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Comment by deadbeeves | Hacker News Reader

Nazis are not monsters, they're people just like you. Their existence does not cause suffering per se, and punching a Nazi does not reduce suffering, it increases it. If you think a particular worldview is inherently evil you're not going to eradicate it by dehumanizing those who adhere to it and advocating for violence against them. The only way to achieve that is to get them to understand that they're wrong, and to do that you need to engage with them as human beings.

Needless to say, tolerating Nazis does not mean tolerating all actions inspired by Nazism.

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> Nazis are not monsters, they're people just like you.

No, actually, they are monsters. Just like Jeffrey Dahmer was a monster. Pointing out that he is not that different from me is an utterly absurd equivocation.

> Their existence does not cause suffering per se

Their existence as some kind of side-effect-free theoretical-spherical-cow, no. The things they do that make them nazis, as opposed to some other group of people, like, say, a knitting club, yes.

A'ight. Good luck with that.

If you choose to uphold an ideology, then you are taking responsibility for its consequences. Nazism is inherently violent, so resisting it is merely defending the innocent. After that it boils down to tactics: Punching a Nazi is a somewhat ineffective strategy, but it does tend to drive them out of the public sphere where they can gain legitimacy and the power to enact their evil. More permanent solutions are better.

I'm unclear on what your point is. It sounds like we're more or less in agreement. Unless you're saying Nazis should be executed for being Nazis.

"you're not going to eradicate it by dehumanizing those who adhere to it and advocating for violence against them. The only way to achieve that is to get them to understand that they're wrong" I think you need to read a history book on WW2, because that is definitely not what happened to get rid of Nazism.

Yet there are still Nazis.

In any meaningful sense?? Yeah, there are some edgy attention-seekers, but no, there are no longer real threatening Nazis.

If they're not threatening then there's no point in punching them, beyond perhaps satisfying one's own violent urges.

No? Not the guy who shot up a mall in May?

"Texas mall shooting: gunman expressed interest in neo-Nazi views – report"

Or the guy who shot up a dollar store

Or "Neo-Nazi Marine Plotted Mass Murder, Rape Campaigns with Group, Feds Say While tasked with protecting the nation, Matthew Belanger was plotting a killing spree against minorities and to rape “white women to increase the production of white children,” according to federal prosecutors"

Weird that you apparently feel compelled to downplay the threat.

Um, yeah, okay, there is a crazy dude who was engaged in violent asshole behavior. I don't see how it's helpful to get all outraged and apply Nazi labels.

Yet there are still Nazis

...in brigade-level strength, that liberals have been rooting for for almost two years now. Shrug. Don't waste time explaining this to them.

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