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What Can a City Do When Neo-Nazis Start Marching Down Its Streets? (www.nytimes.com)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

38 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The inside-the-law approach that works to some limited extent is public community rejection. Things like large groups showing up and standing with their back to the Nazis.

The method that has historically stopped Nazis like this involves getting some level of police cooperation and beating them up

all 39 comments

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[–] TunaCowboy 35 points 5 months ago

[–] [email protected] 34 points 5 months ago (2 children)

In Germany we (meaning other people, not me) usually organize counter-demonstrations.

[–] VelvetStorm 7 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Isn't it very illegal to be one in Germany? Shouldn't the police be arresting them?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

There are certain symbols (like the Swastika) that are illegal, but just believing you are a superior race isn’t against the law.

[–] VelvetStorm 3 points 5 months ago

When I hear nazis I just assume they are doing the salute and are using the symbols.

[–] Dkarma 6 points 5 months ago

We used to shoot them when your country was them.

[–] VelvetStorm 19 points 5 months ago

Do what punks did to keep them out of the punk scene. Make them feel afraid to show up. You do this by beating the shit out of every single one of them every time they show up or open their mouths.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Shoot most of them and recruit the rest to NASA. Oh wait...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Don't be absurd. They needed people to run West Germany too.

[–] wildcardology 11 points 5 months ago (4 children)

Is Nazism protected speech?

[–] njm1314 27 points 5 months ago

From the government. Not from the rest of us.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 months ago

It actively exploits the values of democracy to destroy it.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago

Yes, unless there's an immediate call for lawless action (like starting a riot).

[–] eatthecake 9 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Story about the Jewish lawyer who helped the nazis get the right to march:

https://www.newsweek.com/story-jewish-lawyer-who-defended-free-speech-rights-nazis-1771393

Personally, I think it was a mistake but I'm Australian and happy not to have American freedom of speech.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

Thanks for showing me this story.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago

Styrofoam dissolved in gasoline works well

[–] Cyberflunk 8 points 5 months ago

Flying lead keeps Nazis under cover while you douse them in gasoline.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

Legally I want the government to do nothing to suppress free speech. I recommend individuals to be a little extra.

[–] RubberElectrons 4 points 5 months ago

Garbage bags stacked on roofs. Empty it on them from above.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Loudly ask why mass shootings happen to decent people instead of these scum. Play videos of the bombing of Dresden and the executions after the Nurnburg trials to remind them about what we do to Nazi fuckheads.

[+] Carrolade -18 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Let them march. A bigger problem is that a huge number of people seem to think they're a thing of the past and don't really exist in any strength. Let them prove otherwise.

You can't suppress them into defeat anyway, we've tried that before.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (3 children)

We can't suppress them into defeat!? What?? That's how the German Nazis were defeated! That's how modern Nazis have been symbolically defeated, worldwide. Repeat after me: "We don't serve you here."

Any place, anywhere in the world, if an equal number of people stand up against them and for human equality, they run away with their tails between their legs. They're fucking Nazis...

[–] Carrolade 12 points 5 months ago (2 children)

There were several laws put in place in postwar Germany that specifically suppressed them. This was broadly effective, though I think the modern-day position of the AfD shows it was not completely so.

In the US, any such legislation would be struck down in court as unconstitutional.

So, it's just not that simple.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Newsflash: some number of people are absolute shitbags.

If you let them take over and run the show it's gonna get real bad.

Nazis are absolute shitbags. They will always be around in some number. You need to always suppress them so they don't fuck up the good shit we have managed to eek out.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

eek

eke #boneAppleTea

[+] Carrolade -8 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Well, yes, you definitely don't want to let them take over. You want to demonstrate your own strength, and how much you outnumber them.

This is not preventing them from marching in some way, though. That is not doable, it would be illegal. It would also be counterproductive in our current climate of most people underestimating the actual danger.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago (1 children)

You need to be cautious of the paradox of tolerance.

[–] Carrolade -4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I'm discussing specifics, details, not vague principles. Should there be Neo Nazis allowed to gather and march through some city with their signs? Yes, they should not be prohibited or physically prevented.

Why? Because it helps give evidence to the fact that racism in the modern day is still an enduring problem, and that extreme racism is still a threat. This counters a standard conservative narrative that remains an effective weapon in their toolbox.

Is this tolerance? No, not necessarily, not if you're also counterprotesting, contesting their position, demonstrating that they do not have factuality or popularity on their side.

I'm not some young whippersnapper that thinks in simple, straightforward, black and white ways. It's a messy and complicated world out there, without simple answers to our problems. So, we need to think in complex ways, paying attention to details and specifics instead of thinking some broad application of some sort of simplified principle can fix what a century of progress failed to.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Just to be clear, you are the one advocating for tolerating those promoting intolerance in this situation.

You have laid it out very clearly here.

That is why you are subject to the paradox. Nothing to do with complicated situations or anything. You are saying people who push an ideology of inequality and intolerance.deserve a voice. I do not agree.

[–] Carrolade 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Depends how you define tolerance I suppose. If your opponent is going to harm themselves, though, you should let them.

edit: Consider it this way. Do you think a Nazi march improves their position in the slightest? Does it strengthen Nazi ideas in any way, shape or form?

I don't think it does, personally. People that want to follow that ideology already do, I do not think it would increase their support in any way.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago

I agree with you; if I started going out to pro-Nazi marches and started killing a few of them out openly in the street, it would create martyrs and bolster their support and make them more resolute to continue their shitty movement, and in fact empower more morons to join them.

[–] VelvetStorm 5 points 5 months ago

Right, so you start beating the shit out of them until they learn to shut the fuck up and stop showing up. Make them afraid.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

“We don’t serve you here.”

Yep.

take picture
post picture near register
under sign saying "we prefer not to serve nazis"

(#3 sounds less harsh than it is in enforcement. #canadian)

[–] Anticorp 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

That's how the German Nazis were defeated!

The German Nazis were defeated with overwhelming manpower & firepower, not passive suppression.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

They were defeated by actually standing up to them. That's all I'm suggesting we do now!

[–] Anticorp 3 points 5 months ago

Okay, I guess I misinterpreted what you meant by suppression. Yes, by all means, stand up to them.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

We didn't though, we let them fester, just like the Confederates. We should have also, not let them fester.

[–] Carrolade 1 points 5 months ago

Actually, Ulysses S Grant clamped down very brutally on groups like the KKK during the Reconstruction Era, essentially continuing the civil war against the south in a sense. He ended up reducing their strength significantly and driving them underground.

Unfortunately, an idea cannot be destroyed with military might, it can only be fought by teaching critical thinking skills and sound information gathering and decision-making methods, so people don't think so stupidly.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enforcement_Act_of_1870

Note the line that says the law allows the use of the army to enforce it, that's what Grant ended up doing.