Joshua Kronengold

First, on the issue of punching Nazis: While I have seen many people say that the punching of Nazis is a good thing, I have yet to see anyone express any expectation that a Nazi-puncher, should they be caught and brought into court, would be able to avoid prosecution with the "But Your Honor, he's a Nazi!" defense. (These aren't the days of Joe Greenstein.) The argument about Nazi-punching is an argument about whether the police, courts, and our framework of laws can be trusted to defend ordinary citizens from Nazi violence. And, just as you would expect if you knew anything at all about American society or history, the people who do put trust in the police, courts, etc tend to be middle-class white (or white-passing) cis-gendered hetero people. Black people, gays people, etc, these all know that if cops show up, there's a pretty good chance that they'll be prosecuted even if they're the victim, or merely a witness. So: Freelance Nazi-punching.

Ken White knows this on some level; that's why he points out that laws used against Nazis can be turned around and used against non-Nazis as well. But nobody's calling for legalized Nazi-punching. The folks calling for Nazi-punching are calling for it outside of the framework of the law, because they don't trust the law to protect them.