I have been seeing plenty of guillhotine and mollotov jokes here, and as the title says, punching nazis.
I’ve been reading a book about nonviolence and anarchism, and he basically shows how we shouldn’t use violence, even in extreme cases (like neo nazis).
The main argument is that the means dictates the ends, so if we want a non violent (and non opressing) society, punching people won’t help.
And if it is just a joke, you should probably know that some people have been jailed for decades because of jokes like these (see: avoiding the fbi, second chapter of the book above).
Obviously im up for debate, or else I wouldn’t make this post. And yes, I do stand for nonviolence.
(english is not my first language, im sorry if I made errors, or wansn’t clear.)
(if this is not pertinent, I can remake this post in c/politics or something)
(the book is The Anarchist Cookbook by Keith McHenry, if you are downloading from the internet, make sure you download it from the correct author, there is another book with the same name.)
I took a class on nonviolent protest in college. Covered the lives and work of ghandi, MLKJ, thoreau. Very enlightening.
If two parties are at odds with one another, and one on them is willing to use violence and the other isn’t, the violent party wins.
Non violence works when people care about what you’re going through. If the right people know and care they’ll come in and do violence for you to make it stop. Or at least verifiably threaten violence. But violence is happening whether you did it or not.
Nazis don’t give a shit about you, they’re eager for violence. They want to exterminate entire classes of people. Non violence does not work on Nazis, we’ve already seen this play out once before.
Punched a Nazi in the jaw at a party once. He left and everyone was happier once he did. Fuck that Nazi and his sore Nazi jaw.
I don’t think a lot of Lemmy users are out in the world doing much punching.
I certainly don’t do any punching. My weak floppy little arms were made for operating a keyboard.
C’mere, I just wanna talk…I swear. Tell me more about that screwdriver patch…
Shut up Meg, that Chicken is a Nazi.
Make the world a better place
Punch a nazi in the face
I’m with you. Many of “them” want to get violent and are looking for a reason to do so. By throwing a punch, it provides justification for their violent actions. So many folks here indicate that you won’t change somebody unless you fight them, but I’ve read and heard plenty of evidence to the contrary. One quick source is How One Man Convinced 200 Ku Klux Klan Members To Give Up Their Robes. I also heard an interview with a woman who grew up in a cult and how she learned how to “deprogram” people.
I like to think of it a lot like fishing. Once you get a fish on the hook, you can’t just pull hard and bring 'em in. You need to set the hook and then reel them in slowly.
nazis aren’t fish. i don’t care to convert them. i want to drive the back under the rock they crawled from under.
I live in Germany. No punches are needed here, just call the cops and BAM off to jail with the idiot.
Here in America, calling the cops very often gets you more Nazis.
In NYC it gets you shot apparently xD
The AFD sure are getting close to the old party though…
In a way that is also violence or at least the threat of it
The main argument is that the means dictates the ends, so if we want a non violent (and non opressing) society, punching people won’t help.
And this failed logic is exactly why we are where we at right now, on the brink of the Fourth Reich rising across the US and Europe.
Because tolerant people have forgotten the most important thing about a tolerant society.
That it must be rigorously and viciously defended from those who seek to exploit the social contract to elevate their attacks on it, and it requires far more than words and wind to achieve that… again, as evidence of where we are now as a society. Because their ultimate goal is to undo the society we love, and replace it with oppression, fear, and hatred.
I’m not a naturally violent person and thankfully haven’t found myself in a position where I’ve needed to defend myself or others from neo-nazis. But I’m sure I would if it came to it. Neo-nazis are few and far between in my country, but if I seen one get a kicking I wouldn’t be standing in to help them.
Anarchism isn’t non-violent. To assume anti-oppression and pacifism are one and the same is to make the same mistake Engels makes in On Authority.
Authority is violent, but violence is not authority.
Edit: on this topic I’d recommend Anark’s video on Power, where he explains that anarchism seeks to create a horizontal power structure. It is not the absence of power structures, it displaces oppressive power structures with egalitarian ones.
Fascists don’t respond to logic or reasoning, they know only violence so you should speak to them in a language they understand
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00131857.2018.1519772
Violence in a vacuum? Deplorable. Violence against a person preaching or encouraging violence? Questionable. Violence against a known fascist? Absolutely acceptable.
Fascists hide in the grey areas of free speech and often make arguments, much like this post OP, that twist ethics to support their rhetoric.
https://www.npr.org/2017/08/19/544641070/explaining-again-thenazis-true-evil
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functionalism–intentionalism_debate
You may want to investigate the original author of the anarchist cookbook William Powell. He later wanted to remove the book from publication.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Powell-American-writer
Also please do not follow any of the recipes, especially the match head bomb as they’re all a great way to lose fingers
So in conclusion, considering your original points sound similar to the historical defense of fascists, and that book looks to carry the language of fascists.
How serious is the author of that book about not getting punched?
When we had a bunch of white supremacists driving in their lifted trucks, yelling at the BLM protestors and threatening violence against them, there was no use in trying to argue with them. They were just interested in getting into a fight so they could justify using their guns in “self defense”.
That’s not the nature of my argument. You’re talking about an escalation of violence. I’m talking about preventing them from entering cultural space in the first place. I could spend days listing the proof that there are Nazis in our police and armed forces. That leftists are often the only ones targeted by police.
I’m talking about direct interpersonal conversation and action.
Those guys in lifted trucks are useful idiots.
I open carry at counter protests, I open carry at Drag Story Time. I often have to have long protracted discussions with the police when I protest. Mostly about my protect trans kids and TERF Elimination Squad morale patches and what loadout I have. I am often silent during chants at the protests I attend.
However I’ve never seen direct instigation from counter protesters like you’re describing, directed at me. They tend to focus on the vocal protestors. I stand next to the megaphone with ear pro on. I try to move slowly and predictably.
I’m not there to return fire. I’m not there to keep any peace. I’m absolutely not there to instigate or escalate anything.
This is only my personal experience and means nothing. I am not suggesting this is a useful or necessary act. I’m not encouraging anyone to do this. I never bring a concealed weapon. I always coordinate with the organizers of the event or the protest. I will happily leave if asked however I’ve never been asked before or after to not attend. I only carry at the protest and do not bring weapons into planning spaces or enclosed areas.
Edit: Since I started going a couple few have joined me. There are much more yelling contests now. But there’s no shoving or pulling or fighting over flags and signs anymore. I really hope in a couple years shit mellows out and I can chant again. “Bottoms Tops we all hate cops!” Is a newer one I really like.
…do you actually open carry at kids story time?
America sounds fucking insane.
This is a false dichotomy. There are effective ways to defeat Nazis beyond punching them or reasoned debate.
Violence is justified in life or death struggles where other options have become unrealistic. That’s not the situation we’re in in the West 99% of the time. Deplatforming, doxxing, civil resistance, and various other forms of nonviolent struggle all have a better track record than street brawls which have done nothing but empower fascists. In fact, the sense of fear and chaos that these events creates is exactly the environment in which fascism will thrive. Street brawls between fascists and leftists were prominent in the Weimar Republic and did nothing to stop Nazi power—if anything it made it easier for the right to unite and paint leftists as unreasonable extremists. We see similar patterns happening today.
Politics is not the same as armed struggle. We are not engaged in armed struggle against fascism in the west. Perhaps we will be but right now one of our goals should be to avoid that becoming necessary. In the current moment public relations and persuasion matter immensely. Punching Nazis achieves little other than making people lose sight of the dangers of fascism and focus instead on “extremism” from “both sides”.
And OP has done nothing to suggest they are sympathetic to fascism so your threats against them are extremely rude and unjustified.
Edit: I also should have stressed that the most important thing is to organize. People power is the real power. Collaborate with and help everyone, not just your Maoist book club or whatever. One of the ways the Fascists won in the past is by dividing people and going after minorities one at a time. If things do devolve into armed struggle, you’ll be much better prepared if you’ve got deep roots in the community.
You can mock and deride them in media of course. But when a Nazi asks about violence you always respond with language they understand.
I disagree. Fascists want to simplify every conflict this way—“They’re coming to kill you, so we need to kill then first”. By accepting the conflict on those terms, you’ve already conceded a rhetorical battle.
Leftists have rarely excelled at martial conflict. It’s not typically our strength. Our strength instead is that we fundamentally want to help people and make the world more free and just. We win by making sure people understand that. Getting into fist fights with Nazis undermines this strategy and doesn’t do anything to fundamentally undermine their power.
Feel free to debate your way out of the camps, bro.
We’re not in camps. We’re not fighting a war. Of course military violence is okay when you’re fighting for your life, but that’s not current society. This is an ideological war.
Feel free to punch your way out. You’ll find it equally effective.
That’s what the guns are for, centrist.
Not sure what guns have to do with the ineffectiveness of punching Nazis but OK.
Nazis aren’t interested in what communists have to say. A communist, for the record, is anyone a Nazi disagrees with. The only acceptable place for a communist, according to a nazi, is in the ground. If you want to let Nazis come for you, I guess that’s fine for you. When Nazis co.e for your loved ones and you Stans there like a fucking coward and let them take them because “much precious nonviolence” I guess that’s your call.
I can kick 200cm from the ground, so I’m going to use that tool to keep the world just :/
Edit OH SHIT OH SHIT 180CM not 200 I’m not Jet Li
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Tolerance ends with intolerance. Being nice and civil leads to things like the storming of the US Capital. If US Republicans, for example, felt no resistance then they would organize a crusade into Springfield Ohio.
It is because we live in a world of controversy and civil unrest that racists cannot simply commit massacres and lynchings like in the old days.
We have to show fangs, not bellies, to aggressive animals.
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Spent enough time in the punk scene to know some people are very serious about it.
SHARP thinkers.
Skin Heads Against Racial Prejudice.
The first Skins in the UK were anti racists. Then some neo-nazi fucks ruined it for a bit. So the S.H.A.R.P movement started
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinheads_Against_Racial_Prejudice
Also if you have the funds, buy Trojan Records.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_Records
They do good work.
I became a leftist, because I got enough of the liberal “they go low, we go high” mantra. You never turn the other cheeck to a person, who will proceed to punch it again. In fact, if they once failed to do better in such cases, they’re just want to abuse your fair game.
I’m surprised no one seems to have mentioned the Paradox of Tolerance. Essentially if you tolerate intolerance, the intolerants will eventually seize power and make an intolerant society, the only way a society can become truly tolerant is by being intolerant towards intolerance.
It’s paradoxical, but makes absolute sense. If you allow Nazis to spread their ideology eventually there will be enough Nazis to be able to take the power by force, and when they do they’ll setback all of the tolerance that was advanced. The only way to prevent it is by cutting the evil at the root and prevent Nazis from spreading their ideology.
Personally I believe that punching a person who hasn’t tried to attack me or anyone is wrong. But the moment someone openly preaches that someone else must be exterminated they’re inciting violence which can encourage others to act on it, to me, morally speaking, attacking that person is as much self defense as if they were commiting the act themselves.
Would I personally punch a person because they’re spewing hate? Probably not, I would probably try to talk to them and understand their point of view and try to convince them otherwise, since I believe that punching them would make the person close himself to any reasoning from outside of his group, which would make him more Nazi than before. But I also don’t think it’s morally wrong to do so, it’s just not the optimal way of dealing with it.
100% agree with your message, but just for clarity’s sake I believe you meant “the intolerant will eventually ‘seize’” as in take, like a seizure of assets. Cease is putting an end to something.
Normally I wouldn’t bother to correct someone, but the irony of the mistake is that it contradicts your intended message by saying that if you tolerate intolerance, it will cease to exist.
Thanks for the correction, I’ve edited the comment, indeed that could be missinterpreted.
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Yes, I agree, it’s not always black in white, but your example is a bad example, I don’t care the language someone says that, “The Jews should be eliminated” is an intolerant statement, just as much as “The Muslims should be eliminated”, regardless of who says it, it’s intolerant and should not be excused by someone’s skin color.
Also we must clarify if we’re talking about moral or legal argument, as I said morally I think you’re okay punching someone in the face when they said you should be eliminated, legally you should probably have some proof of that.
With what level of force are you going to attack them?
With forço proportional to the threat, just like the moral basis for any any self defense. You can’t shoot someone who pushed you, but someone who threaten your life is morally (and if you have proof of the threat and it is believable also legally) fair game. Same thing applies here, someone stating “X should be prevented from voting” should not legally be allowed to be punched, but should have his voting rights removed temporarily.
Or force to the extent that they die from it? After all nothing’s safer than a dead attacker.
Yes, if they threaten your, or anyone’s, life then killing them is self defense and morally okay in my opinion. So someone claiming “all X should be exterminated” can morally be killed.
Ok but now you’re the one talking about extermination… so what do we do with you? The problem with the Paradox of Tolerance is that there’s a Paradox of Intolerance, too.
Yes, that’s why it’s a paradox, it wouldn’t be a paradox if it didn’t have some contradiction in it. But that contradiction is easy to fix, in my examples X must be a superset of people that includes tolerant people. This means that Jews or Muslims are an invalid X, since there are tolerant Jews or Muslims, but “people who wish (non-X) dead” are not, e.g. “people who wish Muslims dead” are a valid X.
Maybe I missed it being mentioned elsewhere, but I think the writeup I’m familiar fits well with this angle of the discussion. Basically, it says tolerance is a social contract that we’re all born into and protected by so long as we uphold our part of the contract (by being tolerant.) If you are intolerant then you break that contract and are no longer protected by it, therefore making intolerance toward you acceptable and not a breach of the contract for others.
(Also, I agree that religions/race/etc are invalid for judging somebody’s tolerance)
This precise argument can also be made to justify a tightening on immigration from countries where religious intolerance is the cultural norm, on the grounds that “if you allow [them] to spread their ideology eventually there will be enough [of them] to be able to take the power by force, and when they do they’ll setback all of the tolerance that was advanced”. Reasonable?
Not reasonable because you’re making a broad generalization that everyone in that country will be intolerant. I’m in favor of facilitating immigration, in fact I’m an immigrant myself, but I do believe that specific people who have intolerant views of others should not be allowed to immigrate.
For example (since this is the most obvious example for immigration), not all Muslims are intolerant, lots of them just want to live a normal life, follow their religion and are okay with others following theirs. Other Muslims are intolerant towards different religions or ways of life, just like how you have Christians who think the same. If you make a broad statement of “all Muslim immigrants are intolerant” you’re the one being intolerant, if you say “People who are not okay with LGBT+ rights or freedom of religion should not be allowed to immigrate” then I’m okay with that statement. But in reality the majority of people who oppose immigration also oppose LGBT+ and freedom of religion so it’s unlikely they’ll use this argument.
Also I think that as a general rule immigration requires adaptation, if you’re interested in moving to another country you should adapt to the culture (and even more importantly the laws) of that place. To give a somewhat innocuous example of this, here in Europe is common for women to expose their breasts when going to the beach, in other parts of the world (possibly including the US) people would be horrified and demand that they’re forced to cover themselves, in fact I can imagine a stereotypical US Karen demanding that someone covers their breasts because their kid will see them, but curiously I’ve never seen that happen. In fact I’ve even seen Muslim women on the beach, covered from head to toe with special made swimsuits, in the beach near others who were sunbathing and neither of them complained about the other, they just enjoyed their day at the beach their own way. That Muslim woman was likely an immigrant, yet she understands that this is not the same country she grew up, it has different rules and different culture, and she’s okay with it, she teaches her values and her culture to their kids, but also teaches them that they need to respect others, and those kind of immigrants not a problem, unlike an intolerant co-citizen.
Not reasonable because you’re making a broad generalization
Generalizations are broad by nature, that does not mean they have no value.
But in reality the majority of people who oppose immigration also oppose LGBT+ and freedom of religion so it’s unlikely they’ll use this argument.
Can’t speak for the USA but that is absolutely not the case in Europe.
Otherwise you make some decent points. In any case, IMO discussions like this would benefit if we accepted from the outset that nobody is going to be convincing others to change their opinions. The best that can be hoped for is to understand the opposing side better. That would be an achievement in itself.
I didn’t say that they provide no value, I said that the argument of you can’t tolerate intolerance can’t be used to advocate intolerance towards a group that contains tolerant people, even if the majority of them were not then the argument applies to those specific people, not to the group as a whole.
OK. Not sure how far that recipe gets us in practice, but it’s a respectable argument.
Congratulations you found the paradox part of the argument! However one of these is not like the other
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/neo-nazi
https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2020/08/20/facts-on-u-s-immigrants/
These sources don’t prove anything. This is about values. If you want to convince people who are not already on your side then you need to begin there.
These sources don’t prove anything. This is about values. If you want to convince people who are not already on your side then you need to begin there.
Sources often don’t convince the opposing party in an argument, especially in a political one. You’re not my audience, I already know you’re anchored in your convictions. You may as well be an LLM or a useful idiot manipulated by misinformation. I don’t care.
You’re not my audience. I don’t care what you think. I’m providing a counterpoint for folk that haven’t researched or haven’t made up their mind.
You’re not my audience,
That’s a good point and I work to this principle myself. So my observation was pretty redundant, yes.
I already know you’re anchored in your convictions
To the extent you know anything about me, I also “know” that your own convictions are just as unmovable.
Looked at another way, it’s a good thing to have convictions.
K
Neither of the links seems to mention immigrants from intolerant countries, so I’m not sure how they’re relevant to the comment you’re replying to.
Correct! I am not using a strawman argument like @JubilantJaguar is.
Immigrants from intolerant countries are not inherently intolerant. In fact they’re likely to be tolerant of the practices of the country they’re immigrating to, because people tend to want to move to places with policies they agree with.
However, Nazis are inherently intolerant. That’s integral to ideology of a Nazi.
Thus the links I shared and the disparity they highlight.
What you are describing is actually the simple truth that many worldviews and the beliefs and values that stem from them are incompatible and cannot coexist. This is the fundamental problem with the first ammendment. It assumes that people are exercising beliefs that are not diametrically opposed to each other.
