If the person protesting against him was calling in words or symbols for the violent removal of certain ethnic groups from U.S. soil I wouldn’t approve (especially since he’s charged with enforcing the country’s laws) but I’d understand the sentiment.
Unfortunately, that kind of demonstrator would more likely support him, and in turn he calls some of them “very fine people.”
Unless you’re talking about “historians” like David Irving the consensus among them (and among anyone with a shred of human decency) is that ideologies grounded in the elimination of scapegoat groups are thoroughly discredited and indeed dangerous.
While i don’t have any problem with your logic, it seems sound, you seem to be pointing it at the wrong group…
Telling a child on the playground who is being a bully to instead turn the other cheek is wonderful, and good. To tell the child that is being bullied to turn the other cheek is grotesque.
Bullies tend to stop bullying when they get punched. Targets of bullying just get punched again and again.
These Nazis, neonazis, neoconfederates, and white supremacists do what they do because they hate our society. These people currently being punched are bullies who are actively advocating terrible terrible things.
The people opposed to the bullies are typically the targets of the bullying, and telling them to instead turn the other cheek will likely lead to significant harm.
But the Nazis? After being punched they often go home
When the tide of public sentiment again changes… to pro Nazi? I empathize with your pacifist sentiments, but defending one’s life does not equate to brutality.
The Dalai Lama once told me, as he was sucking on a Jolly Rancher, that non-violent resistance does not mean laying down your life in the face of violence. That if militants are chasing you down with machine guns the proper response is to pick one up yourself, as you won’t be doing much protesting once you’re dead.
Nazis are calling for the extermination of most of our planet’s peoples. It is a core tenant of their belief structure. Punching Nazis is self defense to prevent another holocaust, dammit.
That’s what it comes down to. I don’t care if someone is the most privileged white male cisgender Protestant in America, if he doesn’t see the danger posed by the normalisation of fascism and Nazism and white supremacy and nationalism he’s either completely ignorant of history (including the pop culture versions in Spielberg movies) or, more likely, he’s engaged in willful denial.
The truly pathetic thing is to see even a small number of Jewish people or African-Americans indulging in downplaying the threats as well.
The willful conflation of ethnic genocide and violent opposition to people advocating ethnic genocide is why we’re even having this conversation in the first place.
The former is unacceptable. The latter is the reason our society exists.
For a while, then they grow up and vote for Trump. They learned on the playground that Might Makes Right.
I’m talking about all the histories that came before our own. The histories that legitimized slavery. The histories that claimed “Manifest Destiny” was a justification for genocide. I am talking about histories from within the flawed cultural ethos. Nazi histories, Soviet histories. The Old Testament. All those that were just as assured with their methods as you are, and also thought their version of history was the final say.
The justifications are not the same. The method. using brutality to impose one’s value system and silence dissent, however, is.
Agreed. It also sends an alarming message whether such folks realize it or not;
“I don’t care if someone wants to exterminate you and your children; my lofty philosophical beliefs matter more to me than your right to exist. I won’t help you when the wolves are at your door; I’ll just stand aside and let them consume you.”
That’s what I hear whenever anyone starts wringing their hands over the ‘mistreatment’ of Nazis and fascists, for whatever reason; ‘oh well, it sucks to be you then. Not my problem.’
Ah, the currently discredited ones. Do you think someday the histories that condemn Nazism as an ideology of violence and eliminationism will also be similarly discredited?
Given the cyclical nature of what we see in history, quite possibly if they have more people to punch us than we have to punch them. Or, more likely, some new point of view that also uses brutality as a means of crushing dissent will call all previous ones, including ours, false.
“For a while, then they grow up and vote for Trump. They learned on the playground that Might Makes Right.”.
No sir, they learned at home that might makes right, then they do as you say. They had the opportunity on the playground to learn that might has consequences, but you chose to tell their targets not to fight back
excuse me…Quori, Smalltown USA Tribune…I have a question?
We are talking about an individual who was brandishing a Nazi emblem and based on the article espousing Nazi beliefs and ideology. An ideology that openly supports and encourages not just racism and bigotry, but also the outright extermination of essentially all non-white people. An ideology that this nation in the 1940’s along with all of her allies (approximately 20-30 nations depending on how you count the territories at the time compared to today) vehemently opposed and fought in war to denounce and destroy. An ideology who’s own nation of origin to this day openly bans even the display of its symbols. A Nazi. to be clear…A FUCKING NAZI. getting punched in the face and knocked out by one other individual who clearly had either tired of the bullshit the nazi was espousing…or was so deeply offended or threatened by his words he chose to take action. And somehow this leads to a 330 comment long thread of debates involving the 1st Amendment and is violence acceptable, and lots of other comments and positions. Why?
It is a Nazi. When you declare yourself a card carrying member and supporter of an ideology that says "Let’s shove non-white (i.e. Aryan) people into gas chambers and ovens and exterminate them. IT IS THE END OF ANY DISCUSSION.
Declaring yourself a Nazi and asking for a civil discourse is akin to being a rapist and pedophile and walking into my house asking if you can babysit. THERE IS NO GOD DAMN FUCKING DISCUSSION TO HAVE.
You can be against violence and the use of force all you like. And I agree there are times when turning the other cheek or seeking civil discourse and mediation i.e. using diplomacy is absolutely the right way to go.
But there are also times to pick a weapon and stand to post and defend what is right. There are times to defend not with words, but with fists.
So, when they punched someone on the playground to impose their will, it was Might Makes Right, but when you punch them and make them run away to impose your will, it isn’t? It would be what, then? Righteous Knuckles of Social Justice Makes Right?
Which is exactly why most people aren’t wringing their hands over a Nazi getting punched now and again to demonstrate the absolute unacceptability of being a Nazi in this society. Right now we have more people to punch them than vice-versa, and I’m fine with keeping it that way at the partial cost of an individual Nazi being socked on-camera every few months.
No-one’s saying you have to do the punching yourself or approve of it, but not understanding why a person might punch someone marching about openly as Nazi (and all that implies) suggests that you enjoy a level of privilege he might not.
Since your pacifist absolutism is strong, why don’t you take a run at answering this (very non-rhetorical) question from earlier in the thread. I’d ask that you reply to that before continuing to engage me on the topic.
And when that day comes, do you really believe that your commitment to non-punching will provide protection for anyone?
Given what we know about nazis, do you really think that polite non-violence is the best defense? How did that work for non-nazis in Germany in the 1930s?
The “dissent” you’re advocating we tolerate is the advocation of the elimination of ethnic groups, races, religions, sexual orientations, and gender identities that are not straight, white, and Christian. That is literally the foundational ideology of the Nazi party. It cannot and must not be tolerated if we as a society are going to make any progress. You don’t stop Nazis by putting flowers in their rifle barrels. The only way you stop Nazis from writing the book of history is by opposing them, violently if necessary. Given the escalation of white nationalist and fascist rhetoric from the White House and their propaganda mouthpieces at Fox News, I would say the time for “let’s talk this out” has long since passed. They’re talking, and they’re advancing, because racism and authoritarianism are not rational attitudes that you can talk people out of by presenting reasoned, logical arguments. They’re primal, and instinctual, and the only way you keep them from becoming mainstream is to put them down whenever and wherever they spring up.
No one needs to hear anyone advocate for this shit. It’s fundamentally incompatible with humanity’s continued existence. It has no place in society, or in the public square, because it will destroy that square if given the chance. You’re god damned right that I want to silence these shitheads, because if they’re not silenced, they’ll start silencing everyone else. That is a fact of history born out by the scratches on the walls of Dachau and Auschwitz. The fact that Nazis claim that Jews and the gays are secretly controlling the world, or white supremacists claim that brown people are responsible for all white people’s misery doesn’t make it true, and their superstitions and lies don’t justify their behavior. But you can’t compare “I want to kill people who aren’t like me” with “I will punch people who say they want to kill people who aren’t like them”. One is a primary act of violence and domination. The other is an act of resistance and preservation. Neither the justification nor the method are the same.
So far as I know, there is no legal standing for using violence to silence someone expressing a belief. If you want to live in a nation like that, I would suggest you hope and pray elections go your way from then on, otherwise what you think and say could be very dangerous for you. If you want to post videos of people defending themselves against actual violence, then the responses might be different.
I mentioned over and over in my original post that I understand. People are afraid, angry, tired of empty words, and are desperate to mold their society to their own shape. That was also why all those other acts in history were condoned. We differ with their justifications, but we embrace their methods.
My post was about the cyclical nature of these events. People seem to imagine Nazism invented these methods, but really they were just repeating the acts of those who came before, albeit for different expected outcomes in the name of different justifications. The static parts of their form letter were the same.
We Americans condoned genocide by imagining indigenous people coming to murder us in our sleep. What you describe is not unlike about every propaganda poster printed by every evil regime. We must rally to the violence BEFORE they get out of control!
As we use those same methods, we have to expect those who oppose us to feel justified to use them as well, and on and on, round and round we go. We are the ones saying it is still okay to take power by brutalizing those who differ with us. When we are brutalized into silence, it will just be the same gauntlet with a different fist in it.
