You may be a pacifist but you’re still a fighter. And that’s not snark.
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While I’m mixed on the topic, that article mostly hardened my resolve that this instance Nazi-punching was fine. Any endorsement of political violence is inherently problematic, and there are ways to express this with some nuance, but this wasn’t that.
“Punching someone could kill them” - it didn’t kill Spencer, and it if did we’d all have a dramatically different reaction.
It’s “tenet,” dammit. While this is the line of thinking which troubles me most over the incident his expression and exhortation are not going to convince anyone who’s not already on board.
There are certainly edge cases, but an anti-semitic white supremacist who glowingly quote Hitler, throw Nazi salutes with Sieg Heil chants to Trump, calls for ethnic cleansing, and contributed to inspiring Dylans Roof’s church shooting is not an edge case. That the Nazi claims he’s not a Nazi is not a compelling reason to believe he isn’t.
Stopped reading there. Perhaps there was a compelling argument that appeared after that, but there was too much mealy-mouthed bullshit for me to want to carry on.
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I have no problem with pacifism and have respect for the position. But it needs to be understood that not everyone has that luxury, and that sometimes, one needs to defend oneself, as you note.
These are not easy issues and I do respect people who feel like non-violence is the only answer, but I just don’t buy that all acts of violence are the same, carry the same moral equivalence, or that violence can never be an answer.
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Let me echo @bibliophile20 and say that I understand your view point and respect it. I know things got heated, but I hope there are no hard feelings.
Have a good night!
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We’re one day in—one day—and I already feel like I’m drowning in ridiculous bullshit.
The lies about the inauguration crowds, Spicer scolding the press for hurting Trump’s feelings, the “Day of Patriotic Devotion”…
Can this keep on like this for four years?
(melodramatic pause)
Can I?
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I should have typed so-called anarchists.
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When does it stop being premature anti-fascism? How many more “lone wolf” attacks will it take?
I can usually recognise if I am about to be attacked a few seconds before any one else observing realises it will happen. Should I wait, or defend myself when I know that the attack is coming? I don’t intend to be the martyr that wakes people up to the hatred that we are being asked to accept.
Do I approve of this punch? No, but I can’t find any motivation to disapprove of it either.
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How would you feel if instead of “punch a nazi,” it was “punch an islamic radical?” Or some other person who you disagree with? “Punch a liberal college professor.” “Punch Rush Limbaugh,” or “punch Mitch McConnell?”
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I have already heard your argument before.
Hitler killed five million Jews. It is the greatest crime of our time. But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs… It would have aroused the world and the people of Germany… As it is they succumbed anyway in their millions.
- Mohandas Gandhi
Fuck that mentality. We fight or we die, and I don’t intend to die. The Alt-right are already killing people. Not in the future. it has already happened. I can’t sit and wait for approval from liberals.
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Intent. Magnitude.
As an aside, good news.
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One more white person explains how we live in a civilized society.
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False equivalencies, all.
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You clearly don’t have to live in a world where your skin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or political beliefs make you a target. That’s great for you. Not all of us have the privilege.
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I have given my logic. Linking articles where “any punch is an intent to kill” is the rhetoric or where a Nazi being interviewed on TV is equated with randomly on the street isn’t explaining why absolute pacifism is necessary. Using Griswold’s rhetoric sport fighting or contact sports in general are gladiatorial deathmatches. Using Cohen’s logic it is impossible for a priveledged educated man to abuse the protections granted to him because there are institutions to prevent the platform from gaining a foothold. And Spencer is abusing his right to free speech by encouraging legal harassment online and legal distribution of lies and horseshit online in order to raise his agenda’s platform while in the traditional world he is using social norms as armor to be interviewed in depth by media outlets (including Vice) when a few years ago - before the online harassment campaigns - he did not have the political power to do so.
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Not really on topic, but it’s funny.
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Meanwhile, the rest of us don’t have a choice on inhabiting the world in which the alt-right is advocating for our removal from it.
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Interesting. This appears to show a much larger crowd than the viral comparison picture.
(Also really fun to zoom in on folks.)
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There is still a lot of empty space hidden by the view angle. Not as much as the overhead photo for sure but not packed like the Obama pic.
Also the full Obama pic goes back twice as far as the Trump pic.
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Oh, I agree. Still, considerably fuller than the viral image. Also if you look to the right there are a lot of people on the sides.
As big as Obama’s? No.
As small as the viral comparison? No.
Biggest inauguration evar as described by Spencer? No.
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