Totally antithetical to the thread topic. In fact, I think the point the thread topic is, implicitly, "in otherwise perfectly peaceful, civilized circumstances, is it OK to puch a Nazi?"
Isn't that the problem? In otherwise perfectly peaceful, civilized circumstances, the question is moot because there are no Nazis.
The bottom line is that we don't punch the Nazi. The only reason we have to punch the Nazi in the course of otherwise perfectly peaceful civilized discourse is if the discourse is not perfectly peaceful and civilized; that is to say,
if the discourse must necessarily be handicapped to empower Nazis, then the question of punching a Nazi becomes viable according to a question of lacking other recourse.
The Trump administration just disrupted over a hundred thousand people illegally, and deliberately lied to Americans about the scale of their actions. We know their anti-Constitutional intent. Thus, at what point do the actions become sinister and dangerous in the context of leaving no other recourse? Will the Trump administration, or the identifying Nazis who called for supporters to take action against suspected Jews, and other such groups need to start openly killing people―in an organized or quasi-organized fashion, not simply the uptick in spectacular attacks against minorities―before whoever will call them out? And if they do start killing people that way, will that whoever keep scrambling to make excuses?
Americans are alarmed because we are now gathered and pressing at a rhetorical precipice. A tremendous amount of our purported, self-asserted civility depends on two ideas: (1)
You don't punch a Nazi for the hell of it because (2)
this is America and we have some weirdos to be certain but there aren't any real Nazis, and even the separatists in Idaho call themselves neo
-Nazis, because they don't want to be the originals. Or, you know, something like that.
The result, of course, is the dangerous mess we have now, in which the question of stomping Nazis into the pavement becomes a viable question
because the harm is already occurring. I'm of the opinion that you don't sucker-punch a Nazi out of costume who happens to be answering questions on camera, but I'm also of the opinion that simply identifying as a Nazi, as this particular Nazi does, is inherently a threat to others. And if one's purpose is to communicate danger to others, he has considerably less cause for complaint―this according to various traditions including the general American societal code―than otherwise.
But we are now essentially wrestling with a question of when we have no recourse versus how much human damage we will allow before accepting we have crossed that threshold. One of the most dangerous propositions we have is that the proverbial "rest of us" will put up the good fight until we cross a tacit mortality threshold, and then we will throw down and simply start butchering supremacists―entire families gunned and sliced in their homes, churches burned or blown to hell with congregations still inside―because if we're going to go through it again, we will at least murder evil. We are the United States of America; it is our
eternal obligation to
absolutely never descend to such outcomes.
Yet there are some who simply won't be satisified until we do.
And the thing is that compared to the history that precedes us, the history describing such an atrocity would have better chance of justifying itself according to the basic societal realities of the human endeavor. It won't be about "Jew" or "Christian" or "white" or "black", but about an ideology; those who are determined to have their suicide pact will find some way to have their suicide pact, and the proverbial rest of us simply aren't interested in going out that way.
It's a difficult juxtaposition, but when all is said and done, people will tell of a dear friend of mine how it was inevitable. Before she was ever an addict, or a derelict parent, or even just the wrong partner in the wrong relationship with the wrong other person―which she would probably say is the story of her life, even including her parents―there seems to have been a simple question not so much of entitlement, but trust:
If you love me, the proposition goes,
how will you prove it to me?
This is, of course, hardly a unique phenomenon. And that's actually my point in raising the consideration.
There are myriad forms, but we all know the phenomenon; we all probably have our own versions buried somewhere in our consciences. It's a constant demand, as if you cannot avoid conflicts with certain people in which your role is not to fight back against their abuse, but reassure them and lovingly prove to them why they are wrong by accommodating impossible needs. If they ask you to die for them, and you do, tomorrow they will denounce you for abandoning them.
In our society we set lofty ideals, and then spend the rest of our lives making excuses for why fulfilling those aspirations is the last thing in the world we should be trying to do because, damn it, there are just so many more things that are just that much more important going on. It seems almost inevitable that we would experience existential doubt. Having gone three generations without resolving the problem―furthermore, not only refusing to address it but actively disdaining and assailing efforts to seek solutions―it seems almost inevitable that the fundamental tension between our own idea of virtue and the fact of our wallowing in sin would demonstrate some observable effect.
And this is what has come of our determination to torture ourselves and each other. Americans have long believed ourselves so fucking virtuous, yet our heritage is
filthy with violence and exploitation and hatred. Over time we have learned we can't lower our standards enough to alleviate the neurotic tension because we all know we're lowering our damn standards.
And now approximately half the country―not just some few bad seeds―appear to be at the very least nigh on full neurotic rupture. As much as a third, it seems, are already tumbling battered about in the chaotic winds of the breach; and, yes, that is a
shocking possibility, but we just got another one-third result exhibiting identity supremacism, and it would seem the
real clash of cultures with absurd mortal potential is verging
inside these United States of America.
It is entirely possible that we are in the process of identifying and recognizing an American bloc that would see the Republic collapse in order to accommodate them. I mean, I'm sorry, but we just
cannot give them certain policies, and that's the way it goes, and if everything comes apart because they won't let things keep going unless they get every last thing they want, the rest is entirely up to them.
And a big part of this is overlap. To wit, if my argument that certain blocs of voters have, historically, cut their own throats in leading to this outpouring of feeling, and in many cases actually being, left out or left behind is as reasonably accurate as I seem to think it is, there still remains a question of what that means going forward. Because part of this feeling left behind really is the decline of certain supremacism, a horror at the prospect of
mere equality. And this part is what drives the worst of what we hear and see that invokes the question of punching Nazis.
†
It's an obscure line, but I think I get it now; I think I get what Noish-Pa meant when Vladimir asked. Many Americans can feel certain profound choices swirling around the edges of their daily experiences; we tend to prefer not facing these questions, and, in truth, the world is better off if circumstance fails to demand such address.
I'll have to dig up that reference. (I just don't know where my copy of
Teckla is, right now.)