I have been seeing plenty of guillhotine and mollotov jokes here, and as the title says, punching nazis.
I’ve been reading a book about nonviolence and anarchism, and he basically shows how we shouldn’t use violence, even in extreme cases (like neo nazis).
The main argument is that the means dictates the ends, so if we want a non violent (and non opressing) society, punching people won’t help.
And if it is just a joke, you should probably know that some people have been jailed for decades because of jokes like these (see: avoiding the fbi, second chapter of the book above).
Obviously im up for debate, or else I wouldn’t make this post. And yes, I do stand for nonviolence.
(english is not my first language, im sorry if I made errors, or wansn’t clear.)
(if this is not pertinent, I can remake this post in c/politics or something)
(the book is The Anarchist Cookbook by Keith McHenry, if you are downloading from the internet, make sure you download it from the correct author, there is another book with the same name.)
(transcribed from a series of tweets) - @iamragesparkle
I was at a shitty crustpunk bar once getting an after-work beer. One of those shitholes where the bartenders clearly hate you. So the bartender and I were ignoring one another when someone sits next to me and he immediately says, “no. get out.”
And the dude next to me says, “hey i’m not doing anything, i’m a paying customer.” and the bartender reaches under the counter for a bat or something and says, “out. now.” and the dude leaves, kind of yelling. And he was dressed in a punk uniform, I noticed
Anyway, I asked what that was about and the bartender was like, “you didn’t see his vest but it was all nazi shit. Iron crosses and stuff. You get to recognize them.”
And i was like, ohok and he continues.
"you have to nip it in the bud immediately. These guys come in and it’s always a nice, polite one. And you serve them because you don’t want to cause a scene. And then they become a regular and after awhile they bring a friend. And that dude is cool too.
And then THEY bring friends and the friends bring friends and they stop being cool and then you realize, oh shit, this is a Nazi bar now. And it’s too late because they’re entrenched and if you try to kick them out, they cause a PROBLEM. So you have to shut them down.
And i was like, ‘oh damn.’ and he said “yeah, you have to ignore their reasonable arguments because their end goal is to be terrible, awful people.”
And then he went back to ignoring me. But I haven’t forgotten that at all.
Okay, but what does this have to do with punching? No violence took place in this scenario.
It was the threat of the bartender reaching for the bat. If the nazi didn’t think there was a chance he’d actually use it, the threat wouldn’t work.
The threat of violence is a deterrent to keep nazis from getting too bold, thinking they can do what they want without repercussion.
Some people think the threat of violent response is overreaction to someone who’s just expressing their ideas. As a bisexual man, I think it’s a pretty even response when those ideas are “hey, what if we rounded up you and everyone like you and marched you off to death camps?”
At the very least, you can never let them believe that you’ll just roll over and let them do it.
I’ve punched plenty of nazis. They try to infiltrate our punk and metal scenes and cause shit, being one of the bigger guys there who also has training, it’s my responsibility to help make sure they don’t fucking stick around.
You can try and go the pacifist route with these people, but I know from experience that it doesn’t do Jack shit, and they’ll keep coming back with their dumb bullshit, and more and more will start showing up unless you shut that shit down hard.
just like violence isn’t applicable everywhere, non-violence isn’t applicable everywhere.
back in the day, nazis used to get violently run out of shows because they tried to infiltrate the punk movement and punks said “Nazi punks fuck off” and then punched them until they left.
people think we didn’t try talking first. telling them to fuck off, refuting their trash ideology or even trying to persuade them out of it. they loved that shit. they were there to talk but they were not there for any great debate. fuckers were there to recruit, it was preditory. they did not fuck off until it was clear we would make them, AND that we’d do it before they opened their mouths. they fucked off when the recruitment pool was closed to them.
guess i can see how on paper a bunch of kids living off pabst and shoving eachother around to loud music, was a good hunting ground. they read that particular room wrong though. and “punch them until they left” was they only way they were gonna go.
Obvious OP never saw the movie SLC Punk. Yes you punch nazi in the face. Beat them until either the hate leaves their body or they vacate the area.
It is literally. Far as guillotines are concerned we save those for the billionaires.
This unlocked a memory of a punk show i was 15 or so years ago. It was a pretty small show of a local punk and Oi show. It was pretty damn bad, but the small show was packed with drunk as fuck oi punks. This was around the time i quit drinking, and everyone being super drunk inside, i often went outside to get some fresh air. I was outside with a friend when 4 neo nazis walked by, also super drunk, starting some shit. It was late and i assume they were on their way home. Since i was sober i just told them to get lost, because they are absolutely fucked if anyone saw them out here.
They left, but were still droning around, and suddenly they were twice as much and i knew that it’s gonna turn into a shitshow, so i went inside. On my way inside, two locally famous brothers who were twice my sice held me back, asking me: "where are the nazis? And i pointed outside. They said: “show me”, it the most serious voice i have ever heard from them. So i went outside, followed by two fridge sized guys. By that time, there were around 12 to 15 nazis outside. I tried to make a joke or something, but before i could open my mouth, they threw bottles and just CHARGED them. By that time, word got around and the whole venue inclusive the bands were there too. They ran off, some got fucked up, and i was quite literally the only sober guy there, so i kinda just followed them, like i was their caretaker or something. We chased them around.
Some of the guys were so hammered that they just face planted at full speed. It was a sight to behold. Some got away, but some didn’t and they got fucked up. Like i’ve seen people get punched in the face and i’ve been in brawls, but this was bad. So i did what i felt what i had to do and pulled some of the gus back. I yanked a guy who was probably the scariest dude i ever met in my life to this day and made him drop on his drunk ass. His aggression was suddenly pointed towards me. I thought great, now i’m gonna catch some fists, because i has helping a nazi, the very same nazi who called me a faggot not even half an hour ago. But there was no time to think about that, because some other dudes wanted a piece of these 5 or so remaining nazis. The scary guy had no voice anymore, grabbed me and i heard his fucked up voice saying, if you are helping them, you are against all of us. I pointed at the guy and said: you are gonna kill a guy today. And the guy looked FUCKED. so he suddenly sobered up, and said: i think you’re right. Police sirens went off and we scattered.
I felt like the biggest traitor for years, because to be honest, because i wanted to punch some nazis really really bad that day, but i did quite the opposite.
it sounds like you were protecting the Nazi-punchers rather than the Nazis.
That’s the right call!
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I’ve seen too many examples throughout history of people trying to use nonviolence and do things the right way and just getting slaughtered because the other side simply does not care to be a pacifist. The world is clearly a better place because people employed violence in WWII to stop the Nazis. And street fighting in the 30’s was one of the ways that the Nazis secured their power in the first place.
Nonviolent methods are tools that are useful to have in your toolbox, and in many situations, they are more practical in achieving your ends. But there are cases were violence is more practical, even necessary, and one shouldn’t shy away from it when it’s needed. You gotta have your head in the game, the stakes are too high. A diversity of tactics is best.
The logic that violence is oppressive so it should be renounced in all cases in order to reduce oppression is idealist. You have to look at the actual evidence and material situation to evaluate what effects violence will have in a given situation.
Punching Nazis is cool and good. Just try not to get arrested for it because it’ll take you out of the action longer than it will them.
If you don’t punch back they will simply continue to steamroll anyone they see as inferior.
We should punch first, lest we end up with Nazis on public street corners. Oh wait…
I’m surprised no one seems to have mentioned the Paradox of Tolerance. Essentially if you tolerate intolerance, the intolerants will eventually seize power and make an intolerant society, the only way a society can become truly tolerant is by being intolerant towards intolerance.
It’s paradoxical, but makes absolute sense. If you allow Nazis to spread their ideology eventually there will be enough Nazis to be able to take the power by force, and when they do they’ll setback all of the tolerance that was advanced. The only way to prevent it is by cutting the evil at the root and prevent Nazis from spreading their ideology.
Personally I believe that punching a person who hasn’t tried to attack me or anyone is wrong. But the moment someone openly preaches that someone else must be exterminated they’re inciting violence which can encourage others to act on it, to me, morally speaking, attacking that person is as much self defense as if they were commiting the act themselves.
Would I personally punch a person because they’re spewing hate? Probably not, I would probably try to talk to them and understand their point of view and try to convince them otherwise, since I believe that punching them would make the person close himself to any reasoning from outside of his group, which would make him more Nazi than before. But I also don’t think it’s morally wrong to do so, it’s just not the optimal way of dealing with it.
It’s not a paradox if you see it as a social contract where every side is equally bound and protected by. Failure to abide by this means you are not protected.
100% agree with your message, but just for clarity’s sake I believe you meant “the intolerant will eventually ‘seize’” as in take, like a seizure of assets. Cease is putting an end to something.
Normally I wouldn’t bother to correct someone, but the irony of the mistake is that it contradicts your intended message by saying that if you tolerate intolerance, it will cease to exist.
Thanks for the correction, I’ve edited the comment, indeed that could be missinterpreted.
What you are describing is actually the simple truth that many worldviews and the beliefs and values that stem from them are incompatible and cannot coexist. This is the fundamental problem with the first ammendment. It assumes that people are exercising beliefs that are not diametrically opposed to each other.
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Yes, I agree, it’s not always black in white, but your example is a bad example, I don’t care the language someone says that, “The Jews should be eliminated” is an intolerant statement, just as much as “The Muslims should be eliminated”, regardless of who says it, it’s intolerant and should not be excused by someone’s skin color.
Also we must clarify if we’re talking about moral or legal argument, as I said morally I think you’re okay punching someone in the face when they said you should be eliminated, legally you should probably have some proof of that.
With what level of force are you going to attack them?
With forço proportional to the threat, just like the moral basis for any any self defense. You can’t shoot someone who pushed you, but someone who threaten your life is morally (and if you have proof of the threat and it is believable also legally) fair game. Same thing applies here, someone stating “X should be prevented from voting” should not legally be allowed to be punched, but should have his voting rights removed temporarily.
Or force to the extent that they die from it? After all nothing’s safer than a dead attacker.
Yes, if they threaten your, or anyone’s, life then killing them is self defense and morally okay in my opinion. So someone claiming “all X should be exterminated” can morally be killed.
Ok but now you’re the one talking about extermination… so what do we do with you? The problem with the Paradox of Tolerance is that there’s a Paradox of Intolerance, too.
Yes, that’s why it’s a paradox, it wouldn’t be a paradox if it didn’t have some contradiction in it. But that contradiction is easy to fix, in my examples X must be a superset of people that includes tolerant people. This means that Jews or Muslims are an invalid X, since there are tolerant Jews or Muslims, but “people who wish (non-X) dead” are not, e.g. “people who wish Muslims dead” are a valid X.
Maybe I missed it being mentioned elsewhere, but I think the writeup I’m familiar fits well with this angle of the discussion. Basically, it says tolerance is a social contract that we’re all born into and protected by so long as we uphold our part of the contract (by being tolerant.) If you are intolerant then you break that contract and are no longer protected by it, therefore making intolerance toward you acceptable and not a breach of the contract for others.
(Also, I agree that religions/race/etc are invalid for judging somebody’s tolerance)
This precise argument can also be made to justify a tightening on immigration from countries where religious intolerance is the cultural norm, on the grounds that “if you allow [them] to spread their ideology eventually there will be enough [of them] to be able to take the power by force, and when they do they’ll setback all of the tolerance that was advanced”. Reasonable?
Not reasonable because you’re making a broad generalization that everyone in that country will be intolerant. I’m in favor of facilitating immigration, in fact I’m an immigrant myself, but I do believe that specific people who have intolerant views of others should not be allowed to immigrate.
For example (since this is the most obvious example for immigration), not all Muslims are intolerant, lots of them just want to live a normal life, follow their religion and are okay with others following theirs. Other Muslims are intolerant towards different religions or ways of life, just like how you have Christians who think the same. If you make a broad statement of “all Muslim immigrants are intolerant” you’re the one being intolerant, if you say “People who are not okay with LGBT+ rights or freedom of religion should not be allowed to immigrate” then I’m okay with that statement. But in reality the majority of people who oppose immigration also oppose LGBT+ and freedom of religion so it’s unlikely they’ll use this argument.
Also I think that as a general rule immigration requires adaptation, if you’re interested in moving to another country you should adapt to the culture (and even more importantly the laws) of that place. To give a somewhat innocuous example of this, here in Europe is common for women to expose their breasts when going to the beach, in other parts of the world (possibly including the US) people would be horrified and demand that they’re forced to cover themselves, in fact I can imagine a stereotypical US Karen demanding that someone covers their breasts because their kid will see them, but curiously I’ve never seen that happen. In fact I’ve even seen Muslim women on the beach, covered from head to toe with special made swimsuits, in the beach near others who were sunbathing and neither of them complained about the other, they just enjoyed their day at the beach their own way. That Muslim woman was likely an immigrant, yet she understands that this is not the same country she grew up, it has different rules and different culture, and she’s okay with it, she teaches her values and her culture to their kids, but also teaches them that they need to respect others, and those kind of immigrants not a problem, unlike an intolerant co-citizen.
The main argument is that the means dictates the ends, so if we want a non violent (and non opressing) society, punching people won’t help.
And this failed logic is exactly why we are where we at right now, on the brink of the Fourth Reich rising across the US and Europe.
Because tolerant people have forgotten the most important thing about a tolerant society.
That it must be rigorously and viciously defended from those who seek to exploit the social contract to elevate their attacks on it, and it requires far more than words and wind to achieve that… again, as evidence of where we are now as a society. Because their ultimate goal is to undo the society we love, and replace it with oppression, fear, and hatred.
They want my wife and children dead. If they are near my family, they pose an existential threat. I will leave saving the proverbial souls of neo Nazis to others. I am interested in establishing that my family is off limits and dangerous for them to so much as look at.
Would I throw a punch at a confirmed Nazi? Without hesitation.
Some people learn to shed the racism from their heart and become better people. Some will only get so far as keeping quiet because they are afraid. There will always be severely racist people. It is just as important that they feel unequivocally unwelcome as it is to change those who will change.
- “Self-defense is not violence!”
- “No tolerance for intolerance!”
- you don’t want your place becoming a Nazi bar
Nazis get worse if you don’t actively oppose them. That can look like punching them, but it can also look like actively ostracizing them by taking away their jobs, denying them participation in community events, or just straight up shaming them in public.
Pacifism only works if the other side isn’t willing to kill you. These jackasses fantasize about genociding people as a hobby, so if you think pacifism is going to work for you then go right ahead but I’ll be over here working on my defensive skills.
In many situations nazi-punching is not your best tactical decision, especially in the presence of cops. Using your words to hurt the poor Nazi snowflakes feelings works just as well and has the added benefit of potentially provoking them into getting themselves arrested if there are cops watching.
has the added benefit of potentially provoking them into getting themselves arrested if there are cops watching.
As long as the cops don’t sympathize with the nazis
Oh, they totally do. That’s why I’d suggest not punching a Nazi in front of the cops, even if they 100% deserved it. The cops will arrest you much quicker than they will a fascist even if you do the same exact thing.
And also definitely YMMV on whether this works at all, I’m in Massachusetts where the cops have to at least pretend they’re doing their jobs so they will typically detain Nazis if they take an actual swing at someone. Other states this might not work at all.
I’m not big on violence, and I don’t enjoy hitting people, but I’ve done it a couple of times and I’m always willing to throw down with nazis. If we’re not willing to defend ourselves and others, we might as well just hand them the keys and let them do whatever they want. That’s gonna be a hard no for me.
This. There are just certain ideologies that are so anti-human that the only way to deal with them is violence because they can’t be tolerated or reasoned with. Nazis know exactly what history says about them and they actively choose these hateful ideologies to believe in and follow. I wouldn’t punch a random person on the street unless they were a threat. Nazis by their very existence are a threat. That threat is not existential.
I am serious that they should be punched. I am a non-violent person, so I hope that someone better fit for the job does it. If faced with a nazi that I think I can take or one that I think I can sorta take, I might punch them myself.
I didn’t think this way until I read, Culture Warlords: My Journey Into the Dark Web of White Supremacy, by Talia Levin. After, I am firmly in the “punch a nazi” camp.
This is the typical impotent opinion I hear from mentally healthy people. I am not.
So if I see one in public, even if they are surrounded by their friends, I will punch the ever living fuck out of them for you, since you are too limp-dick to do it yourself.
All the edge of a plastic spoon
I have a good life and don’t wish to encounter physical harm, so thanks for offering to do it for me. Too bad you won’t be there if / when I encounter a nazi. It would have been great to have you fight on my behalf.
I’m in my 40’s now, but as a teenager that used to go to a lot of punk shows; I can assure you the sentiment is literal. A group of anti-nazis can give a few nazis a really bad time.
I’m just gonna focus entirely on the common misunderstanding of the use of violence against Nazis in WWII because that’s such a common argument for punching nazis and it’s really quite wrong on so many levels.
“But Nazis were stopped by violence in WWII.” That’s a meaningless statement without the missing last word. Violence stopped Nazis militarily, after they had already seized power in Germany and were invading other countries. Today we’re not in a military battle with Nazis, we’re in an ideological battle.
So why did the Nazis seize power in Germany? Because they weren’t punched enough? Well the exact mechanism behind how the nazis seized power is a complex web of illegal political maneuvers, political violence, and yes, some degree of ideological success by the nazis. But a key part of that ideological success was the fear of political violence by their opponents - most notably the Reichstag fire - to justify the power that they were illegally taking. It was basically “desperate times require desperate measures”. So in the ideological battle, the perceived* use of violence by Nazi opponents was actually a key part of their victory within Germany.
Meanwhile, over in the US, the contrast between the violence employed by the German American Bund (the US version of the Nazi party) and largely Jewish peaceful protesters ended up being a massive embarrassment to the Bund from which they never recovered. Again, ideologically, non-violence proved quite effective.
Point being, and this should be obvious - violence is a really bad option for succeeding in an ideological battle. Yes, in a military battle, it’s the only rational option. But in an ideological battle, it’s actually counterproductive.
*Obligatory caveat that whether the Reichstag fire was actually set by nazi opponents remains debated, but suffice to say the political atmosphere at the time made it plausible.
Maybe if we just don’t fight the Nazis, they won’t be able to justify violence against us 🤡
Yeah let’s just allow roving gangs of brownshirts to run around attacking and terrorizing minorities because if we don’t they might stage an attack and the “atmosphere of violence” we’ve created by trying to keep people safe will allow them to blame it on us and seize power. The solution is to just allow them to seize power directly through force, without resistance.
This is nonsense. Nazis don’t need a justification to use force against you, they can literally just lie and make shit up, like they did with the Reichstag Fire. It doesn’t matter if it’s true because it’s directed at the weakest and most vulnerable and stigmatized populations, who have the least capacity to fight back and the fewest platforms to counter their narratives, and once they’re done with them they work their way up. They will create terror on the streets and then use the fact that the streets are full of terror to seize power. People are going to try to defend themselves when attacked whether you think they should or not, so the only question is whether that resistance is strong enough to actually work.
Of course if someone uses violence, you can use violence back. You’re arguing against a strawman.
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Yeah, and those same mechanisms existed in the Jim Crow South but that didn’t stop the Klan from lynching people and getting away with it.
Yeah let’s just allow roving gangs of brownshirts to run around attacking and terrorizing minorities
Well that’s blatantly not the argument at all. The question isn’t whether to react, but what do you do about it?
The vast majority of fascist movements are destroyed through nonviolence rather than violence, which itself is typically inseparable from fascism. To refer to the post below, what ended Jim Crow? Was it a bunch of black people going around punching suspected Klan members? On the contrary it was the reverse. The Klan “lynching people and getting away with it” included key rallying points like the murders of Emmett Till, or the Mississippi Burning murders, along with state violence like the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Sure, maybe the fascists themselves got away with it, but fascism didn’t. The things the Klan and other segregationists fought for were dismantled, in large part thanks to their own violent efforts.
Nazis don’t need a justification for their violence, but their enablers - Von Papen, or the would-be modern equivalent Mike Pence - do. And these enablers need to tell themselves, their family, and their neighbors, that they have good reasons for their decisions. Exposing fascism as the senseless violence it is robs them of that justification, while giving the fascists a threat to refer to provides it.
I only brought up Jim Crow in response to the claim that the the state will protect people and that there are ways to appeal the state of it doesn’t. The point being that having legal protections on paper is not always enough to keep people safe.
The “fascist enablers” don’t have consciences you can appeal to, because what drives them is money, and they are specifically selected for their willingness to serve capital and cause harm to innocent people. The system selects for sociopaths.
You analysis takes absolutely zero account of the systems or material conditions that exist which compel people to act in certain ways. Germany had an unemployment rate of 30% in 1932, but in your mind, it seems like the communists were only fighting because they wanted to and the capitalists were just reacting to that.
Had everyone on the left coordinated on mass nonviolent actions, like mass strikes for example, the capitalists would still have turned to the fascists in order to preserve their money and power. Violence or nonviolence doesn’t matter, what matters is whether their positions are threatened. You either never do anything to gain power in hopes of being able to beg your enemies for mercy, or you do whatever it takes to win so you don’t have to rely on that. The in between stuff where you pull your punches and try to disrupt things without defending yourself is the surest way to get yourself killed.
An under-appreciated fact about fascists is their karen-adjacent sense of entitlement and victimhood. Which will be amplified if they become the target of violence.
