I've sen a lot of angst over the last week about people on the left expressing approval for 'punching nazis' following Richard Spencer suffering a whack on the ear during a TV interview. It's true, someone, probably form the left, carried out an act of physical violence while he was just standing there talking.
But let's not forget that Spencer and various members of his social circle have - for years now - been expressing approval for ethnic cleansing and even straight-up genocide. Some people say that the solution to objectionable speech is more speech, but that's an easy stand to take when you're not one of the people who should be 'ovened' in alt-right parlance. Oh sure, they're just expressing their dislike and probably don't have an actual to plan to construct ovens and shove people into them, but this is not the sort of joke whose punchline I care to passively wait around for.
When people are promoting genocidal ideas and attempting to normalize them as political discourse, they are themselves engaged in political violence, notwithstanding that it's indirect incitement rather than active commission. If you've ever been the target of gang violence than you may have experienced the phenomenon of a smart person calling the shots, while bigger and less cerebral types do the actual punching and kicking. That's why, if you find yourself cornered by a gang, you should focus your attentions on the guy at the back rather than the toughs in the front.
It's true that not everyone who voted for Trump is a bigot. But they were OK with voting for one, weren't they? The longer someone makes excuses for this sort of thing, the more responsibility one takes on for it. You say you're worried about the rhetoric from the left, but it's Trump who has been going about expressing a desire to use nuclear weapons, punish women who have abortions, muzzle the press, demean women and so on.
I am absolutely not going to apologize for being against such statements or moderate my condemnation of them. If you let those things slide by saying 'it's just Trump being Trump' or whatever, then you're making excuses for the systematic intimidation of large social groups. Why would you want to normalize such behavior? Why does open opposition to that bother you?
I have questions about a few of your comments, if you don't mind indulging me:
1. Who is speaking for ethnic cleansing and genocide? Can you provide citations? I hear a lot of people talking out against illegal immigration, since it drives down wages and makes it harder for poor Americans to compete and make a living. I also hear politicking regarding banning muslims from entering the U.S., due to the fear of terrorism. I agree that an all out ban stinks of WW II internment camps (a bit close to home too, since my wife is Japanese), but I'm not sure how you can extrapolate genocide from those conversations. Disallowing people from entering the U.S. doesn't really equate to genocide, does it? I don't really know what you're referring to, exactly, since you didn't provide any citations, but "genocide" seems a bit hyperbolic to me, with the information I currently have.
2. Are you advocating physical violence against people who have differing opinions than you? You lead in with Richard Spencer, and then ended by saying you're not going to apologize for being against the political speech you're referring to. I'm curious if you're suggesting physical violence as a means of shutting down said opinions?
1. Here are some examples of people calling for ethnic cleansing/genocide or similarly oppressive policies. If you're basically liberal then these articles will be pretty offensive:
I don't want to get sidetracked into quantitative analysis, but if you really want I can direct you to material compiled by a former US intelligence officer that is documented with hundreds if not thousands of citations. The animus you'll find in the links above directed at people of other races, 'cultural Marxists' and so on may be novel to you, but I've been observing this particular social group on the net for nearly 15 years now.
2. I'm OK with physical violence against people who are actively promoting violence like this, yes. People can have differing opinions about all sorts of subjects and I'm fine with that. I am even wiling to defend the concept of free speech for people like neo-nazis and the kkk - but only up to the point where they endorse violence against others as opposed to merely asserting their own superiority.
1. Thanks for the citations, but who the hell are F. Roger Devlin and Brett Stevens, and why should anybody care? Their blogs seem to be on the fringe, and not something one would see in day-to-day politics. I'm not saying you don't have a point. Our society certainly has a few of these weird eggs, but there brand of "thinking" is generally viewed as abject ignorance by mainstream society, isn't it?
2. How would your policy of physical violence be any different, or less self-superior, than the kind of violence you believe this type of talk incites? I'm not trying to be snarky. It's just that enforcing a prescribed way of thinking via violence tends to have a lot of ill side effects that people don't take into consideration before heading down that slippery slope.
I agree that some violence is unavoidable, and some violence is absolutely necessary. I don't think that the time for either is when people are simply talking though. Disagreeing with someone doesn't justify punching them in the face, no matter how self-righteous you may be. At least that's the way I look at it.
How many threats of violence should someone accept against themselves before it's OK for them to punch the person making the threats?
Come on man, one of our ongoing political problems is the unfortunate tendency of police officers to shoot unarmed black men because the police officer felt a degree of anxiety about their personal safety, sometimes without even knowing why, as in this case: http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/21/opinions/shooting-man-lying-do...
That strikes me as a serious problem, compounded by the fact that police officers have difficult and complex jobs and nobody outside of a few theoretical anarchists wants to abandon the idea of policing crime.
I'm really not that worried about very minor acts of violence directed against people advocating nazi ideologies and the violent death or removal of other people by the millions. Such proposals are not the sort of thing I can agree to disagree over, because they constitute a threat against my friends, family members, and my self. Why should we be subjected to such threats with no means of responding to them? You can worry about a slippery slope of violence all you want, but I don't recall historical oppressive regimes making a special exception to their oppressive practices for the conscientious objectors who repudiated violence, do you?
I'm not sure I'm following your line of thinking here, but I really want to understand where you're coming from, so maybe you could go over it again and help me understand what you mean.
You started out talking about Donald and his supporters, then jumped to some fringe and obscure websites as citations. Who is it, exactly, that you want to start punching? Some nobody with a website? Donald? His supporters? I don't get it.
Then, in response to my statement that it isn't right to combat words with fists, you jumped to cop violence (which happened far more frequently under Obama than Donald, so far). I think when the state is actively shooting you for no reason, you're justified in fighting back with equal violence; however, this is a far cry different than punching someone in the face for having a different opinion than you do, isn't it?
> You can worry about a slippery slope of violence all you want, but I don't recall historical oppressive regimes making a special exception to their oppressive practices for the conscientious objectors who repudiated violence, do you?
Rather the opposite, those were the first up against the wall because it was already known they wouldn't resist.
Agreed 100%. Long before that there are many other options that can be tried with varying chances of success depending on how many people participate and what kind of response one can expect.
1. The fact that you haven't heard of them is beside the point. They're influential within their circles and have been building their fan base for years. I would hope you have heard of Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway, and I have no hesitation in saying that their political starting point is only a very short hop away from the authors I've cited here.
2. To put it very simply, I'm saying that it might be OK to punch a nazi in response to the things they say or do which threaten the safety of others; they're saying it might be OK to kill or harass people because of their genetic characteristics or social affiliations, absent any demonstrable harm.
If I was saying it's OK to punch Richard Spencer because he's white, then you'd be right. But I have no interest in punching Richard Spencer for being white, or for thinking that white people are better, or for saying that he'd prefer to hang out only with other white people. When he starts saying it's OK to get rid of other people in order to create the white nationalist utopia he pines for, that's an incitement to violence and may justify a violent response.
Look, these people are not mainstream folk that are basically the same as everyone else but made a racist joke one time or something. Promoting violence against demographic groups is way outside the realm of acceptable discourse and is not something that we should be attempting to incorporate into it. You seem oblivious to the effect such behavior has on people who are members of the designated out groups.
I can't believe I even need to explain this to an intelligent adult person.
But let's not forget that Spencer and various members of his social circle have - for years now - been expressing approval
Actual Nazis liked to be punched by their opponents and even arrested by the cops for their nonviolent activism in the 1920s and early 1930s. They like the publicity for the same reason Gandhi and MLK liked it: It makes them sympathetic by exposing the evil behaviors of those that hate them.
Punching Spencer is a huge win for Spencer and the things Spencer stands for.
Richard Spencer has openly declared his White Nationalist aspirations, and is on video exhorting his supporters to party like it's 1933 and exchanging nazi salutes with them, with arguments like 'for us, it is conquer or die.'
I did not decide he was a nazi by making some theoretical extrapolation using Marxist calculus or somesuch. He's saying in plain English (and occasionally German) that he wants to engage in a race-based war of conquest in which the stakes are life and death.
But let's not forget that Spencer and various members of his social circle have - for years now - been expressing approval for ethnic cleansing and even straight-up genocide. Some people say that the solution to objectionable speech is more speech, but that's an easy stand to take when you're not one of the people who should be 'ovened' in alt-right parlance. Oh sure, they're just expressing their dislike and probably don't have an actual to plan to construct ovens and shove people into them, but this is not the sort of joke whose punchline I care to passively wait around for.
When people are promoting genocidal ideas and attempting to normalize them as political discourse, they are themselves engaged in political violence, notwithstanding that it's indirect incitement rather than active commission. If you've ever been the target of gang violence than you may have experienced the phenomenon of a smart person calling the shots, while bigger and less cerebral types do the actual punching and kicking. That's why, if you find yourself cornered by a gang, you should focus your attentions on the guy at the back rather than the toughs in the front.
It's true that not everyone who voted for Trump is a bigot. But they were OK with voting for one, weren't they? The longer someone makes excuses for this sort of thing, the more responsibility one takes on for it. You say you're worried about the rhetoric from the left, but it's Trump who has been going about expressing a desire to use nuclear weapons, punish women who have abortions, muzzle the press, demean women and so on.
I am absolutely not going to apologize for being against such statements or moderate my condemnation of them. If you let those things slide by saying 'it's just Trump being Trump' or whatever, then you're making excuses for the systematic intimidation of large social groups. Why would you want to normalize such behavior? Why does open opposition to that bother you?