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Three white nationalists arrested after firing at crowd of counter-protestors
SWAT One:
--- Quote from: Khaz on October 20, 2017, 07:30:01 PM ---how
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Because the moment that violence as a solution is a mass-accepted political process, we lose our democratic process. And in this scenario, I don't care how happy you'd be about who was punched, because wherever democracy isn't, whatever government is in place will not care about your opinion, only whether or not you are acting in line with what they want. Both you and I would be without a vote and only those who sought to leave the democratic process and the 1st Amendment right to petition the government for grievances behind are to blame.
So don't fuel the fire.
SeventhSandwich:
I'm against national socialist punching on the basis that it undermines the institutions that protect us from national socialists. As soon as we try to give impunity to people committing violent crime, we set a precedent for tribal judges and tribal towns allowing the same thing. You will see incidents similar to what happened back during Jim Crow when entirely white juries would acquit kool kids klub lynch mobs.
That being said, Neo-national socialists are awful people and many of them deserve to get punched in the face. But you shouldn't do it or encourage people to do it, because ultimately it's destructive to our society.
This is an essay that makes an argument very similar to my own thinking. It's long but extremely relevant in the modern political climate.
http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/05/02/be-nice-at-least-until-you-can-coordinate-meanness/
Or here's the part that I find most important in this discussion:
--- Quote ---The second reason that coordinated meanness is better than uncoordinated meanness is that it is less common. Uncoordinated meanness happens whenever one person wants to be mean; coordinated meanness happens when everyone (or 51% of the population, or an entire church worth of Puritans, or whatever) wants to be mean. If we accept theories like the wisdom of crowds or the marketplace of ideas – and we better, if we’re small-d democrats, small-r republicans, small-l liberals, or basically any word beginning with a lowercase letter at all – then a big group of people all debating with each other will be harder to rile up than a single lunatic.
As a Jew, if I heard that skinheads were beating up Jews in dark alleys, I would be pretty freaked out; for all I know I could be the next victim. But if I heard that skinheads were circulating a petition to get Congress to expel all the Jews, I wouldn’t be freaked out at all. I would expect almost nobody to sign the petition
(and in the sort of world where most people were signing the petition, I hope I would have moved to Israel long before anyone got any chance to expel me anyway)
Trying to coordinate meanness is not in itself a mean act – or at least, not as mean as actual meanness. If Westboro Baptist Church just published lots of pamphlets saying we should pass laws against homoloveuality, maybe it would have made some gay people feel less wanted, but it would have been a lot less intense than picketing funerals. If people who are against promiscuity want to write books about why we should all worry about promiscuity, it might get promiscuous people a little creeped out, but a lot less so than going up to promiscuous people and throwing water on them and shouting “YOU SAnnoying OrangeET!”
This is my answer to people who say that certain forms of speech make them feel unsafe, versus certain other people who demand the freedom to express their ideas. We should all feel unsafe around anybody who relishes uncoordinated meanness – beating people in dark alleys, picketing their funerals, shaming them, harassing them, private investigating them, getting them fired from their jobs. I have no tolerance for these people – I am sometimes forced to accept their existence because of the First Amendment, but I won’t do anything more.
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Tactical Nuke:
"time to start punching national socialists" said the people responsible for it getting to this point in the first place
Khaz:
k I was just having some fun but this is just plain handicapped now
you're completely misconstruing what I'm saying
I'm not saying we should retaliate with violence. That's clearly not going to fix things. I'm saying someone who got punched in the face for instigating stuff deserves it.
You really telling me if someone got into your face shouting offensive stuff/potentially being an imminent danger, they dont "deserve" to be thwarted or in some cases punched? come on now. when people get in your face saying stuff like that 100% of the time they want to start a fight. that's why in videos you see the verbal offender immediately trying to throw hands at the person who pushed them back because they got up in their face. dont tell me this bullstuff about how they didn't deserve it.
Im fully aware that punching someone for verbal harassment isn't okay under the law, doesnt mean they "dont deserve it" when it does happen.
SeventhSandwich:
--- Quote from: Tactical Nuke on October 20, 2017, 07:53:39 PM ---"time to start punching national socialists" said the people responsible for it getting to this point in the first place
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Ah yes. The couple dozen publicized incidents of national socialist punchers are clearly responsible for the resurgence of the American white supremacist movement. I know when I see a national socialist get punched, my gut instinct is to go get some swastika tattoos and confederate flags for my lawn.