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Comment by hirundo | Hacker News Reader

When an Antifa member punches someone who they identify as a white nationalist, at best they can make them shut up for a while. At worst the violence is reciprocated disproportionately. If instead the Antifa would attempt to befriend that person and to have good faith dialogues with them, they would at least have the potential to actually reduce racism, and reduce hatred on both sides.

Ideally, the result could be one less Nazi puncher and one less Nazi. And with dialog, maybe they'd discover that not every political disagreement reveals a "white nationalist".

But I suspect that for many, that would be a whole lot less fun.

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I do not want to see brown shirts patrolling the streets. Antifa is effectively creating them from thin air.

>The name Sturmabteilung was first used in late 1921 when it was led by Captain Pfeiffer von Salomon. Because speaking in public was potentially a dangerous matter when politics was concerned, the original task of the SA was to protect Hitler as such events usually attracted the Communists and frequently ended in violence and disorder. This played into Hitler’s hands as many members of the SA were from the old German Army and knew how to cope during such incidents. When fights broke out the Weimar police appeared powerless and law and order was usually restored by the SA. This gave Hitler the lever he needed to claim that the Weimar regime lacked leadership and power while he was the one person who could restore Germany to law and order.

Which puts all the onus on the "not a fucking Nazi" half (not actually half antifa is wildly outnumbered) of the equation while not holding the "fucking Nazi" half to any standards re: not murdering people.

Contrarily this story starts out with the KKK member approaching and being civil to the black man.

Antifa and Nazis are both extreme fringe groups and not representative of a majority of society.

It would behoove everyone to think about that when reading about them; both extremes receive an amount of attention disproportionate to their actual amount of influence.

And by punching the Nazi, now it's a major news story with two "equal" sides instead of a footnote about a crazy dude in the subway.

Well neo-nazis believe that they are the alpha race and everyone else is subhuman/inferior. And who worships a regime that tried to exterminate quite a few of them. I’m not sure what the equal and opposite extreme to that is.

This is like the equivocating 45 is currently doing by framing fascists and antifascists as opposite sides of the coin.

Antifa believe they are morally superior to everyone else and use it to justify violence and oppression, so it is a fairly appropriate comparison. I can easily see the movement turn to killing if left unchecked.

interesting to hear Antifa feel they are ethically superior to everyone else.

my take has been that Antifa feel they are ethically superior to conservative/nazi/white supremacist/KKK demonstrators and that violence is the best policy.

it seems to me that most special interest groups in the US feel they are ethically superior to others, but they do not feel that violence is an acceptable, much less the best policy.

But surely Antifa has no problem whatsoever with firmer Nazis and racists that renounce their former beliefs and adopt more moderate views. Would you agree that Nazis and racists, by the nature of their beliefs, are not capable of offering the same accommodation while remaining racists and Nazis?

Can’t upvote enough. Antifa make themselves much more like their opposition than they think by resorting to violence. It’s a whole lot more fun to think of yourself on this grandoise crusade-battle. The irony.

This has been my position on the "check your privilege" rhetoric for many years now. I've rarely found people who share my perspective on this and I'm heartened to see this perspective shared here.

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