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.
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.
My grandfather suffered a lifetime of PTSD after having to shoot Nazis during WWII. I went to a few of his unit's reunions and have met a number of other veterans of that war.
One thing I've never heard from a single one of them was bragging about shooting a Nazi.
They suffered years and years of nightmares for having to shoot persons. They were looking through their guns sites and saw people -- young men who looked just like themselves or their brothers.
Maybe there were some who came home and bragged, but to highlight those stories does an incredible disservice to the vast majority of the others. There were things they bragged about, but shooting humans wasn't a common reason for pride.
* Because we're not in a theater of war and they're not enemy combatants.
* Because we're no better than them if we inflict wanton violence on people we would rather not have around.
* Because it's taking the bait. The whole point in kindling all this anger is bring out the worst in everyone and show the world 'the intolerant left' and stupid 'punch a Nazi' bullshit only proves their point. The more these people are silenced, attacked and marginalized by 'leftists' in power the more they're able to show just how much power 'the left' wields.
Yet they are also people too, regardless of how disgusting their beliefs.
Edit: I should've probably known better than to reply to an obvious straw man. Arguing that responding to nazis with violence isn't necessarily the best thing is hardly advocating "tolerance"
nazis were a german political group. they were a member of the axis forces which fought and lost against the allied forces in ww2. that group doesn't exist anymore.
so-called "nazis" that people refer to today are largely just people subjected to lazy labeling.
Would you say that someone who believes in the Communist Manifesto, is convinced by the arguments in Das Capital, who’s heroes are Lenin and Trotsky, joins a Union, tries to organise labour industrial action, writes articles for newspapers and magazines promoting communism, tries to persuade people of communist goals and values is not a communist because they are not a member of any particular formal communist party? I believe Trotsky died without being a member of a communist party. Was he not a communist? Was Goering not a Nazi when he died, and all the former members of the communist party stop being Nazis with the end of the war?
I suppose that’s one way to look at it, but why do you think that approach is useful? What does it offer us that the more straightforward approach of judging people by their convictions, statements and actions does not?
well, 'communists' aren't a specific political group that are tied to a particular time and place. a 'communist' is broadly one who supports 'communism', often as described by marx.
is there a nonzero number of people who wholly subscribe to the nazi party's politcal platform, and want that specific party to be reborn? i suppose that's likely.
however, the word 'nazi' is used to describe a vast swath of people who have little in common with them. reagan, bush sr and bush jr were nazis. jewish political commentator ben shapiro is a nazi. it's all somewhat absurd.
all calling someone a nazi - at least those that don't label themselves as such - does is curb thought, agitate emotions and rationalize violence (rather poorly, i might add).
this doesn't address the argument. people who say it's okay to 'punch nazis' are the same people who hit people with bike locks, assault people, destroy property and torture people. all you have to do is label a person you dislike a 'nazi' and it's a thoughtless greenlight for righteous bloodshed and alienation.
>is there a nonzero number of people who wholly subscribe to the nazi party's politcal platform, and want that specific party to be reborn? i suppose that's likely
That's about as truthful as, "Did Hitler kill Jews? i suppose that's likely."
i don't know what you mean by 'truthful'. it's not wrong, and it's simply a nod to possibility, as that wasn't even the argument. this is just a waste of time on a tangent so someone feels like they had some kind of point.
further, your comparison doesn't seem very apt. you're talking about a historical event. compared to applying labels to people today who haven't necessarily identified as those labels, as a way to rationalize and endorse violence.
> i don't know what you mean by 'truthful'. it's not wrong, and it's simply a nod to possibility, as that wasn't even the argument.
Yes, it is wrong. Saying something is "likely" to occur, is the same as saying there is some doubt. There isn't.
>this is just a waste of time on a tangent so someone feels like they had some kind of point.
Then why are you adamant about it? Do you have to "win" every argument? The poster was right, you could have said so.
> further, your comparison doesn't seem very apt. you're talking about a historical event. compared to applying labels to people today who haven't necessarily identified as those labels, as a way to rationalize and endorse violence.
I was just trying to quickly show why what you wrote wasn't truthful via an example. Instead it seems I had to spell it out.
i can imagine that there is a nonzero number of people who might label themselves that way, but for any given label you can probably find at least one person who might use it on themselves.
what i mean is that 'nazi' is a term used to lazily and reductively describe a disparate swath of individuals. it's manner of use is as a thought-terminating cliche and cheap emotional appeal.
perhaps ironically, thuggish violence against actual nazis in their nascent days (not to say they didn't engage in their own) drove some amount of public sympathy and attracted support.
My sister's grandfather was a Nazi soldier. He became a PoW, ending up a Canadian. Eventually married someone who had had to flee Germany. He didn't need to be shot, he'd been a kid put to serve his country
Was he really a Nazi? He could be a German soldier in World War Two without being a Nazi, just as a Russian could have fought in WW2 against the Germans without being a Communist.
Indeed. But that goes to show that Americans weren't "shooting at Nazis" in WW2. They were shooting at German soldiers, because that's what you do in a war.
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.
> The world already saw once what happens when you don't prevent Nazis at all costs, we don't need to repeat history.
Did you know that during the rise of Hitler, there were almost daily violent clashes - many of them resulting in murders - between right wing and left wing extremists? It was not like the anti-Nazis wren't trying to "prevent nazis at all cost". But using street violence against street violence only serves to destroy rule of law, and whoever wins the violent clashes, democracy loses.
Antifa is tolerated - often more than tolerated - despite being a violent hate group. They aggressively use violence, they aren't subtle about it, and they practically worship extremist left ideology. Everyone should be asking why that is being tolerated. It's solely due to the media having an extreme left bias. They've conditioned hundreds of millions of people in the developed world to regard the mass slaughter & genocide of left regimes in the 20th century as dramatically less important, and not fundamentally evil, versus what the fascists did. Michael Bloomberg had a nice article about the increasingly broadening ideological bias problem on the left:
> They've conditioned hundreds of millions of people in the developed world to regard the mass slaughter & genocide of left regimes in the 20th century as dramatically less important, and not fundamentally evil, versus what the fascists did.
While there certainly are tankies (aka people who worship Stalin, Mao and Tito) as part of the Antifa, they are by far not the majority. In fact, many left-libertarians despise the authoritarian tankies as much as every other educated citizen.
> But using street violence against street violence only serves to destroy rule of law
Which rule of law? A state that outright finances and supports right-wing terrorists (e.g. NSU), actively looks away when Nazis are terrorizing entire neighborhoods while at the same time heavily repressing anti-fascist activity does not deserve to be called a state with a "rule of law".
I think a large number of the people protesting on the other side are not neo Nazis and white supremacist. When you demonise the other side instead of trying to understand them you can justify horrible actions.
> I think a large number of the people protesting on the other side are not neo Nazis and white supremacist
Who wears swastika flags, shows the raised arm salute or marches with robe-wearing KKK members or globally known right-wing extremists, deserves to be called a white supremacist, and deserves all consequences that come with being a neo-Nazi.
> This strategy only works on people not dragged into a fully closed world view composed of conspiracy theories
The article seems to refute that. Your typical KKK member does not embrace a wide variety of news, but Daryl Davis was able to get through to many of them. It doesn't work in all cases, certainly, but sometimes.
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.