I think it will work a lot better than defending the free speech to incite hatred by nazis on an internet forum.
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While I am a fan of a healthy dose of separation between church and state, I also am not a big fan of vandalism.
The ACLU would/should have sued to get it moved. It was paid for with private funds, so that’s fine. Now just move it to a private property. Either that or you open it up to other religions mounting their religious laws and/or icons.
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It depends how you spin it. That was pretty much what the Nazis did in the early 1930s, and they got around 40% of the vote in the last election before the dictatorship.
I think that the problem is that you, as I once did, suppose that politics is a matter of rational actors voting according to an agreed model of society in accordance with their interests. Since I had time to pay serious attention I’ve realised this just isn’t true. Some people vote for perceived social status, on the Right. Some people vote for the side they think will win, because they want to be like winners. Some people vote explicitly against a group of people they don’t like. Some vote for an authority figure. The result is that all political parties with any prospect of real power have a spectrum from the rational analysts who talk to the intellectuals to the violent thugs. Anyone intelligent enough to think seriously about the violence of the “other side” is probably aware of the darkness of their own side. They may excuse it, but the problem with excuses is they cut both ways.
The people open to changing their minds are more likely to see the whole picture. Why is there a mob on the streets in Ferguson? What drives people to that level of violence? They don’t have to agree with them, just understand that the white violence was always there but hidden, and has now called forth black violence.
How should we feel about the destruction of a modern idol? Some people may note that God didn’t strike down the perpetrator. Some may speculate on the point at which civil disobedience in defence of the law becomes something else. And, by the Streisand effect, some people may just become aware that something was there which should not have been.
Personally I am not a violent person. But I recognise that no side has a monopoly of violence, and the side that fails completely to use it may lose. India did not become independent because of Gandhi. It become independent because Britain had technically won a war but had lost on points, and could no longer afford an empire. Wessex and the Danelaw were not united because Aelfred and Guthrun had a love-in at Edington; the Danes learnt that they no longer had a monopoly of successful violence (and that Aelfred was capable of building a navy that could defeat them in detail at sea.) Overbearing governments need to know that if they go too far, they may come up against opposition beyond their ability to handle.
We are not a very nice species, but we have to live with it.
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This guy is not an atheist. He’s a born-again Christian with sever mental illness.
Personally, I think he and his family deserve some privacy right now.
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No matter how much media time they are given to normalize their fascism, they are an irrelavent demographic.
We don’t have to convert a single one. You don’t reason or bargain with fascist, you bury them. History has plainly shown us this.
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Sticking a ridiculous monument in front of a building is vandalism. It’s vandalism against the basis of civic society and it encourages intolerance.
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If you would allow my Jew ass to quote Warren Ellis:
“All I can tell you is, from my perspective as an old English socialist and cultural liberal who is probably way to the woolly left from most of you and actually has a medal for services to free speech — yes, it is always correct to punch Nazis. They lost the right to not be punched in the face when they started spouting genocidal ideologies that in living memory killed millions upon millions of people. And anyone who stands up and respectfully applauds their perfect right to say these things should probably also be punched, because they are clearly surplus to human requirements. Nazis do not need a hug. Nazis do not need to be indulged. Their world doesn’t get better until you’ve been removed from it. Your false equivalences mean nothing. Their agenda is always, always, extermination. Nazis need a punch in the face.”
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No, not really.
van·dal·ism
ˈvandlˌizəm/
noun
action involving deliberate destruction of or damage to public or private property.
You could call it other things, but not vandalism.
Nor do I think it encourages intolerance. Other than the religious specific laws (i.e. pertaining directly with God and worship), they contain base universal laws that pretty much every society since before King Hammurabi decided was acceptable, and some pretty good advice on how to behave (the coveting ones).
To claim that it encourage intolerance disparages every Jew and Christian and is as ridiculous as those who claim the same thing with Islam. (A percentage of intolerant worshipers doesn’t condemn the others.)
Me too. Ours was white but had a blue interior. Automatic, with a V8, amazingly overpowered.
While learning, a bird flew in an open window. This was a day or two after watching Hitchcock’s “The Birds” on TV. Weird.
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So… it’s wrong for a Christian to wreck a monument because it will make atheists look bad? I don’t want us atheists to look bad, but that seems like a weird principle.
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That happened to me too!
Edited to add: That didn’t actually happen to me too.
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Dude, we covered that yesterday.
Maybe it was this version:
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Do you believe it would be good to have more monuments of the Ten Commandments in public places? After all, except for the explicitly religious stuff (!) it’s all basic good-for-you advice? Is that how America should deal with the Ten Commandments?
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Well now if you would be 1000+ years old…
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Seems unlikely. This was after all right after God had sent all those plagues upon Egypt. “Kind” wasn’t his style. If God had thought Moses was a jerk he would have had him torn apart by bears, struck by lightning, turned into salt or something like that.
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Haven’t we been over this enough?
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Some days I feel it, I feel every one of those years 
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I’m prepared to table the discussion on the merits of Nazi punching until we can read the results of a comprehensive peer-reviewed five-year study.
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I understand.
I’m not saying the alt-right needs to be listened to, and I don’t want them to have any air time. I only feel that interrupting events, destroying things, and being violent is an immediate turn-off to everyone except for people who already share your views. Most people won’t care what you have to say if you resort to those things. I think it does more bad that’s good.
Maybe I’m too optimistic, but I believe that the general public could still be swayed before violence becomes a necessity. The US still has elections. Then again, I’ve been out of the US for a while, so maybe it’s too late.
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