It is August 2017 and currently the fucking Nazis are marching in Charlottesville, Virginia. It started yesterday night with these assholes turning up with fucking tiki-torches and marching through the campus of the University of Virginia. They were also carrying swastika flags and performing Heil Hitler salutes.
Today things turned violent when a car rammed into a group of counter-protestors, killing at least one. Also very suspicious is that a bunch of these assholes have turned up in full combat militia gear, more or less posing as national guard members
All of this makes me sick to my stomach. I am not american, but as an austrian who has to live with the legacy of the Nazi party and what it has done to my country in the past and the lingering elements that still persist, even though it is outlawed, has me absolutely disgusted with the situation.
We live in dark times with the global resurgence of right-wing extremism. Am glad to see so many people around the planet also outraged and people on the ground counter-protesting and telling these assholes to fuck off. I am looking for a way to donate some money to a good cause opposed to this Nazi scum and would be open to suggestions, as well as other things I could do here from austria.
In times like these people often look for the political leadership to speak on the matter. The only thing offered by Donald Trump so far is the following:
We ALL must be united & condemn all that hate stands for. There is no place for this kind of violence in America. Lets come together as one!
Lukewarm bullshit of couse, which allows all sorts of interpretation like at least one Neo-Nazi scumbag having asked so far “Did Donald Trump just condemn Anti-Fa?” Not like we expected anything else considering that these assholes are almost universally Trump supporters and his election has emboldened them to make such marches.
Today, I set up proper social media channels to be on alert for local anti-fascist action groups. It’s past due time. When the shit hits the fan in my neighborhood, I want to be in the know.
I’ll never be on the front lines. I wouldn’t be able to handle it. But I’m giving money when I can and supporting everyone I know who can fight.
EDIT: Who should I give money to for on the ground anti-fascism? I can only think of the SPLC, which relies on police to enforce laws, which I don’t have faith they will.
You don’t have to lecture me on what the SPLC does. I canvased for them. what I I’m looking for is first responders against fascism. Is there an organization dedicated to preventing shit like Charlottesville?
Driver has been Identified and charged with murder. Turns out he’s a 20-year-old white kid from Ohio, Registered republican, vocal Trump supporter, lived with his mother, told her before he left that he was going to an Alt-right rally.
If you want to punch a Nazi, go right ahead, but then turn yourself into the police. If you punch a Nazi, I may be happy that you did it, but as a lawyer, if I was a prosecutor, I would charge you with a crime.
We do not punch people for their thoughts or for what comes out of their mouths. Not even Nazis. We are better than that.
It’s always been OK. You can even shoot them dead if you want to. My grandfather and great uncle did, and they were rewarded for doing so.
I don’t know if you remember the last time there were nazis in power. We tried to deal with them using every peaceful means because we were peaceful people. We even gave them land peacefully so that they didn’t violently conquer it. It didn’t work. The only thing that worked was shooting them in the fucking face. I abhor violence more than most, but until you can demonstrate another proven method of stopping nazis, I’m going to have to favor murdering them until there are none left. Even at Nuremberg where we gave them all a fair trial. And then we hung them by the neck until they were dead. I don’t want to even kill a small bug, but if the only way to stop nazis is to murder them, so be it.
Anyone who stands trial for violence against nazis, I will arrange to pay for your defense lawyers.
I’m of mixed feelings when it comes to punching nazis. On one hand, they 100% deserve it and it’s super cathartic. However, violence didn’t stop the Nazi’s from gaining political power. In fact it was a key component to them seizing control. Part of the Nazi playbook is to get punched.
Your grandfather and great uncle were soldiers fighting in a war. No one on this forum, no one on this entire planet, is fighting a war against Nazis. Shooting an enemy soldier during a war is not a crime. Punching a civilian, for thinking a certain way, or for saying something you disagree with, is not even close to being the same thing. It is a crime, plain and simple. The Nazis are not in power here. They are not in power anywhere, and comparing punching Richard Spencer, or any other Nazi or Alt-Right asshole, to World War II is ridiculous.
If you can punch a Nazi in the face, then someone else can punch a Black Lives Matter protester or Women’s Right activist in the face. We are a society governed by the rule of law. We are a country where the Freedom of Speech is enshrined in our Constitution, where we tolerate all manner of speech, no matter how vile, how terrible, because we live in a Democracy and we know that if you punish one kind of speech, it’s oh so easy to punish another kind, and then who knows where we’ll end up.
You want to shame a person holding vile beliefs? You want to let their friends, family, and coworkers know what they believe? You want to alert their employer so they get fired? Go right ahead. I have no problem with any of that, and in fact, I applaud that. But going around punching random civilians for what they think or what they say is wrong and illegal.