This is going to be my standard, go-to reply to anyone trying to excuse Nazis as having the right to free speech with which to air their opinions.
My followup will be the title-text for XKCD 1357:
I can’t remember where I heard this, but someone once said that defending a position by citing free speech is sort of the ultimate concession; you’re saying that the most compelling thing you can say for your position is that it’s not literally illegal to express.
I’d rather not have nazis in my head at all.
In US law, an assault charge absolutely can in some circumstances come into play for purely verbal assault.
I play Battlefield 1942. Every once in a while, there’s some discussion about changing the German flag in the game to a swastika, but it hasn’t happened, and isn’t going to happen. I think the discussions I saw were healthy. I never worried about playing the Germans or the Japanese, or Italians. The game calls them “Axis”. So my short answer would be, “I don’t think so, really”.
It was one of those rare instances when a sentence started with “Great, …” but wasn’t sarcastic
Like when i say Thanks Obama from now on
Just that the behavior perfectly matched the woman doing it.
I was pretty awful to my worshipers in Black and White. Does that count?
There’s been one or two. At least one I know about was making a very definite point and is more of an art piece than a game and was about as well done as any board game dealing with this sort of subject could be done.
It must be geographical based. In my town as a high schooler in the 80s, we had skinheads. A good number of them. The town was super white, so they turned on us queer kids. The Idaho white supremacist groups used to recruit in my town. It was super common. We used to steal their bomber jackets, and fuck with their blood red oxford boots.
Also, pro-tip, if you run up to a skinhead, and grab them by the head, around the temples, then squeeze all their skin up on top of their head, you can scream, “This is the closest thing to a brain you’ve ever had!” and run off. Most of the time, they are too shocked to do anything. At 16, I thought I was quite clever for that.
There are an awful lot of Civil War games, yet funnily enough I’ve never seen them being cited as inciting racism.
Edit: Re-enactors, though, both WWII and Civil War … they’re a weird and questionable bunch. As a whole, there’s practically no one that wants to re-enact the ordinary faceless grunts who make up the vast majority of every war, everyone wants to insert themselves into an ‘elite’ unit, and the ones who cosplay Confederates or SS take things just a leetle too far.
Oh, I think Nazi salutes and racist name-calling go well beyond being merely “offensive.” (And unless one is a complete naïf, it’s obviously also a component of bullying.)
Burn them in front of a mirror?
Meh. Just a thought…
(edit: typo)
The “normality” of the boys’ behavior depends on the part of America the author currently resides in. I am not surprised she didn’t experience this growing up in Santa Monica. However, in the South and Midwest this bigotry is common. In my experience, the more rural and homogeneous a region is the more bigotry one will come across.
I can tell you that growing up in Oklahoma during the '70s-'80s I was exposed to boys who were attracted to the militaristic aspects of Nazi Germany. These boys greeted each other with Nazi salutes in the halls. They also spread graffiti around the school related to their fascination. I can remember stickers with a Nazi flag taking up roughly the left third, with the remaining filled with slogans some of which I can still remember today: “Inflation is Jewish” “Niggers beware: hands off whites or die!” “White power!” “Hitler was right!” I can only imagine what the atmosphere is like now that people are seeing Trump’s election as validating their views.
If you believe this, you either failed history in high school or this was never covered in your class. I’m a former history/English teacher in California, and totalitarianism (including fascism) is covered in the state standards. It is most definitely found on the extreme right of the political spectrum.
Ridiculous compared to who? The Kardashians and Chris Brown? Who do you think the kids are comparing him to? tRump looks like cranky grandpa, but at least he is a father figure of sorts, something lacking in the lives of a not insignificant number of kids.
Denial is why you find it crazy.
Rationalization is what you just did about it.
We all saw that, how can we help you see it?
Empathy is hard, keep trying!
I wouldn’t compare this to that and expect a chorus of approval.
It’s rather minimizing to compare a traffic misdemeanor with an amoral tragedy, and it will be taken as an insult by many people. I hope you read each of their comments and take some of it to heart.
BTW, did your mom ever compare her friends cancer to her own hangnail?
In my town, there was a few incidents that came to light recently. A student was found making a few Nazi-related actions (a swastika made out of tape displayed in the hallway, a comment in favor Nazis killing Jews, etc.) This led to a teacher rescinding her college recommendation for the student. The teacher received a 20 day suspension after the student’s parents complained. Other teachers were disciplined for talking about the incident with other teachers, or with students who wanted to talk about the situation.
Although this happened in November, most of parents didn’t hear about it until January when the teacher’s union made public notice about it.
Then in February another incident happened. This time, the ADL was brought in to teach their “World of Difference” program. I guess that second students parents aren’t as connected as the first, as a notice to the parents went out that very day.
Some days I can picture my high school aged daughter yelling and arguing and standing up for herself and her Jewish heritage. Some days I can picture her running and hiding and being an emotional wreck by the end of the day when she gets home.
I just hope the school will remain serious about the issue. The got a lot of flak for their lax handling over the multiple incidents of the first student. The don’t want to get accused of it again.
Yup. Ass-hats in the 80s were all over this crap. But even when the symbols are the same, I think there’s a real difference between an asshole looking for attention through defiance, and emboldened assholes defiantly looking to show off.
