On Punching Nazis and other hyperbole

[mneme]

I'm willing to sing about punching Nazis, but I'm not willing to seriously advocate that doing so (or censoring them) is ethically and morally right.

Ken White (Popehat) has an excellent post as to why not. (oddly enough, -do- read the comments here).

Comments

On the punching of Nazis

[avram]

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.

Re: On the punching of Nazis

[mneme]

From what? Nazis saying hateful stuff?

I mean, there is a time for Nazi punching--even though in general, speech is more powerful than deeds (because speech inspires people to help you with your deeds). And damn, it's satisfying. But yeah a culture where we punch people in the face because they say hateful stuff is a culture where marginalized people get punched.

And while -most- people I've seen expressing an appreciation for Nazi-punching are of the "oh, but it should still be illegal" variety, not all are.

Re: On the punching of Nazis

[avram]

We're already in a culture where marginalized people get punched. Remember the guy who got sucker-punched at a Trump rally? He (the victim) had to quit his job because of the publicity, and now delivers pizzas. The guy who punched him got a suspended 30-day jail sentence and a year on unsupervised probation. Wanna guess their respective skin tones?