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“Just Ban the Nazis,” and the Exasperation of Sociotechnical Platform Politics (eegilbert.org)
2 points by rhema on Feb 21, 2019 | hide | past | favorite | 3 comments


It's easy to determine that Nazis are bad. It's far harder to agree on who the present-day Nazis are.


>It's far harder to agree on who the present-day Nazis are.

No it isn't.

Do you believe Jews, homosexuals and non-white races are inferior to straight whites? Do you believe the white race is the sole creator and rightful inheritor of civilization, and that multiculturalism and race mixing is a threat to that civilization? Do you identify as a Nazi, Neo-Nazi, white supremacist or white separatist? Do you believe the Holocaust either never happened or else that the Jews had it coming?

Then you're a Nazi.

Do you believe any of the above while supporting the use of violence to further those ends?

Then you're definitely a Nazi.

Do you identify as "alt-right?"

Then you may not be a Nazi, but you seem comfortable having them as allies, which isn't much better.

Do you use Nazi imagery and rhetoric ironically?

Then you're an idiot who wants to be mistaken for a Nazi as a laugh, so enjoy being mistaken for a Nazi. No one is laughing, though.


Perhaps I should have said "Nazis", i.e., fascists, totalitarians, etc. The kind of people described in this brilliant essay: https://quillette.com/2019/02/21/what-my-days-as-a-marxist-t...

An important part of this is agreeing on who is not a Nazi. Someone isn't a Nazi just by dint of disagreeing with me. Certainly they're not a Nazi for having voted for President Trump, or favoring well-ordered and lawful immigration policies.

The real deal is amazingly rare. In my long life, I've never met an actual Nazi (by your tests), nor even been in the presence of anyone I imagined might be one.




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