You’re missing the point,or just not understanding it.
I am in no way equating the Nazis to BLM or Planned Parenthood. My point is that Nazis are as equally abhorrent to you as BLM or PP is to someone else. If you can punch a Nazi, why can’t that other person punch whomever he or she wants? Who decides what views are “permissible” or not? And judging by history, the views you and I equally hold have been a lot more impermissible, for a lot longer time, than the Nazi’s.
I think we all agree that there should be no legal way to kill/punch a nazi outside war time. It should be (and is) not permitted de jure.
It’s the damn de facto thing that we’re all hung up on.
You do. Every day of your life. You confront the world and make a choice for what you stand for and you seek your comrades and you stand with them. You vote if you can. You fight if you can’t. That’s what politics is. Insistence that people strictly operate within the rule of law that was written with the preservation of white supremacy and wealth at its very core is not an inherently virtuous or even neutral position.
You can’t speak in hyperbolics with Nazis. Their beliefs and actions past and present are so far beyond any comparison to any other group they cannot be equated at all even in an exaggerated illustration.
You are right. There is no consistency. There is no way to draw a distinct line using words to strictly define who it is OK and not OK to punch. We can not write a fair law or policy. If we could, we would have done it long ago. But we should not allow our inability to semantically draw a line between good and evil drag us down a road in which evil takes root.
Moving the goalposts are we?
Ninjarabbi asked:
“So is it ok to punch Nazis yet?”
He (or she) wasn’t asking if it was ok to punch Nazis in Charlottesville over the weekend or if it was ok to punch Nazis when they’re attacking crowds and murdering innocents with cars, the question was asked in the abstract. Is it ok to punch Nazis yet? Don’t change the parameters of what we’re talking about. We’re not talking about punching Nazis in war, we’re talking about going up to a random person who happens to be waving a flag with the Swastika on it, who’s threatening your continued existence, by your own words, and punching him.
You can, and we all do. Godwin’s law became a thing for exactly this reason. Are they more abhorrent than I can accurately describe in this post or even with this language? Yes. Does that mean I have to give them special treatment, the respect, if you will, of never comparing them with anything ever because they’re just that deserving of that honor?
Fuck no and you shouldn’t be suggesting I need to treat nazis special when I talk about them.
Anyone who does that is a hero. If they get arrested, fine. If they don’t, also fine.
Free speech, right to protest, not having to fear violent retribution for your political views are all fine and dandy, but they also have an end. The right to free speech ends when you start threatening people. Nazi ideology is inherently about the violent subjugation and extermination of people they believe inferior to the “white race”. They wholesale advocate genocide which translates to the murder of individuals based on their race, religion, or political viewpoint. Nazi are a permanent threat to everyone who isn’t a Nazi. That is what qualitatively separates Nazis from other ideologies.
While I definitely would advocate for non-violent means of deescalation, you have acknowledge that if you stand opposite a Nazi and are the wrong skin-tone or dare voice that your political positions opposes Nazis, they would murder you if they were in power. Nevertheless it is our duty to oppose these assholes wherever and whenever they show up, even if violent means are necessary.
This is the paradox of tolerance.
Nazis / fascists / white nationalists operate within the rules of polite liberal democracy to dismantle it.
The tactics of antifa make me uncomfortable, but they are effective and they are preferable to giving a platform to anyone spreading those beliefs.
That person is a hero. We all cheered when there was that video of Spencer getting his shit wrecked because that person had the moral and testicular fortitude to do it.
Once again, you’re confusing the actions of a group with the conviction of beliefs of the people opposing them. The Nazis were/are the worst humans ever in existence. No one is arguing with that. But someone can hate BLM or PP just as much as we can hate Nazis. That’s the comparison. Someone advocating for a woman’s right to choose or that the police are inherently racist can be just as abhorrent to people as the Nazis are to us.
"Without free speech protections, all civil rights advocacy could be shut down by the people in power, precisely because government doesn’t agree with the ideas activists advance. That was true of the civil rights fights of the past, it’s true of the movements facing pitched battles today, and it will be true of the movements of the future that are still striving to be heard.
The argument here is simple: While it’s true today that the authorities in DC — or Skokie or Charlottesville — are working to block racist views, a few decades ago these government bodies may have been working to promote racist views. After all, it was only a few decades ago that different levels of government, with support of much of the public, were working to actively restrain minority rights through, for example, government-sanctioned segregation, restrictions on black Americans’ right to vote, and prohibitions on civil rights protests, particularly in Southern cities.
To create a barrier to this, the argument goes, governments should never be allowed to police free speech based on its content. Everyone gets a voice, and the public can then decide who’s right through reasonable discourse and debate."
When the Nazis pick up arms to kill me, then I’ll use violence against them. Until then, their words are just that… words, and I’ll fight them with my own words.
If someone on this forum can show me an example of a Nazi killing someone by waving a flag, or by making a speech, directly killing someone, not inciting others, then I’ll concede the point. Until then, you’re just engaging in thought police.
Except by any ethical or moral standard one is evil and one is not. Nazis, Pro lifers, and racists are all equally punchable by any decent moral code. The fact that their feelings on the matter are as strong as their opposing faction does not change the fact that they are evil and they and their beliefs need to be dealt with. In the case of Nazis and Confederates the only thing that did it was physical force and apparently on both counts we didn’t finish the job.
The ACLU is a strictly legal organization operating in the realm of law. Without law the ACLU doesn’t even exist. We are human beings. We operate in the realm of law, but also outside of it. The ACLU is just an organization. It won’t be run over by a car with a nazi behind the wheel.
As humans we have to behave according to our morals. We must take a course of action that leads us to a better world, even when those actions are against the law. We can not allow words on paper to limit the scope of our actions, especially when always following the letter of the law can lead us to a world of evil. I support the ACLU’s position, and I also support kicking a nazi’s teeth in.
If only there was some extremely famous poem about exactly this sentiment towards Nazis.
Moral codes change. And what’s acceptable now, was not acceptable in the past, or might not be acceptable in the future. By attacking people for their thoughts or speech, you’re opening a Pandora’s Box that you have no idea where it will lead.
A woman was literally fucking killed by a Nazi driving a car into a crowd of protestors.