Open Letter To All You “Punch A Nazi” Morons

I’ve been a big fan of XKCD, the blazingly smart and cunningly simple web-comic, for a long, long time.

10 years? 15? Hard to say.

Which isn’t to say I agree with everything.

Like this bit here:

The word “Tantamount” is three syllables that serve as a front for enough horrible logic to fill all of Weimar Germany to a depth of eight feet. Because only in the world of cartoony quips is waving a flag, or even parroting Nazi (or Communist, for that matter) rhetoric “incitement” per the SCOTUS.

As longtime friend of this blog Sean Sorrentino put it:

Advocacy of force or criminal activity does not receive First Amendment protections if (1) the advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless actionand(2) is likely to incite or produce such action.

“Hey, we should round up all the Jews and put them in concentration camps.”

Not Incitement.

“There’s a Jew, grab him!”

Incitement.

Distasteful? Sure.

Deserving of censure? Absolutely.

Almost always, in our society, the hallmark of people who’ll never have the power to do much of anything, much less the sweeping assaults they’re talking of? Doy.

And of course, the whole “Punch a Nazi” and “Bash the Fash” conceits, combined with definition of “Naziism” and “Fascism” broad enough to cover, say, every single Republican, are the sort of mass dehumanization that leads us directly to…

…to what?

I don’t want to keep seeing the same hands, here.

13 thoughts on “Open Letter To All You “Punch A Nazi” Morons

  1. I’m going to jump in here before the trolls arrive and say that the ‘fine people hoax’ has been proven just that, a hoax.

    I will post the whole effing speech here if needs must, he does NOT call Nazis fine people.

    Fack off.

  2. Mitch, if some dimwit comes in here with the fine people hoax you MUST drop the hammer, or it will never stop.

    It is a lie disproven years ago.

  3. although feel free to drop it on them before I get back here, since my attention during the day is often diverted elsewhere.

  4. Odd how Commies and their ilk always get a pass in these oh-so virtuous discussions about what is tantamount.

  5. The Third Reich was a disaster for the world (mostly because Hitler was insane), but Fascism worked quite well in Portugal, Spain and Chile. All 3 thrived under Fascist regimes.

    Antifa (the one’s that are not clinically mentally ill) are Anarchists and Communists…name one country where that worked.

  6. But aren’t the “punch a Nazi” types the same ones now saying that unvaccinated people should be denied health care and treated like second class people?

  7. Walking past me when you’re not wearing a Covid mask is tantamount to attempted murder so I can pull out my permitted pistol and shoot you in self-defense, right?

    Good word – tantamount. Gotta remember that for my trial.

  8. Funny how nazi flags are demonized but Che is lionized and celebrated. So is Mao and red sickle and hammer. All are symbols of repression and hate and homicidal/genocidal outcomes. But it is only Nazis that get to be punched.

  9. JPA,

    There’s a bar/restaurant in Uptown, “Hammer and Sickle”.

    I’m trying to imagine how the equally-tasteful “Blut und Boden” would go over.

    But they’re at Lagoon and Girard, so I can’t imagine they’re thriving…

  10. Hey, if the systematic murder of 12 million innocents makes it all right to punch a Nazi, does the systematic murder of ~ 10 x that number make it acceptable to punch a Communist ~ 10 times?

    Bourgeoisie of the world unite! Stomp the Communist pig beneath your heel!

  11. “It literally represents a call to action.”
    How is that different from “It represents a call to action.”
    And to whom does it represent a call to action?
    And what is that action supposed to be?
    The nazi flag represents something different to nazis than it does to non-nazis
    Someone needs to work on their semiotics. That phrase makes no sense.
    Lots of stupid people in the world.

  12. Pingback: In The Mailbox: 08.24.21 : The Other McCain

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