I'm not speaking of the people who show up in public wearing Nazi paraphernalia and carrying Nazi flags. That's so easy any idiot can correctly identify them as that is exactly how they wish to be identified. I'm speaking of the people who show up in public with signs supporting free speech, unity, and love for all people that are then screamed at by idiots in masks labeling them as Nazis. Before they are beaten while police stand by and watch.
Simply because they have a different point of view.
Or any politician that openly disagree with certain politicians that have been in office for quite some time. It's a known tactic that has been in effect for a long time now. If you find yourself losing a debate, compare your opponent to Hitler.
Continuing to prove my point. "wide brushes of their opposing views" Thinking everyone who disagrees with you is a nazi because you saw a a guy with a t-shirt is something stupid people do.
I've seen plenty of people, these last few days, using those exact same acts of violence to label every Republican a Nazi. It's been hard to avoid on social media. I've seen an equal number insisting that the definition of Nazi is crystal clear and anyone who suggests otherwise is covering for Nazis.
Thing is, the latter never seem to aim their ire at those who are actually stretching the definition of Nazi to tarnish their political opponents. It's always aimed at those who observe this happening and criticise it.
Sorry, where in any of your examples are the people waving Nazi flags saying they're Nazis? I'm unclear on why you keep bringing up red herrings when the issue is actual Nazis marching together here, in America, right now. These are all slippery slope arguments that don't appear to have any aim other than justifying not confronting real Nazis.
I'm continually amazed at just how easy it is to get people to completely dismiss the legitimacy and message of any movement. All you need is for someone to take a few photos of a unidentifiable individual in the vicinity who is carrying a Nazi flag.
Are you suggesting that if somebody flies a flag at a rally that means everybody in the rally supports the ideology of the flag? If I go to some politician that has your same ideology and fly a Nazi flag does that make you a Nazi or would it just be me who is the Nazi?
It is not a good thing if people go around thinking that their friendly republican neighbor or grandmother/grandfather is a nazi. It might lead some (who doesn't know better) to think nazism isn't that bad.
Besides, Nazism is a particular brand of evil and you fight them better if you learn the correct terminology, so it is a win-win (unless ones goal is to make the divide in American politics even wider by branding those at the other sites as the ugliest of all men.)
Also I haven't seen a single swastika or other NSDAP related flag on any republican event. Do you mean the confederate flag or something?
But it also creates an environment where you can't ever actually know what any group thinks. "Are there REALLY neo-nazis giving nazi salutes celebrating Trump's victory on video, or is this a staged event to make Trump look like he has neo-nazi supporters?" "Are there even that many well dressed, non-tattoo'd neo-nazis?" (Maybe there are... I don't know any personally, but I wasn't expecting to see people in button down shirts and khakis and clean looking... apologies to any neo-nazis that may be reading this for having a pre-formed impression of what you might be like.)
And what happens when a group comes along that REALLY DOES have absolutely crazy views? "Oh well, that was discredited, but that group doesn't ACTUALLY believe the (minority group here) are the cause of all our problems. That's just some fake news designed to discredit them. I like some of the less crazy articles by these guys. I think I'll still vote for the (actually batshit crazy neo-nazi party by another name of 2032)."
So you're actually agreeing that someone waving a swastika and calling for the extermination of jews can be considered a Nazi, yet you choose not to do it, just to spite those lefties that annoyed you in the 2000s?
And, specifically, they annoyed you with their use of slightly-hyperbolic rhetoric, used to underline their contention that the Republican strategy of racial division and incitement of culture wars may create fertile ground for a resurgence of staples of the fascist ideologies? And that, if we continue down this path, America may some day start electing strongmen playing on feelings such as xenophobia?
It's not unreasonable. The point I am trying to make (and at which I am obviously failing) is that it's not because Nazis carry one kind of flag, perform one kind of salute and chant one kind of chant, that people doing the same things are Nazis.
Historically, all this folklore was a mean to an end. But the end came first. There was a plan to overthrow the government, a failed coup d'état, an relatable ideology, a strong, trained and motivated leadership, a propaganda, active enrollments and daily militia marching. In two words, actual politics.
Given their complete lack of all these, it seems to me very hasty and politically motivated to call these morons Nazis. Instead of dealing with these people for what there are - lunatics, it creates a fear for something that simply does not exists.
Well, this sort of depiction is always a many-edged sword. After seeing a media argument that amounts to "Nazis are these grotesquely inhumane monsters, and therefore it's okay to punch them", you'll have some people taking away that they should punch Nazis (their own, possibly much more general definition), some people actively trying to expand the "Nazi" label to their political opposition (so they are flagged for punching), and some people becoming more easily persuaded by actual Nazis because they aren't dangling any babies by their legs like garbage bags and therefore don't pattern-match against the Nazis they have been taught to punch.
It seems people have no idea that Nazis are actually extremely violent people. I'm not talking about your average racist, but people that identify with the Nazi party. Violence is central to their philosophy. If you actually met any modern-day Nazis, you would know this. It took me about two days of hanging out with Nazis before they literally tried to blow me up.
This isn't some free-speech issue where you debate politely and sip iced water and other frippery.. this is actual people killing other people. This is how the the real world actually operates, instead of libertarian-nerd theory world.
And you know Nazis would be extremely violent people because no rational person would self identify with that group, so already they're batshit insane, which means they're likely to be extremely violent. And sure enough, when hundreds of Nazis gathered this weekend in Charlottesville, you actually ended up with an event measured in terms of "death toll".
We have to treat these people like armed and dangerous criminals, like you would ISIS or any active shooter.
And we all need to understand that government limits speech in many, many ways, not just the "fire in the theatre" example, but with things like sedition and other criminal conspiracies to more mundane things like copyrights and libel.
People forget that we went to war against these people and used to kill Nazis wholesale less than 80 years ago, because the Nazi party went to war against America. Identifying with them means you've actually declared war against the US. Not sure how much clearer you could be in declaring yourself to be a violent and dangerous criminal than that.
Just ban them. Arrest their members. Don't be the socially inept libertarian nerd that thinks only in terms of theory without any real-world experience. It's perfectly fine to limit rights and freedoms in the real world. You can do it!
But did the klansman or the nazi have any political discussion? They're just wearing their funny outfits and walking around saying hello to their friends. If anything, someone complaining about their behavior is having political discussion.
Sure, "Nazi" and "white supremacist" get overapplied.
Massively!
But that doesn't mean it's impossible to tell. Look at the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville:
Yes, many of the attendees were National Socialist equivalents. However, what I see in recent years, is that someone advocating for Free Speech for everyone can be held falsely equivalent. That's going too far. Someone criticizing Antifa branded violence can be held as falsely equivalent. That's also going too far. Very often, I see ideologues who basically proclaim that people who don't agree with their platform are to be falsely equivalent. Example: Kirsten Gillibrand Compares Being Pro-Life to Racism | ‘The Other Side Is Not Acceptable’
It's as if someone, somewhere, is trying to spread emotionally charged, outrage inducing, anti-intellectual ideas designed to short circuit discourse. As a society, what we instead need to do is to quell outrage, promote intellectual integrity and rational discourse.
There are no concentration camps, sure, but there are people - a lot of people - who do not consider their political opponents somebody worth treating with respect, civility and basic human decency, and engage their arguments instead of shutting them up and excluding them from participation in public (or even private) life as much as possible.
From there to physical violence is but a small step, and this line has been crossed and continues being crossed in modern US politics all too often. Surely, we are nowhere near where Weimar Republic has been in 1930s, but unfortunately, a lot of people looking at the same direction and try to delegitimize their opponents and promote the idea that they should be not argued with, but deplatformed, assaulted and suppressed.
And yes, I am aware that comparing people to Nazis is part of doing the above, so we need to be extremely careful with it. But I think we can condemn people who purport to dehumanize their opponents without falling into the same trap.
Simply because they have a different point of view.
Or any politician that openly disagree with certain politicians that have been in office for quite some time. It's a known tactic that has been in effect for a long time now. If you find yourself losing a debate, compare your opponent to Hitler.
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