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The issue is there is a belief that the problems we are facing are because we can't accept each other's opinions and we all need to buckle down and compromise with one another.
Which is deliciously naive in a world where Nazism has gone from "So universally reviled that they are a punchline at best" to "Just an opinion from a guy asking questions."
Do not serve Bar Nazis
The problem of the "Punch a Nazi" line of thought is not particularly that Nazis are subject to violence : most people (centrists included) couldn't care less about what happens to them specifically.
No, the real issue here is that people don't trust the perception of others. You don't attack a fascist, you attack someone who you think is a fascist. And polarization of the political discourse mean that you can be easily accused of crypto-fascism for pretty much anything (see Hexbear for example). And some people will take it at face value, and hence feel justified to attack you.
That's... actually a good point. I consider myself being pretty against Cancel Culture despite being pretty far to the left.
Too often people get canceled based on gossip or false rumors, like somehow "He's 30, she's 24" gets morphed into "Dude's a full blown pedo" or... "This forum post from 9001 years ago uses a form of slang that is offensive now, but was acceptable at the time, clearly he's a white supremacist" becomes "This guy eats babies in the glorious name of Satan, and by Satan I mean Trump!"
It's just something I hope the internet grows beyond. Society and general.
I think there is a large amount of this that's the result of social media. When I was a kid, there were still flat-earthers and other people who believe extremely stupid things. The thing was, however, that if you said that out loud, all of the people around you would with varying degrees of politeness tell you you're a fucking idiot and you'd usually change your mind quickly. In today's environment, not only can you go online and not get called a fucking idiot for your dumb opinions, you can find all of the other fucking idiots and form a ~~circle-jerk~~ Facebook group for bad opinions and feel validated in believing them. Oh, and even if you don't go looking for your own little community of morons, Facebook and the rest will happily help surface those morons for you.
The reality of social media is that not only do they serve bar nazis, they might as well be tinder for bar nazis.
Hell you tell someone "Bro you're a dumbass" these days
You're the one getting the door for being "toxic"
If you try and engage many of those types they won't accept reason and logic either, it's a no win situation. Of course you're still the toxic one for not wanting to do that dance again.
This is kind of the same reason, I think. They get enough validation on the internet and unfortunately this leads to more validation IRL as well. Humans and critical thinking already rarely go together, and social media only seems to have exasperated that.
Mmmm, I have had a long line of arguments about this just now. Yes, neo Nazi's are beyond contempt and to be reviled, but please do not "punch a Nazi", ice seen that making a comeback. There is a long list of reasons why assaulting somebody for shit reasons is a bad idea, just don't.
Yeah, like the time when we talked Hitler down politely and appeased him and everything was totally fine after
Don't you remember? He was herding crippled jewish homosexuals into the camps like a cowboy herds cattle, when suddenly Kylie Jenner showed up and was like "Chill out Hitler, have a Pepsi!"
It was a Diet Pepsi, that's why they called it D-Day
(I am being insanely sarcastic)
Yeah, and like that time that one of those armchair internet heroes actually faced a neo nazi without pissing their pants.
Oh wait, that never happened.
You know what has happened, loads of times, though? Judges and juries sending people to jail for assault and battery after they punched somebody for no reason.
That none of you here understand that simple principle tells me that you still have a lot to learn about the real world.
I live in Portland. I've been confronted face to face by plenty of you assholes over the past few years.
Somehow I'm still walking free. I must be the exception that proves the rule
Thank you for making the point that "punch a Nazi" is really really bad because assholes like YOU immediately conflate everyone who disagrees with you with Nazis too.
But so you're saying that you've assaulted many people already for no reason. You weren't sttacked, you weren't defending yourself, you simply saw someone with an opinion or attitude that you didn't like, and you assaulted them.
Yeah, you're a horrible violent criminal and you should be in jail. Probably get mental help too. In any case, you're much much worse than your average neonazi
I was confronted by checks notes um. Nazis. Proud Boys, Patriot Front... literal same shit. They came into my city and menaced people. I didn't seek them out.
I'm still here and thriving. Somehow your heroes are all getting jailed.
Shitty Nazi apologists thinking I'm an awful person isn't the drunk you think it is
"Look Nazis are bad, but if you do anything about it, even if it's to protect yourself or some one else! Then you're the bad guy!"
I really hope you're just naive and not a concern troll.
That bit, right there, is what totally changes the scenario from the person you were replying to. Presuming by "protect" you mean protecting from physical violence, and not only from words.
Wait until you see the manifestos from all of the shooters. Punch nazis. The nazi to violence pipeline is not theoretical.
Words if used irresponsibly enough are a form of violence.
Words can be violence for sure. If i were to replace this comment with just the block-quote and "/s", moderators would justifiably light my ass up. People should not be expected to figure out if I was joking after threating their lives.
Indeed
So, when you are talking about using violence "to protect yourself or some one else", you mean protecting them from someone saying something you oppose, and we're back to arguing that if you don't like what someone is saying you should be allowed to assault them, because speech has consequences.
Recruiting people to suppress the rights of others and sending thinly veiled threats to minorities is a form of violence bra
Save that for a judge, I'd love to see you try
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_in_the_United_States - I haven't done anything wrong, so I'm not going to court, but someone else already did.
So I'm free to declare you a Nazi and assault you, right? After all, nazis are bad, and I'm just protecting myself from what I perceived as your ideology
You do know when Richard Spencer got the punch he was literally in the middle of giving a speech on how being Alt-Right is "Totally cool bro" and explaining how the character he stole from someone else's comic book is "More than a cartoon frog, but a symbol of how many people we need to gas to death to bring Hitler back"
So your answer to political violence is more political violence?
Totally. Just say "so much for the tolerant left" or "antifa are the real Nazis"
No one has ever done that before
Real talk: what are you "protecting yourself" from? How hast thou been persecuted? Trans people are people? You can't tell racist jokes anymore without people thinking you're an asshole? Come down off the cross, holmes
Nazis. I'm protecting myself from nazis. And you just described why I, some random asshole you don't know, shouldn't be allowed to declare someone a Nazi and assault them. This is why we have a legal system instead of mob rule.
People are probably better at explaining this than I, but I personally would only be violently-defensive is when its clear (mabe even easy for an random person off the street to agree that) an intimidation or harassment campagn, power grab or other violent attacks on basic liberties is happening.
The problem is everyone has a different metric for that, and not everyone's metric is a good one. The Jan 6 people thought they justified too. They were wrong and so is the person I was replying to. This is why we have a legal system. We all agreed on a metric, we all agreed that the state should have a monopoly on violence when that metric is met.
I never said any of the such and you either know it and are lying or you're too dumb to understand.
If a neo nazi, or just anyone attacks you and you punch him, it's self defense.
If you walk up to a neo Nazi and punch him for no reason whatsoever beyond "I don't like his opinions" then you'll get arrested and you'll be convicted of assault and battery. It. Is. That. Simple.
You can armchair hero all you want about how big bad you would punch those evil Nazis but that is all bullshit and you know it. I've had too many discussions now with too many people like you who are so brave on the internet but in front of an actual neo nazi your piss your pants.
Yes, ooh, Nazis are bad, I had no idea. However, we live in a civil society where EVERYONE has rights, even those with thoughts and opinions that we don't like, even neo Nazis. If you don't like that then guess what? That means you have racist opinions and you're the same as what you hate so badly.
So grow up, stip bragging on the internet how brave you are and get with the real world where you can't just punch a person.
Let me get this straight...you think that if someone is intolerant of racists, that makes them racist?
No, and you didn't read anything I wrote because I literally didn't say any of that, not sure why you're making stuff up.
I say that if you ASSAULT somebody because of their admittedly shitty opinions, that you're the bad guy and are going to jail.
That and that I'm getting slightly tired of all those armchair internet heroes in mamas basement getting hard peepees over fantasizing how they would beat up Nazis. Never mind most of them would piss their pants when standing next to an actual Dangerous person.
Can you elaborate more then, on this quote of yours?
'we live in a civil society where EVERYONE has rights, even those with thoughts and opinions that we don't like, even neo Nazis. If you don't like that then guess what? That means you have racist opinions and you're the same as what you hate so badly.'
Elaborate where? It's pretty clear: everyone has rights, limitations and obligations. You do not have the right to assault people for having opinions that you (nor me) don't like. Yes, neo-nazis are dickless assholes, yaddah, you still don't have the right to assault them.
It's not that complicated
But how does that equate to one having racist opinions?
I don't really understand what is so hard to understand. Yes, racism is bad, racists are bad, neo-nazis are bad, all correct.
It's also all irrelevant
The moment you punch somebody in the face it's over, you are the bad one. You committed assault and battery and if the victim (yes, now you turned a Nazi into a victim, great going!) decides to press charges, depending on the injuries you caused, you might be the one ending up in jail.
If you tell a judge "but it's okay to punch neo-Nazis!" The judge might just be annoyed enough to slap a few extra months on your sentence so that you'll learn that it is not okay to assault anyone for their shitty opinions, period.
If somebody is threatening a group of people with a gun and you punch him to next Friday, that is a different thing and has nothing to do with that person being a neo-nazi or not, but nobody talks about that here. Everyone here says it's okay to punch Nazi's (Nazi's don't even exist, it's neo Nazis) and they're all wrong. It doesn't matter if it's Europe or the US or Canada or hell, even Mexico.
You punch, you wrong.
What is so hard to understand about that? Why do these armchair heroes (who, again, would piss their pants standing next to actual neo Nazis) keep fantasizing about assaulting people and then get an applause for that from police and judges?
Are you all 15 or something? What is it that I'm missing?
I understand the point you are trying to make, but how does that make you have racist opinions?
I don't
I think you misunderstood. I am asking you to clarify your prior statement acusing those who don't tolerate nazis of having racist opinions themselves.
You do know that "Send the jews back to camp! Race war now!" is not an opinion I, or ANYONE ELSE, should have to respect right?
Did I say you have to agree with racists? Did I say anywhere that you should have respect for neo Nazis?
I said: STOP FANTASIZING ABOUT ASSAULTING PEOPLE FOR THEIR SHITTY OPINIONS! First off you'd piss your pants in the real world, second you'd get your ass handed if you did and if you didn't, you'd go to jail for assault and yes: YOU WOULD BE THE BAD GUY, NOT THE NEO NAZI
Stop fantasizing about carrying water for the Fourth Reich
Save that for a judge, I'd love to see you make that argument
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_in_the_United_States - Someone else already did
I try to quell the hoard by saying "defensive means violence to those who intend your innocent negbor to get assulted, violated and killed because he exists. Its not vauge." But some minds are sadly closed.
Thanks for the link, this whole thread is a shitshow
No one is saying you have to respect the racist idiot. Just that it's not self defense to attack someone for saying it, it's assault. BIG difference.