Virginia man convicted of punching rally organizer fined $1 - Sensationalist Headlines

The expressions in these photos are endlessly bountiful.

I'm a person that prefers non-violent solutions but the only clear-cut exception in my book is if you call yourself a nazi.

"Step right up, join the alt right! Get assaulted in public and watch as the world gives less than zero fucks about it because you're a degenerate who deserved it." What a sales pitch.

Crazy how they were in the spotlight for at least a year, yet only grew in power and influence until they started getting their shit pushed in at rallies.

"join the alt-right, we get our shit kicked in by old men!" hmm doesnt have a ring to it

Lets try and use those gray cells and more than a day ahead ... Punch Nazi. Nazi gets encourage to go in groups and hold hidden meetings. Nazis now go in group Nazis now feel unsafe in state that permits open carry. I'm also a firm believe in a little thing called "freedom of speech". But I guess Americans aren't so keen on the First Amendment as much as they say. Who knew.

Right. Those poor nazis.

oh no the poor sods calling for ethnic genocide, don't punch them they're just expressing their freedom of speech those poor, poor nazis

"Keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer."

People who use their freedom of speech to advocaye for genocide failed as a member of society in the first place and absolutely deserve to be kicked. I am very glad advocating for murder gets you arrested in my country, as the freedom of speech of nazis is less important that the freedom to not be murdered for who you are.

Sure. In my country you will get thrown in jail for the same reason. But its better if you let the authorities hande the saturation instead of becomming the judge, jury and executioner. One thing is for sure. The Nazi is now feeling unsafe and will show up next time prepared.

Have you been paying attention since charlotsville? Most nazi rallies have been cancelled thanks to anti fascist activism and counter protests. Directly opposing nazis weakened their movement immensely, as theses cowards can mostly harm in groups or through terrorist attacks. Every leaders like Spencer and Milo are completely fading into obscurity because of the work of activists who deplatformed them, protested them and helped expose the true whiny losers they were, when some dumbass journalists and reactionaries were elevating them to "edgy counter culture boys". Good riddance.

Wouldn't the best way to continue the anti fascist activism and counter protests instead of violence? Letting them do the walk of shame that was widely described as a "pathetic failure" and "embarrassing." I got a feeling this is just going to lead to an "eye for an eye". An excuse to bring weapons.

That's not what that phrase means. Also, and this is just a funny observation, that phrase actually comes from Machiavelli's political treatise on how to be a despot.

Maybe if ever alt right get low on funds they can set up a fundraiser, letting people hit them and charging £1 a go. I don't like the idea of giving money to nazis but thems competitive rates.

Quote originated from Sun Tzu, learned it from my Granddad who I suspect learned it from one of "The Godfather" movies. (Not sure on that) Next time read the previous message. I stated that punching Nazis is going to make them encourage walking in groups, staying in secret and encourage violence. I'll rather want to know who is a Nazi than them turning to secrecy

I'd rather want the Nazis in the spotlight where they will be able to convert the largest amount of people possible to their cause* ftfy. Hitler quickly became the party's most active orator, appearing in public as a speaker 31 times within the first year after his self-discovery. Crowds began to flock to hear his speeches. Hitler always spoke about the same subjects: the Treaty of Versailles and the Jewish question. This deliberate technique and effective publicising of the party contributed significantly to his early success, about which a contemporary poster wrote: "Since Herr Hitler is a brilliant speaker, we can hold out the prospect of an extremely exciting evening". Over the following months, the party continued to attract new members, while remaining too small to have any real significance in German politics. By the end of the year, party membership was recorded at 2,000, many of whom Hitler and Röhm had brought into the party personally, or for whom Hitler's oratory had been their reason for joining. (wikipedia) How the fuck do you build a country-destroying movement out of your basement. Reason doesn't work on these people. You can't reason with them. They will lie in debates and they have the upper hand like the creationists do where their ideas are punchy and convincing and the counterarguments are boring. It takes 10 seconds and one chart from a reputable statistics institution to say that blacks have lower IQ in the USA and 6 minutes to explain the history of segregation, how lead paint affects intelligence and how modern day immigrants that are black have a higher IQ because they're rich because only rich families can immigrate and then that just gives the nazi ammo for their next attack of how jews are rich and have higher IQ. French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre says: Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past. Even if you had the upper hand there's an ethical issue where you will be giving the message that personhood is a debatable topic when in reality humans have value regardless of their genetics, quirks, sexuality, gender identity, ability or upbringing. Additionally you misunderstand the goal of violence. It's to shut them up not make them change their mind. Stop the infestation at an early stage, make them afraid for their jobs, their friendships, their finances. It whittled down richard spencer and milo y: https://cdn.unicornbooty.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/27130646/milo-is-so-sad-haha.jpg The deplatforming process is a lot better understood by FP and me now. The first time they'll get publicity and their fan base will grow but the 20th time nobody will care and they'll be out $10000 oh yeah also diversity of tactics. violence isn't the only thing being used.

No. That's a misattributed quote, Sun Tzu's actual quote was "know your enemy and know yourself and you will always be victorious." The problem with allowing nazis to publicly group up, rather than secretively, comes when they've managed to appoint someone chancellor and then before you know it 85 million people are dead from the resulting world war.

Aw boo hoo poor genocidal degenerate

Wait you didnt know about charlotsville, what this thread is about, or any of the context around it? No offense but citing out of context chinese proverbs isnt helpful, paying attention to the reality of whats going on is.

Nazis are opposed to freedom of speech, religion, assembly, and thought. Hiding behind any of those is hypocritical and cowardly.

i'll keep my enemies closer to my fists than my friends. there's no slippery slope here. they're fucking nazis. please see this post,

The majority would be frown upon them (like here). I got a feeling that people would be less likely to join them when they see the general reaction on such discussing belies. I wouldn't say Gavrilo Princip was an expert. He was a part of a secret group. I agree that it might be a lost cause to try and reason with them. But there is still that 1% chance you could convince the person to drop his/her prejudgment. Its easy to win the argument by referencing human-values and the lag of compassion. I agree its unethical to argue about those topics. That is the same responds I would say when I see extremists in groups/religions (like the Baptist Church). I would refuse to devalue human-values. That might be true, but you just crossed a line. While they might deserve jail for vile hate-speech, you became judge, jury and executioner. Additionally you became batman with a gun. Acting against your own belies (and law). I still think that its better to charge them on grounds of hatespeech instead of attacking them.

Why should we tiptoe around Nazis on the basis they might get violent if we oppose them? They have already been violent, and their ultimate goal is nothing less than state-sanctioned violence on innumerable fronts. There is no future hypothetical 'failure state' where Nazis start carrying guns at rallies - *this literally already happens*. Forcing them to hide their faces from the mainstream and eliminating their ability to coordinate in the open makes them easier to defeat politically and physically - maybe you should look up this guy named Sun Tzu. Sure, you can rely on the state and its forces to fight Nazis. Let's even assume that police forces have not been shown to often range from apathetic towards to cooperative with Nazis. But when you do that, you are playing a very dangerous game. Laws against 'extremist ideology' or 'dangerous speech' can easily be turned against anything, not just Nazis, with the right phrasing. This could be dangerous if, say, an administration had demonstrated sympathy towards Nazis. Or if, say, Nazis started winning legislative primaries. Or if, say, your country has a 'Alternative' party with far-right sympathies forming a plurality of its parliament. Public, non-state resistance against Nazis is going to be disorganized. It's going to be ugly. It's going to include some people who hold ideas ranging from dumbfuck to scary. It's going to do things they shouldn't, and those things do not have justification. But it isn't going to be subverted and turned against its intended purpose from above in the way state power can be. People are not stupid, and I believe that only popular, democratic, non-state forces can counter a anti-democratic, state-glorifying ideology. I am not disregarding you as a contributor to this discussion. But if you don't know about Charlottesville, I don't think you fully understand the issue. You really, really should look further into the issue and understand how deep the problem in this country runs.

I have no sympathy for this man, but I can't help but feel that using violence isn't the best way to go about dealing with people like him.

Tbh, it all boils down to who came first, the chicken and the egg. I just find that escalating it with violence is generally a bad idea. You're not really hiding their faces by punching them. By punching you're giving them negative publicity that they use to ride on the news stations, gaining more coverage. The trick is to make the news as boring as possible or give the press negative feedback when airing groups like these. It is a bit of a double-edge sword. Denmark have flat-out banned hate-speech under some definitions and in a way, we have given up some of our rights to share repulsive ideas. Where the Supreme Court in America said ".. reliance must be on the substantial safeguards of free and open discussion in a democratic society." The problem still lies when you cross the line towards violence with the reason "Hes a Nazi". Its the same excuse extreme SJW used to hit people they didn't like. I'll be sure to take a look. Might clear a few things up.

I would honestly rather have hundreds of Nazis get punched in the face than have them feel confident enough to hold another rally like charlotsville- You know, where they ran around with their dumb larp shields openly attacking minorities, and even ended up straight up murdering someone.

If you dont punch nazis they are genocidal and spead their ideals. If you do puch nazis they are genocidal and spread their ideals. They will stay the same either way.

I'll be honest, I used to dogmatically believe that "violence is never the answer" and "let Nazis voice their ideas in public to be intellectually debated, defeated, and mocked so no one will want to follow their cause" but based on these past few years it's not very pragmatic to stick to that. Unless an idea is seen as weak and powerless, any attention is positive attention. The more visible an idea is the more it is believed regardless of its validity. The louder person in an argument is seen as the "winner", and leaders are people who are charismatic and project a good image rather than people with the right ideas. By proverbially "punching a Nazi", Nazism is seen as weak, cowardly, powerless, and that affects our primitive brains in a way that makes the idea and message not worth attention. While we like to think we are always rational, we still tend to make decisions emotionally, based on what we perceive rather than what we understand. The Nixon-Kennedy debate, while still a somewhat controversial conclusion, is generally seen as a good example of this in practice. Nixon v. Kennedy was the first televised presidential debate, and through polls at the time and later experiments in the modern day, people who saw the television broadcast perceived Kennedy to be the winner of the debate, due to the importance of perceived personality factors. Nixon looked pale, sickly, nervous, sweaty and tired, while Kennedy was tanned, well rested, and confident. Viewers who listened to the radio broadcast thought Nixon was the winner, simply because his appearance was not visible, so his ideas and oration were what people judged him on. Humans are still animals, we still have "caveman brains" and even though as a species in the last 50,000 years we have made great progress we still have quirks related to our early primitive ancestry in terms of how we judge others, how we treat our "tribe" and other "tribes", how we follow others, how we make decisions, etc. This kind of populist, racist propaganda is designed to target that primitive aspect of our thinking process. Weasel words, dog whistling, virtue signaling, gas lighting, whatever you want to call these tactics that obfuscate the truth behind plausibly deniable sayings are dangerous. When the message is coded in a way that people can understand the message, but can't firmly prove that the message is intentional, the hateful rhetoric gets past our minds' filters and becomes something to consider rather than something to reject. It’s corporate speak turned even more sinister. In a purely logical and rational world, Nazi rhetoric would never exist; people would see right through the ruse and would not fall for nebulous lies and fabrications. However, we are not as logical and rational as we like to think we are, and even the brightest minds can fall victim to prejudice and tribalism. By giving everyone a platform, it is inevitable that shitty ideas will proliferate because they are loud, easy to digest, target insecurities and offer false hope. It’s conflicting because there is always the chance that, by de-platforming bad ideas, we then have a slippery slope to changing what we define as "bad" or "evil" and could eventually de-platform actual good ideas because they challenge the status quo. But, it's kind of a catch-22 at that point. No government is perfect; humans will never make the most optimal decisions at all times. I think giving Nazis a platform just because it's "fair" is just giving the rhetoric more reach, more popularity, and risks the rise of populism and nationalism to the point that the fourth Reich or some type of totalitarianism takes hold before people know it’s happening. While I would like people to just "be smarter", I think to prevent ourselves from being victim to our primitiveness we need to take a firm stance against groups that intend to cause harm and push harmful ideologies. How this is decided is tough, but I think overall people need to fight against this kind of rhetoric in ways that are not always civilized. This doesn't mean, "beat up people who are wrong", but it also doesn't mean, "let everyone say their piece and then passively respond". Sometime you need to tell someone to shut the fuck up and that they're a racist asshole who should fuck off, rather than fall for their bait and keep fighting the individual straw-men and red herring arguments they set up. Sometimes you need to say, "you're not welcome to say those things here", rather than give everyone a chance to spew shit.

To preface this, I'm not from the states and am not particularly interested in politics and current events. I'm not here to tell anyone what the solution to the problem is or how to act. That said, I think that Americans have some tough questions to think about given this ruling and the huge support this idea has on the internet (including this forum): Is it okay to punch a Nazi? If so, how many times? Is it okay for multiple people to assault a Nazi at once? Is it okay to kick/punch a Nazi while they are on the ground? Is it okay to cause a Nazi to bruise? Bleed? Is it okay to physically assault a Nazi with a weapon? (Baseball bat? Knife? Firearm?) Is it okay to hospitalize a Nazi? Cause permanent physical damage? Is it okay to murder a Nazi? Do they have human rights? I expect that people would have a wide range of answers. Most people probably fall into either none of them being acceptable or just the first. But there will be variance, and some people will be comfortable answering 'yes' to questions further down the list. This is an issue when individuals are being encouraged to carry out justice on their own terms. How can we guarantee that innocent people will remain safe (see http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/402827-liberal-activist-assaulted-by-antifa-members-in-portland-report)? How can we ensure that individuals will not go past what we think is 'the right amount of violence'? Imagine the country a year down the road. Will this be normalized? Does that open the road to the next level of violence (I know, slippery slope and all that. But with encouragement online and precedent like this from courts, I don't think it's a stretch to imagine that happening)? I don't think the few points would ever be normalized, but it's not hard for me to imagine many Americans deciding that it's okay to go a bit below the first and that becoming much more commonplace. Sure, it would probably scare Nazis, make them less numerous and less bold. But I personally don't want society coming to that as a solution. Maybe you do, maybe you don't. Something to think about.