When “Punch a Nazi” Goes Wrong
tracingwoodgrains.substack.com
tracingwoodgrains.substack.com
1. People are using false nazi accusations to justify violent infighting and harrassment between people on the same side of the political spectrum.
2. People on the right are largely unaffected because they have their own support structures that work independently
3. It's justified that figures like count dankula pitch rightward when faced with persecution and left-leaning public opinion turns on them. This is the only way they can sustain and get support. Attempting to stay true to your beliefs is self destructive in these cases. Therefore on the other side of the coin, the people on the left doing it are sabotaging their "side" to satisfy personal vendettas, and people caught doing it would in a perfect world become targets of public hatred instead of their victims.
In April 2016, Meechan posted a video on YouTube of his girlfriend's pet pug Buddha titled "M8 Yer Dugs A Nazi". At the start of the video, he says: "My girlfriend is always ranting and raving about how cute and adorable her wee dog is so I thought I would turn him into the least cute thing I could think of, which is a Nazi."
Meechan was arrested on suspicion of breaching the Communications Act 2003. On 19 March 2018, Meechan was convicted of breaching the act by Sheriff Derek O'Carroll at Airdrie Sheriff Court.[21] The court ruled that Meechan's claim that the video was a joke intended for his girlfriend "lacked credibility" as Meechan's girlfriend did not subscribe to the YouTube channel to which the video was posted.
Meechan was scrutinised for embracing support from right-wing figures Alex Jones and Tommy Robinson, to which he replied: "Imagine totally abandoning protecting human rights, just because someone you don't like is defending them too. Astounding."
BBC Scotland planned to feature Meechan in a 2019 debate program, The Collective, and had him film two episodes. However, the network announced that these episodes would not be aired after a backlash over the announcement.
The phenomenon is called: The left is eating itself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
Viewpoints that include the eradication of a specific race or peoples are largely incompatible with modern society. These people welcome the attention a "debate" provides because it elevates their platform. The best course of action would typically be ignoring them, but our current media platforms thrive on this controversy. There are also some people who pride themselves on being unsteerable, and incitement is the point (the numerous mass shooters in the US claiming to attempt a race war).
I think the "punch a nazi" rhetoric mostly exists because of frustration of watching an uptick in white supremacy and the general feeling that an individual can't do anything about it.
This isn't really solved by punching Nazis, though. It's just adding to the controversy.
If I ran a social network using any of those words would start a 24 hour cooling off period. (1) There are a lot of other words these people could use the same thing to describe post-1945 movements, and (2) even if you take away that word for pre-1945 movements the benefits of eliminating (1) are large enough to justify it.
Non-violence is always the place to start, but anti-fascists should not have their hands tied if more is necessary. The WWII resistance groups were more than justified.
The more complete argument is that extra-judicial action is justified when there is no other way - such as when the political process cannot effect change.
If there are no just elections, the only way to remove a ruler is revolution, almost by definition. In that case, “punch the Nazis” all you like.
No part of the post you’re replying to suggests they want to pursue or support tyranny. If some right-wing kooks justify revolution with demonstrably false statements, that does not justify their actions - falsehoods are never a foundation of justice.
perhaps anti-fascists see the fight for a just and equitable society to be more than that. the people i've worked with who organize for a better society don't tend to live lives like you see in a movie or comic. they're out there feeding the homeless, starting scholarship funds, and teaching people how to garden.
(BTW, I know people at a baptist church that many people would accuse of being “fascist” because of their religion who do all three of those things you say.)
The Nazis weren't totally against charitable works. They were against charitable works that benefitted "inferior" humans.
with things like civil asset forfeiture, qualified immunity, "thin blue line", use of decommissioned military equipment, "law and order" "america first" politics (I can go on)... it's not that big of a stretch to believe something like this despite not being entirely accurate... in many ways it quacks like a duck
"Police Chief Pat Flannelly said Officer Joseph Zacharek, hired in June, was called into the police station Friday night after claims started showing up on social media that he was linked to Iron March, a neo-Nazi forum disbanded in 2017 but that had its database exposed on the internet in late 2019."
Yay that he was fired, but how many haven't?
How do you define "appropriate" and how do you possibly justify initiating violence?
Tolerance is not the only other alternative. You can vehemently oppose extremist opinions through debate without resorting to physical assault.
Do you support people assaulting teachers advocating for transgenderism? Others see that as an assault on children and view themselves as defending kids. Is bombing abortion clinics ok? Is violence ok on both sides of the political spectrum or just one?
I'm a Jew, I just laugh when I see a crowd of 10 inbred people waving Nazi flags on the side of the road. Violence against those committing violence against me and mine is always justified. Words though are not violence. Modern day America is not 1930s Germany.
We have multiple law enforcement agencies and prosecutors eager to engage those actively planning physical attacks on minorities, we don't need vigilante thought police.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/mar/18/daryl-davis-bl...
“Debate” is one of the words I hate the most these days, it brings back memories of high school debates where you didn’t necessarily believe in your position and the whole idea was that somebody was going to “win”.
A certain kind of right-winger uses the word “debate” mindlessly the same way some left-wingers use “nazi” mindlessly for instance there was the headline “How can we have a debate if we don’t use the same language?”
So often a staged “debate” is an attempt to legitimize an absurd position such as the bad theology of creationism or
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Velikovsky
an associated “bad smell” is that idea that something said to be controversial is necessarily good or interesting because it is said to be controversial.
You don’t change people’s minds about things like racism or LGBTQ acceptance through having a one-time confrontation with winners or losers, you do it through the much slower process of seeing people’s humanity.
i don't think anyone sees the global struggle for justice as a one-time confrontation.
Edit: However, as the article goes to show, the evidence appears very much against the notion that the victim here was a Nazi, or even right-wing in any way, so the violence here was totally unjustified.
Only really works when the government isn't sympathetic to the Nazis, though.
People hate being wrong, and people will just make things up and take things out of context to make themselves right.
You're starting to get it. This is why vigilantism is a crime.
First, of course, what if that person isn't actually a Nazi? Either mistakenly or maliciously labeled Nazi.
Second, for every boost you get punching a Nazi, a Nazi gets the same boost for punching a Jew or a black person. All you have done is justify their action.
No, not at all.
And how well has deplatforming been doing? We tried deplatforming the alt-right for the last decade, and all we've gotten is trump elected, various terrorist attacks, and the jan 6th riots.
Your use of "deplatforming" seems refer to people/communities/organizations getting kicked off sites or commercial service providers, but the comment I replied to was arguing "To debate a Nazi is to give them a platform" which is a broader set of actions. Maybe "deplatforming" is the wrong word to use here, but "refusing to engage alt-right people in debate or giving them recognition" far predates trump's election.
>Most of the research into the matter has said that deplatforming has worked pretty well, actually.
Source? By what metric?
1) https://www.adl.org/resources/report/bad-gateway-how-deplatf... 2) https://twitter.com/gwensnyderPHL/status/1170818436202737667 3) https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3479525
It's a good thing you disagree with the premise that you be allowed a valid first chance, or else i might have to consider a reality in which you might be an innocent bystander. But no, into the nazi bin you go.
I, too, looked through your parent's comment history (their "post history" is blank) and couldn't find what you are referring to. Could you post a link, perhaps?
The only thing I could find is this: "Being gay doesn't give you a free pass to wave swastika flags."
Seriously, these Nazi/Commie disputes manifest themselves in strange Windows/Linux disputes, iOS/Android disputes, Tesla/The World disputes, and so forth. In my mind it's all the same and there are many characters involved behaving in this same way.
It seems like commenters took off in a wild direction because the story was the person being punched was not a Nazi.
This touches a nerve for me.
I've taken a lot of shit on reddit in arguments where I was opposed to conservative people. I left angry, but mostly fine. Arguments where I was opposed to progressive people, on the other hand, left me really fucking shaken. People got vicious. One dug up some things I had said five years before which I'm not proud of, which everybody else took as permission to assume I was deeply racist and that was the only possible explanation for anything I said.
That kind of immediate casual contempt in a community you otherwise mostly align with, where you previously felt safe speaking your mind, can be pretty damn startling.