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Equating people criticizing folks like Milo Yiannopoulos and Richard Spencer as people criticizing "US conservatives" says more about you and the Republican Pa

by slg 4y ago

Equating people criticizing folks like Milo Yiannopoulos and Richard Spencer as people criticizing "US conservatives" says more about you and the Republican Party then the people doing the criticizing. These are not mainstream conservative people. They do not have mainstream conservative values. These are people who support extreme right wing policies including at times fascist policies. Basically every mainstream platform has kicked these people off for their abhorrent behavior. Holding them up as a representative of "US conservatives" is an insult to any reasonable-minded conservative.

s1artibartfast 4y ago
I didn't say that milo ect were typical or that I agree with them. I said that the idea was about labeling conservatives in general as nazis and justifying violence. I don't agree with the idea that you get to punch someone in the face if you disagree with them, even if you label them as a fascist
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  The argument is, in part, "these people [fascists] don't play by the rules, and will obliterate you if given the chance". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance I think most folks would agree that at some point Hitler's Third Reich could be opposed by force, but I think folks would struggle at exactly when to draw the "ok, it became OK to punch Hitler's brownshirts" line.
  - s1artibartfast 4y ago
    I don't think it as clear cut as you claim. There are many political and psychology thinkers who hold that extrajudicial violence is usually counter productive.
- slg 4y ago
  > I said that the idea was about labeling conservatives in general as nazis and justifying violence. But these aren’t “conservatives in general”. These are people who are at the very least fascist sympathizers. No one serious is calling Mitt Romney a nazi.
  - BitwiseFool 4y ago
    >" No one serious is calling Mitt Romney a nazi." It happened a lot more often back in 2012 when he was running for President.
    - slg 4y ago
      And plenty of people today call Joe Biden a communist. Yet if someone has a "Punch a Communist" bumper sticker, I'm not going to call up the Secret Service saying someone is threatening the president because I know that name-calling is inherently unserious. Meanwhile Richard Spencer's Wikipedia page starts with "Richard Bertrand Spencer (born May 1978) is an American neo-Nazi..." It is entirely fair to call that guy a Nazi and it is the reason the modern "punch a Nazi" meme centers on him.
      - BitwiseFool 4y ago
        >"I know that name-calling is inherently unserious." But I must beg the question, if society normalizes and encourages violence against Nazis, doesn't that mean that calling someone a Nazi is a potentially serious act? And, what if they aren't really a Nazi? The term "stochastic terrorism" has been discussed and I believe it applies here. This is the definition I pulled from dicitonary.com: "the public demonization of a person or group resulting in the incitement of a violent act, which is statistically probable but whose specifics cannot be predicted"
        slg 4y ago
        >But I must beg the question, if society normalizes and encourages violence against Nazis, doesn't that mean that calling someone a Nazi is a potentially serious act? And, what if they aren't really a Nazi? Context is important and it seems like you are trying to blur that context for the sake of an argument. "Mitt Romeny is a Nazi" is not a serious opinion. "Punch a Nazi" is only a slightly more serious notion, but there is firmly a tongue in cheek aspect to it. There is a reason why the only "punching of a Nazi" to reach any type of penetration into pop culture was from the year before this Kickstarter was launched. This comic is not a serious threat anymore than your average issue of The Punisher.
jansen555 4y ago
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by slg 4y ago

s1artibartfast 4y ago

I didn't say that milo ect were typical or that I agree with them. I said that the idea was about labeling conservatives in general as nazis and justifying violence. I don't agree with the idea that you get to punch someone in the face if you disagree with them, even if you label them as a fascist

ceejayoz 4y ago
The argument is, in part, "these people [fascists] don't play by the rules, and will obliterate you if given the chance". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance I think most folks would agree that at some point Hitler's Third Reich could be opposed by force, but I think folks would struggle at exactly when to draw the "ok, it became OK to punch Hitler's brownshirts" line.
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  I don't think it as clear cut as you claim. There are many political and psychology thinkers who hold that extrajudicial violence is usually counter productive.
slg 4y ago
> I said that the idea was about labeling conservatives in general as nazis and justifying violence. But these aren’t “conservatives in general”. These are people who are at the very least fascist sympathizers. No one serious is calling Mitt Romney a nazi.
- BitwiseFool 4y ago
  >" No one serious is calling Mitt Romney a nazi." It happened a lot more often back in 2012 when he was running for President.
  - slg 4y ago
    And plenty of people today call Joe Biden a communist. Yet if someone has a "Punch a Communist" bumper sticker, I'm not going to call up the Secret Service saying someone is threatening the president because I know that name-calling is inherently unserious. Meanwhile Richard Spencer's Wikipedia page starts with "Richard Bertrand Spencer (born May 1978) is an American neo-Nazi..." It is entirely fair to call that guy a Nazi and it is the reason the modern "punch a Nazi" meme centers on him.
    - BitwiseFool 4y ago
      >"I know that name-calling is inherently unserious." But I must beg the question, if society normalizes and encourages violence against Nazis, doesn't that mean that calling someone a Nazi is a potentially serious act? And, what if they aren't really a Nazi? The term "stochastic terrorism" has been discussed and I believe it applies here. This is the definition I pulled from dicitonary.com: "the public demonization of a person or group resulting in the incitement of a violent act, which is statistically probable but whose specifics cannot be predicted"
      - slg 4y ago
        >But I must beg the question, if society normalizes and encourages violence against Nazis, doesn't that mean that calling someone a Nazi is a potentially serious act? And, what if they aren't really a Nazi? Context is important and it seems like you are trying to blur that context for the sake of an argument. "Mitt Romeny is a Nazi" is not a serious opinion. "Punch a Nazi" is only a slightly more serious notion, but there is firmly a tongue in cheek aspect to it. There is a reason why the only "punching of a Nazi" to reach any type of penetration into pop culture was from the year before this Kickstarter was launched. This comic is not a serious threat anymore than your average issue of The Punisher.

jansen555 4y ago

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