Even Hemingway was on the right side of this one.
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Why? if I say it’s okay to punch Nazis, I’m not saying it’s okay for husbands to punch their wives.
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What if wife is nazi? 
Is hypothetical, Natasha is not double-agent.
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It’s almost as if Antifa are judging Nazis, not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
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Life is cruel like that, sometimes…
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Oh no? Tell that to the guys that had a glass rod shoved in their penis and a hammer applied, an example I got from Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (imagery I’ve never been able to get rid of).
- Check.
- Check.
- I wouldn’t bet the farm on it.
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The point. Methinks you missed it.
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I meant they never were that great or powerful. Nazi germany made one screw up after another - they got as far as they did, because they had a massive war machine, but their tactics were fucking shite (who marches into Russia at all, much less in August). Nazis they were always nasty little fuckers who like to torture people, because that is the ways of small minded, weak people who manage to get a little bit of power. It’s why neo-nazi skins always go after individuals in a group, because they’re cowards.
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Indeed, you are not, but in real life, everything bleeds over.
By accepting that violence is the answer for some situations that are at least nominally non-violent, we must understand that we have some measure of responsibility when people take that permission in ways we don’t approve of.
To do otherwise is, for example, to free the NRA of responsibility for the fact while they may support only completely ‘acceptable’ use of guns, their very support makes a large number of things that they don’t support possible and indeed acceptable.
If we demand such enlarged responsibility of our opponents, then not demanding as much of ourselves is hypocrisy. Good motives does not diminish our responsibility for the unwanted outcomes of our desired policies.
Just to make it clear, unwanted outcomes of a policy always occur. Failing to acknowledge those unwanted outcomes is, in my opinion, the higher crime, because it prevents the ability to mitigate them or succor the victims.
Personally, weighing the costs, I don’t support punching Nazis when they pose the risk they currently do. But I do acknowledge that this does allow them to cause real misery for others. However, I don’t think long term costs are worth the benefits.
I do understand that many others who have the same overall goals that I do, weigh this differently, and thus support punching Nazis. That is fully acceptable to me.
However, what worries me is if those supporters do not believe that there is any cost to their public willingness to tolerate privately-motivated violence outside of the narrow confines of the context for their support. Without that understanding, how can they weigh cost and benefit?
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I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more perfect candidate for “Then they came for me”
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My grandfather probably punched quite a few nazis during the battle of the bulge so he and others wouldn’t have to punch them here at home. Should my grandfather have had a nice chat with them instead?
These are people who given the opportunity and means, would ETHNICALLY CLEANSE AMERICA. There is no arguing or debating that point, because it’s not nor should it be part of polite discourse.
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I prefer non-violent methods, but being a Nazi is violent per se. The Antifa are not bringing violence into an intrinsically non-violent situation, the Nazis are the ones bringing violence into politics by espousing their Nazi ideology.
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Good riddance to this hateful asshole.
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Targeted assassination of these Nazis would have made the point even more strongly, saving even more grief. Indeed, permanent elimination of any number of right-wingers might have stopped vastly more misery.
But I would not claim that your lack of support for such violence construed a lack of care for those who where victimized.
Don’t pretend that antifa’s choices are the only ones available on the spectrum of violence.
Honestly, the tactics that you use to incite support for this anti-Nazi violence are exactly those used by those seeking to support any sort of violence.
“Do you care about X?”
“Well, yes.”
“Then you must support our violence. Anything else makes it clear you do not care.”
Sorry, but I refuse your artificial choice. Perhaps your motives are good. But your methods are poisonous, as pretty much all of history has proven.
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How many “others” are you prepared to throw under the bus to maintain your non-violent ideals? For Antifa that number is quite low. For you it seems very high, hence “Then they came for me”. You acknowledge that the violence is happening, but its just not happening to you, so; meh
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I don’t recall any Nazi-punching advocates saying or even implying that those who also hate Nazis but don’t want to punch them actually don’t hate Nazis.
Sorry, but I refuse your artificial choice. Perhaps your motives are good. But your methods are mere sophistry, as pretty much the rest of us here have proven.
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The tactics and context of war are not suitable for the home front. In an existential fight for survival, I’d have very different answers, possibly including their execution.
But this is not such a fight. I think the alt-right’s star is already dimming over time, without having to pay the possibly substantial cost that supporting violence can incur.
To be honest, antifa’s violence doesn’t worry me. But the potential to for it to expand because of the support that I might lend it does. And saying that “I didn’t think it would do that” is no excuse. Support of violence always has a risk of expanding. And failure to acknowledge that risk would put me on the same level as many on the right that I despise.
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Then please tell that to fascists who have often committed war time like acts of violence in the US over the course of my lifetime.
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