EnglishEdward
Deity
And similarly future human travel into deep space will no doubt be improved by those who claim the Appollo lunar landings were faked.
Punching Nazis
- Thread starter Hygro
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And similarly future human travel into deep space will no doubt be improved by those who claim the Appollo lunar landings were faked.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
Mouthwash is talking about historiography, not practice. The point is that, by picking over the histories and records of the Holocaust for the slightest inconsistencies, Holocaust deniers do in their own perverse way contribute to the refinement of Holocaust scholarship. It's harder to argue that people fussing over the shadows in old photographs have much to contribute to aerospace engineering.
Given the heritage of the poster you're quoting, I think we should extend the benefit of the doubt in assuming that, if he finds that anti-Semites can contribute to some greater good, he understands that this is despite their own best efforts, rather than because they're actually not so bad after all.
I don't necessarily agree, and in fact I'd tend to think that scholars could do all the good that Holocaust deniers might do with a tenth of the effort they have to spent refuting their conspiracy theories, but "wrong" doesn't mean "implicitly Hitlerish".
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Lexicus
Deity
I must be furnished with examples before I'll believe it
metalhead
Angry Bartender
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I think it's eminently reasonable, but I'm not necessarily talking about anything Donald Trump is, as much as what he represents to the types of people that believe this white supremacist garbage. And that we can judge by their own words - they believe he is an ally. They believe he represents their issues. Nazi or not, these people think he is useful in furthering their agenda. That gives them reason to be bold, to seek mainstream acceptance of their ideas.
Reason necessarily fails in combating inherently unreasonable people spewing inherently unreasonable garbage. It's a big part of the reason why you can justify mild violence in this case - if reason were a viable alternative for fighting these people and their ideas, their ideas would have died a long time ago. You could fight their mainstreaming with simple reason and logic, and then yes - no need to condone punching them. But it doesn't work that way.
Right, but when you word it like that, it makes it seem like the advocacy is for silencing minority opinions in general, not just in this specific case. It has the connotation that the problem is that the opinion is a minority one, not solely with the content of the opinion itself. This may not have been your intent, but that's how it came across.
They are small and powerless, but now actively seeking greater power and acceptance where they weren't before. That's the crisis point. A couple of years ago you could ignore these people, let them say their piece, perhaps even laugh at them. But things are different now. The threat is realer than perhaps a lot of people understand, but I assure you, it's real. The mainstreaming of this garbage has to be resisted, and reason simply doesn't do the trick, I'm afraid.
Manfred Belheim
Moaner Lisa
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It doesn't matter what they believe if they're mistaken. If he's not their ally, and doesn't represent their issues (and despite your claim that it's eminently reasonable to assume he is a Nazi, I am spectacularly unconvinced of this) then it doesn't matter what they believe. He's in charge, not them. They have no power. They don't get power just by liking the incumbent president.
Where did I say that "reason and logic" were the only alternatives to violence? I'm saying there are many opportunities to stop a tiny minority of people with objectionable view becoming a fascist elite who actually enact genocide. There are so, so many steps in between those two states and we have so many checks and balances to stop that ever happening. You don't have to reason with them and politely ask them not to take power, because they do not have the numbers or the means to do so, and are so unbelievably unlikely ever to do so. And even if you do have to resort to reason and logic, you don't have to convince THEM of anything at all, you only have to convince everyone else that your argument is better which, despite what you may think of Trump voters or other right wingers, is a battle you don't even need to fight. Newsflash: most people, by far, are not in favour of genocide. Does that really need saying?
So not only is punching these people completely unnecessary and ineffectual, but your outright glee in advocating for it probably does more harm than good, even more so if it actually starts happening in earnest. You just look like the kind of violent authoritarians you're supposedly against and that can only serve to push away those people who were already on your side (at least on this issue) in the first place. It's a stupid, stupid advocacy and does you no favours whatsoever. None.
No. I said punching people in the face (or minor acts of individual violence in general I suppose) is only going to be an effective tool against silencing minority opinions. That's a general statement about the limits of the usefulness of such a tactic. It says nothing about intent or justification or scope or anything else. It's not about your advocacy for using the tactic, or what minority opinions you would see it used against, as that should already be clear from the context of the conversation in which we were only discussion one specific minority opinion to begin with. It's a clear general statement about the usefulness of a tool, nothing more. It may be how it came across to you, but I don't accept that my wording suggests as such unless you're misreading it.
It doesn't matter what they're seeking, they're not going to get it. There is no crisis point and you're overstating the danger. The only plausible danger lies in the current widespread advocacy for random acts of violence against these people who currently pose no threat to anyone, and are not being violent themselves. It puts them in the sympathetic light. Look at this thread. Look at videos and articles popping up all over the place that are already defending BLOODY NAZIS, and attacking people like you, simply because of what you're saying. YOU'RE causing that. Imagine if none of this was going on and you'd started a thread simply entitles "so who wants to come and defend Nazis?" - do you really think that anyone besides possibly a couple of the more "out there" posters would have had any truck with that? Do you think there'd be a spate of popular videos by non-Nazis publically sticking up for the rights of Nazis, and appeals to recognise their humanity? Of course not. You're shooting yourself in the foot and you don't even see it. But even with you doing that I still think there's barely any danger of genuine fascism and genocide appearing on the horizon any time soon, so I guess... fill your boots. But if it gets to the stage where that starts to look like it's a possibility don't be surprised if people start punching you.
Regardless of Trump obviously being reckless and a clown, it is sort of irrational at the moment to claim he results in worse than what the recent presidents of US did. More clearly W, who can logically be held responsible for the global collapse after 2001, with his massive wars and police state laws in the US.
I can see how Obama can be logically argued to be better, but then again even under Obama there were US wars and more mayhem against various countries.
I can see how Obama can be logically argued to be better, but then again even under Obama there were US wars and more mayhem against various countries.
Naskra
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The type of vigilante censorship people are proposing here was one of the early tools used by Nazis in their rise to power - and one of the first signs they were a danger to civilization. Those opposed to Nazism ought not to be so eager to adopt Nazi methods.
Manfred Belheim
Moaner Lisa
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Are you using "shun" as a synonym for "physically assault"?
metalhead
Angry Bartender
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If. Trump's chief strategist is on the record as having given these people a platform. They are useful to a demagogue, and their devotion actually does give them power. We live in a democracy, after all. Trump loves his loyal voters most of all. These people have his ear through conduits like Bannon and Stephen Miller. They most definitely have power, and their power will only grow if they are able to grow in number - and they are actively attempting to do just this.
They don't walk around calling themselves Nazis, by the way. They're not stupid, they know how that sounds. That's part of why people like Richard Spencer are so insidious. They're currently trying to rebrand themselves as "alt-right," to give their movement more legitimacy, make it more palatable to the general public. There is obviously a reason for this - they want to grow. They are actively trying to grow. And they don't need everyone joining up to necessarily agree with their more radical policy stances. Doesn't mean they can't get greater numbers on board, giving them more power. More people with access to the president - you sure you don't see where that's a threat?
Saying they aren't going to get what they want is insufficient. Punching them actually calls attention to what they really are. If nothing else, it's an effective counter to their attempts to legitimize themselves. And hopefully cows them into going away.
bernie14
Filter Manipulator
Bullseye.....i know, it's ridiculous, preposterous even.... yet, aren't you the one who proposed that protests and non violence are catagorically (well, almost always) inconsistent ?
The "categorical imperative" is not really worthy of being termed a philosophical notion, anyway. Afaik even Freud approached it as some compulsion. (not that Freud doesn't have an ocean of problematic views, but Kant also does ).
So has this actually been said ever?
Yes, actually. "The intolerant left" and such tripe.
Actually I believe it was on this very forum. Perhaps even earlier in this thread.
edit: I know it was on this forum. I forget the topic. Someone tried to redefine bigotry.
Actually I believe it was on this very forum. Perhaps even earlier in this thread.
edit: I know it was on this forum. I forget the topic. Someone tried to redefine bigotry.
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Well, I have never heard anyone on this side of the culture war suggest that shunning racists is a bad thing. That's the strategy they advocate in lieu of punching them.
Lexicus
Deity
Yeah, if by "shunning" you mean "voting for"
aelf
Ashen One
That's not what a categorical imperative means and it's not what I said. What I said is explicitly in opposition to any rationalist position on the issue. Empirically speaking, the likelihood of protest leading to violence makes it unrealistic to support protest but be opposed to any protest that involve any amount of violence.
An in the workplace. If kids can be assaulted, misbehaving adults should also be fair game.
There are two very distinct issues here, one about violence, the other about trolls like Milo:
1) Imo violence in the case of not self-defense (or not self-defense as a tenuous ground; ie people may think they have to be violent to avoid worse things, but this has to be examined on a case by case basis and isn't always true obviously) shouldn't be acceptable.
2) Milo is a really bad troll. As in garbage posting*. But he didn't just appear out of thin air; that the overall ludicrous media culture facilitates this idiocy from both "right-wing" and "left-wing" trolls, or even believers/swj/anti-swj is the issue here. Removing Milo alone won't mean anything; someone else will step forward to do the same or analogous. The whole debate from "both" sides is of a stupid and (by now) dangerous level.
*Maher, himself megalomaniac and sort of a troll (but not entirely one, and neither a fraud), was very correct in likening Milo to Coen's persona "Bruno", cause this looks like an act.
Infact i don't think i have seen any media figure there (not that i know many US media figures) present some opinion at the same time honest and commendable/caring. Another "right wing" jerk is that pro-Israel guy (don't recall his name, saw him on Piers--another jerk
-- some thin jewish guy with black hair and glasses) who comedically attacks Milo arguing that Milo is the extreme while he is logical. No, this is another effect of having jerks and/or morons doing the debate.
1) Imo violence in the case of not self-defense (or not self-defense as a tenuous ground; ie people may think they have to be violent to avoid worse things, but this has to be examined on a case by case basis and isn't always true obviously) shouldn't be acceptable.
2) Milo is a really bad troll. As in garbage posting*. But he didn't just appear out of thin air; that the overall ludicrous media culture facilitates this idiocy from both "right-wing" and "left-wing" trolls, or even believers/swj/anti-swj is the issue here. Removing Milo alone won't mean anything; someone else will step forward to do the same or analogous. The whole debate from "both" sides is of a stupid and (by now) dangerous level.
*Maher, himself megalomaniac and sort of a troll (but not entirely one, and neither a fraud), was very correct in likening Milo to Coen's persona "Bruno", cause this looks like an act.
Infact i don't think i have seen any media figure there (not that i know many US media figures) present some opinion at the same time honest and commendable/caring. Another "right wing" jerk is that pro-Israel guy (don't recall his name, saw him on Piers--another jerk
-- some thin jewish guy with black hair and glasses) who comedically attacks Milo arguing that Milo is the extreme while he is logical. No, this is another effect of having jerks and/or morons doing the debate.
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