When we set out to look at far-right extremism in Upstate New York, we had a few basic questions. What do people believe in? What groups and militias have been active? We found that all kinds of extremist groups have tried to recruit people across the...

There’s a little wine shop in downtown Ballston Spa, New York with rainbow-colored bottles lining the shop’s front window. The village is small, about 5,000 people, and attracts tourists from all around the world.

Last summer, the owner of the wine shop, Jes Rich, noticed a group of masked men in the street. “As soon as I saw them I ran out the door,” said Rich, who is openly queer and sees her shop as a safe and welcoming space for other queer people.

The men in the street were wearing black and yellow face coverings and T-shirts identifying themselves as members of the Proud Boys, a violent, far-right extremist group. A yellow truck drove alongside the group, blasting the provocative country song “Try That in a Small Town.”

  • @[email protected]
    8•11 months ago

    I really don’t want to live in a world where feeling threatened grants a person all the powers of judge, jury, and executioner. Do you want lynch mobs? Because that’s how you get lynch mobs. And minority groups, however much more justified they are in feeling threatened, have historically not been nor will they ever be the ones doing them.

      • @kautau
        3•11 months ago

        I’m curious what you define as “the state.” Government? Government essentially evolved with writing, in Sumer (that we know of historically)

      • @[email protected]
        2•11 months ago

        I don’t disagree with a lot of that, but that doesn’t make it right to murder people just because you felt threatened by them. This isn’t a kill or be killed society, there are alternative means to deal with threatening. If those means are insufficient for you, then you should want to create better ones long before you want the state to start sanctioning vigilante executions without any form of trial. You also seem to have missed this part of my comment

        minority groups, however much more justified they are in feeling threatened, have historically not been nor will they ever be the ones doing them.

        That’s just the nature of being part of a minority. It’s a lot more difficult to organize a mob, and even if you manage to do it you’re just going to be met with a bigger mob on the other side cause you decided to go and kick the hornet’s nest of bigotry.

          • @[email protected]
            1•11 months ago

            Also, your quotation is not from me.

            lma fuckin o. No. No, its not. It’s from me. Two comments ago. In reference to lynch mobs.

            Now I KNOW you don’t read my comments very thoroughly.

            And no, when you usurp due process and leave it to individuals to decide when a crime worthy of execution has been committed against them, you are inherently throwing any and all nuance out the window. Nuance in these situations is quite literally the reason we have due process in the first place. Punishment in general, but especially the punishment of death, is just not something that any one person or private group should be allowed to enact at their sole discretion.