You either get to call everyone you don't like a nazi...

[Merneith]

@Budget_Player_Cadet

Congratulations, you just pigeonholed myself, most of the rationalist community, and most people even remotely concerned with how we’re responding to the incredibly tiny wave of white nationalism surfacing into the role of “nazi”.

No. Some of you are Nazi sympathizers and some of you are just dumber than dog shit.

But as I remarked in the post that started this conversation up again, Nazis aren’t just the ones pulling the trigger. All the people who support, defend, protect, and downplay the shooters are also Nazis.

It’s not just the people wearing, “Have you heard the Good News about National Socialism?” buttons. This is non-controversial to people who aren’t Nazis.

@Budget_Player_Cadet

My thesis is this: we are far too hasty to call people “nazis”, and we simultaneously have a cultural convention where our reaction to nazis is a visceral rejection up to and including excluding them from the public square.

My thesis is that people who do Nazi shit or support other people doing Nazi shit, are Nazis.

If you want to discuss public policy toward Nazis, that’s a conversation that rational people can pursue rationally.

If you want to say that the term Nazi should be applied only to violent racists … that’s a semantic argument which ultimately seeks to downplay the damage caused by Nazi support networks. Simply pretending that Nazi supporters don’t exist or aren’t a big deal is not a rational approach.

@Budget_Player_Cadet

Does this include Charles Murray, who advocates for universal basic income and sees the cultural or genetic inferiority of black people as something best solved through help from the government? I mean, he’s noxious, but he’s probably not a Nazi. This throws a whole lot of people - please note: stupid, racist, unpleasant people, who we should definitely do something about - into the “nazi” category that kinda don’t belong there.

Charles Murray, the guy who says IQ is genetic and that black people are genetically less intelligent, as measured by IQ tests (which, according to Charles Murray, are always fair and balanced assessments of intelligence?)

Yeah, Dude believes Nazi shit = Dude is a You Know What.

Why you think his opinion on UBI is relevant or affects that equation is beyond men.

@Budget_Player_Cadet

Hey, same problem. Did you know that people can be wrong about racial issues, and/or be racist idiots, without being nazis?

I’ll allow that, as a theoretical possibility, but in my opinion, the onus is on the racist idiot to explain why he shouldn’t be labelled a Nazi. I don’t feel any obligation to extend him the benefit of the doubt.

@Budget_Player_Cadet

Again, is Charles Murray a Nazi? I don’t think so. There are a lot of ways to be wrong on race without committing the cardinal sins that make the Nazis so heinous. They’re still bad, but you just swept a whole bunch of garden-variety racists under the Nazi banner. Hey, is Ben Shapiro a nazi? I don’t like the guy, I think he’s a racist asshole, but he’s still not a Nazi, as one might be able to tell by his big thing being constant accusations that anyone who isn’t 100% pro-israel is antisemitic.

I don’t really know much about Ben Shapiro, except that he accused Chuck Hegel of accepting donations from Hamas, which ended up being bullshit. If he hates Hamas (or Hegel) because he thinks that they’re genetically inferior, then he’s probably a Nazi. If he hates Hamas because they blow up school buses of children, then he might not be a Nazi. If he hates Chuck Hegel because Hegel is an Obama appointee, then he’s probably on the dumber-than-dogshit list - but that’s doesn’t mean that he’s not also on the Nazi list.

@Budget_Player_Cadet

This is where I see the problem with nazis. Nazis, unlike many other kinds of garden-variety racism, very explicitly support this. They are in favor of segregation, discrimination, and ethnic cleansing. That’s what makes them so bad.

But a lot of the excess stuff seems… well, superfluous. This is where I get hung up here. If someone asks, “Why are Nazis Evil?” and I respond, “Because they’re Nazis”, I haven’t actually answered the question. I’ve just given them a label. What’s actually wrong with nazi ideology? My answer: should they ever actually take power, their ideology leads inexorably to a conclusion of ethnic cleansing and historic atrocities. By signaling that they support this ideology, they have made it clear that they see no problem with that end point. Furthermore, their actual path to political success and their actions once they have political power is characterized by violence. This is far from a comprehensive look at “why Nazis are bad”, but I feel like it’s not that hard to fill in the blanks for any given ethical system.

Emphasis mine.

The underlined part is is the part I want to highlight here. With very broad exceptions, people don’t take power purely through violence any more. Hitler and the original Nazi party didn’t assassinate their way to power. They staged violent acts like the Beer Hall putsch and Kristallnacht and then used the resulting anger and fear to rally support for increasing their own power.

The people who looked at Kristallnacht and decided to increase their support for Hitler and the Nazi Party - were also Nazis, even if they didn’t participate in Kristallnacht itself.

This is one of the ways that Donald Trump is a Nazi. He started his campaign by saying Mexicans are rapists and murderers. Then he staged violent Mexican protests at his rallies (What a coincidence!) and he used those protests to say, “See! I’m right about Mexican immigrants!” and as soon as he was in office, he immediately moved to cracking down on immigrants (illegal and otherwise), refugees and other foreigners.

Donald’s hatred for people of color is what his supporters love most about him, btw. That’s why he keeps attacking black athletes and pop stars: it’s what his base wants.

In more current news, Donald is provoking Muslim attacks in the Middle East because he wants a good Muslim riot - for the same reason that the original Nazis wanted violence related to Jews. That’s why he sent those stupid videos, trying to incite fear of Muslim violence, a few weeks ago. That was a bust, and unfortunately, most of the recent gun violence has been by non-Muslim white men. So recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel ought to get him a few bombings or riots he can use.

This is why Donald is a Nazi. Not because I don’t like him. Because he’s using actual violent Nazi tactics while spreading Nazi imagery.
(sidenote: Firefox doesn’t know how Kristallnacht is spelled. It wants me to replace Kristallnacht with Walpurgisnacht, which seems sort of random that Firefox knows about one but not the other. At the same time … it’s sort of appropriate.)

@Budget_Player_Cadet

So when I ask “Is Donald Trump a Nazi”, what I’m looking for is not shit like “has Nazi insignia” or “is racist” (most rich white old men are more than a little bit racist, as it turns out), I’m looking for support of ethnic cleansing, discrimination, and taking firm action on racism.

There’s a lot we can criticize him for, and we should be worried about his autocratic tendencies. But we should be worried about that for reasons entirely separate from the idea that he’s a fucking nazi. Because he isn’t.

Sorry, I just don’t find your argument persuasive. I will continue to assume that Dudes who send messages with Nazi imagery are Nazis. I’m comfortable with assessment.

@Budget_Player_Cadet

And if you spent like five minutes looking over my posting history, you’ll see that I’ve spent quite a bit of time slagging off exactly the people you argue I’m “sympathizing” with. I wrote at least one pit thread on Milo, I’ve been quite vocal about cutting family members out of my life for supporting Trump, and I’m not sure if I’ve ever posted about Richard Spencer but if I did it probably had something to do with me laughing at him being used as a human speedbag. So fuck your bullshit accusations. You clearly haven’t read anything I’ve posted here if you’re able to sit there and say something this fucking stupid.

People keep trying to impress me with their liberal bona fides. I don’t give a shit. I don’t care how you self-identify. I don’t care what labels you use for yourself. I don’t care what flag you wave.

No. I have not made a study of your posting history - nor am I going to start. I don’t care what you’ve posted in other threads.

None of that is relevant to the conversation that we’re having here, in this thread, right now, where you are trying to downplay people sympathizing with Nazis and excuse people doing blatantly Nazi behavior.

Dudes who act like Nazis are Nazis.
Dudes who sympathize, excuse and protect, Nazis are Nazi Sympathizers.

If you don’t want to be called a Nazi Sympathizer then stop carrying water for them.

I don’t call people Nazis because I like or dislike them, or because of what club they belong to. I call someone a Nazi because that someone is acting like a Nazi.

@Budget_Player_Cadet

This is a pretty cogent argument. Counterpoint: his Jewish family,

You know who else had Jewish family?

@Budget_Player_Cadet

his fairly explicit courting of racial demographics (clumsy, crappy, uncomfortable, but imagine how racist it would look if a president didn’t explicitly go out of his way to mention how much he likes African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans),

For real? Donald can’t be a Nazi because he’s openly racist?

@Budget_Player_Cadet

his rejection of David Duke (yes, he did in fact reject David Duke), and so on, and so forth.

Even Donald Duke didn’t believe his rejection of Donald Duke.

@Budget_Player_Cadet

So why’s he defending neo-nazis? First thought: he might not have figured out that they’re neo-nazis.

It’s true. Donald Trump is dumber than dogshit. But the two lists are not mutually exclusive.

@Budget_Player_Cadet

Second thought: he did. It wasn’t a clear-cut, powerful refutation the way most people would have hoped, but he did, in fact, condemn the violence in charlottesville, and he did condemn the neo-nazis responsible. His attempts to control the narrative were transparently bullshit, but it had worked up until then to just reflect anything with whataboutism, so why stop? I don’t think he’s a Nazi.

(I believe you’re trying to say that Donald rejected the Neo-Nazis.)

Third Thought: He didn’t try to refute the Neo-nazis, although he was eventually forced to read a hostage statement about it. But his initial response was to excuse the Nazi violence happening out in broad daylight and then to blame the “Alt-Left” for inciting it.

That’s Donald Trump, acting like a Nazi. All the people trying to excuse him or protect him are acting like Nazi sympathizers.

@Budget_Player_Cadet

I think he’s an idiot grasping for any possible partisan advantage.

Lot of that going around.

@Budget_Player_Cadet

Look, to me the key question is this: does Donald Trump support ethnic cleansing and a return of discriminatory policy and practice? I don’t think he does, or if he does, he does a pretty good job of hiding it.

This is the same Donald Trump who’s been sued for unfair housing discrimination, who’s been fighting all year to ban Muslims from entering the US, who cut local black schools off the Easter egg roll list, who’s tried to kick all the transpeople out of the military, who’s DOJ is arguing that business should be free to discriminate against gay people, who never bothered to express sympathy about the Minneapolis mosque bombing, who still, months later, hasn’t been able to restore water & electricity to Puerto Rico, who had a guy wearing Neo-Nazi medals at his inauguration, who has bragged about his sexual predation …

And so on.

And so forth.

Seriously, if you’re still carrying water for Donald Trump, and you still insist you don’t see him doing anything discriminatory … Oh just shut up, you goddamn Nazi sympathizer. I’m done here.

[Budget_Player_Cadet]

@Merneith

No. Some of you are Nazi sympathizers and some of you are just dumber than dog shit.

[…]

My thesis is that people who do Nazi shit or support other people doing Nazi shit, are Nazis.

So which one is it? We, a fairly large group of people who are left-wing, hate Nazis, hate Hitler, hate the neo-Nazis marching in Charlottesville, hate Trump, and oppose fascism and racism in all its forms but just so happen to think that we’re defining “Nazi” a little too broadly when the word has such powerful social and political connotations… Are we Nazis or just Nazi sympathizers? :rolleyes:

If you want to say that the term Nazi should be applied only to violent racists … that’s a semantic argument which ultimately seeks to downplay the damage caused by Nazi support networks. Simply pretending that Nazi supporters don’t exist or aren’t a big deal is not a rational approach.

Okay, so how do we tell who’s a “Nazi supporter”? I’d apply your previous methodology, but as stated, we pick up a whole lot of people who are “Nazi supporters” in the same that the guy holding up a “Dirty Commie Bastards” sign is a communist. Like me.

Charles Murray, the guy who says IQ is genetic and that black people are genetically less intelligent, as measured by IQ tests (which, according to Charles Murray, are always fair and balanced assessments of intelligence?)

Yeah, Dude believes Nazi shit = Dude is a You Know What.

Again, this is a stupid argument. We’ve had numerous overtly racist regimes. Virtually every society before the late 1900s was explicitly and overtly racist. And yet somehow, Nazis are specifically awful and evil and bad. Clearly, the specific problem with Nazis is that they believe IQ tests are largely accurage, believe IQ is genetic, and believe that black people score lower on IQ tests!

Or, y’know, the whole “genocide” thing. Could be that.

People keep trying to impress me with their liberal bona fides. I don’t give a shit. I don’t care how you self-identify. I don’t care what labels you use for yourself. I don’t care what flag you wave.

No. I have not made a study of your posting history - nor am I going to start. I don’t care what you’ve posted in other threads.

None of that is relevant to the conversation that we’re having here, in this thread, right now, where you are trying to downplay people sympathizing with Nazis and excuse people doing blatantly Nazi behavior.

Dudes who act like Nazis are Nazis.
Dudes who sympathize, excuse and protect, Nazis are Nazi Sympathizers.

If you don’t want to be called a Nazi Sympathizer then stop carrying water for them.

There’s an excluded middle between “Let me just suck Trump’s cock a little harder” and “Trump is not literally a nazi”. It includes my position, which is, just to be clear: “Trump is a goddamn garbage fire, easily the least qualified and likely to become the worst president of the last century at least, has authoritarian tendencies that are seriously disturbing and should be removed from office as soon as humanly possible”. But I think that excluding that middle:

A) is actively harmful to the goal of preventing Nazi recruitment
B) plays very effectively into various right-wing narratives about the left being hyperbolic and violent
C) places way too much emphasis on a tiny, virtually insignificant group who, at their biggest event ever with nazis coming from across the country, managed maybe a few hundred and were totally swamped by just local counter-protesters

In more current news, Donald is provoking Muslim attacks in the Middle East because he wants a good Muslim riot

Oh come on this is just fucking stupid. Trump promised to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel on the campaign trail, and now he’s going through with his (stupid, stupid, STUPID) promise. Clearly, the only reason he’d do that is because he wants to incite violence. This, in turn, is evidence that he’s a nazi. Are you shitting me?

Oh just shut up, you goddamn Nazi sympathizer. I’m done here.

@Merneith

I would certainly be pleased to punch a Nazi,

Hmm.

So just so we’re clear, over the course of a few posts, you have made it explicitly clear that you think that Nazis are worth punching, and equally clear that you think that I’m a nazi sympathizer (and thus a nazi) because I disagree with you. Not because I disagree with you on the issue of “are jews humans” or “should we eliminate inferior races” or even “are Nazis the scum of the earth” (!!!), but because I think you’re too hasty to label people nazis. Apparently you miss the irony here. You are exactly the kind of person this thread is aimed towards.

Can we maybe at least exclude the people very loudly, very clearly saying, “Nazis are the scum of the earth” from the group of people we are accusing of being nazis or nazi sympathizers? Or is that a step too far?

[GIGObuster]

Well Merneith, I do have to agree that in the earlier post you did say that you will be glad to punch a Nazi, I would also be, but only after seeing that they are using actual violence towards the ones protesting peacefully against them.

While I do agree with a lot of what you say, it is clear that the nit is the idea of punching of the new Nazis for no reason. It is indeed not a good idea.

In the meantime I do have to say that it is really dumb for others to continue to go as if falling for racist ideas such as IQ being driven by genetics, authoritarian behavior geared to encourage extreme right wing to grow, violence against peaceful protesters of fascism, etc. should be poo pooed. One should remind the fascists or the many right wingers that are falling for that propaganda of where that leads eventually.
While violence against Nazis should not be used with no reason, efforts to discourage them, such as limiting their funding by discouraging the people or groups funding them.

[Merneith]

Gigobuster - I am entirely onboard with punching Nazis via disrupting their funding sources. I will certainly agree that it is a more effective approach! And as I said earlier, there don’t happen to be any Nazis physically present just here at the moment. I am happy to explore metaphorical punchings, if you like.

As I said, we can certainly have a conversation about our public policy toward Nazis. I am open to a discussion of the more civilized methods of applied violence.