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[MorleyDev]

that's a strawman, because as you well know nothing makes you as bad as trump.

Curses, the one flaw in my argument.

Disagreeing with someone's beliefs or opinions is not in itself proper justification for punching them.

I was gonna comment on how discourse has gotten to the point that "Don't punch people just for disagreeing with you" has become something needed to be said. Then I remembered that British parliament requires the opposition and government to be 'two swords and one inch' apart. So...maybe punching is a step up, all things considered?

[Harry Baldman]

I think nobody is trying to convince Nazis not to be Nazis by punching them, the point of that is to reinforce that being a Nazi is a punchable offense on a person-to-person level without involving the law. The specific intention is to prevent people from having the gall to turn up in public and do Nazi shit rather than convince them not to be such Nazis in the first place, thus attempting to prevent the normalization of Nazism that we're currently experiencing. The same normalization that the "we should have a proper dialogue and debate these Nazi beliefs, hear out both sides" mindset furthers, in fact. The problem is that a core part of being a proper Nazi ideologue is not actually believing in either debate or words, but instead malignantly exploiting coded language, pedantry and bad faith arguments to further a far-right agenda within a society poorly inoculated against such influences. The immediate goal is making Nazism a topic of discussion to begin with, which a flat "Nazis fuck off", a more radical "Nazis get punched" or the outright German "Nazi regalia is fucking illegal" policy is intended to work against.

It's for similar reasons that leftists call so many disparate people Nazis or Nazi allies - by using their particular brands of pedantry, slanted even-handedness, rhetorical traps and conversation shifts to the generally uncontroversial "assault is illegal" policy they're furthering that same agenda, and whether this happens unwittingly or otherwise often gets pretty fuzzy. That there are terribly few rhetorically effective leftists around to correctly elaborate the position (I'm definitely not one of them) and call people out for spreading covert Nazi bullshit only makes the problem worse.

[martinuzz]

It's clear to see that if people with ideas you extremely disagree with get a punch, then people you merely mildly disagree with get either you screaming over them or you completely ignoring them.

"Punch a Nazi in self-defence" doesn't have the same ring. I mean, I think anybody can understand punching someone who is trying to assault you or someone near you, or throwing bananas and shouting racial slurs at you or someone near you.  Heck, openly and honestly talking about murdering you/carrying out violence against you or someone you know is probably an acceptable enough self-defence for a punching, emotively if not always legally.

The UK law talks about intent with self-defence law and that idea seems to be appropriate here. In the UK, you aren't allowed to carry a knife 'for self-defence' because that means carrying a *weapon that you pre-meditatively intend to use to harm someone* and it is that which is illegal. We can apply a similar idea to "Punch a Nazi" and say it's a bad idea in modern discourse to set out to pre-meditatively punch someone, but the appropriateness in heat-of-the-moment can be judged on a situation-by-situation basis.

Right. I said I'd punch an obvious nazi a few pages ago. That doesn't mean I will actively go out and search for nazis to punch. That would be premeditated. That does mean that if I do happen to cross paths with one randomly, I'm not afraid to confront him/her with my point of view as a descendant of holocaust survivors , be it with words, or be it with a facepunch if the situation so requires, and I won't lose a night's sleep over it if the latter occurs. (well tbh it does depend how large a pack it travels with and how much cocaine, speed and/or alcohol I estimate to be involved, I'm not suicidal. He who learns to run away lives to facepunch nazis another day, right?)

EDIT: the fact that I should be worried to get beaten if I do tell a group of rowdy neo-nazis that I am of jewish descent, is a clear sign that as a society we have already allowed them to crawl back out of the gutter too far. Sadly it is reality. Even without accounting for the 'recent' trend of muslim terrorism, I cannot safely say "I'm ethnically jewish" anywhere and at all times in the Netherlands.

[MorleyDev]

Except 'public' far-right groups ('neo-nazis', 'skinheads' and what-have-you) tend to welcome violence, seek it out even. It's a long-standing tactic of theirs to go looking for a fight, it practically gets them off. Violence has not silenced them, it only emboldens them. True of the ones now, true of the Skinheads of the 80s, and true of the Black Shirts of the 30s.

Like I said; dialogue isn't about hearing them out, it's about showing them that they are wrong; convincing as many of them as will leave to get out whilst they can. That their problems can't be solved by nationalism and hatred. "The lesson learned is: ignorance breeds fear," says Davis. "If you don't keep that fear in check, that fear will breed hatred. If you don't keep hatred in check, it will breed destruction."[7]

I don't think anyone's saying "Words first, punching if they escalate to where that's necessary." is a bad approach. To go back to Daryl Davis, even he had to defend himself at times, 'I've had to physically fight upon occasion, but that is not my first resort'. "punching" shouldn't be encouraged as Plan A. Plan B, maybe. Plan A-and-a-half tops.

I cannot safely say "I'm ethnically jewish" anywhere and at all times in the Netherlands.

Was there every a time in history where that was possible, anywhere and at all times? I'm not saying it's not a terrible thing, cause it obviously is, but I'm saying perhaps it's not as recent a phenomenon as you're suggesting.

It seems like there's always parts of a country that aren't safe for one 'minority' or another, or most of them. We just have to hope those parts are shrinking year-by-year, and do our best to help shrink them. A world war later, and that cancer never really left. What many have rightly seen as the ultimate in humanities potential for evil, others even then regarded as a blueprint.

Making Nazi regalia illegal hasn't stopped things in Germany, either.

[smjjames]

This whole "To punch nazis or not to punch nazis" discussion really need it's own thread guys..... Sure, it's politics and has relevance in relation to neonazis in America, but the discussion is extremely circular right now.

[MorleyDev]

To punch, or not to punch, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The presence and knowledge of outrageous Nazidom,
Or to take Arms against a Sea of racists,
And by opposing embolden them: to spout, to creep
No more; and by a creep, to say we end
the state, and the thousand hateful marches
that confederates are heir to? 'Tis a consummation
devoutly to be dismissed.

[martinuzz]

25 years ago, I would have had no fear saying "I am jewish" anywhere, except maybe on the rare occasion that half a handful of skins gathered somewhere and called it a 'official demonstration', and perhaps even there, because there would be at least 4 times as many police as skins, and they'd be apprehended at the first sign of trouble.

Nowadays, it's just an unwise idea to go to any random pub at night time / drunk people time, and proclaim jewishness.
Neo-nazi demonstrations aren't limited to half a handful of people anymore either, and police seem to enjoy arresting counter-protestors more than skins too.
And that's ... really horrible. That shouldn't be happening. Not after WW2.

Don't get me wrong. I don't look jewish (blonde, blue-gray-green eyes, no noteworthy jewish nose or ears), nor am I religious, nor close to any jewish cultural traditions. I'm just as plain Dutch as can be. I eat pig and my dick is unscathed. I've never been to Israel, and I've only been in a synagogue once in my life, on architectural sightseeing holiday with friends.

But apparently just because my ancestors (of the maternal line) told Louis Napoleon somewhere around 1800 that they were of jewish decent (Louis Napoleon instated the civil registry in the Netherlands between 1796 an 1811, and it included mandatory registration of religion), there are people that want me dead, if they find out.
And some people say 'well, then just don't say you're jewish'. But that I can't. I was raised with the conviction that after what happened in WW2, no jew (or any other ethnicity for that matter) should ever have to be afraid anymore of revealing their ethnicity, and if that is endangered, it is every man and woman's civil duty to stand up against that, and I still believe that. If you were to ever catch me punching a nazi, don't be surprised if I yell 'for King and Country' when I do so.

There was a period in my country, roughly between 1955 and around 1990 (after WW2 it took a while for the dutch government to acknowledge the holocaust's full extent in the Netherlands) were people actually realized what happened in WW2, and if you were a nazi or an antisemite, general public opinion considered you even worse than a serial child rapist. That disgust has eroded to a worrisome extent.

You can say punching them won't help, but the aftermath of WW2 sure punched them into the deepest nooks and crannies of their dark gutters for a good while.
Perhaps they just needs some remedial punching once every generation or two.

[MorleyDev]

Fair enough. I don't know enough about the Dutch to really comment. Had a colleague who was half-Dutch and half-German and there was a drunken conversation or two discussing the idea of 'cultural guilt' (Hers was about the obvious one. I both thought sins of the father was a foolish notion, and lamented the lack of cultural guilt over the sins of the British Empire). That's about it. Though, I'm...not sure it was the *punching* that quieted them down.

Also, to bring it back to the American politics: Apparently it's thought the FBI at the time used the term "premature anti-facist" to refer to people who opposed Fascism *too quickly*. Evidence on that actually being true is a bit shaky, there are a few people who claim they were called this in interviews but no written evidence on the FBI side.

[Dunamisdeos]

Honestly? I think that 30 or 40 years ago I would have agreed with you (more, at least) in terms of punching. I don't think that then, before the internet and social media made every single incident a matter of instant public knowledge and review, that the punching of Nazis would have the same effect. Public shame would have a greater effect, because your neighborhood and immediate social surroundings were of more relevance.

Today, they can rally every single incident to their gain. Every time we slap one for their beliefs, they can use it to reach literally hundreds of thousands of people. It only takes one of those hundreds of thousands to say "hey, this guy makes sense", and then its not so much that it won't help, but has very real potential to make more Nazis.

@Morley
I will also say that it wasn't the punching, but the actual killing of Nazis that removed them from the world. Punching them makes them angry and self-righteous. And no, killing the domestic ones is not an option, before anyone heads down THAT tangent.

Also, what does that premature anti-fascism thing mean? That's interesting indeed, do you have a link? When was this used and to what effect?

[MorleyDev]

Also, what does that premature anti-fascism thing mean? That's interesting indeed, do you have a link? When was this used and to what effect?

Like I said, disputed as to whether the FBI used it or not. They probably didn't, at least not officially, and it instead entered limited colloquial usage to refer to people who were part of the XV International Brigade or were outspoken critics of of Fascism (possible the term originates from those soldiers themselves). But the implication of the term is that they were perceived as too left-leaning, and therefore clearly Communists or Communist Sympathisers, for disagreeing with fascism before the USA Government did so officially.

[smjjames]

Also, what does that premature anti-fascism thing mean? That's interesting indeed, do you have a link? When was this used and to what effect?

It had to do with the Red Scare and McCarthyism. Though the wiki page does say that there is no documented evidence that the two historians mentioned could find, and the only case was a group referring to themselves as such in an ironic fashion.

edit: Ninja'd, though different wiki link.

[Reelya]

http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/scw/knox.htm

What I did not realize (something the professor knew perfectly well) was that 'Premature Anti-Fascist' was an FBI code-word for 'Communist'. It was the label affixed to the dossiers of those Americans who had fought in the Brigades when, after Pearl Harbor (and some of them before) they enlisted in the US Army. It was the signal to assign them to non-combat units or inactive fronts and to deny them the promotion they deserved.

I'm guessing it was a code-word for American Leftists who had fought against the Fascists in the Spainish Civil War, to keep an eye on the dirty leftists when they tried to enlist in the USA against Japan/Germany.

So "premature" was when you actively fought Franco, Mussolini or Hitler before Pearl Harbour.

[Dunamisdeos]

Now, to me, that seems unlikely. In fact, it seems like the Wikipedia link provided states the exact opposite.

"However, historians John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr have written that no documentary evidence has been found of the US government referring to American members of the International Brigades as "premature antifascist"

"Haynes and Klehr indicate that they have instead found many examples of members of the XV International Brigade and their supporters referring to themselves sardonically as "premature antifascists"

....It sounds like Mr. Knox just wasn't in on the joke, or (more likely to me) in the context of his article may be using it as a (perfectly valid) literary tool. He's understandably bitter in the writings provided about the way that Europe failed politically to restrain Hitler. His point seems less to be that anti-fascism was a real, literal term, and more that Fascism must be kept in check before it is allowed to come to fruition.

[smjjames]

It's a bit like the joke "You're so fervently anti-gay that you must be gay!", except switch the word anti-gay with the word anti-fascist and the word gay with the word communist. The Red Scare and McCarthyism likely allowed that meme to survive for a time.

[Reelya]

It could have started as an inside joke thing, however the McCarthy-era did in fact see the same "anti-fascist" groups persecuted, that's on the historic record if you follow the other citations.

http://www.alba-valb.org/resources/lessons/world-war-ii-letters-from-the-abraham-lincoln-brigade/premature-antifascists-and-the-post-war-world/?searchterm=bill%20susman

Despite or perhaps because of these anti-Franco activities, the Lincoln Brigade and its allies found themselves under increasing attack. As early as January 1946, the House Committee on Un-American Activities opened an investigation of the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee. When the organization refused to turn over membership and donor lists, ten officers were convicted of contempt of Congress and sentenced to jail.

When Robert Colodny wrote in 1947 that "the intellectual night was fast setting in," he was from the perspective of most Lincolns describing the political situation in postwar America. In December 1947 Attorney General Tom Clark released a list of subversive organizations that include the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, VALB, and the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee. With the passage of the McCarran Internal Security Act of 1950, the noose tightened even further. VALB was required to register as an agent of a foreign government. Almost all the officers resigned and other Lincolns in the Communist party leadership were put on trial.

During these years, nearly every Lincoln veteran, particularly those active in the labor and civil rights movements, but even those known as non-Communists or even anti-Communists, were targeted for investigation. Federal agents routinely interviewed their employers, neighbors, and landlords. Among this group was future Congressional Medal of Honor recipient Edward A. Carter Jr.

So ... saying the term was just an inside joke and not a government code-word for persecution kind of obfuscates the main thing which is the government was actually persecuting them for that same reason. It would be like dismissing that someone was beaten up for being a geek by saying "well, 'geek' is a term that's used by geeks themselves". Misses the main important point.

EDIT: We all know the real reason the government didn't like them. They hated fascism before it was trendy, and nobody likes hipsters.