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[Murdin]

I will write more after work but I just want you all to know that

a) I still stand by my ridiculously high standards of when I will support violence.

b) Trump just crossed that line by saying that he is going to bring back torture and illegal CIA prisons.

My issue was with your argument, not with your standpoint against violence. I see how my message could make you think otherwise, and if you did, I'm sorry.

To get back on purely factual matters, though, it should be noted that Obama either failed or decided not to get rid off alternative enhanced interrogation and Gitmo, and that Trump actually campaigned in favor of these things. His recent declaration doesn't really come as a surprise.

[pyro]

b) Trump just crossed that line by saying that he is going to bring back torture and illegal CIA prisons.

As if they ever stopped.

[Askold]

Obama got most of the prisoners out and didn't bring more in.

[Askold]

Now that I'm back home...

I specifically used examples that I knew to be shocking because to me it seems like making an exception of "these people are acceptable targets and laws should not protect them" makes a nasty slippery slope and is exactly what fascists say about other groups of people.

Besides, all this talk about how there is no way to stop nazis from gaining power seems really defeatist. They won a few elections and now everyone is acting like we can never vote them out or that they will with 100% certainly refuse to relinquish power and THIS in specific is the only issue where I will fucking give them the reason of doubt. If fascists, in Finland or elsewhere, try to remain in power desbite elections/laws saying they can't or if they try to make laws that are against constitution or otherwise ...Well, fascist laws, then that is the point where a violent coup is necessary for the good of democracy but until then I am happy to merely use legal means to oppose them.

As for the pedophile example, if child molesters go to politics to try and make their horrible ways legal, then I will fight for their right to try to (in legal ways) lobby for their horrible ways while at the same time doing my best to oppose them and ridicule them in also legal ways. Though if I ever get any evidence of them doing something illegal to kids I will call the cops on them. Besides, why speak hypotethically when NAMBLA did exactly that and Jon Stewart and Daily show spent several years ridiculing them and exposing them as the pathetic and horrible people they are.

[Even Then]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to start punching Nazis myself (because I'm a cowardly motherfucker and I'd probably go to jail) and if I were a judge at a trial for that antifa guy I'd give him a guilty verdict for assault, because he did still punch a guy. But that's on a higher level. I wouldn't be chomping at the bit to report the guy if given the opportunity. And if someone went "I'm gonna punch a Nazi" at a bar to me, I wouldn't exactly trip over myself to stop the guy.

Well, at least out of any "but you'll only give Nazis legitimacy" reason, because what do I care about the feelings of Nazis or idiots who'd sympathize with them on the sole basis of them getting hate? But they'd probably get in trouble with the bar staff and authorities, so I'd t least try to talk their way out of them.

Now as political praxis, I admit the matter's more nuanced. Sure, institutionally legitimizing vigilante violence against certain groups opens doors to scary implications, but at the same time, nazis care shitall about democracy. Uncritically allowing them into the political mainstream will let them abuse a system they disdain and expand the Overton Window until they can pull back Hitler's soul from Hell through it, piece by piece. Adults don't do violence as constructive conflict resolution and it shouldn't be incentivized on a governmental level, but at the same time if Nazis wanna martyr themselves because they're hated for being Nazis, that's on them. They were already doing it anyway.

I don't know the right answer, is what I'm trying to say. And I don't wanna come across like I do. All I can do is have my thoughts on it and not actually have any influence of significance. But I can at least see where you're coming from.

[Skybison]

Eh, I still think it's a false equivalency.  Suppressing a religious group and punching one jerk once for his support for genocide are very different things.  And come on people, did that time Buzz Aldrin punched a moon truther in the face legitimize them?  A one off incident won't do that.

That being said I do agree with the rest of what you are saying.  Let's make one thing clear:  The Nazis Are Not In Power.

Trump isn't Hitler, or even Pinochet.  He's an empty demagogue with no genuine ideology besides his own greatness.  He used Nazi's, fascists and low level authoritarians to gain power but clearly doesn't give a fig about them.  The historical figure Trump best resembles I'd argue is Silvio Berlusconi, a corrupt asshole but hardly a genocidal maniac.  And we should look at what worked against Berlusconi when dealing with Trump.
http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/30/13767174/case-for-normalizing-trump

For violence in general, political scientists have found that non-violent civil disobedience campaigns are far more likely to defeat authoritarian governments then armed insurrections.  For stopping fascist movements from gaining power, mass state repression can work if we're talking full Assad level and they goad the fascists into violence themselves, but antifa stuff is probably just going to escalate the situation.  Violence only really works if it's backed up by overwhelming force, otherwise people respond tit for tat.

[Murdin]

The slippery slope goes both ways, as they almost always do. Are murderers acceptable targets for imprisonment? What is a crime, an attempted crime, complicity in a crime, and how to punish those things in a way that isn't itself criminal? Honestly, I think we're running in circles here. Worse, I feel like you still perceive this discussion as an attack on your moral beliefs, as if people were trying to convince you to endorse violence. I can tell you that I do respect your convictions, do consider your point about public respectability to be of decisive importance, and that even though I can't speak for anyone else, I suspect most people here would tell you the same.

There's something that needs to be said about defeatism, however.

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The PATRIOT act was signed into law shortly after 9/11, and is still in effect today. In this 15-year timespan, did the great proud freedom-loving American people ever rise in revolt against their government's authoritarian overreach, its trampling on the rule of law? Nope. There has been some protests and cases of disobedience during the Bush years, and groups with unrelated grudges against the government love to use it as a wedge issue for recruitment purposes. But by now, the law has tacitly become accepted by the sovereign citizenry. You could say the PATRIOT act is now as American as tasteless apples, the mythological cowboy, megachurches, crappy soft drinks that only maintain their worldwide popularity through massive advertising, and clumsily orchestrated coup attempts in foreign countries.

At which point should the German people have taken up arms against the legitimate authority of their democratically appointed Nazi government? After the clampdown on civil liberties following the Reichstag fire? In response to the systematic suppression of opposition parties, the arrest and intimidation of lawmakers as well as simple citizens? Maybe when Hitler was "temporarily" allowed to write and enact laws by himself that would remedy to the "distress of the people"? Surely, by the time Germany officially became a one-party state, Its Majesty the People should have expressed Its sovereign will and dismissed these treasonous civil servants.

I do not know the best way to deal with fascists. What I do know is that human rights are as much of a human fabrication as the human-like, all-human-loving God standing behind them (albeit covertly in the 1948 declaration) ; men are only born equal in legal fiction and religious fanfiction, ostensibly as a way to trick strangers into granting some baseline measure of dignity to each other ; freedom and democracy have only as much power as we give them and won't be able to defend themselves against such powerful forces as stupidity and cowardice ; popular sovereignty is a pretty concept far removed from the realities of governance, and often outright exploited by those who hold coercive power over their "equals" ; that all those lofty ideals which constitute our idea of a "normally functioning society" won't do anything to protect us from an angry crowd backed by state violence, willing to do away with them in order to take whatever they want without asking questions ; that on the contrary, it is on us to protect these ideals, and through them, our lives and those of countless other people, be they Monkeysphere denizens, fellow tribesmen, or complete strangers...

... and, on a more personal level, I also have the conviction that the optimal plan to prevent the further rise of authoritarianism and social iniquity does not involve violence. This is a matter of faith, something that reflects more on my ideals, on what I would define as "optimal," than anything else. Those ideals clearly mean nothing in the face of history, they literally are nothing from my own materialistic standpoint, yet I'm still going to try and live by them.

Pessimism isn't defeatism.

[Askold]

More than the punch my beef is with the current theme of "Nazis cannot be won over with words or reasoned with they must be destroyed" theme when I have seen examples of the opposite. Xenophobia more often than not is because of lack of interaction with the "outsiders" and it is possible for them to learn not to hate indiscriminantly. The former head of Finnish Neo-Nazi movement quite literally realized one day that he was the bad guy and that he did not want to teach the same hate to his son. He broke off from the movement and stopped answering to letters from David Duke.

https://www.hate-speech.org/a-neo-nazi-leader-breaks-off/

Similarly simply by going out to the Nazis and talking to them has worked in the past and I don't see why it wouldn't do so in the future.

[Murdin]

More than the punch my beef is with the current theme of "Nazis cannot be won over with words or reasoned with they must be destroyed" theme when I have seen examples of the opposite.

My beef is with people throwing moral equivalences between genocidal maniacs, and those willing to use violent or illegal means to prevent them from achieving their goals. Moral equivalences which, taken to their logical conclusions with no need for slippery slopes, loom dangerously close to nihilism. Even the state monopoly on violence ultimately rely on the idea that there is some legitimacy in fighting fire with fire.

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There are some people that I respect, who also happen to endorse the use of violence against Richard Spencer and his ilk. They are afraid, for themselves, for their loved ones, that left unchecked, these ideas will propagate, lead to xenophobic violence, and eventually find their way into the mainstream. Are these people our new designated enemy? Are they really harder to understand and empathize with, let alone reason with, than literal Nazis? Acting all judgmental towards them won't bring them back to the side of reason, especially when the arguments used aren't that reasonable. It will only comfort them in their not-entirely-unfounded belief that these very serious and reasonable people are, at their best, burying their head in the sand in denial of the urgency of the situation, and at their worst, tacitly ambivalent towards the prejudices and bigotry expressed by hatemongers.

I agree with your conclusion that there is something deeply counterproductive in the preemptive use of violence against looming threats of this kind, and that communication, even with those alleged to be unredeemable, can be a more effective way to deal with them. On the other hand, there is nothing in my conception of basic decency that would compel me to protect Nazis against violence they clearly brought on themselves, or display towards them the kind of compassion and consideration they deny to... well, anyone different from them in any way. Here's the thing, though. Nobody should expect a pat on the back for acting in a merely appropriate way towards another. Reaching out to people like Spencer goes beyond that low bar, and that's exactly what makes it all the more admirable.

But charity begins at home, and I reckon there's something incredibly... well, long-sighted in grandstanding about the grain of goodness in fascists' hearts while snubbing fellow "humanists" with ham-fisted moralistic arguments that rely on slippery slopes and false equivalences. Once again, your arguments make a lot of sense when they focus on strategy and efficiency, but do you really think those you unfairly compared to antisemites, islamophobes and McCarthyists are going to listen to them?

(EDIT) tl;dr: wonky moral posturing isn't gonna bring anyone back to their senses, it will only divide us more and more. We can and should encourage this level of patience and consideration, but we can't expect everyone to "get it" right away.

I also wanted to add something quick about winning fascists over. I want to assume this is common knowledge by now, and it was already implied in Askold's message, but I think it bears mentioning. Facts don't work, not until they have pulled their head out of the rabbit hole. Their own subjectivity is all that matters. Use your own personal experiences, but in a manner that rubs them up the right way. Feels, not reals ; there's a reason these kinds of people keep repeating the opposite.

[Askold]

I think we can just agree that we are mostly on the level (Nazis bad.) and disagree only on minor issues (when is it ok to punch nazis.)

Besides, punching a Nazi in the facec in USA is silly simply because you could always say that you "felt threatened by them and were in fear of your life" and shoot them in the face.

With a gun.

Such as those that you are allowed to bear and shoot thanks to 2nd amendment and stand your ground laws. (Try to find a lawyer who can claim that Neo-Nazis are not a threat, I dare you.)

[Murdin]

No problem. I think our actual disagreement is even more limited than that, along the lines of "how to interact with people who endorse the unprovoked use of violence against Nazis". You may call this nitpicking, but I really find it a very important issue, for reasons that I already elaborated on in this thread.

Also...

Besides, punching a Nazi in the facec in USA is silly simply because you could always say that you "felt threatened by them and were in fear of your life" and shoot them in the face.

With a gun.

Such as those that you are allowed to bear and shoot thanks to 2nd amendment and stand your ground laws. (Try to find a lawyer who can claim that Neo-Nazis are not a threat, I dare you.)

I guess we can also agree that this is kinda fucked up?

[dpareja]

I just posted this image on a message with a politics thread frequented by a number of conservatives:



Pointing out that this is corporate welfare, that raising the minimum wage would eliminate this problem, and that Walmart spends a fraction of those profits on lobbying the government to keep the food stamp program going.

Hilarity to follow.

[Askold]

Yeah, that's what companies do and many governments see nothing wrong with it.

Meanwhile in Finland rent is too damn high and the tax payers are paying for welfare so that unemployed and low-earning people can afford to live inside a house and the companies and organizations that own the apartments raise the rents further because they know that the poor can always pay more as the government simply raises their benefits to keep up with the rent... This too is a system where government is simply directing tax payer money to the landlords.

[pyro]

Pointing out that this is corporate welfare, that raising the minimum wage would eliminate this problem, and that Walmart spends a fraction of those profits on lobbying the government to keep the food stamp program going.

Hilarity to follow.

Don't raise the minimum wage. Walmart just raises the prices of everything when you do that, and it basically just causes inflation.

[dpareja]

Pointing out that this is corporate welfare, that raising the minimum wage would eliminate this problem, and that Walmart spends a fraction of those profits on lobbying the government to keep the food stamp program going.

Hilarity to follow.

Don't raise the minimum wage. Walmart just raises the prices of everything when you do that, and it basically just causes inflation.

Walmart might, but other businesses don't necessarily, which would drive consumers away from Walmart and toward other businesses, thus forcing Walmart to lower its prices to recapture those customers.