Alt-Right dinguses really very excited that one of them punched a woman in the face

It’s kind of amazing that people didn’t think white nationalists were violent until now. The only difference is that we legitimized them by electing a president who is a white supremacist in outright rather than dog whistle kind of way. So the Nazis feel emboldened to openly brag about their violence.

So many people really do live in a bubble of privileged cluenessness.

@Godzilla Roberts
It’s misleading to frame this as lay down and take it. There is a distinction, say, between fighting back if attacked at a non-violent protest or while going about your business, and between heading out to fight Neo-Nazis and random far right idiots who (vile as they doubtless are) may not actually be Neo-Nazis. Wasn’t this a freeze peach protest initially? That kind of thing will attract people who are awful, but not dangerous. At least not in and of themselves. (Lauren Southern?)

I mean we’ve surely encountered this lot online, right? We know how stupidly ridiculous they are. There’s no way I think every single one is a lethal threat just waiting to happen. I don’t even think that about the Nazis, really, or there’d be more violent incidents than there are. They are not all going to kill us, I reckon, but some of them might, and seeking them out for a fight may not be the best way to avoid that.

@Pompeii

Step 3: Be SHOCKED when the Nazis start punching you back.

Sorry, where did you see that anyone was “shocked” ? She’s Antifa. Getting punched is basically half her job description whenever protests are involved. We ain’t shocked she got punched, we’re mildly amused that you guys consider it a victory at all.

Y’all cried all over town when Spencer got what he had coming, so now you’re picking random Antifa women to punch and expecting to “trigger” us. Pretty sure that snowflake theory ain’t working out too well for ya.

@Pompous Eurofag

Step 1: Escalate an already tense situation by committing an unprovoked physical assault on a Nazi.

It was “already tense” because Trump was getting his followers to assault protesters. Stop pretending anti-FA started the physical assaults.

Also, when someone calls for ethnic cleansing, as Spencer has (fuck his “gentle” semantics) they are provoking violent response as self defense.

I’m going to have to take the position here that “ignoring” Nazis is not a helpful course of (non)action.

I’m going to have to take the position that equating non-violent protest with “ignoring” the problem is not a helpful course for discussion to take.

It’s important to keep options for resistance open, so as many people join in as possible.

I should clarify that my pacifism (well, ex-pacifism now) didn’t come from a place of privilege, but from a misplaced post-traumatic response to my Godawful childhood. Not pulling a #NotAll, just explaining why I held such an untenable position. ^^;; Honestly, it’s about time I snapped out of it.

@ GodzillaRoberts

So, Mr. Don’t Fight Fascists… they’re going to kill people like me either way, I should just lay down and die? I don’t think so.

I do not want to punch first, but I will punch to protect me, my wonderful gender fluid child and trans son and my disabled latinx self. I will fight to protect us from the Alt-Right because I DONT HAVE A CHOICE.

This fellow latinx will stand by you and I will do what I have to. I also have a lot of relatives who can’t hide in plain sight like I can.

@ Scented Fucking Hard Chairs

Then again, anyone whose brain didn’t slowly leaked out of their earholes saw this coming.

I was going to make a joke about your beloved Hitler, but I suppose his brain didn’t exactly leak slowly.

I think I love you.

Do not feed the trolls.

Seriously? Here?

You’ve come to the wrong blog.

@Policy of Madness

Ah, sorry for misunderstanding. Yes, I completely agree with you.

@Leo

Wait, is a slap on the wrist really what you’d get? I’d have thought even US police would take it rather more seriously that that.

For white kids? Legally speaking, yes, although practically it means pepper spray, tear gas, and/or a beating when they riot which is basically the same as they get at peaceful protests. Some will be arrested if there is violence, but not that many.

On the other hand, POC can get arrested at a peaceful protest while giving an interview to the press.

You think North Dakota would consider making it legal to “accidentally” run over protesters if the protesters weren’t primarily Amerind?

I wasn’t equating nonviolent protest with ignoring them, I actually meant ignore them, when possible/strategic.

Well then, no. This is absolutely wrong.

What would have happened, at Berkeley, if no one else showed up? They might have ranted a bit about their precious freeze peach and got bored and gone home.

Which would mean no outrage over a dishonorably discharged white supremacist felon punching a woman. No national press attention given to the threat of the rising White Supremacist fascist movement. No exposing their thuggish tactics of smuggling weapons into a protest because they planned violence. And they still would have declared victory.

Not seeing how that’s a better outcome.

I think people are making the mistake here of expecting them to operate like actual Nazis, somehow

Because they ARE operating like the actual Nazis did. I suggest reading a history book about the rise of the Nazi party in Germany. Nazis were treated as a joke, or as outliers who wouldn’t influence the more moderate leaders, or that Nazis didn’t mean what they said. At least until it was too late.

I think you are making the mistake of looking at things in hindsight. The Nazi Party of WW2 after power had been seized was not the Nazi Party when they were trying to install Hitler as dictator. Hitler and the Nazis didn’t run on a platform of genocide, they called for “reasonable” restrictions and ethnic cleansing to preserve culture and increase employment, just like Richard Spencer and the rest of the “trolls.”

@Godzilla Roberts
Whoever said trolls were funny? Yes, they’re disgusting, but that’s what gets the reaction they’re looking for.

@Betrayer
Thanks for the information. Yes, I definitely gathered that white kids would get better treatment, but would still have expected arrests. Maybe if it gets even more out of control, though?

Well, for starters, a woman wouldn’t have been punched. People not getting hurt sounds like a preferable outcome to me, especially when they could get killed.

All I got from the press attention was “them crazy American kids be fightin’ (over Trump or something???)”. It doesn’t necessarily come across the way you might hope. The white nationalists view any attention as a recruitment tool – are they necessarily wrong? Cover ‘the rise of white nationalism’ (which makes it sound like more people agree with them than they do) and show them in fights…is that a deterrent to similar types?

Wouldn’t their tactics about weapons smuggling still have been exposed due to their own social media posts? And as is, the Antifa’s intent to fight was, too, which doesn’t come over great.

Yes, they’d have declared they’d won anyway, but they’d look ridiculous, which is the goal. I’m British, we mock Nazis.

We do have the benefit of hindsight, though. The Nazis were still much more organised than this lot, and this is now a world in which we know about the Nazis. Maybe it can happen again, but this is a restriction on it happening again, especially in the same way. I’m sure some of them mean that they say, that’s obvious enough, but some of them like playing Nazi. The Nazis didn’t know they were the baddies. And some of them are not actually trying to be Nazis in the first place – this was about freeze peach for goodness sake, some of them are more fussed about their precious vidya games than they are about 1488 or w/e.

@Kat, ambassador of the feminist government in exile

Speaking for the Asian demographic here. From what I know of ex friends, partly to show solidarity of being “the good ones”, and attempt to paint the fascists as accepting of all who are as hateful as they are. For the Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese, Laotian, etc who are as hateful as them, well you already seen Gay Uncle Tom Milo. These jerks like all the rest think they’re exempt because the idea of fascists coming after them when they aren’t the ones being demonized by the media and the nazis doesn’t occur at all. Make no mistake, those people are just as bigoted, and as naive in their belief that because they post on /pol/ for several years, they’re somehow not going to be targeted.

For example, some of the Vietnamese people on their side actually say “they’re okay with the idea of the US nuking Vietnam for the safety of the US, the US GOV’T didn’t know they were in the wrong.” What the hell do you say to people who sincerely believe that?

For whatever it may be worth, in the wake of Spencer’s punching somebody asked experts on fascism whether violence would be effective against the alt-right:

Is it ethical to punch a Nazi? We asked the experts.

But is punching a Nazi ethical? More important, is it a viable way to stop fascists? Mic asked the experts: ethicists and academics who specialize in moral dilemmas and political activism… They emphasized that anti-fascist violence often ends up empowering those regimes, and can be used as an excuse to expand fascist power — a trend that bears out throughout the history of anti-fascist violence from Benito Mussolini’s Italy during World War II to Argentina in the early 20th century.

“Violence from opponents of fascist regimes usually gives more intense, overt power to that regime,” said Nitzan Lebovic, the chair on Holocaust Studies and Ethical Values at Lehigh University. “In any of the cases I know, it plays right into the hands of the regime, and is used as an excuse to harshen the punitive measures against critics. It doesn’t benefit those who are interested in democracy.”

Lebovic, an expert on the history of fascism, insisted he did not want to comment on U.S. politics, as he’s not a citizen. But he pointed to the worldwide history of anti-fascist violence, and said that in each case, violence against fascists prompted those regimes to become more violent and punitive…

In other words, the only case for getting physical with Nazis, or anyone really, is if that person is already attacking you or someone close to you.

At the end of the article it considers some alternatives, though not in depth.

@Ooglyboggles
“Stinkin’ thinkin'” is an Alcoholics Anonymous term. AFAIK, in AA the expression is about negative thinking: Nobody loves me. I’m stupid. Etc.

Personally, I like to apply it to all kinds of misinformed, irrational, ill-thought-through ideas.