Comments

  1. says

    Hey, here’s a fun way to generate your own Nazi Punching Name!

    Your first name
    Your last name

    You’re done. Go punch.

  2. gijoel says

    Also people who whine about “political violence to nazis” generally have opinions that aren’t that much different from Nazis.

  3. Trickster Goddess says

    Nazism was extensively debated in the 1930s and 40s and was thoroughly discredited. This issue is settled. Nothing about it has changed that requires re-opening the debate.

  4. unclefrogy says

    @4
    it is completely absurd that that needs to be said at all
    apparently there are still some who do not understand how self-destructive
    nazism actually is.
    uncle frogy

  5. Akira MacKenzie says

    You know, I often grumble about my right-wing Catholic father on this forum, but one of the things he did right was making sure I watched various WWII documentaries (particularly “The World at War”) that showed how the Nazis came to power and horrors they committed. Granted, this was back in his younger, less-bitter, less-paranoid days. Considering his current attitudes about politics and culture, he’d probably be cheering Hitler on if he were alive then.

    In high school history, they repeated that experience with news reel footage. Mr. Aristides, the first out atheist I ever met and one of my favorite teachers, devoted a whole segment of his class on the Holocaust and racism—and I went to a rural Wisconsin high school!

    What happen? Have the public schools wrote off teaching actual history in the last 20 years? How did we forget what happened?

  6. hemidactylus says

    Punching seems rather mild.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Rosenberg

    “At Nuremberg he was sentenced to death and executed by hanging for war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Eichmann

    “He was captured by the Mossad in Argentina on 11 May 1960 and subsequently found guilty of war crimes in a widely publicised trial in Jerusalem, Israel. Eichmann was executed by hanging in 1962.”

    Good fucking riddance.

  7. F.O. says

    Why the fuck are people laughing hysterically?
    I agree with everything he says, but why is it fun?
    Whatever.
    My home town, 39% voted Salvini. Not even worth punching, hope they burn in a fire.

  8. khms says

    #9 @F.O.

    Why the fuck are people laughing hysterically?
    I agree with everything he says, but why is it fun?

    I don’t get it either. I suspect he could read the phone book and get laughter.

    Anyway, I agree mostly – I’m not a fan of punching, but I certainly agree with the rest of it. I just don’t think punching works to solve any problem, except for your own wish to punch someone, which isn’t a particularly good reason to do so.

    Let’s keep it to milk shakes (or rotten eggs, if you happen to have any). At least that way, if they complain, they sound ridiculous, not like martyrs.

  9. khms says

    #1 @gijoel

    Preach sister.

    “Because people only become Nazis if they didn’t get that urge punched out of them in childhood

    WTF?! What is this garbage?!

  10. khms says

    Now this is a very good reason not to go punching Nazis. Not because of what it does to the poor Nazis (hint: it is unlikely to make them question their beliefs), but because of what it does to the rest of us.

  11. iambread44 says

    #12 @khms

    Are you perhaps familiar with the concepts of “sarcasm” or “humor”?

  12. rietpluim says

    Re: the slippery slope.

    If you go punch Nazis in the face, who is next?

    Nobody, obviously. Nobody is more despicable than Nazis so more punching is unnecessary.

  13. stroppy says

    What does it do to the rest of us when you don’t stand up to dogmatically violent bullies? When there is no adult supervision willing or capable of mediating the situation?

    Just for fun, comedy from the teevee last night
    Garfunkel and Oats…Both Sides Can Laugh

  14. Scott McKinley says

    For me it is an unclear philosophical rule. I do get some glee out of seeing a Nazi punched, but I want to have a firm ground for my stance that this is ok. For example, if the stance is “you can punch someone for advocating killing people”, then where does that stop? Republicans are trying to stop health care that will kill people. Should they be punched? Would it be hypocritical to denounce pro-lifers from using violence since they believe pro-choice stance leads to murder?

    And how much political violence is ok? Is tasering a Nazi ok? Shooting one with a BB gun ok? Throat punch? Killing?

    So while I enjoy seeing a Nazi punched, I don’t feel comfortable with the morality of it until I can address the above questions. I also don’t want to be hypocritical, so I would not want to make a stance that only applies when it works in my favor.

  15. AstrySol says

    #17 @Scott McKinley

    Although anti-choicers “believe” pro-choice stance leads to murder, in the real world, anti-choicers caused (and will cause if they have the way) more women to die, and Dr. Tiller as well. So no, I don’t think that’s hypocritical at all.

  16. stroppy says

    “I don’t belong to an organized political party. I’m a Democrat.”
    Will Rogers

    Well, the Republican Party has been pretty well organized for the past few decades and constantly defining deviancy down the whole time. So things are starting to heat up, finally, and a small statistical fraction of people are getting very hot. What to do, what to do…

    If we’re doing what ifs, what if Trump wins in 2020 and retains the senate (that’s only just a little over a year away) and he and his base are emboldened? Or even if he loses, for that matter? At some point you may have to make a hard decision. If you’re a pacifist more power to you. But hopefully you can come up with more thoughtful solutions than just; ew strife is icky, let’s do BAU with some gestures.

    Personally I prefer metaphorical punching, but I don’t happen to be too broken up over supposed tough guy Spencer getting a bruise.

    As for Nazis, they do have a history of rolling over the tepid…

  17. rietpluim says

    The peculiar thing about Rahman is that he is not even telling jokes. He is telling the plain, simple truth. And yet we laugh.

  18. unclefrogy says

    ghee wiz! nazis are not like Methodists or something they are advocating hate and death to all that they disagree with, to all that are the least bit different from their standards. We have all seen this before you can not make any argument today that they are the least bit subject to reason they only believe in force and violence and will not hesitate in using them. They are not nor never have been willing to live together with the rest of humanity in anything resembling piece.
    they are in fact inviting the punch in the face. they are exactly a direct threat to order where ever they are.
    uncle frogy

  19. DanDare says

    So R. Spencer isn’t being tarred as a Nazi. He actually is one. He and his views were getting unopposed, mainstresam air time. Good people need to stand up and photo bomb those interviews in ways that highlight opposition to his views and get people thinking. The punch did just that, as do thrown milkshakes and eggs and shoes.

  20. says

    How should one deal with someone whose belief is to threaten violence on any who disagree, and believes that any with holding of violence is a sign of weakness, especially when oneself recognizes that, usually, more can be accomplished without violence than with? Allegedly, the pen is mightier than the sword, and in general I adhere to that philosophy. Unfortunately, I find that there are individual circumstances where such an idea is wholly inadequate to deal particular philosophies and individuals, Richard Spencer being one such person, and Nazism being one such ideology to my thinking. Thus, I can do not but come to the conclusion that punching a Nazi in the face is not merely allowable, but virtually required.when presented with such an advocate of injustice and violence.

  21. Rob Grigjanis says

    Jonathan Norburg @23: So, if you ever meet someone who says they are a Nazi, you will punch them?