whether it isn’t time to rethink the path we have been on, to consider rolling back aggressive policing tactics, draconian laws, cruel sentencing guidelines, and mass incarceration, all of which have a disproportionately negative impact on minorities, particularly blacks. 

Those employed by the vast control apparatus, as well as those who  benefit from it in a myriad of ways, have an interest in preventing a public conversation about policing and racism in America. Hence “Blue Lives Matter.” But there is no such thing as “Blue Lives.”

See the CNN story here. Noor won’t speak to investigators. That’s his right under the constitution. At the same time, he is a police officer who took an oath to defend the community. But which community? Sorry for being blunt, but the balkanization of Minneapolis, the continual harassment of women and gays by Somali Muslims, and the recruitment of dozens of young men from the city for al-Shabaab in Somalia and for ISIS in Syria and Iraq (one of the reason why restrictions on Somali refugees was imposed by the current administration) makes assumptions of good will problematic. The circumstances of the shooting are very strange. Gangs of Somali males have been roaming the Minneapolis sexually harassing and assaulting women (this has been going on for years, apparently, but kept quiet as it is in Europe). Justine Ruszczyk reports what she suspected was a rape in progress in the alley behind the house (what do we know about this?). A Somali police officer, a hero to the Somali community, with several complaints against him, arrives at the scene and promptly shoots Ruszczyk dead. They did not have the body cameras turned on. Why not? Maybe he’s an idiot who shouldn’t be a cop (he is hardly the only one of these). But maybe he is a bit more interesting than that. The family is frustrated by the reluctance of the city to be forthcoming.

Pay close attention to the facts (BBC “Syria war: Thousands evacuated from besieged towns”): “Foah and Kefraya, most of whose residents are Shia Muslims, have been encircled by rebels and al-Qaeda-linked Sunni jihadists since March 2015.” This is not Assad doing this to his people. This is the work of the rebels, who are overwhelmingly jihadis, and al-Qaeda. “People from the north-western towns of Foah and Kefraya are being taken to government-held areas near Aleppo.” The understanding is that they will be safe under Syria control. Two other towns are in desperate straits: Madaya and Zabadani. Of these, Madaya is being evacuated. The situation in these towns is that they is held by the same rebel forces that are making life miserable for those living in Foah and Kefraya. No word yet on whether Zabadani is being evacuated. If regime change were not the goal of the West, the humanitarian mission would be to assist Syria in repelling the jihadis and restoring government control over all of Syria. This would greatly slow the outflow of Syrians and allow for government and international support for the victims of jihadis. The US is responsible for death and misery in Syria.

There is a video of Clinton calling for the US to degrade the Syrian government’s capacity to repel the Islamist terrorist threat (ISIS, al Qaeda, Al-Nusra Front), not to mentioned the armed gangs trying to overthrow the government over against the will of the people. US interference in the internal affairs of Syria under Obama resulted in tens of thousands of casualties and deep penetration by the Islamists. The Obama administration dropped scores of bombs on Syrian and provided millions of dollars to pave the way for the Islamists. Clinton wanted to ramp it up: a no-fly zone and direct confrontation with the Syrian government. Well, she got her wish. It must really eat at her that she’s not the one pulling the trigger.

The Telegraph “Salman Abedi ‘wanted revenge’ for US air strikes in Syria, Manchester bomber’s sister says.” The sister of Manchester suicide bomber Salman Abedi “believes” her brother carried out the Manchester attack because he wanted revenge for US air strikes on Syria. It couldn’t have been for bombing Libya because that’s what made Libya safe for Abedi’s family, who returned there after the overthrow of Qaddafi. However, all the sister’s comments state only what she thinks his motive was. Apparently, the speculations of somebody’s sister is newsworthy. What speaks louder than the words she doesn’t have is the target of her brother’s terrorism. How does blowing up singing and dancing girls exact any revenge for bombing Syria? It doesn’t. It’s the act of a depraved man moved by a twisted ideology. Abedi’s family is a pack of Islamists who were part of the opposition of Muammar Gaddafi. They’re committed Sunni extremists. The Muslim community in Manchester is a known hotbed of extremism. Abedi’s was a supporter of ISIS and of suicide bombing.

I have spent many years cataloging the differences between secular humanist and civil libertarian values of autonomy, democracy, and freedom over against the religious and authoritarian desire to control thought and behavior. I draw these distinctions because I believe that understanding authoritarianism is vital to defending civil liberty and promoting human rights.

Authoritarianism is a fear of freedom and individuality, a loathing of the elements of others and of the self that contradict traditional systems of moral regulation, that is religious, culturally, and politically closed systems. Fear, insecurity, intolerance, and poor emotional regulation leads to the desire in some to control others, to embrace and defend ideologies and arguments for aggressive violence dressed as defensive and just moral action.

The authoritarian mindset cannot abide autonomous lives and unwelcome opinions. The authoritarian cannot tolerate modes of thinking that do not align with his. He opposes association and assembly for groups expressing opinions with which he disagrees. He disrupts gatherings of individuals who are sharing ideas he opposes, although, granting his fashion sense, he hasn’t quite worked out why he opposes them. Either though force, shame, or defamation, he desires the imposition of speech codes. He takes offense at speech that makes him feel uncomfortable, that insults his identity, that hurts his feelings. He blurs the line between speech and violence, claiming at once that those who upset him are assaulting him, or that they are at least a physical threat to his person and with whom he identifies or sympathizes, offenses that justify according to him suppression and violence, coercive actions held up as legitimate forms of protest and resistance.

In contrast to the authoritarian, secular humanists and civilian libertarians teach that we should instead strive to be cognitively free and emotionally autonomous, a state of being that exists when people are at liberty to think and speak as they wish, enjoy free and easy access to the means to produce knowledge and share ideas, social spaces that do not exclude people with disagreeable views, or allow groups with particular political and religious standpoints to regulate and limit interaction by imposing their ideology and behavioral controls on others. Secular humanists and civilian libertarians recognize that free speech and free thought is as much for the audience as it is for the speaker or the performer.

This standpoint permits for autonomy of belief, allows for the richest democratic practices, pushing participation into the fundamental social structures (e.g. the economy), encouraging law and policy to emerge as the work of consensus, work performed in open spaces, while simultaneously respecting individual or collective action that does not physically harm others who did not or cannot consent to be part of that action. Secular humanists tolerate a diversity of opinion and beliefs, permitting ideas to be expressed so they may be engaged. We seek to persuade people to change their minds, not coerce them to behave as if they have.

The authoritarian attitudes I have described mark the right-wing – the conservative, the traditionalist – while that those on the left – progressive liberals, radicals, socialists – are the natural defenders of secular humanist and civil libertarian values. Indeed, I still believe the humanist-libertarian tendency comes more organically to those of us on the left. Yet, today, there are some on our side whose actions betray an internalization and even embrace of authoritarian attitudes. Meanwhile, there are some on the right whose politics are guided by, or at least dressed as such, secular and libertarian values of free speech, assembly and association, and religious liberty.

The tragedy of this is that authoritarianism on the left makes more palatable right-wing ideas, since these ideas come with those who are defending – or at least appearing to defend – the core values of free and open society, values that most people desire in the ideal, but who actually represent a politics for less material freedom and a more superficial democracy. This is compounded by the fact that identity politics, left and right, dovetail with capitalist relations, politics and relations that fracture solidarity, when the left should be unified in an anti-capitalist movement. Without a choice between sides where at least one is engaged in changing the perilous circumstances of economic uncertainty, it is more likely that young men and women will run with the ideas that promote a type of hyper-individualism.

Left-wing identitarianism as a response to right-wing identitarianism is not a solution to the problems of injustice but an authoritarian attitude that serves the interests of the status quo. The one commonalty across all the groups that represents the basis for unified action, the one politics that could transform the system that underpins other divisions and antagonisms, is fractured, and the working class left disorganized, its power siphoned off into self-reifying groups based on socially constructed essences. Left-wing identity politics cannot represent a negation of, but instead serves as a mirror to right-wing identity politics, reflecting its intolerance, exclusion, essentialism, hierarchy, division, rage, and aggression. Left-wing identitarians become like their enemies in form. It is a betrayal of what the left should stand for, namely freedom of thought, the open society, democratic politics, and anti-capitalist struggle.

One’s right to hold religious opinions is no different from one’s right to hold any opinion. We should stop treating the freedom to hold religious opinions as something distinct from freedom of thought generally. Our language and our law create an illusion of significance. One has as much right to be a Christian as one has to be a fascist. There’s no real difference.

It is unfortunate that religious freedom—aimed also at liberating individuals from state organized and sanctioned religious belief—was defined when it was and in such a way as to allow religious institutions to live off the social surplus without the obligation to pay taxes. In this way, the state promotes the creation of religions by recognizing them as such for tax purposes the First Amendment notwithstanding.

That’s what Scientology did. In 1993, the United States granted L. Ron Hubbard’s confidence game operation tax exempt status. In fact, in defense of religious liberty, the US State Department has criticized European countries for not recognizing Scientology’s religious status. This is not to say Scientology is not a religion. It is just as ridiculous as Christianity. It’s to point out how arbitrary all this is.

So why aren’t fascist organizations tax exempt? Fascism is reactionary Christianity. It has as much claim on being a religion as other Christian churches (read Mussolini’s “What is Fascism?”). Is the Catholic Church not a religion? Then why not fascism? The Ku Klux Klan is a Christian organization. It engages in charitable actions. Why doesn’t it have tax exempt status? Why do Mosques get tax exempt status but not fascists? They are both totalitarian, illiberal, and irrational, advocate gender hierarchy and gay hatred, and all the rest of it.

As alluded to earlier, the government sanctioned religious tag on ideologies that reference a higher power runs contrary to the First Amendment, which says that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. Yet the government must in fact make law respecting an establishment in order to privilege chosen religions with tax exempt status.

The term “religious liberty,” except where specifically used to mark my right to not have to put up with religion’s bullshit, should be recognized not merely as an anachronism, but as a grand historic error in thinking and legal reasoning.

There is liberty in opinion. Religion is already included in that. That’s quite enough.

The Swedish government has been on the defensive since President Trump referred to a mini-documentary, published by the Gatestone Institute on May 30, 2016, that reported the problem of overrepresentation of Muslims in crime, violence, and unrest in Sweden. The government has sought to change the impression left by the Gatestone Institution in a GOS report published yesterday. However, belying its framing, the report’s own facts, along with other well-known facts, contradict the impression the government wishes to leave with its audience.

The Swedish government cites the 2010 Stockholm bombings (December 11) as the sole example of Islamic terrorism (Iraqi-born Taimour Abdulwahab al-Abdaly is suspected of carrying out the bombing). However, in 2011, police thwarted a terrorism plot targeting an art festival in Goteborg and a planned stabbing of artist Lars Vilks, who, in cartoons, depicted Islam’s pedophile and mass murder prophet as a dog. In 2016, Swedish authorities thwarted another terrorism plot involving ISIS devotee Aydin Sevigin. Kudos to the Swedish police for preventing these attacks. Shame on the Swedish government for failing to mention these plots in their report.

As for crime generally, up until recently, Sweden enjoyed the historic decline in crime and violence statistics that all Western countries have enjoyed over the last several decades. Sweden continues to enjoy these declines among the native population. However, more recently, violent crime has been rising in Sweden. In 2015, incidents of lethal violence were much greater than they have been for years. Shootings rose 20 percent between 2006 and 2014. The number of people killed with firearms doubled between 2011 and 2015. And the statistics also show interpersonal crimes have generally increased. The Swedish media downplays stories of “no-go zones,” electing to call these “vulnerable areas.” But their descriptions of the circumstances belie (Orwellian) euphemisms.

But it not just spin. The Swedish government has attempted to downplay the overrepresentation of Muslim immigrants in official crime statistics. It initially did this by dropping demographics from its reporting (a practice that forced even the left-wing magazine Mother Jones to scold the Swedish government). In the latest report, the GOS has admitted that people from foreign backgrounds are suspected of crimes more often than people from a Swedish background. In fact, according to the most recent study, people from foreign backgrounds are 2.5 times more likely to be suspected of crimes than people born in Sweden to Swedish-born parents. But the government has not provided a comprehensive study of demographics and crime since 2005, when they found that the foreign-born presence was four times more likely to be involved in violent crime and four and as half times more likely to be implicated in sexual assault.

In denying the claim made by Swedish police officers that there are no-go zones in Sweden, the Swedish government has had to admit that, in a report published in February 2016, “the Swedish Police Authority identified 53 residential areas around the country that have become increasingly marred by crime, social unrest and insecurity.” Government officials also admit to the problem by reassuring the public that they have restricted immigration because of security measures and changes in the law. “In 2015, almost 163,000 people sought asylum here. The measures subsequently taken by the Government, including temporary ID checks and border controls, and the new temporary asylum legislation, have led to fewer people now seeking asylum in Sweden.”

The need for these restrictions is supported by recent riots in an immigrant suburb of Stockholm. Only a few days ago Muslim gangs looted businesses and burned police cars. A news photographer was hospitalized and a police officer was injured. The neighborhood, Rinkeby, has been the scene of previous riots in 2010 and 2013. The report fails to include such mass criminal events.

Finally, the Swedish report is marred by the use of the propaganda term “Islamophobia.” This is an effort to smear those who are concerned about the effect of Muslim culture on Swedish society by suggesting they are bigots and racists. The problems Sweden is facing is not just terrorism, violence, and unrest. Immigrant women, who should be enjoying Sweden’s legacy of vastly superior gender relations, are trapped in Muslim communities where they suffer the humiliation of being viewed as having less value than men. This is shameful in light of Sweden’s history of enlightened feminism. Apparently, Sweden’s multiculturalist practices trump their legacy of upholding human rights.

Sweden’s practice of permitting the existence of Muslims enclaves, its failure to assimilate Arabs and Africans into mainstream society, represents a great injustice to individuals escaping these backwards cultures. Multiculturalism and political correctness are barriers to Muslims leaving behind irrational and oppressive religious beliefs. Given the widespread atheism in Sweden and its benefits, this is a missed opportunity. The Swedish government is not helping anybody by trying to downplay the incompatibility of Islam with Swedish society. Hopefully, they will drop the public relations piece and deal honestly with the problem of assimilation in Sweden.

With the concept of “white fragility,” Robin DiAngelo, who earned a Ph.D. in Multicultural Education from the University of Washington in Seattle and tenure at Westfield State University in Massachusetts, claims that all white people are racist, that they all enjoy white privilege, but only some of them can admit it. She is one of them. Her expertise is “Whiteness Studies.” She also works as an anti-racist consultant and diversity trainer.

“I grew up poor and white,” she writes. “While my class oppression has been relatively visible to me, my race privilege has not.  In my efforts to uncover how race has shaped my life, I have gained deeper insight by placing race in the center of my analysis…. I now make the distinction that I grew up poor and white, for my experience of poverty would have been different had I not been white.” How could she possibility know this having always been white?

In 2015, Robin DiAngelo told a radio audience, “Racism comes out of our pores as white people. It’s the way that we are.” Believing she possesses an extraordinary capacity to harm nonwhites because she is, as a white woman, intrinsically racist, she said of her antiracist work, “I’m really confident that I do less damage to people of color than I used to do.” (See “Why all white people are racist, but can’t handle being called racist the theory of white fragility.”) It seems her argument is actually about “black fragility.”

Sociologists have defined racism in two ways. The first defines the phenomenon as a typology sorting humanity into subpopulations based on phenotypic attributes (for example skin color), as well as ancestry, and arranging these types hierarchically into superior and inferior types. Membership in these subpopulations determines the ability and disposition of those identified as such, traits assumed to be present in all members of racial groupings. As such, racism is an ideology motivating or justifying unequal treatment along these line, either advantaging or disadvantaging groups. Physical anthropologists and geneticists agree that such sorting of humans into racial groups is fallacious; however, racism is a ideological power that uses the typology to predefine social groups according to a scheme that establishes dominate and subordinate groups and justifies law and policy perpetrating this hierarchy.

The second way defines racism as systematic race-based discrimination resulting from institutional arrangements or structural power. Here the absence of conscious racism does not prevent the ordering of society along historically defined racial groups. In this view, groups that do not have the power to impose race prejudice or what would be prejudice if recognized, cannot be racist. Blacks cannot be racist towards whites, for example, since they lack the power to impose their prejudices on the white population.

According to the first definition, a racist would be a person who subscribed to racist or racialist ideology. It might be said (as antiracist activist Tim Wise asserts) that socialization in a culture where the notion of racial inferiority is endemic or ubiquitous exists implicitly in ordinary consciousness. This would need to be supported by evidence, which is lacking. And if one can find any exceptions, then the claim that racism oozes from the pores of white people is false. The same could be said for Christianity, but it would not make everybody Christian. A racist is somebody who accepts the doctrine of racial inferiority. It is simply not true that all or even most white people accept this doctrine.

Following the logic of the second definition, a white person who does not have the power to impose his race prejudice on black people is not a racist. A working class white man may be prejudiced against blacks, but if he does not organize with others to discriminate against them, then he does not possesses or does not exercise power to impose his prejudice. In the absence of legal machinery or political organization that imposes race prejudice, there is no mechanism for mobilizing white racial power in this way. Indeed, the entire legal and political apparatus of the United States is mobilized against the imposition of race prejudice against whites. The concepts of institutional and structural racism are deeply problematic abstractions.

Finally, there are non-prejudiced/non-discriminators, that is those who neither subscribe to racist doctrine nor treat people different on the basis of race. So even trying to get people both ways by accepting both definitions doesn’t make the claim “all white people are racist” true. If you need an example, I present myself. And if you say I’m in denial or suffer from “white fragility,” then you will have simply committed a logical fallacy, that is the fallacy of the self-sealing argument. It’s like the claim that all behavior is selfish. It’s vacuous argument, which is to say it is not an argument at all, but an assertion.

And it’s a self-loathing assertion, one that reflects a need to signal virtue by confessing sin. The psychology behind this phenomenon is the esteem one derives from redemption-seeking. It’s a performative act, one that compels the sinner to convert others to his point of view. Wise and DiAngelo are, in effect, evangelicals who have “seen the light.” Everyone is a sinner and they’re on a self-righteous crusade to steer sinners from the path of transgression so that they, too, can enjoy the elation of redemption. One sees this psychology in the “coming out of [fill in the blank]” personal story. The narrative is a public act of consciousness-altering the subject hopes elevates his status. Indeed, it is what we call in anthropology and sociology a status elevation ceremony. It’s like baptism. Folks love their baptism stories. And, like baptism, it doesn’t really change anything. But it feels so good.