
The Seductive Appeal of the “Nazi Exception” - user982
https://www.popehat.com/2017/04/18/the-seductive-appeal-of-the-nazi-exception/
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headcanon
Reminds me of this excerpt from _A man for all seasons_ [1]:

Roper: So now you'd give the Devil benefit of law!

More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after
the Devil?

Roper: I'd cut down every law in England to do that!

More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you —
where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted
thick with laws from coast to coast — man's laws, not God's — and if you cut
them down — and you're just the man to do it — d'you really think you could
stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil
benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.

[1]:
[https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Bolt](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Bolt)

~~~
cairo_x
There's a conflation of liberal resistance movements and antifa going on here.
I don't think Antifa expects any law to support punching Nazis in the face, or
is pushing hate speech laws. As far as I can see, antifa is in defiance of the
law, not directly attacking it. Also it is not a wishful template for a
communist police force. I believe it's based on blackbloc, an anarchist self
organized mob. These anarchist mobs existed under communism too. Stalin sent
them to the Gulag and Hitler sent them to work and concentration camps. People
called them cowards then, too. Anarchist mobs have been around forever. It's
when they attack the side in power that people really get super outraged.

~~~
bobwaycott
I'm sorry, but did you just include Hitler in the category of "communism"?

~~~
cairo_x
No. Showing they've been shitcanned by both ends of the spectrum. Sheesh.

Speaking of worst possible interpretations, the author of the article makes
the worst possible interpretation of hate speech law. It sounds so
disingenuous I can't decide if it's infantile or some kind of NRAesque
hysterical scare position.

~~~
bobwaycott
Wasn't going for a worst possible interpretation, which is why I asked for
clarification. You simply worded and structured your point very poorly. Had
you preceded your sentence about Stalin and Hitler with remarking that
anarchist mobs existed under communism and fascism, it would have been clear
you meant they were shit-canned by both ends of the spectrum.

~~~
cairo_x
I'd edit my post if I could. If you look closely I used a full stop instead of
a semicolon if it makes you feel any better.

~~~
bobwaycott
Ugh. It's not about making me feel any better. It's a matter of the rambling
structure of your comment, which the 'full stop' doesn't alter. I do look
closely, which is exactly why I bothered to ask for the clarification--your
comment left me unavoidably wondering if the _words you used_ matched the
_meaning you intended_.

Anyway, thanks for the clarification. I didn't ask my original question for it
to turn into nitpicking on sentence structure. Political theory/ideology is a
former field of mine, and at least in the context of American political
discourse, there's a very regrettable lack of differentiation recognized by
the general populace between communists and fascists--people often use them
interchangeably, and will often try layering them as insults against a
specific person they don't like[0]. Since you're a random stranger on the
internet, I had no way of knowing aside from politely inquiring if you meant
what you wrote as it was written, or if something was missing.

[0]: For a ridiculously amusing example in meme form, see:
[http://fascist.motifake.com/image/demotivational-
poster/0904...](http://fascist.motifake.com/image/demotivational-
poster/0904/fascism-politics-congress-obama-president-fascist-marxist-ta-
demotivational-poster-1239517132.jpg)

------
jakelazaroff
Generally speaking, there are two avenues people have to change quote-unquote
undesirable behavior: legally and socially.

Legally, we should vociferously oppose any restrictions on speech, including
hateful speech. This is a pretty banal point; most people not to the far left
or right can agree on it.

Socially, I think it's pretty clear that we need not tolerate a lot of speech
that should be legal. Milo Yiannopolous is free to spew his garbage, but we
have no obligation to hear him out, or let him speak at our schools or events.
Freedom of speech does not mean we have an obligation to let people who mean
harm speak unencumbered. We should protest and block them however we can.

~~~
jrs95
That may work in theory, but it depends on people being rational actors when
they aren't. This being politics, it's driven a lot more by emotions and
what's fashionable than it is reason, which ought to be the primary domain of
a university. And the boundaries of what is or isn't acceptable is being
determined by people who as a group have significant biases. That is
detrimental to an open debate and exchange of ideas.

I would much rather have a system where even the most offensive people are
encouraged to speak, and there can be a debate over their bad ideas. Right
now, speakers who have already been invited are being shut down with violent
protests which are met with little to no disciplinary action from the school.

~~~
jakelazaroff
> I would much rather have a system where even the most offensive people are
> encouraged to speak, and there can be a debate over their bad ideas.

Why on earth should we bother to entertain clearly bad ideas? If you're
espousing white nationalism or transphobia or something, I don't want you
speaking anywhere near anyone you might convince. End of story.

"But who says what ideas are clearly bad?" We all do! Neil Gaiman has a great
essay called "Why Defend Freedom of Icky Speech?"[1] in which he says:

> The Law is a blunt instrument. It's not a scalpel. It's a club. If there is
> something you consider indefensible, and there is something you consider
> defensible, and the same laws can take them both out, you are going to find
> yourself defending the indefensible.

The difference here is that my opinion _is_ a scalpel. Everyone's is! There's
no obligation for me to treat Milo Yiannopolous and Geraldo Rivera the same,
even though they both have political opinions that fall far to the right of
mine. One of them is indefensible, and it's not at all hypocritical or
unrealistic for me (and millions of other people) to try to take only that one
out.

[1] [http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/12/why-defend-freedom-
of-...](http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/12/why-defend-freedom-of-icky-
speech.html?m=1)

~~~
krapp
>Why on earth should we bother to entertain clearly bad ideas?

The problem is not entertaining the bad ideas, but failing to continue to
defend the good ones, once the bad ideas have been forced out of the realm of
public debate. You entertain bad ideas for the same reason the body entertains
disease and inoculation - to build up and maintain immunity.

>If you're espousing white nationalism or transphobia or something, I don't
want you speaking anywhere near anyone you might convince. End of story.

And guess what? While you feel safe and secure that white nationalists and
transphobes can't speak openly, they'll not only continue to speak covertly,
and continue to convince people of their beliefs, but will do so where you
cannot see them and despite your refusal to publicly rebuke them. And the fact
that the "system" denies them the freedom to express their beliefs only
convinces them that those beliefs are true, and gives them a common bond and
identity, and turns them into a _culture._

We fought an entire _war_ against Nazis and white supremacists - literally
threw millions of bullets at them and burned their cities to the ground. It
stopped the Nazi armies and the Nazi state, but the Nazi _ideas_ came back
after a few generations, if one can even say they ever left.

Society can't assume that subsequent generations will hold the axioms of the
past to be true - they must be reproved, over and over.

------
anon263626
The fundamental failure of most SJW and some populist attitudes: committing
varying levels of disproportionately evil behaviors in the name of self-
righteousness, when a decent person aims to be relatively consistent _no
matter what other people do_.

Chris Hedges was shoutted down for opposing the Iraq war, and Phil Donahue
push out of mainstream media.

------
confounded
In these debates I always struggle with the idea that free speech exists in
the first place. Taking the Wikipedia definition:

> _Freedom of speech is the right to articulate one 's opinions and ideas
> without fear of government retaliation or censorship, or societal sanction._

We all know that this isn't true in almost any country with the resources for
mass surveillance. People get put on watch lists and interrogated at airports
for years because of their beliefs or circumstances.

What people often seem to mean is _speech free of social consequences_. For
example, I should be able to say that your wife is ugly, and then be outraged
(and tout myself as a victim) when your drink is in my face.

This is simply childish entitlement.

~~~
DanAndersen
>when your drink is in my face

That's assault. One could quite easily say that demanding the ability to hit
people with something because you don't like what they say is "childish
entitlement." There's a reason why public protests are governed around
"touching/hitting an opponent" as the line to not be crossed, and why pepper-
spraying someone is for self-defense and not for disagreement.

"Social consequences" should mean disassociation or loss of reputation -- not
physical attack. It's a dangerous precedent to allow the state to lose that
monopoly on the use of physical violence; that way lies lynch mobs.

As to your point about surveillance states and ideological watchlists, I agree
with you that those are often violations of the principle of free speech. I'd
rather argue against those rather than use them as precedent to throw the
whole thing away.

------
lebrad
While I don't disagree with the point of the article, it seems that shooting
down a bunch of undergrad student newspaper columns is needlessly punching
down. When I was an undergrad, reading the daily student paper was a way to
enjoy a parade of knee-slapping unintentional comedy and breathtakingly
embarrassing writing.

~~~
gumby
Agreed, but plenty of countries have these rules in law (you can maybe justify
why Germany and Austria do, but not the rest of Western Europe). The US does
too, but not explicitly, they are structured into in crimes of violating
peoples' civil rights.

It's one of the great things about the USA that they at least have a
determined effort to try to live up to embracing free speech. That's very
difficult in practice

------
cairo_x
Yes, punching Nazis in the face (who are nationalist, woman hating white
supremacists) should be illegal. Antifa knows this, and takes measures to
evade the law.

Hate speech laws are a separate issue, and no, they are not the end of the
world. There are many countries with hate speech laws, some reasonable, others
extremest.

The author makes many assumptions and selective interpretations. Punching a
nazi in the face is a crime of passion I deeply sympathize with. I don't think
it should be legal, but confronted by nazi salute I'm not sure I wouldn't do
the same.

~~~
jrs95
They'd like to be punched, it benefits their arguments. It'd be better to
belittle them. If you're lucky, maybe someone gets a picture of them taking a
swing at you instead :)

------
carsongross
Even the language is insane: is there a "Commie Exception" we are considering
too?

Certainly communists objectively killed more people than nazis in the last 100
years.

~~~
jrs95
Well of course these students and their professors aren't going to advocate
for limiting their own speech ;)

In all seriousness though, there seems to be no attempt whatsoever at
restricting "dangerous" speech coming from leftists by these people, so that
alone ought to make it clear they aren't making a logical argument. It's
emotions and regurgitation. Basically the same thing as the worst of the alt-
right.

A good example of how absurd their criteria is too: At Norte Dame they're
attempting to prevent the _Vice President_ from speaking at their commencement
because they claim he makes them feel unsafe.

~~~
jakelazaroff
You say that as if the _Vice President_ weren't a driving force behind the
very bigotry and discrimination that makes people feel unsafe.

This is a man who passed a law _forcing women in Indiana hold funerals for
their miscarriages_.

Edit: didn't realize they didn't have to attend and pay for the funerals
themselves (addressed below; comment left in its original state for context).

~~~
jrs95
That is not what that law did, although there are a lot of memes like this
that have been making Pence out to be a boogeyman that he is not.

[http://www.snopes.com/pence-law-forcing-fetus-
funerals/](http://www.snopes.com/pence-law-forcing-fetus-funerals/)

~~~
jakelazaroff
"Mostly false" is misleading; the only way in which the law differs from my
summary is that women are not required to hold the funerary rites themselves:

> The law, which was passed by the Republican-heavy state legislature, does
> require that aborted or miscarried fetuses be buried or cremated. It also
> requires that women involved in these cases be given the chance to decide
> how this is carried out.

> However, it did not require the women involved to be present during — or to
> pay for — the disposal of the material. Instead, that fell to the facility
> in which the miscarriage or abortion took place:

It's also worth noting that the law was struck down by a judge before it could
take effect, lest anyone think this law was a reasonable or even legal.

~~~
valuearb
Yea, you were misleading.

