{"id":8422,"date":"2017-01-24T18:40:41","date_gmt":"2017-01-24T09:40:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/?p=8422"},"modified":"2017-04-12T10:35:06","modified_gmt":"2017-04-12T01:35:06","slug":"punching-nazis-yay-or-nay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/archives\/2017\/01\/24\/punching-nazis-yay-or-nay\/","title":{"rendered":"Punching Nazis: Yay or Nay?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The year is 2017, and voicing your concerns at the idea that vigilantes can just punch people<\/a> they disagree with, makes you slightly worse than Adolf Hitler.<\/p>\n

This whole discussion started on Twitter. Now summing-up and continuing in a medium where every nuanced argument does not have to fit in a neat 140 characters1<\/a><\/sup>This\u00a0other post<\/a> gave a good summary of my own thoughts on the matter. Unfortunately, with a\u00a0needless\u00a0anti-intellectual, leftwing-strawmaning tangent in\u00a0point 4.<\/span>.<\/p>\n

“Why do you love Nazis so much?”<\/h3>\n

If you remotely know me and utter that statement, you are being a glib arsehole.\u00a0If you don’t know me at all, you are still favouring ad hominem<\/em>\u00a0while completely missing the point. Either way, I am afraid there is just no point discussing further.<\/p>\n

“You aren’t a Nazi. You are way worse: you are an appeaser\u00a0<\/em>!”<\/h3>\n

Remember when Bush Jr used that term to attack people who opposed the war in Iraq<\/a>? Congratulations, you have just used a Dick Cheney talking point to justify the use of gratuitous violence.<\/p>\n

“Appeasing” does not mean what you think it means. Appeasement<\/a> was the cowardly policy of letting Hitler murder his people and invade neighbouring countries, in the hope that he would enjoy his victories and stop there. The farthest victories enjoyed by our 21st century nazi so far, has been\u00a0the ability to broadcast his spiteful bile to a bunch of basement-dwelling internet trolls and talking to the occasional moron\u00a0journalist (more on that in a minute). Your problem is with free speech and its limits, not “appeasement”.<\/p>\n

“Calling for genocide is not free speech.”<\/h3>\n

We are finally in somewhat-sane debating territory. And you are right: even the US’ extremely permissive free speech laws\u00a0prohibit incitement<\/a>. That’s great news: someone ought to drag this muppet to court and make an example out of him.<\/p>\n

Except: chances are, he never outright called for genocide, because like most semi-successful scumbags, he is smart enough to know how far he legally can go.<\/p>\n

Most of\u00a0his statements, however, would easily land him in a\u00a0European\u00a0court, where people are understandably more touchy about\u00a0the whole nazi-speech thing. I happen to lean with\u00a0Chomsky and\u00a0against\u00a0this attempt at legislating hate away<\/a>, but I\u00a0would not necessarily think that people on either side of that debate are freedom-haters or nazi-lovers\u2026<\/p>\n

The crucial word in all the above is “legal”. That bit of nazi-punching occurred in a country that enjoys a reasonably sturdy (if imperfect) legal framework that offers some decent amounts of protection from physical oppression\u00a0by civilians2<\/a><\/sup>Yes: with many systemic oppression issues.\u00a0But the sources of that oppression are overwhelmingly agents of authority, not sociopathic weirdos wearing a frog lapel pin.<\/span>. If you object to speech: you have legal recourses. If these recourses are lacking, you still have many options to fight back without resorting to punching. But the fact you don’t have legal recourses in a lawful state would be a good indication that you are not being directly threatened physically, and that’s where most people consider punching a no-no.<\/p>\n

“As a non-oppressed person, you are not entitled to have a position on this”<\/h3>\n

First, this\u00a0is a comically bad application for this argument. As a very-white, cis, hetero, able-bodied, financially-secure guy, there are very few discourses I could legitimately cry oppression about, and yet as it happens this is the one instance where I am fairly\u00a0sure I have a lot more personal\u00a0skin in that game than the sheltered black-bloc teenager\u00a0with anger\u00a0issues\u00a0who socked our nazi3<\/a><\/sup>Before you howl at my reductive\u00a0characterisation of typical black-block protesters, you better make sure you know what you are talking about. Because I was a stupid teenager once, and I have a pretty good first-hand idea.<\/span>.<\/p>\n

Moreover, that is an incredibly silly thing to respond to someone voicing concern about the legitimisation of violence in a civilian context: it might be relevant if I was defending\u00a0his right to free speech, but I am not. I am defending his right to not be punched, as long as he does not present a clear and present danger to anyone.<\/p>\n

“If punching people is off-limits, I guess you’d rather we engage nazis\u00a0and be nice\u00a0to them”<\/h3>\n

Actually no. There is a huge array of options between “engaging” (or even “tolerating”), and punching. My preferred option\u00a0by far<\/em>, would be to completely shun and ignore that sort of abhorrent but fringe views, and instead focus on the much more concrete\u00a0danger of a toxic authoritarian moron (and his cronies) heading one of the most powerful country on Earth. But I realise this is a lot more difficult\u00a0than reposting cool memes of a hateful leech getting repeatedly elbowed in the face,\u00a0to a cool beat.<\/p>\n

“That nazi is now a walking joke who has gone into\u00a0hiding and lives in fear: Punching Works!”<\/h3>\n

Ignoring the whole “end-justifies-means” angle for a second, even this tiny achievement is verifiably false: never has there been more mentions of him\u00a0in my social media feeds, the guy is now giving interviews left and right and featured in every single news outlet. Congratulations on giving a piece-of-shit nazi the kind of media exposure he could only ever dream of a week ago. Hope that meme was worth it.<\/p>\n

Most importantly: assuming it even achieved any measurably positive result, what is\u00a0the end game here? Do we go around punching every nazi sympathisers until not one dares speak up in public4<\/a><\/sup>Good thing they don’t have any worldwide\u00a0network that would let them\u00a0anonymously share their despicable ideas and organise from the comfort of their home, safe from punching, huh?<\/span>? Obviously, we next have to do the same to every racist arsehole out there5<\/a><\/sup>Unless you think it is acceptable\u00a0to only<\/em> wish black people dead, as opposed to both blacks and<\/em> Jews. But you don’t, do you?<\/span>. Or perhaps we start with all the homophobic scumbags<\/a> freely spouting their hate on TV?<\/p>\n

Guess you have a lot of punching to do. Off you go then. Good luck and remember: thumb always on the outside.<\/p>\n

“Whatever\u2026 It won’t achieve much but at least it felt<\/em>\u00a0good watching a nazi getting punched.”<\/h3>\n

\u2026 is probably where that debate should start, if everyone was honest with themselves.<\/p>\n

And yes: it did<\/em> feel\u00a0good watching that spiteful piece-of-shit getting sucker-punched mid-sentence. It still<\/em>\u00a0feels good after repeat viewing, and some of these nazi-punching memes are outright hilarious.<\/p>\n

But there’s a major difference between having a positive\u00a0visceral reaction to an act of violence, and intellectually condoning and defending it. That difference is the essence of\u00a0modern democratic societies: the idea that might does not make right6<\/a><\/sup>And for the love of Hobbes, spare me your arguments about State violence, and resistance to it. This particular internet-forum nazi was most definitely not an agent of the State nor exercising violence in its name.<\/span>.<\/p>\n

Once\u00a0this is acknowledged, feel free to accept\u00a0the use of extra-legal\u00a0civilian violence in times of peace as an agent of social change, but do not be surprised when you find yourself in the company of the very people you claim to be fighting.<\/p>\n

“OK. Maybe not a great idea. But really not worth fretting about.”<\/h3>\n

Because when a populist authoritarian xenophobe just became President of the USA and is pushing to keep\u00a0his own privately-ran militia<\/a>, what could go wrong with the legitimisation of unsanctioned violence committed by private citizens?<\/p>\n

How much do you want to bet, that this video will soon resurface, reframed as an example of the lawlessness of the land and the need for more authoritarian control? When your grandma from Kansas sees the video of a nicely-dressed gentleman with a friendly demeanour, speaking in a reassuringly calm tone, getting suddenly knocked out by a masked assaillant, do you think she will think “that nazi scum had it coming”? And if you just said “screw stupid grandma and her Fox News-bred\u00a0ignorance”, congratulations: you are a perfect example of how\u00a0a populist moron with marginal support managed to win that\u00a0election.<\/p>\n

The main reason punching nazis is bad7<\/a><\/sup>Assuming you live in 2017 DC, and not in some alternate dimension where the Reich controls the Eastern seaboard\u2026<\/span>, is that, on top of achieving no measurable positive long-term result, it will likely\u00a0bolster\u00a0the moral and PR\u00a0position of said\u00a0nazis and other, less cartoonishly evil but no less despicable, people.<\/p>\n

“Had there been more nazi-punching in the 1930s, maybe things would have turned better”<\/h3>\n

\u2026 is what you might say, if you have never opened a history book describing the ascension to power of the German Nazi party in the 1930s.<\/p>\n

One of the main reasons Hitler was able to transform a thin electoral victory<\/a>\u00a0within a weak-but-functioning democracy, into complete totalitarian\u00a0control, in a matter of years, was precisely the perception that public order was no longer assured and that social norms had broken down. A perception mostly\u00a0orchestrated by nazi propaganda, but conveniently supported by a decade of street violence by post-spartakist KPD and other radical leftwing movements. It did not matter how morally justified or isolated these acts of civilian violence\u00a0may have been: they were propped up as examples of the failings of democracy and, by the time the Reichstag burnt down<\/a>, enough Germans were fine\u00a0with\u00a0a dictatorship.<\/p>\n

To be very clear: the vast majority of that<\/em>\u00a0nazi punching was entirely justified, and you would have hopefully found me cheering on the punching if not outright participating. But never use it as an argument that pre-emptively punching nazis in the street is how you prevent nazis from gaining power, because that’s demonstrably false.<\/p>\n

“Shut up already\u2026 Alt-right\u00a0stooge\u2026”<\/h3>\n

At the end of the day, I do not think this incident is either the next Reichstag Fire, nor as innocuous and laugh-inducing as some would want it to be. I am fairly confident that the vast majority of people who disagree with me on this somewhat-academic issue are not bloodthirsty beasts. I may also be completely blind to the very real and impending risk of that nazi’s\u00a0ruthlessly organised online paramilitary organisation taking over the country tomorrow and putting his unfathomably horrid ideas into practice. Maybe that black-bloc guy was actually a time-traveller who prevented the next Hitler. In any case, I think it is a debate where it is perfectly possible to hold either opinion and still be a very decent\u00a0person one might enjoy a cup of coffee with8<\/a><\/sup>By comparison, I doubt I could even enjoy a post-apocalyptic survival meal with a Trump supporter.<\/span>.<\/p>\n

Interestingly enough, that is not the position of many people on the opposite side of this debate. Apparently, merely questioning whether punching people is OK, automatically moves me from the cozy near-radical leftwing views\u00a0I always foolishly thought I held, to the outer fringes of Pepe-loving foaming Rightwing Twitter trolls. At least based on some of the lovely measured reactions I got on Twitter on occasions where\u00a0the topic came up9<\/a><\/sup>I would bet a tenner that this guy<\/a>, for example, is busy patting himself on the back for telling off one of them Trump-loving nazis\u2026<\/span>.<\/p>\n

And that, (not so) ironically, is a good example of why allowing the free punching of nazis without due process, is a dangerous idea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The year is 2017, and voicing your concerns at the idea that vigilantes can just punch people they disagree with, makes you slightly worse than Adolf Hitler. This whole discussion started on Twitter. Now summing-up and continuing in a medium where every nuanced argument does not have to fit in a neat 140 characters. “Why […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political-ranting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8422"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8449,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8422\/revisions\/8449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}