And also: the dude what punched Richard Spencer was legally in the wrong. I applauded it, did not feel bad for Spencer, and also believe that legal consequences should have landed on the puncher.
If one engages in legal disobedience to prove a point, one must accept the legal consequences.
I still give 0 fucks and believe that visible white supremacists in the vein I have describe above should be aggressively marginalized until they give up. We should also ban the wearing and display of Nazi iconography, and iconography associated with other white supremacist groups.
I may not agree with you, but at least youâve thought about it, which is more than most people here probably, so I respect that.
But what if the person is wearing or visibly carrying Nazi or white supremacist paraphernalia, but isnât visibly endorsing said behavior or bothering other people? Would you still use violence against them? What if it was KKK or Alt-Right symbology instead of Nazi? What if it was a Confederate flag? Are there degrees or do you just lump them all in together?
Youâre the first âpro-puncherâ to say that. In my first post when I wrote that as a lawyer I would prosecute someone who punched a Nazi unprovoked, I was basically called a âcollaborator.â
So what if it wasnât Richard Spencer but some 11 year old kid who doesnât know any better or has been brainwashed since childhood? Is it still ok for that kid to be punched?
Cloudflare gave Daily Stormer (what a terrible name) the boot:
In an email to the employees:
This was my decision. Our terms of service reserve the right for us to terminate users of our network at our sole discretion. My rationale for making this decision was simple: the people behind the Daily Stormer are assholes and Iâd had enough.
Let me be clear: this was an arbitrary decision. It was different than what Iâd talked talked with our senior team about yesterday. I woke up this morning in a bad mood and decided to kick them off the Internet. I called our legal team and told them what we were going to do. I called our Trust & Safety team and had them stop the service. It was a decision I could make because Iâm the CEO of a major Internet infrastructure company.
I said âother white supremacistâ as well. KKK and Alt-Right count. Yes, Confederates count, but to a lesser degree. They need to be way more aggressive. Also, most people who proudly wear Confederate flag shit donât listen to the metal that I do. I donât go to Kid Rock shows.
Theyâd be a target in the pit, I can tell you that. In general, people are bothered and made uncomfortable by the mere presence of Nazis, and pretty much nobody shows up to a show with Nazi shit and gets on the floor unless they intend to start trouble - so my answers here are hypothetical, because it really doesnât happen.
White supremacists, in my experience, are shit-starters. I am a shit-ender.
I donât think thatâs actually the case in this thread, but I did say it very explicitly. I believe other people âsaidâ it without actually using those words.
Without going back and reading every single comment, Iâm not sure about that. The general response has been that itâs ok to punch a Nazi anytime anyplace.
It is ok to punch a Nazi anytime anyplace. That doesnât mean it shouldnât be prosecuted as much as any other punch would be. Sometimes righteous actions are illegal. John Lewis has been arrested over 30 times and most of them have been warranted but all of them have also been righteous.
Again, no one other than you or @thewhaleshark have said this before in this thread. If someone wants to punch a Nazi, and then turns themselves over to the police afterwards, Iâm fine with that. If the guy who punched Richard Spencer during that interview had gone straight to the police, I would have no problems with his actions.
Right. Thatâs how I read most of the comments in this thread. The legal question is long solved and accepted, and I read most folks as talking past it assuming it to be the accepted case.
The punching is illegal. Also, punch that fuckinâ Nazi. The two are not mutually exclusive sentiments.
Good luck - constitutional amendments require a referendum with a successful yes vote. Chances of that happening any time soon are basically zero. Not that Iâd object to keeping it - Iâll trade two greens and two liberals as the price of getting rid of nasty, small-minded little racist shitbag Malcom Roberts.
Also, my only contribution to the punching nazis debate - Yâall should have seen what the old-school antifa - like, not the jokey âSoldiers in ww2 were antifaâ kind, I mean the dudes in black shemaghs and shit-kicking boots getting up the skinheads - would do to these fucks. Modern antifa think theyâre hard, but theyâre practically ghandi-style pacifists compared to how it was in the old days.Modern British riot police equipment includes specialized boots to ward off one old trick, just in case someone takes inspiration.
1: All of those you mentioned are punchable.
2: Age of majority-ish. Late teens onward 100% okay
3: I know it when I see it is a perfectly good measure. I do not need to wait for someone else to agree or decide whether someone is evil when its right in front of me. And if they disagree then they are probably sympathizers. If you want to interpret that as an arbitrary judgement so be it. As far as people being reformed or regretting past actions, so long as they did not actually hurt anyone I could accept that they have had a change of heart, but they will always be suspect to me, even that guy with Life After Hate.
Your problem, at least as pro-punchers are seeing it, is you are Lawful Good. You are inflexible in your moral code and you will never agree with the pro-punchers and they will never agree with you. And besides that, the laws you have so much faith in are fallible. There are widespread reports that police did NOTHING to stop illegal actions taken by the Nazis in Charlottesville.
The anarchy already exists, but it apparently doesnât touch you because this is all very hypothetical to you. If police and justice system are retconning brutality to make every instance justified, if the law is just a weapon selectively wielded against you, if you face violence no matter the âmoralityâ of the choices you make, itâs time for some punching. You are so busy trying to perfect the rules of the fight, without understanding that it started a long time ago, and you literally just noticed the ring that others were born into.
How is punching a Nazi a deterrent at all? Unless you literally beat them within an inch of their life, theyâre just going to rally behind the âalt-left thugsâ banner again. Societal shaming and forcing employers to fire them has proven far more useful in turning Nazis into blubbering kids. Its not even really doxxing since they willingly reveal themselves at a rally:
There have already been Nazi demonstrations moved, scaled back, and cancelled because they find out about Antifa plans to counter protest. And when Nazis arenât out to spread their crap or are seen to back down they lose the powerful image that attracts the disaffected weak sorts that would have grown their ranks.
It undermines their ideals that align closely with toxic masculinity & images of strength. Itâs a public & performative rejection of their ideology, in a language they claim. They will never play fair; you are a thug or a snowflake regardless. Inaction is complicity. It has saved peopleâs lives. Oh, and the video of Spencer has been shared & replayed countless times, as a comforting reminder that we are not alone in nazi hell.
Considering how the law is setup, couldnât a Jew or PoC who punches a Nazi say âI feared for my lifeâ to justify the action? A Nazi by definition is defined by their hate speech thatâs already judged by the law. Cops use that excuse despite being armed with weapons and get away with it all the time. (Not a lawyer, not a lawyer)