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Battery on someone is never justified for a belief or words someone says. Defeat their ideas with debate and steer them towards a non-violent resolution.

by rabuse 3y ago

micromacrofoot 3y ago
Yes... but the paradox of tolerance also exists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance Viewpoints that include the eradication of a specific race or peoples are largely incompatible with modern society. These people welcome the attention a "debate" provides because it elevates their platform. The best course of action would typically be ignoring them, but our current media platforms thrive on this controversy. There are also some people who pride themselves on being unsteerable, and incitement is the point (the numerous mass shooters in the US claiming to attempt a race war). I think the "punch a nazi" rhetoric mostly exists because of frustration of watching an uptick in white supremacy and the general feeling that an individual can't do anything about it.
- jwestbury 3y ago
  > The best course of action would typically be ignoring them, but our current media platforms thrive on this controversy. This isn't really solved by punching Nazis, though. It's just adding to the controversy.
  - PaulHoule 3y ago
    The trouble with many people today is that they use labels like “Nazi” and “Fascist” quite indiscriminately; it would be one thing to apply them to the Jan 6 rioter, but it’s not unusual to see them applied to the police department, mainstream politicians who don’t incite violence, anyone the users disagree with, etc. If I ran a social network using any of those words would start a 24 hour cooling off period. (1) There are a lot of other words these people could use the same thing to describe post-1945 movements, and (2) even if you take away that word for pre-1945 movements the benefits of eliminating (1) are large enough to justify it.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - micromacrofoot 3y ago
    It's mostly the venting of personal frustration. It's understandably difficult to share the same space with someone who quite vocally wants to eliminate you for a personal trait that you didn't get to choose.
nickpinkston 3y ago
If Nazis are actually in power or even causing a local disturbance, then battery and beyond can definitely be justified where appropriate. Non-violence is always the place to start, but anti-fascists should not have their hands tied if more is necessary. The WWII resistance groups were more than justified.
- intimidated 3y ago
  This sounds strategically sound until the realization that you've given very compelling justification—legal or not, it doesn't really matter—for others to now commit preemptive violence against people like you.
  - DelaneyM 3y ago
    No part of the post you’re replying to suggests it’s opening the door to reciprocal violence. The more complete argument is that extra-judicial action is justified when there is no other way - such as when the political process cannot effect change. If there are no just elections, the only way to remove a ruler is revolution, almost by definition. In that case, “punch the Nazis” all you like. No part of the post you’re replying to suggests they want to pursue or support tyranny. If some right-wing kooks justify revolution with demonstrably false statements, that does not justify their actions - falsehoods are never a foundation of justice.
- PaulHoule 3y ago
  So far as I can tell “anti-fascism” and “fascism” are like anti-matter and matter. Anti-fascists see fascism everywhere (your local police department) the same way the John Birch Society saw communism everywhere (Dwight Eisenhower.). Or maybe they are just jealous that the fascists have cool uniforms and boots. Or maybe they think their life isn’t meaningful enough and it has to be like a comic book or a WWII movie.
  - text0404 3y ago
    maybe you've been watching too many movies or reading too many comics if you think that anti-fascists are only in the fight because they're jealous and have meaningless lives. perhaps anti-fascists see the fight for a just and equitable society to be more than that. the people i've worked with who organize for a better society don't tend to live lives like you see in a movie or comic. they're out there feeding the homeless, starting scholarship funds, and teaching people how to garden.
falcolas 3y ago
You cant debate ignorance and hate. As the quote goes, “They’ll drag you into the mud and beat you with experience.”
- PaulHoule 3y ago
  … not through “debate” but through discussion or maybe music, see https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/mar/18/daryl-davis-black-musician-who-converts-ku-klux-klan-members https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/mar/18/daryl-davis-bl... “Debate” is one of the words I hate the most these days, it brings back memories of high school debates where you didn’t necessarily believe in your position and the whole idea was that somebody was going to “win”. A certain kind of right-winger uses the word “debate” mindlessly the same way some left-wingers use “nazi” mindlessly for instance there was the headline “How can we have a debate if we don’t use the same language?” So often a staged “debate” is an attempt to legitimize an absurd position such as the bad theology of creationism or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Velikovsky https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Velikovsky an associated “bad smell” is that idea that something said to be controversial is necessarily good or interesting because it is said to be controversial. You don’t change people’s minds about things like racism or LGBTQ acceptance through having a one-time confrontation with winners or losers, you do it through the much slower process of seeing people’s humanity.
  - text0404 3y ago
    > You don’t change people’s minds about things like racism or LGBTQ acceptance through having a one-time confrontation with winners or losers, you do it through the much slower process of seeing people’s humanity. i don't think anyone sees the global struggle for justice as a one-time confrontation.
    - PaulHoule 3y ago
      The left doesn’t, but people on the right are fixated with the idea that they can have a “debate” which is consequential. Insofar as people on the left are anything more than “angry” they understand that their project is a project of construction.
Karellen 3y ago
If a literal product of the military-industrial complex, Captain America, and a liberal arts humanities professor, Doctor Henry Jones, Jr, can agree that punching actual Nazis is the right thing to do, I think the majority of society has pretty much decided that if your beliefs include genocidal ethnic supremacy and eugenics, a little battery is a valid and more pragmatic weapon than debate. Edit: However, as the article goes to show, the evidence appears very much against the notion that the victim here was a Nazi, or even right-wing in any way, so the violence here was totally unjustified.
- goalieca 3y ago
  We’ve also decided as a society, through laws and constitutions, that governments maintain a monopoly on use of force (violence).
  - zimpenfish 3y ago
    > governments maintain a monopoly on use of force Only really works when the government isn't sympathetic to the Nazis, though.
- Turing_Machine 3y ago
  Err... those are fictional characters?
- LightHugger 3y ago
  Supporting "punch nazis" is supporting the bad actors that commit violent battery against innocent people that have nothing to do with nazism at all. People hate being wrong, and people will just make things up and take things out of context to make themselves right.
- bobsmooth 3y ago
  >so the violence here was totally unjustified. You're starting to get it. This is why vigilantism is a crime.
- hacknewslogin 3y ago
1970-01-01 3y ago
I remember when Buzz punched a guy for calling him a coward and the moon landing a fake. He became a hero all over again. My point is that if someone is too far from reality, a good hard punch will actually elevate your public reputation. Yes, even today.
- dgrin91 3y ago
  Punching nazis will also make you popular if people believe you are punching Nazis. That doesn't mean you should do it. First, of course, what if that person isn't actually a Nazi? Either mistakenly or maliciously labeled Nazi. Second, for every boost you get punching a Nazi, a Nazi gets the same boost for punching a Jew or a black person. All you have done is justify their action.
  - jonhendry18 3y ago
    "All you have done is justify their action" No, not at all.
px43 3y ago
To debate a Nazi is to give them a platform, and thanks to the the joys of negativity bias, given equally talented speakers, hatred is about 4x more likely to to spread than positive messaging. Nazism is a brain parasite that feeds off support from well intentioned people willing to give them a platform. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negativity_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negativity_bias
- gruez 3y ago
  >To debate a Nazi is to give them a platform And how well has deplatforming been doing? We tried deplatforming the alt-right for the last decade, and all we've gotten is trump elected, various terrorist attacks, and the jan 6th riots.
  - plorkyeran 3y ago
    The alt-right deplatforming started after Trump was elected. Most of the research into the matter has said that deplatforming has worked pretty well, actually.
    - gruez 3y ago
      >The alt-right deplatforming started after Trump was elected Your use of "deplatforming" seems refer to people/communities/organizations getting kicked off sites or commercial service providers, but the comment I replied to was arguing "To debate a Nazi is to give them a platform" which is a broader set of actions. Maybe "deplatforming" is the wrong word to use here, but "refusing to engage alt-right people in debate or giving them recognition" far predates trump's election. >Most of the research into the matter has said that deplatforming has worked pretty well, actually. Source? By what metric?
      - jmye 3y ago
        Feel free to start here, w/r/t the fact that deplatforming works, as much as sympathizers want to pretend it doesn’t. 1) https://www.adl.org/resources/report/bad-gateway-how-deplatforming-affects-extremist-websites https://www.adl.org/resources/report/bad-gateway-how-deplatf... 2) https://twitter.com/gwensnyderPHL/status/1170818436202737667 https://twitter.com/gwensnyderPHL/status/1170818436202737667 3) https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3479525 https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3479525

Battery on someone is never justified for a belief or words someone says. Defeat their ideas with debate and steer them towards a non-violent resolution.

by rabuse 3y ago

Battery on someone is never justified for a belief or words someone says. Defeat their ideas with debate and steer them towards a non-violent resolution.

micromacrofoot 3y ago

Yes... but the paradox of tolerance also exists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance Viewpoints that include the eradication of a specific race or peoples are largely incompatible with modern society. These people welcome the attention a "debate" provides because it elevates their platform. The best course of action would typically be ignoring them, but our current media platforms thrive on this controversy. There are also some people who pride themselves on being unsteerable, and incitement is the point (the numerous mass shooters in the US claiming to attempt a race war). I think the "punch a nazi" rhetoric mostly exists because of frustration of watching an uptick in white supremacy and the general feeling that an individual can't do anything about it.

jwestbury 3y ago
> The best course of action would typically be ignoring them, but our current media platforms thrive on this controversy. This isn't really solved by punching Nazis, though. It's just adding to the controversy.
- PaulHoule 3y ago
  The trouble with many people today is that they use labels like “Nazi” and “Fascist” quite indiscriminately; it would be one thing to apply them to the Jan 6 rioter, but it’s not unusual to see them applied to the police department, mainstream politicians who don’t incite violence, anyone the users disagree with, etc. If I ran a social network using any of those words would start a 24 hour cooling off period. (1) There are a lot of other words these people could use the same thing to describe post-1945 movements, and (2) even if you take away that word for pre-1945 movements the benefits of eliminating (1) are large enough to justify it.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- micromacrofoot 3y ago
  It's mostly the venting of personal frustration. It's understandably difficult to share the same space with someone who quite vocally wants to eliminate you for a personal trait that you didn't get to choose.

nickpinkston 3y ago

If Nazis are actually in power or even causing a local disturbance, then battery and beyond can definitely be justified where appropriate. Non-violence is always the place to start, but anti-fascists should not have their hands tied if more is necessary. The WWII resistance groups were more than justified.

intimidated 3y ago
This sounds strategically sound until the realization that you've given very compelling justification—legal or not, it doesn't really matter—for others to now commit preemptive violence against people like you.
- DelaneyM 3y ago
  No part of the post you’re replying to suggests it’s opening the door to reciprocal violence. The more complete argument is that extra-judicial action is justified when there is no other way - such as when the political process cannot effect change. If there are no just elections, the only way to remove a ruler is revolution, almost by definition. In that case, “punch the Nazis” all you like. No part of the post you’re replying to suggests they want to pursue or support tyranny. If some right-wing kooks justify revolution with demonstrably false statements, that does not justify their actions - falsehoods are never a foundation of justice.
PaulHoule 3y ago
So far as I can tell “anti-fascism” and “fascism” are like anti-matter and matter. Anti-fascists see fascism everywhere (your local police department) the same way the John Birch Society saw communism everywhere (Dwight Eisenhower.). Or maybe they are just jealous that the fascists have cool uniforms and boots. Or maybe they think their life isn’t meaningful enough and it has to be like a comic book or a WWII movie.
- text0404 3y ago
  maybe you've been watching too many movies or reading too many comics if you think that anti-fascists are only in the fight because they're jealous and have meaningless lives. perhaps anti-fascists see the fight for a just and equitable society to be more than that. the people i've worked with who organize for a better society don't tend to live lives like you see in a movie or comic. they're out there feeding the homeless, starting scholarship funds, and teaching people how to garden.

falcolas 3y ago

You cant debate ignorance and hate. As the quote goes, “They’ll drag you into the mud and beat you with experience.”

PaulHoule 3y ago
… not through “debate” but through discussion or maybe music, see https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/mar/18/daryl-davis-black-musician-who-converts-ku-klux-klan-members https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/mar/18/daryl-davis-bl... “Debate” is one of the words I hate the most these days, it brings back memories of high school debates where you didn’t necessarily believe in your position and the whole idea was that somebody was going to “win”. A certain kind of right-winger uses the word “debate” mindlessly the same way some left-wingers use “nazi” mindlessly for instance there was the headline “How can we have a debate if we don’t use the same language?” So often a staged “debate” is an attempt to legitimize an absurd position such as the bad theology of creationism or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Velikovsky https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Velikovsky an associated “bad smell” is that idea that something said to be controversial is necessarily good or interesting because it is said to be controversial. You don’t change people’s minds about things like racism or LGBTQ acceptance through having a one-time confrontation with winners or losers, you do it through the much slower process of seeing people’s humanity.
- text0404 3y ago
  > You don’t change people’s minds about things like racism or LGBTQ acceptance through having a one-time confrontation with winners or losers, you do it through the much slower process of seeing people’s humanity. i don't think anyone sees the global struggle for justice as a one-time confrontation.
  - PaulHoule 3y ago
    The left doesn’t, but people on the right are fixated with the idea that they can have a “debate” which is consequential. Insofar as people on the left are anything more than “angry” they understand that their project is a project of construction.

Karellen 3y ago

If a literal product of the military-industrial complex, Captain America, and a liberal arts humanities professor, Doctor Henry Jones, Jr, can agree that punching actual Nazis is the right thing to do, I think the majority of society has pretty much decided that if your beliefs include genocidal ethnic supremacy and eugenics, a little battery is a valid and more pragmatic weapon than debate. Edit: However, as the article goes to show, the evidence appears very much against the notion that the victim here was a Nazi, or even right-wing in any way, so the violence here was totally unjustified.

goalieca 3y ago
We’ve also decided as a society, through laws and constitutions, that governments maintain a monopoly on use of force (violence).
- zimpenfish 3y ago
  > governments maintain a monopoly on use of force Only really works when the government isn't sympathetic to the Nazis, though.
Turing_Machine 3y ago
Err... those are fictional characters?
LightHugger 3y ago
Supporting "punch nazis" is supporting the bad actors that commit violent battery against innocent people that have nothing to do with nazism at all. People hate being wrong, and people will just make things up and take things out of context to make themselves right.
bobsmooth 3y ago
>so the violence here was totally unjustified. You're starting to get it. This is why vigilantism is a crime.
hacknewslogin 3y ago

1970-01-01 3y ago

I remember when Buzz punched a guy for calling him a coward and the moon landing a fake. He became a hero all over again. My point is that if someone is too far from reality, a good hard punch will actually elevate your public reputation. Yes, even today.

dgrin91 3y ago
Punching nazis will also make you popular if people believe you are punching Nazis. That doesn't mean you should do it. First, of course, what if that person isn't actually a Nazi? Either mistakenly or maliciously labeled Nazi. Second, for every boost you get punching a Nazi, a Nazi gets the same boost for punching a Jew or a black person. All you have done is justify their action.
- jonhendry18 3y ago
  "All you have done is justify their action" No, not at all.

px43 3y ago

To debate a Nazi is to give them a platform, and thanks to the the joys of negativity bias, given equally talented speakers, hatred is about 4x more likely to to spread than positive messaging. Nazism is a brain parasite that feeds off support from well intentioned people willing to give them a platform. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negativity_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negativity_bias

gruez 3y ago
>To debate a Nazi is to give them a platform And how well has deplatforming been doing? We tried deplatforming the alt-right for the last decade, and all we've gotten is trump elected, various terrorist attacks, and the jan 6th riots.
- plorkyeran 3y ago
  The alt-right deplatforming started after Trump was elected. Most of the research into the matter has said that deplatforming has worked pretty well, actually.
  - gruez 3y ago
    >The alt-right deplatforming started after Trump was elected Your use of "deplatforming" seems refer to people/communities/organizations getting kicked off sites or commercial service providers, but the comment I replied to was arguing "To debate a Nazi is to give them a platform" which is a broader set of actions. Maybe "deplatforming" is the wrong word to use here, but "refusing to engage alt-right people in debate or giving them recognition" far predates trump's election. >Most of the research into the matter has said that deplatforming has worked pretty well, actually. Source? By what metric?
    - jmye 3y ago
      Feel free to start here, w/r/t the fact that deplatforming works, as much as sympathizers want to pretend it doesn’t. 1) https://www.adl.org/resources/report/bad-gateway-how-deplatforming-affects-extremist-websites https://www.adl.org/resources/report/bad-gateway-how-deplatf... 2) https://twitter.com/gwensnyderPHL/status/1170818436202737667 https://twitter.com/gwensnyderPHL/status/1170818436202737667 3) https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3479525 https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3479525