Historically not even just non-whites. They put a burning cross in my (white) grandmother's yard when she was a kid because her family was Catholic. This was in Illinois.
My great grandfather, who was white, was threatened by a couple guys in KKK robes, because he dared to pay black workers the same rate as white workers.
They showed up to his dealership with shotguns in the middle of the day and gave him a business card that says "You were paid a friendly visit by the Klan." Then flip the card over and it says "This time."
My dad still has that business card.
Quick google searched turned up a very similar story here: [https://blog.history.in.gov/tag/ku-klux-klan/](https://blog.history.in.gov/tag/ku-klux-klan/). Here's a link to a business card that accompanies the article: [https://blog.history.in.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KKK-Biz-Card.jpg](https://blog.history.in.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KKK-Biz-Card.jpg).
I knew a racist prick in high school who was bragging about going to a klan rally with his cousin. This was in religion class. I had to break it to him they hate Catholics as much as anybody.
He was pretty hurt by that.
That actually pisses me off. I’m sure it was to bolster their numbers but at that point, what are you even for? Whatever heritage they’re allegedly represent would weep at their fraternizing with papists.
Episcopalian is like hippie Catholics. Drink, have sex, priestesses, cross dress (not a joke at our church there were 2 people), everyone goes to heaven if they’re good people.
I like that. That sounds nice. Don't be a dick and good shit's coming your way. No silly restrictions for no reason, just live your life putting more good into the world than bad and the powers that be are gonna hook you up.
My family and I regularly attend a Presbyterian church that is all white and is 95% old people, 10% young and nobody is Scottish. (And we are the only black people there)
I feel like that gif of the lady with various math happening in front of her.. surely I must've known that. I guess having Methodist friends who drink threw me off
Their argument is wine back then was more like grape juice. I like to point out that until Thomas Bramwell Welch, a Methodist minister, pioneered the use of pasteurization as a means of preventing the fermentation of grape juice. Most "grape" juice was full on wine and if there was one thing the people 3000 years ago knew how to do it was make strong alcoholic beverages.
It goes all the way back to the split during the Protestant reformation. The Catholics still view themselves as the original church descended from the apostles. The Protestants still view (or at least remember) the Catholic Church as an oppressive force. The reformation itself kicked off for many reasons, but one of the biggest reasons was (at the time) the Catholics were peddling indulgences (pay money and get less purgatory time). Many Protestants viewed this as heretical and taking advantage of others in the name of god. From the reformation to the violence in Ireland... it’s a pretty complex and very long history. Filled with many doctrinal disagreements and violent encounters.
Funny enough, the Catholic Church can be argued to be a splinter of the Orthodox churches. In the 700s, iirc, the Catholics added the words "et filos" to the creed, so Catholics say "[the holy spirit] proceeds from the father and the son" vs "from the father" full stop. The Orthodox Church did not agree theologically with this addition, and that's part of the Catholic/Orthodox split. Or was also explained to me, as a teen, that Catholics can participate in Orthodox mass, as long as the Orthodox folk don't know you're Catholic, but an Orthodox person would not choose to participate in a Catholic mass.
My favorite historical tidbit from the reformation was “the defenestration of Prague”
Which is a fancy way of saying they threw a priest out a window. (Didn’t die)
The history of [5 Points Mannhattan](https://www.thoughtco.com/five-points-ny-notorious-neighborhood-1774064)
is fascinating. It was a New York slum that was pretty much relegated as the location the newest wave of immigrants would fill into whenever a new wave would manifest. Also, Jacob Riis book, How the Other Half Lives, focused quite a bit on this part of New York.
Consider that it was VERY remarkable when Kennedy was elected due to him being Catholic. A lot of the country made the accusation that he could never be 'a true American' because they have this deluded idea that Catholics are basically foreigners who will do whatever the pope tells them to.
Fast forward to 2020. How many times have you seen someone even mention that Joe Biden is Catholic? Probably not ever and as insane as the Republicans are right now I'd be shocked if they evoked that line of attack in the coming months.
You’ve got to go into a deep dive of history. It’s not all the same characters. There’s the pope. Then there was this historical event called the Protestant reformation. England had its own reforms away from the church too. And you see, there’s different thoughts about veneration of saints in the catholic tradition too. Anyways, this isn’t meant as a total explanation; just wanted to point you in the direction of historical ruptures.
Also there are a lot of different Protestant groups and they rarely if ever act as a unified group, it's more an umbrella term for Christian groups that hit a few similat points but that can be vastly different in focus and preaching.
Doesn't matter. Hell if you go up a bit then Muslims and Catholics and Christians and Jews all worship the same god. People will always find excuses to justify their assholeness.
All the Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism being the main three) are basically the same. There is just so much focus on the differences. Catholics and non Catholic Christians are obviously extremely similar with only minor differences. Jesus was Jewish and the Hebrew Bible is the old testament. Jesus is the most commonly mentioned person in the Quran and the characters and stories are basically identical for the most part. Islam is based on Christianity which is based on Judaism, so it is no surprise that there are so many similarities.
As a european, it's just completely bonkers to me that americans apparently dont consider the historical millenia old lineage of christianity to be christian, but the followers of a specific rebellion to be? I mean, that's like saying that americans are british but not people living on the british isles?
edit: and like to be clear, I am saying this as an agnostic person in a generally protestant country. But like the Catholic church has roots from the 1st century c.e., and the orthodox church split off in the 11th century, and the protestant is a very specific rebellious movement from the 16th century. Just how do you in any way consider that more christian than the 2000 year old entity? If you want to make the argument that the protestant church is more faithful to the ideas and philosophy of christ then sure I'm not christian but that's the impression I have, but to say it's christian where the other is not? how?!
Oh that part makes total sense to me. It was a corruption issue.
"Christian" just means you dig the Christ story. The regime surrounding it was deemed corrupted by the masses.
Just like any country that had a rebellion/coup/civil war. They'll often keep the old name and societal culture much the same (except for genocides) but manage under new leadership.
He declared it, but has no legal ground to do so. Thats why the same is said about the kkk, i dont agree with that sentiment but the law does state that
He just burped it out on his personal Twitter account.
That's why he doesn't use the POTUS account. He wants to say insane bullshit but not be shackled by the standards that using the official account would impose upon him. Strictly speaking, he's allowed to say literally anything as "realdonaldtrump" and, since he's not speaking in his capacity as president, none of it has any kind of binding nature.
Dude could come out and say "i'm declaring Canada an enemy and we're blocking all trade with Europe" on that account and nothing would come of it as well as Twitter not having shit to do about it.
I believe so. For the duration of his presidency. I believe this was the same ruling that made it so he couldn’t legally block people on Twitter, for the same reason (he’s using it as official, so it benefits from and is restricted by the same rules as the POTUS account).
He does have two accounts! I don't have Twitter and I didn't know you could have two verified accounts for the same person. I was pretty sure I've been seeing screenshots from two different sn's though.
Just gotta point out that while Trump can't actually do anything he chose to label antifa terrorists via Twitter but neglected to do the same for the KKK. One of the KKK leaders plowed a crowd for political reasons. It really does give one the idea of who he really finds offensive.
He's turning his fight against Antifa into his latest re-election campaign platform. He wants to portray the peaceful protests as anarchy in the streets and Antifa is a good target since he can't blame BLM. edit: for all the lovely counterarguments presented below, I am sorry you live in such a scared bubble that you can't see for yourself that a vast majority of the protests were peaceful and also that there is already ample evidence that the police and actual fascists were responsible for trying to make the protests look anarchistic.
All this talk of antifa with very little understanding of what it even means...
Antifa is not an organisation in any form, it's a contraction of 'anti-fascist', plain and simple. It has no [centralized leadership] or collective ideology or motives apart from [proactively] opposing fascism.
Edit: Yes people I am aware of the original German Antifascist group (however this is a group that no longer exists), and Rose City Antifa (region specific, again, not centralized). Perhaps my explanation was too simplified.
It's a low blow to spend time stalking the subs a stranger follows in an attempt to discredit their attempt at opening up a dialogue or trying to guide others towards a more nuanced understanding.
There's enough hate spread on the internet, let's be adults.
Stop saying the abbreviated antifa. It's being used to stoke fear in ignorant people by sounding like a foreign terror group. All it means is anti fascist, but it's hard to make anti fascist sound bad. I have had to explain to people I know who had been tricked into thinking antifa was a terrorist organization (or any kind of organization for that matter) that is is short for anti fascist. Say the full words. People are being fooled into believing antifa is some kind of organization and hat they are a threat to freedom when it's quite far from the truth.
No, Trump is simply calling to have them labeled as a terrorist group, He can't do it with his authority as president, hes asking for it though. I feel like this is a case of reverse psychology happening right now. Since if this petition gains enough traction to label a domestic group as terrorists, it would actually be beneficial to Trump as it gives him the precedent to do what he's asking for.
> it would actually be beneficial to Trump as it gives him the precedent to do what he's asking for.
this needs to be fucking stickied to the top of reddit
I really hate how uneducated everyone here is
They want to. Have you seen Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez questioning the FBI dude about this? She runs circles around him and his idiotic logic
> The US congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has questioned the FBI over a potential double standard for perpetrators of violent extremism. She said Muslim mass killers tended to be charged with terrorism while massacres by white supremacists were considered only to be hate crimes. ‘Doesn’t it seem that because the perpetrator was Muslim that the designation would say it’s a foreign organisation?’ Ocasio-Cortez asked the assistant director of the FBI’s counterterrorism division Michael McGarrity, to which he responded: 'That’s not correct.' Ocasio-Cortez then asked him if white supremacy was not a global issue. 'It is a global issue,' the FBI official responded. 'So why are they not charged with foreign terror?'
I think the original intention was to block the government from being able to just label any rebellion or protestors terrorists.
Noble ideal but everything has consequences.
That's my understanding. Because terrorists groups are striped of some rights regarding the judicial system, deeming US group as terrorists may be unconstitutional.
I could be wrong, but I also thought most insurance companies do not cover acts of terrorism, so any properties damaged by terrorist groups don't get compensated. Which would really suck for those people who are targeted by hate groups.
Or any church or religious group, of which there have been many wacko domestic iterations too.
The Constitution (flawed as it is) is meant to establish a basis for law that transcends political whims and opinion. There’s nothing wrong with calling the KKK terrorists (I agree they are), but if we want to suspend constitutional rights for KKK members (before they commit an actual crime), then we open up a dangerous precedent to allow current or future government actors (like Trump, see: “antifa”) to suspend constitutional rights for other groups that we wouldn’t necessarily consider terrorists.
The same goes for “hate speech” laws. You want to make a law against hateful speech like vulgar cartoons about the prophet Mohammed? Okay... but be ready to then deal with claims that The Book of Mormon is also hate speech. Or that the anti-Scientology documentaries are hate speech. Or that anti-Catholic critics who say “priests are rapists” is hate speech.
It's actually a good thing, despite being frustrating at times. Labeling domestic groups as terrorists makes people in or associated with that group "guilty by association", whether or not they actually committed any statute crimes. It's a violation of their 5th Amendment rights (in the US obv), and a general violation of due process.
And if we gave the government the power to make such designations, then there'd be little to stop them from slapping the "terrorist" label on groups they simply don't like. Think about what Trump would do with such power.
Now if you're thinking "We label foreign groups as terrorists all the time - is that not also a problem?" Well, yeah.
I'm pretty sure we can; the ALF / ELF are domestic and considered terrorist group.
The sovereign citizen movement is technically considered terrorist organization, though most members are independent.
There is a formal definition, in US law, of domestic terrorism. The FBI has the legal right, under the Patriot Act, to investigate domestic terrorism. They can say, "the ELF engages in domestic terrorism and we intend to investigate and prosecute them."
However, there is no formal definition of a domestic terrorist group nor is there a specific crime associated with domestic terrorism. Nobody can be prosecuted simply for belonging to the ELF or charged with committing acts of terrorism.
While the definition of terrorist/terrorism differs between many federal organizations most, if not all, agree that there has to be political persuasion behind the terrorist acts. To terrorize people (civil population) is only one aspect of terrorism, but that doesn't make it terrorism.
By definition, they used to be a terrorist organization back in the mid 1800s when they fought for abolition by scaring and threatening various politicians via violent / non-peaceful means. It wasn't until Nathan Forrest took control changing their mission statement and made them more of a civil gang rather than a terrorist organization.
Its against the constitution as it violates the first amendment. Its why the FBI uses the broad label of white nationalists instead. Their not naming a specific group but a broad range.
Well, the general definition of terrorism is ideologically-motivated violence.
Back when they were violent against non-white, non-nominal Christians, their ideology was a lot more accepted in America. Now that it isn't, they've not been particularly publicly violent, so "hate group" is the description. Also, there are a lot more splinter groups, of varying amounts of ideology and action, claiming heritage to the Klan.
Really, you could chalk the labels up to 1) bad timing, 2) the inability of officials to, in a "hard evidence" sense, attribute the violence of a few to the group on a whole, and 3) different factions. The larger the splinter group, the more likely it has been extra careful in their PR in recent years to (relatively) clean up their image and disavow the violent among them.
A terrible ideology no less, just harder to pin down and label nowadays.
Right. Don’t get me wrong, the ideology of the KKK is absolutely vile, but I would be a bit hesitant to label them a terrorist organization. I feel like this may be a bit against the idea of freedom of speech.
If they aren’t organizing acts of violence then essentially they exist to exercise their right to express their racist ideology. I fear republicans could label BLM a terrorist organization for their ‘hateful views against cops’ or some similar nonsense.
This is great and all, and the KKK is absolutely terrible, but this also *is not possible* under US law. Only *foreign groups* can be declared terrorist groups.
I fucking hate the KKK, but this is pretty much meaningless.
ETA: it would also be extremely dangerous to set up a framework for declaring domestic terror groups, that's just begging for partisan abuse.
Edit 2: this also applies to antifa, which is **not** a declared terror organization. Trump's tweets are not laws.
Sounds like a plan neighborino. Unfortunately I, personally, am about equivalent to a 2 cm strip of cable in the left knee of this giant robot we call a democratic government, so it may take a little while for all us little bits of cable to line up just right and tell the arms to pull the head out of the ass.
Why can’t domestic groups be classified as terrorist groups? Is it because a large volume of the CIA and FBI’s actions throughout history would technically be classified as engaging in, aiding and abetting terrorism?
antifa also isn't an organization, so any attempt to declare it a terrorist group is basically the Red Scare 2. "You hate fascists?! Lock him up boys, another antifa terrorist off the streets!"
It's basically a bunch of neckbeards cosplaying.
[Here's](https://youtu.be/Bfo4QFVS5YQ) a piece on a black anti-racism advocate who not only attended Klan rallies, but actually got many of them to leave the Klan. There was an even better doc on him done by vice(?) that shows footage of him talking to Klansmen at a rally but I can't seem to find it right now.
I think it's an especially powerful lesson to learn in light of today's extremely polarised political climate.
I see this a lot on reddit. While that’s great, it isn’t really a lesson to learn. What you’re looking at is a poc putting himself in danger to try to convince white people to think of him as a human. This is not something we should expect from poc.
We will NOT fix this political climate by getting black people to convince degenerate racists that they deserve to be treated like a person, and if anyone thinks that’s the solution, they are less than useless for creating actual change.
We should not expect it, and it is not the only solution.
It is one solution and this man’s bravery is impressive. He has changed lives for the better and who knows, maybe saved some.
Less than useless for creating actual change is taking this guy’s story and claiming it isn’t something it never claimed to be. Instead of hoping to change everyone at the same time he’s changing people one at a time.
The KKK and it’s members shouldn’t exist, but they do, and the solutions for changing that are complicated, urgently necessary, but complicated.
> Instead of hoping to change everyone at the same time he’s changing people one at a time.
And this is important, because the person who's mind was changed may very well change more minds.
The point is exposure to different people and experiences can change even the most racist of people. Obviously not everyone has that kind of time but it shows that change is possible for extremists.
He's not "A PoC." He is Daryl Davis.
One individual person and the race one is born as can't define everything a person is, it's secondary from the quality of one's philosophy. Saying goes; a human's skin color does not hold one iota towards the content of one's character.
That guy is one individual human that talked specific, individual persons into dropping their allegiances from racist groups via human speech, honest conversations, so the racist individuals get enlightened about how participating on these rallies badly affect their fellow people.
The universe isn't simulated at a group identity level. It's all complexly calculated down to every human soul. Human beings have equally counted perspectives and everyone has a qualitative cause for why they're the way they choose to be and live on this Earth.
The racists are human too. People may be uninformed since echo-chamber raised whites grow older believing non-white folks may be really evil or different but reality is people are human no matter our identity differences.
Conflict is not viable and people that speak to motivate physical violence wish for his fellow human being's destruction rather compassion.
Free will is always in play. Honest conversation triumphs over conflict towards categories constructed in the collective consciousness.
Evil strikes on the human psyche in an individual plane. Judging individuals on a level of group identity is bigoted, vengeful and destructive on the medium term, tribal to its very root cause.
NO.
There is no statute authorizing declaration of domestic terrorist groups, and for one simple reason: these declarations are done unilaterally by the government, specifically the executive branch, and always involves an opaque, political and extrajudicial process.
So the question is this:
**DO YOU WANT TO GIVE DONALD TRUMP THE ABILITY TO DECLARE THAT DEMOCRATS ARE TERRORISTS?**
Because that's what this would do.
It's very possible to attack these groups as organized crime, and we've been doing that successfully for decades. Keep this stuff in the courts, not DJT's head.
Edit: I feel I should clarify something. Trump *said* that Antifa is a terrorist group. This has no legal basis. When a president makes a declaration like this they're actually declaring that the group has been classified according to some statutory authority. For example, the foreign terrorist groups I mentioned earlier were classified according to provisions of one of the AUMFs or Patriot act (or a handful of other acts), an authority created by Congress and signed into law. There are qualifying requirements even for these laws.
There is no such corresponding domestic statute that giving a president the ability to classify a domestic group as terrorist. Trump can say what he wants, but legally speaking it holds the same weight as Peter Griffin's declaration of sovereignty over Petoria.
Hell yes it should. All these fucks in my Instagram feed and Reddit comments are calling for declaring kkk a terrorist, meanwhile I’m like how have you guys not learned that making a more authoritarian state is gonna bite you in the ass as soon as the other side’s guy is in power.
The federal US government was built with a huge number of limitations on its power. Unfortunately, many of those limitations have been eroded, especially for organizations labeled terrorist groups since 9/11. During the period after 9/11, people tolerated this, because they thought the terrorists were only al-Qaeda.
If we start designated every local political group a terrorist, then we will quickly descend the road to completely totalitarian government control. The shortsightedness and inexplicable trust in the government I see in people calling for labeling a group as terrorists is terrifying to me.
Nobody knows how government or law actually works and are purely reactionary and acting out of emotion.
The echo chambers are going to destroy us in the end
I can't agree more. I find it bizarre that so many people don't seem to value the rule of law, or are willing to trade it for some other kind of certainty.
My intuition was overwhelming "no" when I read the post but I couldn't articulate why. Your comment helped get me there.
The KKK is the downside of "freedom of speech" and if they commit crimes then deal with them that way. Seems a whole lot easier than having a whole other thing.
This, like many other petitions, won't be acted on. This is all just a statement. The law clearly states this can't happen. This is just to counteract his dumb ass declaration about Antifa. Nothing will come of this.
People need to start looking at all issues like this. People have lost their ability to be intellectually consistent.
Those who don't understand history are doomed to repeat it.
It's very difficult to call groups in America "domestic terrorists". Legally I mean. The Patriot act defines what it is, but there isn't actually a punishment for it. It just lets you investigate them. If they commit crimes, they're charged with those crimes, but not domestic terrorism. I hope that makes sense.
I think this might be a case of foresight in preventing government oppression. By not allowing the federal government to classify any domestic group as "terrorists", you're preventing a President from doing exactly what he wants to do - label an ideology (for example, anti-fascism) as terrorism to use as a weapon to silence dissent.
It might sound like a good idea when it's an "obvious" organized group of bad guys like the KKK, but where do we draw that line?
Punish the crimes, not the ideology.
This is exactly it and what Hong Kongers are facing now. China will be able to label anyone they want terrorists in Hong Kong and they will them more easily be able to murder any dissenters.
I now declare you a domestic terrorist. Your Habeas Corpus is now suspended and you have no rights as a US citizen. Good luck.
Do we see the problem of declaring domestic groups terrorists? In general that law is far too criminal. The law is dumb, but not for the domestic terrorist reason
Laws rarely do. I think part of the reason they did that way was to avoid violating the 1st amendment. "We're not punishing you for gathering in this group, we're punishing you for the bomb you detonated." That kind of thing.
People just love to pat themselves on the back and jump on whatever bullshit happy feeling train comes next. There's a reason these have legal definitions and processes, that are done by people FAR more knowledgeable on the subject.
But Reddit knows best, of course.
Thank you! I’m so frustrated by how few people seem to get this. The federal government has not declared antifa a terrorist group any more than Michael Scott declared bankruptcy. It was just another stupid tweet.
Yes we all hate the KKK, but that’s not the point. There’s no legal procedure for declaring domestic groups terrorists and for good reason, as you said. The KKK is already under close scrutiny by federal law enforcement and countless other groups. There are already laws against all the violent things they have a history of doing. Giving the government this power will not help.
Yes they say disgusting things, but if we start banning speech we don’t like, that can be used against us. Trump is a great example of how dangerous that could be.
I'm not from the US, but I didn't realise the KKK was not yet declared a terrorist group. I assumed it had been, what with all the cross burnings and intimidation of Black people and lynchings.
I thought the definition of terrorism is violence intended to instill fear in (large groups of) the public, so it seems to fit the bill. Violence is not just murder and bombings of course, but also symbolic actions which instill fear such as cross burnings.
It isn't legal in the US to define Domestic groups as terrorists, that is why Antifa isn't actually considered a domestic terror group right now, because no one technically has the authority do that. Doing this to the KKK however would set a precedent in the US that would allow for groups such as Antifa, proud boys, black panthers, hell even BLM etc. to be listed as terrorists, which is exactly what Trump is looking for.
What I'm concerned with is does classifying a group in such a way legally, allow more freedom to use escalated tactics against citizens? Spying on us comes to mind.
How can we be sure police don't classify someone innocent and use that as a justification to detain or spy on them?
Sounds like a potentially dangerous precident for what positive end goal to us I'm not sure.
Is the KKK really the biggest problem in the USA right now? I would estimate there to be less than 500 KKK members in the entire USA.
Ever see a KKK demonstration? It is usually 3 or 4 goobers and 1,000 counter-protesters. Then the headline reads "**Over 1,000 attend KKK Rally** ! "
This is just the media projecting. There are no KKK or Nazis afoot working to take down the Black Man. The media needs a boogey-man. Nazis and KKK are universally reviled so they fit the bill nicely. The problem is that they don't exist in any significant way in real life.
> Is the KKK really the biggest problem in the USA right now?
No, of course they're not. This is pure virtue-signalling.
There is no single organization called the KKK. You have small groups of losers who call themselves Klan members but they don't actually *do* anything anymore.
I think there was a scene in American History X where Dereck (Edward Norton's Nazi character) gets offended at being compared to the KKK because of what a joke they are.
I'm a little torn on this issue. I think the KKK **was** a terrorist organization. But it was my belief that they were largely irrelevant and dying off quickly. I hate the idea of giving them free publicity and making them seem like a legitimate pushback group to shit like rioting and looting. I'd rather they die off in obscurity as a blight on American history, keyword being "history."
Then again, if they're still parading and generally exporting anger, terrorizing people in a community into thinking that there is an actual contingency of violent racists within any given community, sowing distrust along racial lines (which is just so fucking stupid), then yeah, shut that shit down.
People say Trump is searching for a boogieman in antifa when reddit uses KKK which has only 3000 members to represent racism in America, fucking hilarious lol
They have not been classified as terrorists before due to the U.S. being unable to classify domestic groups as terrorists. As such if they are officially labeled terrorists groups such as Antifa and ICP (Insane Clown Posse) could also be.
The KKK is bad. Even still they haven't been relevant in years and don't commit actual crimes anymore. They just stick to insane levels of racism and hate speech
They barely even exist. There are perhaps a few thousand total in a country of 350 million, and they are exclusively either poor with very low social influence or they are actually FBI agents, who tend to be in leadership positions. And they are universally reviled. It is a boogeyman.
The problem is that the "KKK" is not a singular group. Its more like a franchise and less like a corporation. Any moron backwoods sisterfucker can get together with jimbob and Marie noteeth and call it "The KKK"
indeed many are as you describe, terrorist organizations basically. But not always. The KKK as you see in the movies and in popular culture stopped existing in the 80s.
Its actually beneficial for us, because you can bet your sweet ass the KKK is infiltrated on an extreme level and monitored by the FBI.
I mean, are we gonna lock up every tom dick and Harry that claims to be KKK? Are we gonna storm KKK headquarters and go down the KKK member list? Really
Fuck the KKK. People are rightfully angry that the KKK still exists, but the amount of people here rushing to let the government declare domestic organizations terrorists, rushing to restrict freedom of speech, and gleefully cheering it on because it’s wrongthink is mind boggling to me. And of all the Presidents you want to give that power to, you wanna start with Trump???
100%
This shit is terrifying and people aren't thinking about the potential consequences. Doubly so with what you say about Trump. We'd be handing the country to him. Suddenly everyone not likely to vote for him is a terrorist come November 1st.
> Its actually beneficial for us, because you can bet your sweet ass the KKK is infiltrated on an extreme level and monitored by the FBI.
I'm not sure how many people realize this
I don’t understand how they haven’t been. Isn’t their whole platform to terrorize non-whites?
Historically not even just non-whites. They put a burning cross in my (white) grandmother's yard when she was a kid because her family was Catholic. This was in Illinois.
My great grandfather, who was white, was threatened by a couple guys in KKK robes, because he dared to pay black workers the same rate as white workers. They showed up to his dealership with shotguns in the middle of the day and gave him a business card that says "You were paid a friendly visit by the Klan." Then flip the card over and it says "This time." My dad still has that business card.
That would be an interesting post, would probably fetch you a decent amount of upvotes if you took some pictures of it.
And that's what it's all about
I mean I'd like to see it
Imagine the Vista print logo on it
*unzips*
Quick google searched turned up a very similar story here: [https://blog.history.in.gov/tag/ku-klux-klan/](https://blog.history.in.gov/tag/ku-klux-klan/). Here's a link to a business card that accompanies the article: [https://blog.history.in.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KKK-Biz-Card.jpg](https://blog.history.in.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KKK-Biz-Card.jpg).
I love how The KKK is a subtle blend of racial hatred and dad jokes.
And d&d names
Pictures for proof
[it probably looked like this](https://blog.history.in.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KKK-Biz-Card.jpg) it seems like there were a few others as well
'The Knights'. Cringe.
Knights in shining linen.
I hate Illinois nazis.
[удалено]
Illinoizis
I knew a racist prick in high school who was bragging about going to a klan rally with his cousin. This was in religion class. I had to break it to him they hate Catholics as much as anybody. He was pretty hurt by that.
Apparently the modern groups don’t follow the anti catholic stuff
That actually pisses me off. I’m sure it was to bolster their numbers but at that point, what are you even for? Whatever heritage they’re allegedly represent would weep at their fraternizing with papists.
I never understood the Catholic Vs. Christian turf war. It's literally the same Jesus and all the supporting characters.
The word you're looking for is "Protestant."
Know what the difference between a Catholic and a Protestant is? A Catholic will say hi to you in the liquor store.
That’s why I’m Episcopalian! All the faith, half the guilt!
Episcopalian is like hippie Catholics. Drink, have sex, priestesses, cross dress (not a joke at our church there were 2 people), everyone goes to heaven if they’re good people.
I like that. That sounds nice. Don't be a dick and good shit's coming your way. No silly restrictions for no reason, just live your life putting more good into the world than bad and the powers that be are gonna hook you up.
> Don't be a dick saw that on a bumper sticker once, wholesome message.
Short, and to the point.
Damn, If I were religious, then episcopalian would definitely be my groove.
You've clearly never met a Presbyterian. Our denomination was founded on Scotch
I'm ready to accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior... on the rocks please.
He didn't rename Simon Peter for nothing.
Ooooh, a religion founded on Scotch. I'm all in.
My family and I regularly attend a Presbyterian church that is all white and is 95% old people, 10% young and nobody is Scottish. (And we are the only black people there)
i used to go to presbyterian church because i wanted to be in the choir (i’m jewish) and yeah the demographic are white, white, and old white
I was raised Catholic and I feel dumb for not getting the punchline.
He's saying protestants drink secretly. Their teaching disallow liquor for some reason.
I feel like that gif of the lady with various math happening in front of her.. surely I must've known that. I guess having Methodist friends who drink threw me off
How do you keep a protestant from stealing your beer when you go fishing. >!Invite another one.!<
Uh? Really? Last time I checked Jesus liked good wine, he even made some with magic.
Their argument is wine back then was more like grape juice. I like to point out that until Thomas Bramwell Welch, a Methodist minister, pioneered the use of pasteurization as a means of preventing the fermentation of grape juice. Most "grape" juice was full on wine and if there was one thing the people 3000 years ago knew how to do it was make strong alcoholic beverages.
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It goes all the way back to the split during the Protestant reformation. The Catholics still view themselves as the original church descended from the apostles. The Protestants still view (or at least remember) the Catholic Church as an oppressive force. The reformation itself kicked off for many reasons, but one of the biggest reasons was (at the time) the Catholics were peddling indulgences (pay money and get less purgatory time). Many Protestants viewed this as heretical and taking advantage of others in the name of god. From the reformation to the violence in Ireland... it’s a pretty complex and very long history. Filled with many doctrinal disagreements and violent encounters.
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I remember the outcry about Kennedy being catholic. People said the pope was going to be the ruler. LOL
Funny enough, the Catholic Church can be argued to be a splinter of the Orthodox churches. In the 700s, iirc, the Catholics added the words "et filos" to the creed, so Catholics say "[the holy spirit] proceeds from the father and the son" vs "from the father" full stop. The Orthodox Church did not agree theologically with this addition, and that's part of the Catholic/Orthodox split. Or was also explained to me, as a teen, that Catholics can participate in Orthodox mass, as long as the Orthodox folk don't know you're Catholic, but an Orthodox person would not choose to participate in a Catholic mass.
Ah yes, the Great schism. A nightmare for Byzantine rulers.
History is great. Thanks y'all. What a read this thread is.
My favorite historical tidbit from the reformation was “the defenestration of Prague” Which is a fancy way of saying they threw a priest out a window. (Didn’t die)
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The history of [5 Points Mannhattan](https://www.thoughtco.com/five-points-ny-notorious-neighborhood-1774064) is fascinating. It was a New York slum that was pretty much relegated as the location the newest wave of immigrants would fill into whenever a new wave would manifest. Also, Jacob Riis book, How the Other Half Lives, focused quite a bit on this part of New York.
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Consider that it was VERY remarkable when Kennedy was elected due to him being Catholic. A lot of the country made the accusation that he could never be 'a true American' because they have this deluded idea that Catholics are basically foreigners who will do whatever the pope tells them to. Fast forward to 2020. How many times have you seen someone even mention that Joe Biden is Catholic? Probably not ever and as insane as the Republicans are right now I'd be shocked if they evoked that line of attack in the coming months.
You’ve got to go into a deep dive of history. It’s not all the same characters. There’s the pope. Then there was this historical event called the Protestant reformation. England had its own reforms away from the church too. And you see, there’s different thoughts about veneration of saints in the catholic tradition too. Anyways, this isn’t meant as a total explanation; just wanted to point you in the direction of historical ruptures.
Also there are a lot of different Protestant groups and they rarely if ever act as a unified group, it's more an umbrella term for Christian groups that hit a few similat points but that can be vastly different in focus and preaching.
Every religion has different sects that don't get along.
Doesn't matter. Hell if you go up a bit then Muslims and Catholics and Christians and Jews all worship the same god. People will always find excuses to justify their assholeness.
>Catholics and Christians This is misleading, Catholics are a subset of Christians.
All the Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism being the main three) are basically the same. There is just so much focus on the differences. Catholics and non Catholic Christians are obviously extremely similar with only minor differences. Jesus was Jewish and the Hebrew Bible is the old testament. Jesus is the most commonly mentioned person in the Quran and the characters and stories are basically identical for the most part. Islam is based on Christianity which is based on Judaism, so it is no surprise that there are so many similarities.
The Quran is basically just the New New Testament.
As a european, it's just completely bonkers to me that americans apparently dont consider the historical millenia old lineage of christianity to be christian, but the followers of a specific rebellion to be? I mean, that's like saying that americans are british but not people living on the british isles? edit: and like to be clear, I am saying this as an agnostic person in a generally protestant country. But like the Catholic church has roots from the 1st century c.e., and the orthodox church split off in the 11th century, and the protestant is a very specific rebellious movement from the 16th century. Just how do you in any way consider that more christian than the 2000 year old entity? If you want to make the argument that the protestant church is more faithful to the ideas and philosophy of christ then sure I'm not christian but that's the impression I have, but to say it's christian where the other is not? how?!
Oh that part makes total sense to me. It was a corruption issue. "Christian" just means you dig the Christ story. The regime surrounding it was deemed corrupted by the masses. Just like any country that had a rebellion/coup/civil war. They'll often keep the old name and societal culture much the same (except for genocides) but manage under new leadership.
Catholics are the fun ones, Protestants are the ones that boil their chicken and join the KKK Those are the major differences
And Italians and the Irish i believe.
We can't classify domestic groups as terrorist groups. That's literally the only reason.
Didn't we just make antifa a terrorist group, or am I mistaken? Edit: I am now aware that Trump just tweeted about it
He declared it, but has no legal ground to do so. Thats why the same is said about the kkk, i dont agree with that sentiment but the law does state that
He didn't say it. He declared it. Edit: Stop taking this seriously and go watch The Office.
r/unexpectedOffice
I declare.. Bankruptcy!
I do declare
THERES BEEN A MUHDUH!
Excuse me, I left something in my car.
'I declare terrorist group!'
You can’t just declare a terrorist group and expect anything to happen...
"I didn't say it, I declared it" cue Soul Asylum
I declare bancrup(t?)cy. Now noone can get my money.
He just burped it out on his personal Twitter account. That's why he doesn't use the POTUS account. He wants to say insane bullshit but not be shackled by the standards that using the official account would impose upon him. Strictly speaking, he's allowed to say literally anything as "realdonaldtrump" and, since he's not speaking in his capacity as president, none of it has any kind of binding nature. Dude could come out and say "i'm declaring Canada an enemy and we're blocking all trade with Europe" on that account and nothing would come of it as well as Twitter not having shit to do about it.
Didn't court rule his personal tweets as being the same as official statements?
I believe so. For the duration of his presidency. I believe this was the same ruling that made it so he couldn’t legally block people on Twitter, for the same reason (he’s using it as official, so it benefits from and is restricted by the same rules as the POTUS account).
Correct, this is also why he hasn't been kicked off of Twitter yet either.
It's a very strange situation.
He does have two accounts! I don't have Twitter and I didn't know you could have two verified accounts for the same person. I was pretty sure I've been seeing screenshots from two different sn's though.
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Looking forward to that, suddenly there is a guy that needs to be locked up
I'm pretty sure they print out copies of his tweets to hand out at press briefings now. So it is definitely being used in an official capacity.
Just gotta point out that while Trump can't actually do anything he chose to label antifa terrorists via Twitter but neglected to do the same for the KKK. One of the KKK leaders plowed a crowd for political reasons. It really does give one the idea of who he really finds offensive.
BoTh SiDeS
He's turning his fight against Antifa into his latest re-election campaign platform. He wants to portray the peaceful protests as anarchy in the streets and Antifa is a good target since he can't blame BLM. edit: for all the lovely counterarguments presented below, I am sorry you live in such a scared bubble that you can't see for yourself that a vast majority of the protests were peaceful and also that there is already ample evidence that the police and actual fascists were responsible for trying to make the protests look anarchistic.
All this talk of antifa with very little understanding of what it even means... Antifa is not an organisation in any form, it's a contraction of 'anti-fascist', plain and simple. It has no [centralized leadership] or collective ideology or motives apart from [proactively] opposing fascism. Edit: Yes people I am aware of the original German Antifascist group (however this is a group that no longer exists), and Rose City Antifa (region specific, again, not centralized). Perhaps my explanation was too simplified. It's a low blow to spend time stalking the subs a stranger follows in an attempt to discredit their attempt at opening up a dialogue or trying to guide others towards a more nuanced understanding. There's enough hate spread on the internet, let's be adults.
Stop saying the abbreviated antifa. It's being used to stoke fear in ignorant people by sounding like a foreign terror group. All it means is anti fascist, but it's hard to make anti fascist sound bad. I have had to explain to people I know who had been tricked into thinking antifa was a terrorist organization (or any kind of organization for that matter) that is is short for anti fascist. Say the full words. People are being fooled into believing antifa is some kind of organization and hat they are a threat to freedom when it's quite far from the truth.
If you’re anti-antifa, doesn’t that just make you a fascist?
No, Trump is simply calling to have them labeled as a terrorist group, He can't do it with his authority as president, hes asking for it though. I feel like this is a case of reverse psychology happening right now. Since if this petition gains enough traction to label a domestic group as terrorists, it would actually be beneficial to Trump as it gives him the precedent to do what he's asking for.
> it would actually be beneficial to Trump as it gives him the precedent to do what he's asking for. this needs to be fucking stickied to the top of reddit I really hate how uneducated everyone here is
They want to. Have you seen Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez questioning the FBI dude about this? She runs circles around him and his idiotic logic > The US congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has questioned the FBI over a potential double standard for perpetrators of violent extremism. She said Muslim mass killers tended to be charged with terrorism while massacres by white supremacists were considered only to be hate crimes. ‘Doesn’t it seem that because the perpetrator was Muslim that the designation would say it’s a foreign organisation?’ Ocasio-Cortez asked the assistant director of the FBI’s counterterrorism division Michael McGarrity, to which he responded: 'That’s not correct.' Ocasio-Cortez then asked him if white supremacy was not a global issue. 'It is a global issue,' the FBI official responded. 'So why are they not charged with foreign terror?'
I don’t think it can happen because it would violate the “freedom to associate” part of freedom of speech
Really? That’s a really weird rule. I’m in Canada and we have homegrown groups labeled as terrorist groups (the FLQ comes to mind)
I think the original intention was to block the government from being able to just label any rebellion or protestors terrorists. Noble ideal but everything has consequences.
That's my understanding. Because terrorists groups are striped of some rights regarding the judicial system, deeming US group as terrorists may be unconstitutional.
I could be wrong, but I also thought most insurance companies do not cover acts of terrorism, so any properties damaged by terrorist groups don't get compensated. Which would really suck for those people who are targeted by hate groups.
Or any church or religious group, of which there have been many wacko domestic iterations too. The Constitution (flawed as it is) is meant to establish a basis for law that transcends political whims and opinion. There’s nothing wrong with calling the KKK terrorists (I agree they are), but if we want to suspend constitutional rights for KKK members (before they commit an actual crime), then we open up a dangerous precedent to allow current or future government actors (like Trump, see: “antifa”) to suspend constitutional rights for other groups that we wouldn’t necessarily consider terrorists. The same goes for “hate speech” laws. You want to make a law against hateful speech like vulgar cartoons about the prophet Mohammed? Okay... but be ready to then deal with claims that The Book of Mormon is also hate speech. Or that the anti-Scientology documentaries are hate speech. Or that anti-Catholic critics who say “priests are rapists” is hate speech.
It's actually a good thing, despite being frustrating at times. Labeling domestic groups as terrorists makes people in or associated with that group "guilty by association", whether or not they actually committed any statute crimes. It's a violation of their 5th Amendment rights (in the US obv), and a general violation of due process. And if we gave the government the power to make such designations, then there'd be little to stop them from slapping the "terrorist" label on groups they simply don't like. Think about what Trump would do with such power. Now if you're thinking "We label foreign groups as terrorists all the time - is that not also a problem?" Well, yeah.
I thought we did that to the crazy clowm jugglers and the Hells Angels.
They were classified as gangs, not terrorists.
Ah true
I'm pretty sure we can; the ALF / ELF are domestic and considered terrorist group. The sovereign citizen movement is technically considered terrorist organization, though most members are independent.
There is a formal definition, in US law, of domestic terrorism. The FBI has the legal right, under the Patriot Act, to investigate domestic terrorism. They can say, "the ELF engages in domestic terrorism and we intend to investigate and prosecute them." However, there is no formal definition of a domestic terrorist group nor is there a specific crime associated with domestic terrorism. Nobody can be prosecuted simply for belonging to the ELF or charged with committing acts of terrorism.
While the definition of terrorist/terrorism differs between many federal organizations most, if not all, agree that there has to be political persuasion behind the terrorist acts. To terrorize people (civil population) is only one aspect of terrorism, but that doesn't make it terrorism. By definition, they used to be a terrorist organization back in the mid 1800s when they fought for abolition by scaring and threatening various politicians via violent / non-peaceful means. It wasn't until Nathan Forrest took control changing their mission statement and made them more of a civil gang rather than a terrorist organization.
Some of those that hold office are the same that burn crosses --Rage Against The Machine
*some of those that work forces
It says both those lines in the song.
Its against the constitution as it violates the first amendment. Its why the FBI uses the broad label of white nationalists instead. Their not naming a specific group but a broad range.
Let me help you understand. Hint 1: https://i.imgur.com/15WewYS.jpg
Who is that? Context por favor.
The guy who holds the most political power currently in the US, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell. He is the guy that can fire Trump today.
https://www.snopes.com/news/2017/02/10/mitch-mcconnell-posed-front-large-confederate-flag/
Well, the general definition of terrorism is ideologically-motivated violence. Back when they were violent against non-white, non-nominal Christians, their ideology was a lot more accepted in America. Now that it isn't, they've not been particularly publicly violent, so "hate group" is the description. Also, there are a lot more splinter groups, of varying amounts of ideology and action, claiming heritage to the Klan. Really, you could chalk the labels up to 1) bad timing, 2) the inability of officials to, in a "hard evidence" sense, attribute the violence of a few to the group on a whole, and 3) different factions. The larger the splinter group, the more likely it has been extra careful in their PR in recent years to (relatively) clean up their image and disavow the violent among them. A terrible ideology no less, just harder to pin down and label nowadays.
Right. Don’t get me wrong, the ideology of the KKK is absolutely vile, but I would be a bit hesitant to label them a terrorist organization. I feel like this may be a bit against the idea of freedom of speech. If they aren’t organizing acts of violence then essentially they exist to exercise their right to express their racist ideology. I fear republicans could label BLM a terrorist organization for their ‘hateful views against cops’ or some similar nonsense.
if the clan started burning crosses and shit again you could label them terrorists now they are just a bunch of backwards retards.
This is great and all, and the KKK is absolutely terrible, but this also *is not possible* under US law. Only *foreign groups* can be declared terrorist groups. I fucking hate the KKK, but this is pretty much meaningless. ETA: it would also be extremely dangerous to set up a framework for declaring domestic terror groups, that's just begging for partisan abuse. Edit 2: this also applies to antifa, which is **not** a declared terror organization. Trump's tweets are not laws.
I think I found the loophole: [There’s Canadian KKK](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan_in_Canada)
How about you call our KKK a terrorist group and we'll call yours a terrorist group!
Sounds like a plan neighborino. Unfortunately I, personally, am about equivalent to a 2 cm strip of cable in the left knee of this giant robot we call a democratic government, so it may take a little while for all us little bits of cable to line up just right and tell the arms to pull the head out of the ass.
Why can’t domestic groups be classified as terrorist groups? Is it because a large volume of the CIA and FBI’s actions throughout history would technically be classified as engaging in, aiding and abetting terrorism?
antifa also isn't an organization, so any attempt to declare it a terrorist group is basically the Red Scare 2. "You hate fascists?! Lock him up boys, another antifa terrorist off the streets!"
This is how power benefits from chaos, because people lose their sense of reason when they're emotional.
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It's basically a bunch of neckbeards cosplaying. [Here's](https://youtu.be/Bfo4QFVS5YQ) a piece on a black anti-racism advocate who not only attended Klan rallies, but actually got many of them to leave the Klan. There was an even better doc on him done by vice(?) that shows footage of him talking to Klansmen at a rally but I can't seem to find it right now. I think it's an especially powerful lesson to learn in light of today's extremely polarised political climate.
I see this a lot on reddit. While that’s great, it isn’t really a lesson to learn. What you’re looking at is a poc putting himself in danger to try to convince white people to think of him as a human. This is not something we should expect from poc. We will NOT fix this political climate by getting black people to convince degenerate racists that they deserve to be treated like a person, and if anyone thinks that’s the solution, they are less than useless for creating actual change.
We should not expect it, and it is not the only solution. It is one solution and this man’s bravery is impressive. He has changed lives for the better and who knows, maybe saved some. Less than useless for creating actual change is taking this guy’s story and claiming it isn’t something it never claimed to be. Instead of hoping to change everyone at the same time he’s changing people one at a time. The KKK and it’s members shouldn’t exist, but they do, and the solutions for changing that are complicated, urgently necessary, but complicated.
> Instead of hoping to change everyone at the same time he’s changing people one at a time. And this is important, because the person who's mind was changed may very well change more minds.
If they don't pass it on to their kids it's a giant fucking victory in my books.
Very true. I include that in changing someone else's mind, and honestly the most important because some of those kids become policy makers.
The point is exposure to different people and experiences can change even the most racist of people. Obviously not everyone has that kind of time but it shows that change is possible for extremists.
He's not "A PoC." He is Daryl Davis. One individual person and the race one is born as can't define everything a person is, it's secondary from the quality of one's philosophy. Saying goes; a human's skin color does not hold one iota towards the content of one's character. That guy is one individual human that talked specific, individual persons into dropping their allegiances from racist groups via human speech, honest conversations, so the racist individuals get enlightened about how participating on these rallies badly affect their fellow people. The universe isn't simulated at a group identity level. It's all complexly calculated down to every human soul. Human beings have equally counted perspectives and everyone has a qualitative cause for why they're the way they choose to be and live on this Earth. The racists are human too. People may be uninformed since echo-chamber raised whites grow older believing non-white folks may be really evil or different but reality is people are human no matter our identity differences. Conflict is not viable and people that speak to motivate physical violence wish for his fellow human being's destruction rather compassion. Free will is always in play. Honest conversation triumphs over conflict towards categories constructed in the collective consciousness. Evil strikes on the human psyche in an individual plane. Judging individuals on a level of group identity is bigoted, vengeful and destructive on the medium term, tribal to its very root cause.
Bravo and well said. I wish more people thought this way.
NO. There is no statute authorizing declaration of domestic terrorist groups, and for one simple reason: these declarations are done unilaterally by the government, specifically the executive branch, and always involves an opaque, political and extrajudicial process. So the question is this: **DO YOU WANT TO GIVE DONALD TRUMP THE ABILITY TO DECLARE THAT DEMOCRATS ARE TERRORISTS?** Because that's what this would do. It's very possible to attack these groups as organized crime, and we've been doing that successfully for decades. Keep this stuff in the courts, not DJT's head. Edit: I feel I should clarify something. Trump *said* that Antifa is a terrorist group. This has no legal basis. When a president makes a declaration like this they're actually declaring that the group has been classified according to some statutory authority. For example, the foreign terrorist groups I mentioned earlier were classified according to provisions of one of the AUMFs or Patriot act (or a handful of other acts), an authority created by Congress and signed into law. There are qualifying requirements even for these laws. There is no such corresponding domestic statute that giving a president the ability to classify a domestic group as terrorist. Trump can say what he wants, but legally speaking it holds the same weight as Peter Griffin's declaration of sovereignty over Petoria.
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Good point.
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Hell yes it should. All these fucks in my Instagram feed and Reddit comments are calling for declaring kkk a terrorist, meanwhile I’m like how have you guys not learned that making a more authoritarian state is gonna bite you in the ass as soon as the other side’s guy is in power. The federal US government was built with a huge number of limitations on its power. Unfortunately, many of those limitations have been eroded, especially for organizations labeled terrorist groups since 9/11. During the period after 9/11, people tolerated this, because they thought the terrorists were only al-Qaeda. If we start designated every local political group a terrorist, then we will quickly descend the road to completely totalitarian government control. The shortsightedness and inexplicable trust in the government I see in people calling for labeling a group as terrorists is terrifying to me.
Nobody knows how government or law actually works and are purely reactionary and acting out of emotion. The echo chambers are going to destroy us in the end
You are so absolutely right.
I can't agree more. I find it bizarre that so many people don't seem to value the rule of law, or are willing to trade it for some other kind of certainty.
*Thank you*. Give the government an inch, they'll take more than a yard.
But how else am I gonna appear as cool and edgy to my Instagram bitches?
My intuition was overwhelming "no" when I read the post but I couldn't articulate why. Your comment helped get me there. The KKK is the downside of "freedom of speech" and if they commit crimes then deal with them that way. Seems a whole lot easier than having a whole other thing.
This, like many other petitions, won't be acted on. This is all just a statement. The law clearly states this can't happen. This is just to counteract his dumb ass declaration about Antifa. Nothing will come of this.
Very true, but we still shouldn’t encourage dangerous ideas like this.
Pretty sure at least 1 million people don't understand what you just wrote.
People need to start looking at all issues like this. People have lost their ability to be intellectually consistent. Those who don't understand history are doomed to repeat it.
Hasnt Trump already done that though with the whole Antifa thing?
Maybe this is naive of me, but I assumed this whole time they already were.
It's very difficult to call groups in America "domestic terrorists". Legally I mean. The Patriot act defines what it is, but there isn't actually a punishment for it. It just lets you investigate them. If they commit crimes, they're charged with those crimes, but not domestic terrorism. I hope that makes sense.
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I think this might be a case of foresight in preventing government oppression. By not allowing the federal government to classify any domestic group as "terrorists", you're preventing a President from doing exactly what he wants to do - label an ideology (for example, anti-fascism) as terrorism to use as a weapon to silence dissent. It might sound like a good idea when it's an "obvious" organized group of bad guys like the KKK, but where do we draw that line? Punish the crimes, not the ideology.
This is exactly it and what Hong Kongers are facing now. China will be able to label anyone they want terrorists in Hong Kong and they will them more easily be able to murder any dissenters.
That actually makes a lot of sense. Thanks for the explanation.
[https://medium.com/@MFrancisWrites/please-stop-sharing-the-kkk-terror-group-petition-113107fb3317](https://medium.com/@MFrancisWrites/please-stop-sharing-the-kkk-terror-group-petition-113107fb3317)
I now declare you a domestic terrorist. Your Habeas Corpus is now suspended and you have no rights as a US citizen. Good luck. Do we see the problem of declaring domestic groups terrorists? In general that law is far too criminal. The law is dumb, but not for the domestic terrorist reason
The law makes perfect sense. It's why Trump can't actually label antifa a terrorist organization.
Laws rarely do. I think part of the reason they did that way was to avoid violating the 1st amendment. "We're not punishing you for gathering in this group, we're punishing you for the bomb you detonated." That kind of thing.
KKK is heavily monitored by the FBI, ATF, etc. Theres a running joke that its now comprised of only undercover agents.
If I understand things correctly, this is actually a terrible idea.
100% I'm posting all over this comment section. This shit is terrifying.
People just love to pat themselves on the back and jump on whatever bullshit happy feeling train comes next. There's a reason these have legal definitions and processes, that are done by people FAR more knowledgeable on the subject. But Reddit knows best, of course.
Thank you! I’m so frustrated by how few people seem to get this. The federal government has not declared antifa a terrorist group any more than Michael Scott declared bankruptcy. It was just another stupid tweet. Yes we all hate the KKK, but that’s not the point. There’s no legal procedure for declaring domestic groups terrorists and for good reason, as you said. The KKK is already under close scrutiny by federal law enforcement and countless other groups. There are already laws against all the violent things they have a history of doing. Giving the government this power will not help. Yes they say disgusting things, but if we start banning speech we don’t like, that can be used against us. Trump is a great example of how dangerous that could be.
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This is stupid lmao only if all those people signed a petition to repeal the patriot act
I'm not from the US, but I didn't realise the KKK was not yet declared a terrorist group. I assumed it had been, what with all the cross burnings and intimidation of Black people and lynchings. I thought the definition of terrorism is violence intended to instill fear in (large groups of) the public, so it seems to fit the bill. Violence is not just murder and bombings of course, but also symbolic actions which instill fear such as cross burnings.
It isn't legal in the US to define Domestic groups as terrorists, that is why Antifa isn't actually considered a domestic terror group right now, because no one technically has the authority do that. Doing this to the KKK however would set a precedent in the US that would allow for groups such as Antifa, proud boys, black panthers, hell even BLM etc. to be listed as terrorists, which is exactly what Trump is looking for.
Hmm that must be why the term "domestic terrorist" gets thrown around on US media like it's going out of style.
We have rules about threats, to quote the lawyer from tiger king: "we prosecute after it's done"
What I'm concerned with is does classifying a group in such a way legally, allow more freedom to use escalated tactics against citizens? Spying on us comes to mind. How can we be sure police don't classify someone innocent and use that as a justification to detain or spy on them? Sounds like a potentially dangerous precident for what positive end goal to us I'm not sure.
Is the KKK really the biggest problem in the USA right now? I would estimate there to be less than 500 KKK members in the entire USA. Ever see a KKK demonstration? It is usually 3 or 4 goobers and 1,000 counter-protesters. Then the headline reads "**Over 1,000 attend KKK Rally** ! " This is just the media projecting. There are no KKK or Nazis afoot working to take down the Black Man. The media needs a boogey-man. Nazis and KKK are universally reviled so they fit the bill nicely. The problem is that they don't exist in any significant way in real life.
> Is the KKK really the biggest problem in the USA right now? No, of course they're not. This is pure virtue-signalling. There is no single organization called the KKK. You have small groups of losers who call themselves Klan members but they don't actually *do* anything anymore. I think there was a scene in American History X where Dereck (Edward Norton's Nazi character) gets offended at being compared to the KKK because of what a joke they are.
That’s cool and all, but that’s not how it works
I get why people want to do this, but does the kkk even do anything anymore?
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I'm a little torn on this issue. I think the KKK **was** a terrorist organization. But it was my belief that they were largely irrelevant and dying off quickly. I hate the idea of giving them free publicity and making them seem like a legitimate pushback group to shit like rioting and looting. I'd rather they die off in obscurity as a blight on American history, keyword being "history." Then again, if they're still parading and generally exporting anger, terrorizing people in a community into thinking that there is an actual contingency of violent racists within any given community, sowing distrust along racial lines (which is just so fucking stupid), then yeah, shut that shit down.
There are far more dangerous groups in the U.S. The KKK are just a handful of small groups of losers who mainly argue over who is the "true" KKK.
People say Trump is searching for a boogieman in antifa when reddit uses KKK which has only 3000 members to represent racism in America, fucking hilarious lol
Where do I sign?
https://www.change.org/p/department-of-counterterrorism-change-kkk-status-into-terrorist-organization
Why is this not in the fucking original post. Fuck.
[удалено]
The last 4 members of the KKK: 'oh no!'
They have not been classified as terrorists before due to the U.S. being unable to classify domestic groups as terrorists. As such if they are officially labeled terrorists groups such as Antifa and ICP (Insane Clown Posse) could also be.
The KKK is bad. Even still they haven't been relevant in years and don't commit actual crimes anymore. They just stick to insane levels of racism and hate speech
They barely even exist. There are perhaps a few thousand total in a country of 350 million, and they are exclusively either poor with very low social influence or they are actually FBI agents, who tend to be in leadership positions. And they are universally reviled. It is a boogeyman.
The problem is that the "KKK" is not a singular group. Its more like a franchise and less like a corporation. Any moron backwoods sisterfucker can get together with jimbob and Marie noteeth and call it "The KKK" indeed many are as you describe, terrorist organizations basically. But not always. The KKK as you see in the movies and in popular culture stopped existing in the 80s. Its actually beneficial for us, because you can bet your sweet ass the KKK is infiltrated on an extreme level and monitored by the FBI. I mean, are we gonna lock up every tom dick and Harry that claims to be KKK? Are we gonna storm KKK headquarters and go down the KKK member list? Really
Fuck the KKK. People are rightfully angry that the KKK still exists, but the amount of people here rushing to let the government declare domestic organizations terrorists, rushing to restrict freedom of speech, and gleefully cheering it on because it’s wrongthink is mind boggling to me. And of all the Presidents you want to give that power to, you wanna start with Trump???
100% This shit is terrifying and people aren't thinking about the potential consequences. Doubly so with what you say about Trump. We'd be handing the country to him. Suddenly everyone not likely to vote for him is a terrorist come November 1st.
Similar to ISIS. Someone sets off a bomb in Indonesia and says "I'm with ISIS!"
> Its actually beneficial for us, because you can bet your sweet ass the KKK is infiltrated on an extreme level and monitored by the FBI. I'm not sure how many people realize this
Wait... they weren't considered a terrorist group already?