Too late?

[Impenitent]

Clearly we must deal with the facts on the ground ie neo-Nazis are here and gaining ground and they cannot be allowed to win.

But from the view of history, a different approach is needed to prevent such ideas from taking root in the minds and psyches of the vulnerable. A bigger, harder, complex issue - as prevention always is.

Posting on phone via Tapatalk

[Túrin Turambar]

To be honest, this strikes me as nothing more than the same manic quality in American politics I've commented on before. It isn't enough to say that Trump has bad policies, he has to be Mussolini and his supporters blackshirts who can only be stopped with violence. It wasn't enough to say that Obama had bad policies, he had to be a secret Muslim communist Manchurian candidate and his election a repudiation of the founding values of the U.S. It wasn't enough to say that Bush had policies, he had to be a crypto-Fascist who brought about 9/11 for his own ends. And so it goes.

The alt right are not the Third Reich. They are not the Third Reich in ideology, they are not the Third Reich in power, and they certainly nowhere near the Third Reich in actual threat to western civilisation. This is exactly the same hyperbole where Republicans insisted that the Democrats were not just wrong; they were actively trying to undermine the ability of the U.S. to protect itself either from terrorism or from illegal immigration. The Democrats can, and have, won significant victories at the ballot box and given that all levels of government are now in Republican hands are almost certain to do so again provided they do not completely screw it up as the Republicans did in the 1930s (which, to be honest, some of them are showing signs of doing). Although building a political case and winning votes is difficult and dull compared to punching people and doesn't have the same drama as winning the Second World War.

[Lalaith]

Good points, Túrin.

Good points, everyone, actually.

I don't think it's right to just walk up to someone and punch him, but that is my thought, sitting here at home on the couch. I guess I probably wouldn't be inclined to violence if I was listening in person, either, but I would certainly be incited to get seriously pissed off. That activates my bully trigger, which turns me into a very different, very vocal, very active person if someone needs protecting. Just reading how upset Frelga is by this topic makes me want to, well, punch a Nazi.

[Primula Baggins]

I would wish, before I die, to punch a Nazi; but I would wish, more than that, to have no need or opportunity to do so.

I think the first wish is more likely to come true that the second.

O dear Lord, we just might be doomed. The world isn't what we dreamed, or hoped, or even thought that it was. We have to be stronger and better than we ever imagined we were, just to get through the next few months. And it might well not be enough.

[Frelga]

No, it may not.

In the 30s, the Germany did not quietly fall under the Nazi spell. There was plenty of resistance, both from intellectuals and of the Nazi punching kind. It wasn't enough, and many brave people paid with their lives for the attempt.

There are enough differences in the situation to make me hopeful, but the parallels are terrifying.

Lali, I had to step back for a bit, but I'm not angry at people here.

[Lalaith]

I didn't think you were mad at anyone here, but I could tell how personal this felt to you, with very good reason.

[Nin]

Several thoughts: Sometimes, not punching makes you an accomplice. I told here once that I do firmly claim that Germans have a collective guilt: The few thousand who were real killers (the fanatic SS) were made possible by the millions standing by or even marching with them.

Then:

And that's what we should be focusssing on: what can a society do to prevent people from adopting this psychotic attitude towards other human beings?

I am sometimes there in the last days and I am tempted to say: nothing. There is nothing we can do. I say so partly because I see (and read) my nephew turning to the extreme right in many of Facebook statutes. He admires Trump and supported the Brexit. He likes posts from groups called "Sons of Odin". I just don't understand it. He has grown up in a most tolerant environment. He is a foreigner, a migrant himself, a German living in Switzerland - yet, he is expressing support for the most xenophobic party in Switzerland. His girlfriend is half iranian, half american, she lives in Switzerland, yet they speak English because her French is not very good - so not really a model of integration, I'd say. But all this does nothing to his logic: Europeans should be welcome, whites should be welcome, his girl-friend is American, xenophobia does not apply to him, because he is not really a foreigner... It is impossible to discuss logically. He has gone through the exact same school system as all the other kids, he has an alike family background (it seems his step-father is quite racist, but I don't know him at all) - I don't understand why.

Sometimes, I'd want to punch him. But of course, I never do. But I have seen him getting aggressive. Now, I know that Im not even able to punch back (I have seen that when I have been aggressed, I was incapable of lifting a hand. I know this, thus I avoid to be in a situation where I could be in need of punching - even of punching back). But that's me.

I agree with Túrin that Trump is not Hitler. Most of all, he does not have behind him a movement like the Nazi-mouvement. There is no SA and/or SS behind Trump, no Hitler-Jugend. He is despicable enough on his own not to be compared.

That job fell to my grandfather and his two brothers, among millions others. One of the brothers did not return.

My grand-father too never returned, killed on the eastern front. Of my grand-mother 8 brothers, 1 survived both of the World Wars - by declaring himself polish when he managed to get to England. Did they really have the choice to go or not? War ist yet an altogether different problem.

Sorry, this is not a real contribution to the question, just some very unbalanced thoughts.

[Frelga]

Nin,

Wanted to leave this here, by Yonatan Zunger.

"The principles that the world is fundamentally a struggle between races, where strength is necessary to triumph; that strength is manifested by the strong will of the individual, as opposed to thinking (a trait of the weaker races) or collectivism; and that the strength of a group is most purely manifested in its obedience to the will of its leader, up to and including a strong leader of the race as a whole, are among the fundamental principles of National Socialism. (The idea that National Socialism has no principles, and was simply a single collection of people at a specific time, was popularized in the late 1940’s and 1950’s, as part of a broader effort to delegitimize it)"

[yovargas]

We lock up murderers even when they are not a direct threat to anyone. From that example, we learn that just because something isn’t a direct threat doesn’t mean it’s not a grave peril.

And yet, we don’t lock up murderers because they are a grave peril. We lock them up because they’ve committed a crime. A crime that has demonstrated, quite clearly, that they are both a direct threat to people around them AND a grave peril. Neither apply in this case.

I am saying your words indicate you don’t understand the nature of threats, or the historical threat that our society is always facing.

I do understand the nature of threats. So does the legal system. It’s why I won’t be arrested for saying "One of these days, I’m gonna round up every country musician, lock them in a barn, and set it on fire for the crime they’ve committed against culture" and why I would be arrested for saying "Carl Smith is a known Jew, he lives at 1-2-3 Cherry Tree Lane, I’m going to go over there right now and burn his house down, and I encourage all Nazis in the area to join me."

The legal standard for intervening based on speech is whether or not it will incite imminent lawless action. This:

"I believe that groups of human beings X and Y and Z are inferior and should be killed or subjugated, I invite and encourage people to join my cause (and I will use lies and manipulation to get them), also I am promising you and telling you now that I will physically enact this belief as soon as I have the means"

Is not likely to incite imminent lawless action. It is disgusting, but it is, and should be, protected.

This post in a comment section is, I think, exactly correct on how we should think of the legal nature of this.

[Inanna]

Thanks for posting that, Yov, I agree.

[Frelga]

Even Virgin Mary will throw a punch for an important enough cause.

From a 13th century manuscript.

uploadfromtaptalk1486947780719.jpg (51.01 KiB) Viewed 9160 times

I will eventually find time to make a substantial post...

[Jude]

Is that from the Lutrell?

[Lalaith]

Frelga,

[Sunsilver]

Here's what M.L.K. has to say on hatred:

“Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”

One of my heroes had this written on his banjo:

[Frelga]

"I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice... "

Martin Luther King, Jr. (April 16, 1963) "Letter from Birmingham Jail"

[Sunsilver]

Non-violence isn't the same as sitting on your hands and accepting the status quo, Frelga. That's not what I was suggesting.

[Faramond]

I don't know, should I punch people who advocate for violence?

If I say yes, do I have to punch myself?

I'd better say no.

********

I think the thread question misses the mark because it makes the threshold of violence depend on who a person *is*. What a person chooses to believe and advocate. This is very dangerous, to allow violence based on belief and identity. Even when the identity assumed is abhorrent.

The answer should depend on what a person is *doing*. Clear and immediate danger and all that.

Basically, when you punch a nazi, then for a moment the nazi isn't the most dangerous lunatic around. I think this makes the answer to the question pretty clear.

[Túrin Turambar]

I think the thread question misses the mark because it makes the threshold of violence depend on who a person *is*. What a person chooses to believe and advocate. This is very dangerous, to allow violence based on belief and identity. Even when the identity assumed is abhorrent.

The answer should depend on what a person is *doing*. Clear and immediate danger and all that.

This. I expect we all agree that, at some point, using violence is morally-acceptable to prevent some worse evil. But random and purposeless acts of violence directed against people purely because of their beliefs? That's something different entirely.

[Sunsilver]

Agreed, Túrin. If you meet hatred with violence, you have stooped to their level, which is never a good thing.

Love can transform hatred. I recently saw on FB (and didn't bookmark it, I'm afraid) a number of personal testimonies by former Nazis and racists who had changed their minds. It happened to some of them because they got to know someone from a race they had once hated. For one man, it was as simple as seeing a black man hug his son as he was getting off the bus, and saying, "Have a good game!"

One of the best examples I can think of is the time a Vietnam vet came to a Pete Seeger concert planning to kill him for his anti-war stance:

One night, as the Vietnam War raged on against the tide of protest by folkies like Seeger, a young man approached him after a concert and shook his hand. The man was a Vietnam vet; some of his friends had been killed in Vietnam. He explained that he was outraged that Seeger was one of those speaking out against the war, and said, “Mr. Seeger, I came here to kill you.”

But sitting in the audience, hearing Seeger sing, and the voices raised in song all around him, the man found he could not take out his gun and pull the trigger. Something in the music changed him.

Seeger sat down with the man. They talked a bit, but mostly they sang together. They sang Seeger’s song, “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” and afterwards the man thanked him. He said, “I feel clean.” The hatred had been washed out of him.

[yovargas]

I think the thread question misses the mark because it makes the threshold of violence depend on who a person *is*. ... The answer should depend on what a person is *doing*.

I think this is very insightful and well put.