What a good day to be a Chicagoan.
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The difference between this speech and nearly all other speech is that it advocates direct, organized harm to endangered and oppressed classes of people. If taken seriously, it would cause said advocated harm.
Also, before any of you say we need to protect directed and motivated hate speech, read the book we did a little mini book club on. The Coming of the Third Reich
I have no interest in hearing any argument until youâve read this book. It goes into great detail on the specific rhetorical techniques the fascists used. They specifically would actively exploit the âtolerance of debateâ of civil society while always arguing in bad faith, careful to always stop just short of directly advocating specific violence, while simultaneously insinuating exactly what âneeded to be done.â
Read that book before you form any opinion on how to deal with motivated fascist hate speech.
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I see two arguments in favour of punching of Nazis so far.
The first is a simple ârevengeâ argument, i.e. that those Nazis deserve to be punched. In short, people want to punch Nazis, or see Nazis get punched, because it feels good. This kind of reaction is all too human and itâs easy enough to understand and empathize with, but I donât think itâs a good idea.
The second is a more sophisticated utilitarian argument, which basically tries to say although punching of Nazis may be distasteful, itâs necessary. That is, although violence is bad, punching Nazis is warranted in order to prevent the rise of Nazism. This is a point well worth taking seriously. Yes, the Nazis want to amass political power, and if they get that political power they are clearly going to do some really fucking bad stuff. Thus the question of what we can and should do to stop that from happening is extremely important.
However, thereâs also a massive gap in that argument that people are failing to seriously address. How, exactly, is the punching of individual Nazis going to prevent the rise of Nazism? I worry that this whole âpunching Nazisâ talk may not only fail to achieve its goals, it may actually be counter-productive. People who respond to speech with violence, and those who support the idea of responding to speech with violence, are setting themselves up to be painted as extremists by the opposition. I worry that, as Andrew suggested, âpart of the Nazi playbook is to get punchedâ.
Also, for those of you using the second argument, you should be wary of the possibility that youâre only using it to justify being emotionally moved by the first. This kind of topic is one where people are in grave danger of rationalization.
Racially-based fascism is one of the only areas of speech where I am unwilling to entertain ANY level of advocacy. It is something that should never be able to be voiced earnestly without immediate and overwhelming opposition.
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Iâm not saying I condone ripping down monuments, But NC government did make it rather difficult to remove them legally. I missed the main event because I was eating dinner a couple blocks away.
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What if cops are bad?
Itâs always astounding how many people love to fire off the cuff comments publicly online and then try and double back on it. Welcome to the Internet, where everything you say is documented for the world.
I donât know whether to blame or applaud Facebook and Twitter for giving people a platform to show how fucking stupid they are.
EDIT: I guess you could toss Reddit into the mix too, but I feel like anecdotally there were tons of kids in high school who basically never used the internet until MySpace and Facebook. But Facebook seemed like the catalyst to get most non technical people onto the Internet.
Then thereâs the depths of 4chan, but that was relatively niche for a long time.
I condone ripping down monuments
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I looked up the closest confederate monument to me today, and I was like⌠fuck. Gettysburg battlefield. I guess that one should stay.
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Yeah.
Start with all the ones made after 1900. Especially the ones made after 1960.
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How does punching nazis actually stop nazis? Terrific question.
First of all, yes, it can backfire. Think of those problematic âmoderateâ white people who want quiet instead of justice. If they see nazis being punched and antifa being the punchers, that can make them sympathetic to the supposedly ânon-violentâ victims. This is why it is important to control the narrative. It has to be the Captain America story. The nazis are clearly bad, and need punching. Those doing the punching are heroes punching villains. As long as you make sure thatâs the story, it wonât backfire. You can not allow the victim story to carry water with the public.
The other main way that punching helps is simply with fear. White supremacists and authoritarians in general are extreme cowards. This is why the KKK wear hoods. This is why they fucking love guns. Itâs why they love a big strong daddy in power to protect them. Itâs why they fall victim to conspiracy theories about (insert group here) coming to get them. Itâs why they are obsessed with masculinity and such. Itâs why they are afraid of foreigners taking their jobs. They feel safe when there is fake security at airports. Itâs why they are worried about Islamic terrorism even though they live on a corn field in Nebraska. A liberal New Yorker will jump on the train tracks to save your life, but a white supremacist is afraid to even come to the city because there are black people here. Everything about their beliefs is rooted in cowardice.
Up until relatively recently there was an aura of fear such that white supremacists would keep themselves and their ideas hidden. They would only espouse them anonymously, or in secret meetings. There was a fear that if they were found out, their lives would be ruined. While this is still true to a large extent, it is less true than it was just some years ago. Although the Internet, tragically, gave them a platform to spread their message, it still forced them (and allowed them) to remain largely anonymous.
Thanks to our new president and such, this aura of fear has been weakened, like the o-zone layer. If we create an expectation that any nazi who appears in public will be punched, this will help to repair that protective field. It must be a known fact that nazism is not accepted in our society. If you try to spread your nazi message where we can see you, you will pay the price. This scares them into hiding. It keeps their message out of the public discourse. It makes recruitment very difficult. It reinforces in the public mindset the knowledge that nazis are the bad guys.
Now you might think, isnât it wrong to rule with fear? Thatâs what 1984 was about! Thatâs what evil dictators do! Using fear is bad. The ends donât justify the means! I agree. Show me any other proven effective means, and Iâm on board. Iâm on board 2000%. But what other means? Logical reasoning doesnât work. Diplomacy doesnât work. Asking nicely doesnât work. We have tried them all, and we will still try them again. But if they fail, we will have to fall back on violence and fear. We know how to do it, and it works.
Even in the thousands of years of human advancement, every successful method of stopping these people we have discovered is morally repugnant in some way. Itâs up to us to stop them while also doing as little violence as we can manage. If push comes to shove, comes to punch, comes to shoot, then so be it. Stopping them from achieving their goals must be the highest priority. Losing is absolutely not an option. If you draw some line as to how far you are willing to go to stop them, they need simply need to cross it in order to achieve victory. That is unacceptable. There is no line. We should do only what is necessary, but also everything that is necessary, to prevent history from repeating itself.
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No, he was actually more right than he could ever know.
Itâs a tragedy what happened to Heather Heyer, but the man who killed her has been arrested and will probably spend a very long time in prison as a result of his actions. In Nazi Germany, he wouldnât even have been charged with a crime. Already there are articles about people identified at this rally losing their jobs. Society is shunning these people and they are paying the price of their actions, and no punching was involved.
Actually, youâre all wrong. The America my grandfather believed in is actually stronger than ever. Trump is proof of nothing. In fact, Trump is proof not that youâre right, but that my grandfather was. Yes, heâs president, but he lost the popular vote by nearly 3 MILLION votes. More voters voted against Trumpâs vision of American than voted for it. The Republicans control the entire government and they still canât get their legislative agenda passed. The American people are overwhelmingly AGAINST the Republican healthcare bill. Most people WANT government provided healthcare and comprehensive immigration reform.
Trump, Conservatives, the Alt-Right, and even Nazis have already lost. Why do you think the Republicans have to resort to gerrymandering and voter suppression to maintain their death-grip on power? Because ideologically, the battle is already over. They already know this, which is why theyâre fighting so hard to hold on to what they have, but itâs too late for them. The future is liberal. The future is progressive. The future is all the things Nazis and Trump and the Alt-Right hate. Look at how popular Bernie Sanders is among younger people. Compare our country 20-15 years ago to today regarding Gay and LGBTQ rights. We went from DOMA and âDonât Ask, Donât Tellâ to Gays being allowed to legally marry and serve openly in the military. Itâs only a matter of time before the same thing happens with Transgender rights. Conservatives and Nazis lost the culture war. Trump, and all this resurgence of the Right, is just the last dying gasps of the beast that knows that itâs about to go extinct. The future is a Browner, less Christian, more Liberal America. Thatâs not to say that we need to be complacent about it, that we donât need to be alert and fight for what we believe in, but the reason I donât need to punch Nazis is that theyâve lost.
Ask yourselvesâŚwhy were the Nazis even in Virginia? Ostensibly, they were there to protest the removal of a Robert E. Lee statute. Even their memorials and statutes are going away. Society is no longer paying lip-service to their preferred falsehoods about history. Society is no longer willing to pay tribute to their heroes.
When more people show up to the Womenâs March than the Presidential inauguration, I know weâve won. When the Monday after Trump tries to enact his travel ban, thousands of people protest outside the Supreme Court Building in DC, including myself and @GeorgePatches, I know weâve won. When Jews and Muslims stand united against racial profiling, I know weâve won. When the courts eventually blocked the travel ban, I know weâve won. When Trump announces that he wants to cut immigration in half, and gets pushback from all corners of the country, I know weâve won. It may not look like it now, but the battle is over. Weâve won the culture wars. Now, we just have to deal with the remaining opposition forces that refuse to surrender.
If my grandfather was still alive, he would be so excited for the future, not afraid of it.
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I hope youâre right
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Itâs not going to happen tomorrow, or the next day, or even next year, but if the history of America shows us anything, itâs that our society eventually becomes more egalitarian and more equal overtime, even if it has to get there kicking and screaming. We have to work for it though, we canât just wait for it to happen, but in trying to bring about the future we believe in, we canât lose sight of the ideals that inspired us in the first place.
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And for anyone looking to take down anything local.
A gif of the Confederate statue being removed today.
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