Not at all serious. If I see a Nazi walking down the street, I’m more likely to ignore or avoid him rather than confront him.

If the Nazis take over and implement Project 2025, among other evil acts, then that’s a different situation.

Violence must be organized and accountable to be just. Non-violence is always preferred, and is always the initial approach.

But if there is a credible threat, defensive violence is OK as long as whoever is being violent accepts whatever accountability may come.

I’m conflicted about it, but the fact is one reason the US has been so successful in leading the world in relative peace (as compared to WWII and before, not compared to the ideal) is because we have so much capacity for violence in our back pocket.

“Talk softly and carry a big stick.”

Violence and nonviolence, in the face of violent, intolerant ideologies such as Nazism, or even colonoalism, is not as clear cut as it gets made out to be. I think primary arguments for violence are often misunderstood and taken out of context.

I don’t think it’s a moral question, as moral reasoning seems to lead to either 1. Violence is always wrong or 2. Violence is a moral imperative against certain enemies, for to do nothing is to permit and assent to the violence that they inflict. Neither of these absolutes are adequate within actual consequences, although both views definitely have to their credit historical circumstances where these strategies were arguably successful and progressive.

However i think there are important lessons on violence and nonviolence that can be learned from various historic examples:

1. Individual violence against individuals does not advance progressive goals. Individual violence merely strengthens the status quo against that violence, and can be used to justify mass violence of the state or militias against masses of people, usually a targeted minority.

2. Nonviolence tactics can be effective against state or military repression, but state and military roles in genocidal campaigns, or participation in extrajudicial violence shows that otherizing is effective at dehumanizing, and in order to be effective must consciously and effectively humanize the nonviolent activists to the oppressing forces in order to introduce contradictions into their justifications and create splits within the ruling classes of the oppressing powers. This is a long term strategy so you have to make sure that whoever you are nonviolent resisting isn’t gonna just kill everyone, which they will try to do, even if it is against their interests to do so.

3. Violence may be immediately necessary to protect human life, in the short term or in the long term. The fact is violent repression creates the conditions for violent resistance escalation of violence sharpens the contradictions already present in the status quo and creates splits among the various classes in an oppressor/oppressed dialectic. In this way violent resistance can galvanize both violent and nonviolent forms of resistance for your side, but it also does so for the other side. Therefore violence should be avoided if possible, but if violence is perceived as defensive or necessary it can have progressive or even revolutionary consequences on consciousness and material conditions.

So the conditions that introduce struggle and violence are social contradictions, not necessarily a conscious choice by individuals intending to do violence, although sometimes it is.

So for my part, as an American with that perspective, I’ve become fond of the concept of “armed nonviolent defense.” An example of this is the Deacons of Defense and Justice that proliferated in the south during desegregation. Groups of black men took up arms to defend their communities from Klan violence, and provided security for MLK, CORE; as well as forcing the Klan underground in the south for a generation or two. So organized citizens defending their communities and working together with political groups and revolutionaries to defend against violent reaction without the progressive political movement taking it upon itself to be a violent one.

This is an immense and complex topic and the rightness or wrongness of it is contingent on the historical conditions that are present. So understanding “correct” usages of violence and non violence doesn’t extend from our moral obligations, but our obligations to the real world, each other and the future of our movements.

Non violence has never worked imo. At most it’s a temporary solution, but even peaceful movements like MLK’s needs a Malcolm x and black Panthers to show what will happen if you ignore the peaceful ones

The contract of tolerance requires swift shutting down of the intolerant 🤛

Fascists don’t respond to logic or reasoning, they know only violence so you should speak to them in a language they understand

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00131857.2018.1519772

Violence in a vacuum? Deplorable. Violence against a person preaching or encouraging violence? Questionable. Violence against a known fascist? Absolutely acceptable.

Fascists hide in the grey areas of free speech and often make arguments, much like this post OP, that twist ethics to support their rhetoric.

https://www.npr.org/2017/08/19/544641070/explaining-again-thenazis-true-evil

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functionalism–intentionalism_debate

So in conclusion, considering your original points sound similar to the historical defense of fascists, and do carry the language of fascists.

How serious are you about not getting punched?

In a youtube video by Matt Baume, he discussed two types of protestors against offensive gay representation in the media.

The first group was loud and disruptive. One guy broke into the news room and yelled over the anchor about the injustice. Another guy handcuffed himself to a camera. It was a problem that could shut down production entirely.

The second group was calm and willing to negotiate. However, the only reason they were listened to by the networks was because of the first group. They even had whistles to ruin the filming if they weren’t listened to. But they were, and filming went without a hitch after that.

It’s not the peaceful path, but some people don’t want the peaceful path. They want violence. Give them more violence than they can handle (or at least the threat of it) until they beg for peace, THEN take the peaceful path.

Si vis pacem, para bellum.

That’s funny because I read a book (The Failure of Nonviolence) that pretty convincingly argues that no movement has truly accomplished its goals without either outright violence or relying on the threat of violence from aligned parties.

There was a Proud Boys rally in my city just a few years ago. I went with a bunch of other queers specifically to punch some Nazis in protest.

Non-violence notoriously does not work against violent aggressors. Like Nazis.

Its something people say to feel powerful and punk. Most of the people saying it couldn’t snap a twig let alone throw a punch.

Its similar to the fat boomers on the right who say they are ready to go to war.

If they were serious about it I do think it would hurt their cause given how easy it is these days to take an event and spin a narrative out of it.

My great grandfather would have shot them. He did shoot them. For King and Country. And I’m proud of this fact 😎🇬🇧

The biggest advocates for non-violence are white cis heterosexual men. It is the failure to recognize the multifaceted nature of violence itself. Punching a Nazi can mean that other Nazis stop looking up to them, and they stop being able to effectively organize.

You should be selective and strategic with who you punch. Typically you will want to go for leadership, or the guy who offers a connection between two groups that you consider a risk.

That being said, you should also consider that you probably aren’t going to have as much success punching a Nazi on their terms. A lot of them are into their gym and guns so it tends to be to your advantage to catch them alone when you are in a group. Sometimes the opportunity will come after one of their demonstrations when they are walking to their car. Other times, it can be useful to find where they live and work.

Punching Nazis isn’t an everyday thing but its unrealistic to claim it isn’t sometimes necessary. It works very effectively as part of a bigger picture. Alongside it, you can put stickers on their doors in the middle of the night. If the circumstances arise, you can do silly stuff like convincing one that another fascist is sleeping with his equally shitty wife.

I’m in my 40’s now, but as a teenager that used to go to a lot of punk shows; I can assure you the sentiment is literal. A group of anti-nazis can give a few nazis a really bad time.

I’ve been called a nazi on here for suggesting precisely that we shouldn’t punch nazis solely for being nazis so I’m assuming it’s serious for at least some people.

(transcribed from a series of tweets) - @iamragesparkle

I was at a shitty crustpunk bar once getting an after-work beer. One of those shitholes where the bartenders clearly hate you. So the bartender and I were ignoring one another when someone sits next to me and he immediately says, “no. get out.”

And the dude next to me says, “hey i’m not doing anything, i’m a paying customer.” and the bartender reaches under the counter for a bat or something and says, “out. now.” and the dude leaves, kind of yelling. And he was dressed in a punk uniform, I noticed

Anyway, I asked what that was about and the bartender was like, “you didn’t see his vest but it was all nazi shit. Iron crosses and stuff. You get to recognize them.”

And i was like, ohok and he continues.

"you have to nip it in the bud immediately. These guys come in and it’s always a nice, polite one. And you serve them because you don’t want to cause a scene. And then they become a regular and after awhile they bring a friend. And that dude is cool too.

And then THEY bring friends and the friends bring friends and they stop being cool and then you realize, oh shit, this is a Nazi bar now. And it’s too late because they’re entrenched and if you try to kick them out, they cause a PROBLEM. So you have to shut them down.

And i was like, ‘oh damn.’ and he said “yeah, you have to ignore their reasonable arguments because their end goal is to be terrible, awful people.”

And then he went back to ignoring me. But I haven’t forgotten that at all.