Punching Nazis

[Bugfatty300]

Yeah, well, the problem is it's hard to say for sure when it would've been very important to punch Nazis. By the time you begrudgingly admit that Nazis should be violently resisted, it might be too late. We have the historical precedence to know that Nazis are evil and dangerous, and that by the time it comes to all out street battles it was difficult to stop them.

I don't know if punching Richard Spencer now is the correct thing to do, but I suspect discussing it is an academic exercise. Broadly, I think punching Nazis is acceptable, but I don't think the act of punching someone lends itself well to intellectual or cost/benefit analysis anyway.

Morally acceptable maybe but is it a good idea to swing fists at figureheads of an ideology filled with many unhinged violent extremists who don't care if they die or to prisonl. As far as violence is concerned: The nazi punchers will seemingly be blundering into a match against opponents well above their weight class. In general, I don't think anti-racist activists have it in them to match the level of violence and savagery that neo-nazism can bring to bear.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Morally acceptable maybe but is it a good idea to swing fists at figureheads of an ideology filled with many unhinged violent extremists who don't care if they die or to prisonl. As far as violence is concerned: The nazi punchers will seemingly be blundering into a match against opponents well above their weight class. In general, I don't think anti-racist activists have it in them to match the level of violence and savagery that neo-nazism can bring to bear.

There are exceptions, but you are probably correct in general.

 

[aelf]

It really depends on the situation. The Jews were clearly at a disadvantage against the Nazis, but in the 1930s, some were able to protect their communities against Nazi thugs.

Obviously, this is a lot easier when there aren't so many Nazis, so by the time you wait till there are a lot of them, it might be too late. Besides, the left wing isn't limited to anti-racist activists and there are many strains that weren't at all gentle.

 

[Berzerker]

I have no knowledge, and claimed none. You on the other hand are staking your own word in the matter retroactively on the very dubious source of "well the trial found this," and did so as if your word brooked no argument.

So your criticism is based on ignorance? The trial only confirmed my interpretation of the evidence and apparently had no effect on you. Weren't you debating this back then with us? I find your claim of no knowledge incredulous. But if you have no knowledge then how do you know the trial is a very dubious source? Why are you even talking about this if you have no knowledge?

Lexicus said Martin was killed for walking, he provided no source. I did... But in your total lack of knowledge you decided I was wrong and in need of your unpleasant non-rebuttal. The trial showed Zimmerman lost Martin and told a police dispatcher at the time. Is the recording very dubious? The trial also showed Martin was in hiding, which is why Zimmerman lost him. Martin was talking to a friend about Zimmerman. She wanted him to run, he didn't wanna run. He confronted him instead, why are you following me?

Alternative facts are required for the narrative

 

[Berzerker]

punching nazis is great... you disagree? Get the nazi sympathizer!

the guy who threw the punch is a coward

 

[Traitorfish]

Nazis are bad people. They are people. Some of them were good people who became bad people. If they weren't people they would be a lot less dangerous.

I'm not disputing that the Nazis are people, just that they're not human. They walk and talk and wear hats, everything other people get up to, but humanity is a community, and it's one which they voluntarily resigned themselves from when they decided that people can live and die on the basis of race. (After all, nobody would be more disgusted by a suggestion of common humanity between Nazi and Jew than a Nazi.) So hand-wringing about the humanity of Nazis is misplaced and misguided, because the only genuinely humanist response to a group like that is their dissolution, whatever that might come to mean.

Giving Nazis a platform isn't resisting them. Leaving them out in the cold is resisting them.

A looping gif of some fashy haircut getting smacked in the gob isn't much of a platform, though. Not the kind that said haircut would have asked for.

 

[Lohrenswald]

 

[Timsup2nothin]

So your criticism is based on ignorance?

Indeed. Yours.

To make a definitive statement of the "you are wrong and I am right" form, as you did in jumping on Lexicus, when you have no direct knowledge and the court findings that you are subsequently claiming as source have been relegated by history to the "dubious at best" category was ignorant. No one posting on this forum is in a position to say with any certainty what happened there.

 

[bernie14]

I'm not disputing that the Nazis are people, just that they're not human. They walk and talk and wear hats, everything other people get up to, but humanity is a community, and it's one which they voluntarily resigned themselves from when they decided that people can live and die on the basis of race. (After all, nobody would be more disgusted by a suggestion of common humanity between Nazi and Jew than a Nazi.) So hand-wringing about the humanity of Nazis is misplaced and misguided, because the only genuinely humanist response to a group like that is their dissolution, whatever that might come to mean.

what a wonderful example of groupthink....humanity is a community of individuals....ok so nazis don’t deserve to live because of their ideology of exterminating a race, individuals who, according to nazis, have certain undesirable traits ....maybe marxists don't deserve to live because they want to exterminate individual will and attainment/accomplishment? (which group has so far killed more people with their failed ideology?) ....it is much easier to discard some "fragment" of a community which is not healthy for the collective, no?....greater good and all that....you can argue the rightness or wrongness of these ideas, no matter, it will always be easier to kill the subhuman.....and whether right or wrong...don't really matter if you end up on the side with better (or worse) guns.

 

[JollyRoger]

I would rather punch a Nazi than defend one.

 

[Synobun]

It seems as though a critical error being made by those pro-punch is assuming that those anti-punch are explicitly pro-Nazi.

 

[Mustakrakish]

Well obviously it's good to stay safe when punching Nazis

If when you punch someone they put you in the hospital you need to work on that. More than ninety percent of fights are won by whoever punches first. If you are consistently in the ten percent you should sit out.

Well if it's a REALLY big nazi? You'd risk that first punch?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Well if it's a REALLY big nazi? You'd risk that first punch?

If I'm gonna punch a Nazi I'm not going to be choosy about it...and as a student of history I almost always will throw the first punch rather than buck those long odds.

 

[Akka]

I'm not disputing that the Nazis are people, just that they're not human. They walk and talk and wear hats, everything other people get up to, but humanity is a community, and it's one which they voluntarily resigned themselves from when they decided that people can live and die on the basis of race. (After all, nobody would be more disgusted by a suggestion of common humanity between Nazi and Jew than a Nazi.) So hand-wringing about the humanity of Nazis is misplaced and misguided, because the only genuinely humanist response to a group like that is their dissolution, whatever that might come to mean.

You're just trying to emotionally load a word to express your disgust. That's rather pointless.
Nazi are terrible persons, with a disgusting ideology which is not only repulsive on moral ground, but also nonsensical. That's enough to know they are horrible, there is no need to try to redefine "human" to exclude them. It's not like humans can't be horrible, even without being nazis, sadly it's nothing new under the sun.

 

[Berzerker]

I would rather punch a Nazi than defend one.

you're a lawyer?

 

[W|M]

It seems as though a critical error being made by those pro-punch is assuming that those anti-punch are explicitly pro-Nazi.

They're not explicitly pro-Nazi, they're implicitly pro-Nazi. Either way, it's wrong to be against punching Nazis

 

[Hygro]

They're not explicitly pro-Nazi, they're implicitly pro-Nazi. Either way, it's wrong to be against punching Nazis

Hygro: it's wrong to empower Nazis.
west india man: it's right to empower Nazis if we get to punch them first.

 

[W|M]

I don't see where I said or implied that

 

[Commodore]

They're not explicitly pro-Nazi, they're implicitly pro-Nazi. Either way, it's wrong to be against punching Nazis

You're not real big on the concept of free speech, are you?

I don't see where I said or implied that

That's the problem.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

You're not real big on the concept of free speech, are you?

I'm not real big on the waving of "but free speech" as if it were a magic wand, especially when the application is particularly dubious. If I don't like what someone has to say and I cut their tongue out with a pocketknife I haven't "infringed their right to free speech." I'm not the government. I don't represent the government. There is absolutely nothing about the statement "the congress shall pass no law infringing upon the right to free speech" that has the slightest thing to do with me.

People who wave the "but free speech" wand are the ones that always seem to me to not only "not be big on" but to actually not even understand the concept.