For Frell's Sake

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

They...they haven't always been there. The Alt-Right is a RECENT development.

We've always had Nazi sympathizers, yes. Up until we got into the war, lots of preachers, mayors, and other pillars of the community said that Hitler was doing a jolly good thing and we could learn from his example. But I'd kind of hoped that, after the Nazis lost the war to us, and with the following decades of Nazis=pure evil imagery and messages in all forms of media since, we might finally have gotten to the point where "The Nazis are bad" wasn't controversial.

It's not about what the major retailers do. It's the fact that this shouldn't even be an ISSUE. The fact that there IS a huge hew and cry over a game where you "kill people for having different political opinions" (quote from somebody complaining about Wolfenstein) is incredibly distressing, whether or not it's from a group organized and powerful enough to strong-arm GameStop.

[LittleRaven]

And yet, we have fewer Confederate monuments today than we did 10 years ago. 10 years ago, Walmart happily sold the Stars and Bars, now they don't. 10 years ago, Paypal would happily take Stormfront's money. Now they don't.

Isn't this progress? And if not, what does progress look like?

[Admiral X]

People really should stop conflating defense of free speech with defense of Nazis or their ideology.

[Wild_Kraken]

I cannot say anything negative about Nazis without people crawling out of the woodwork to scream "WHAT ABOUT COMMUNISTS?"

To be fair, communists are pretty terrible, what with their ideas of a world free of economic exploitation, racism, and sexism. It's hard not to mention them in the same breath as an ideology that openly supports restrictions on personal liberty, traditional gender roles, and a hierarchy of humanity based on the flawed and discredited pseudoscientific notion of race.

And don't get me started on Antifa. Sure, the radical right kills people, but Antifa kills windows! Won't someone please think of the windows!

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

People really should stop conflating defense of free speech with defense of Nazis or their ideology.

How is that relevant to ANYTHING that I said?

It is entirely possible to defend the principle of free speech WITHOUT derailing the conversation to talk about the problems of the Soviet Union. Trust me. I've tried.

[Admiral X]

I cannot say anything negative about Nazis without people crawling out of the woodwork to scream "WHAT ABOUT COMMUNISTS?"

To be fair, communists are pretty terrible, what with their ideas of a world free of economic exploitation, racism, and sexism.

Not to mention all the millions of people they killed - far more than the Nazis did, actually.

And don't get me started on Antifa. Sure, the radical right kills people, but Antifa kills windows! Won't someone please think of the windows!

[Admiral X]

People really should stop conflating defense of free speech with defense of Nazis or their ideology.

How is that relevant to ANYTHING that I said?

This was a response to posters in this thread who have said exactly that.

It is entirely possible to defend the principle of free speech WITHOUT derailing the conversation to talk about the problems of the Soviet Union. Trust me. I've tried.

People bring up communism because of the political sympathies of the ideologues advocating the use of political violence.

[Wild_Kraken]

Not to mention all the millions of people they killed - far more than the Nazis did, actually.

Which is still only a small fraction of the total deaths caused by capitalism

This is gonna blow your mind: Even though it's called the Night of Broken Glass, the broken windows are not the tragedy of Kristallnacht. I know right? I was totally shocked when I found out, too.

And here's some more neato facts while we're at it: The breaking of windows as part of a government sponsored campaign to marginalize an already marginalized ethnic/religious group is not the same thing as the breaking of windows during a protest against people who hold the same views as the aforementioned government that broke all those windows. The former is just one step in a plan to legally remove an entire people from society, take all of their possessions and ultimately murder them, while the latter is to prevent that from ever happening again.

[Admiral X]

That has to be one of the most deluded things I've seen anyone say.

[GandALF]

The contemporary U.S. is in no way comparable to the Wiemar republic. It was a new democracy with weak institutions and crippled by economic woes, it was not a centuries old superpower. Most Germans were not used to democracy, they did not have the importance of individual liberty drummed into them all their lives. Autocracy and militarism was the norm going back to Prussia being founded by Teutonic knights. Authoritarianism, militarism, nationalism and rhetoric about superiority were all features of the Kaiserreich. The Nazi ideals were not new and radical fringe ideas, they were familiar ideas that were just modernised with Nietzchean pessimism and pseudo-socialism. Hitler did not have to be subtle or coy and use "dogwhistles".

The U.S. does not have these traditions. Even the confederacy was a slaver's constitutional oligarchy and not an autocracy. A lot of the "lost cause" myths even try to downplay or deny the slavery cause and put the emphasis on individualism and rebellion. The Nazis would not do this.

Trying to paint people who are pro-free speech and anti-violence as somehow being Nazi sympathisers is absurd. Free speech did not lead to the rise of the Nazis. People believing free speech was unimportant did.