Neo Nazis and the Alt Right

Yes I agree that violent extremists are bad, and I am not advocating giving people like that a platform.

Isnā€™t Joe Rogan the guy who thinks that 9/11 was a hoax or a coverup; that the WTC towers were brought down by controlled demolition?

I, on the other hand, want every Nazi to be punched in the face.

Are there Nazis who arenā€™t violent extremist? Are there Nazis who believe what they believe but want to achieve this belief in a kinder, gentler way? What ways are these?

No.

Rogan was big into conspiracies like 10-15 years ago. Bigfoot, UFOs, Fake Moon Landing, he loved it all. He spent a lot of time researching them and concluded itā€™s all bullshit. Heā€™s said as much on his show, a lot. As recently as last week.

I understand heā€™s not for everyone, but I donā€™t think Joe Rogan is dangerous. I think we need more people like him, people who can talk about things, engage with people they donā€™t agree with, and arenā€™t afraid to admit theyā€™re wrong when presented with evidence.

Itā€™s ok to be wrong about something, and people can change. We need to talk.

I also believe itā€™s ok to punch Nazis. Joe Rogan and I disagree on that.

Sounds a bit like the late great Art Bellā€¦

So, Iā€™m generally a free speech advocate and not particularly a fan of the ā€œpunch nazis in the faceā€ approach, but there are two points here:

One. There is no evidence that accommodating extremist and anti-democratic forces helps to limit their spread or moderates their positions. On the contrary, time and again in countries all over the world during the past 100 years, anti-democratic forces have exploited democratic institutions to gain and subsequently maintain power. And the way is fairly simple. One Charismatic Individual. That is all it really takes.

Two. It is very, very easy to say ā€œDonā€™t be afraid of letting scary people speakā€, when itā€™s not your life, your children and loved ones who those people want to treat as sub-human. And I donā€™t mean that in a denigrative way - the actual consequences (racism, anti-semitism, homophobia, etc) are quite simply hard to understand unless youā€™ve experienced it yourself. Iā€™ve seen this time and again myself with family and friends.

Julia Galef and a guest on one of her recent podcasts of Rationally Speaking talked about the problems of deplatorming, the difficulty of when it is ā€œokā€ to deplatform and when it is too extreme. Julia started with the idea that ā€œtrollā€ figures like Milo should obviously be deplatformed since their whole schtick is abusing the benefit of the doubt to erode society from within, by arguing in bad faith and exploiting their audiencesā€™ confused and divided reactions, but then had difficulty distinguishing a racist who is ā€œgenuinelyā€ racist, ie, sincerely believes in racism, and what exactly to do with that, with simply a troll like figure like Milo. Julia concluded that at least for herself she thought genuine Nazis should be deplatormed but found herself unable to clearly define the conditions why.

Everyone is going to have some line where here is still acceptable discourse and there is a bridge too far.

What scared her and her guest (an ex-Muslim Iranian who ran an ex-Muslim organization in NYC) was not that people like Jordan Peterson were wrong and had an audience, but that actually they found him (or people adjacent to him like Ben Shapiro) so uninterestingly and transparently ā€œNot For Themā€ that there was developing another whole ā€œdiscourseā€ their brothers and young men were developing outside of the ā€œproperā€ channels that they neither understood nor had any engagement with.

Which is of course Petersonā€™s and Shapiroā€™s whole schtick, tbh; addressing the group that typical progressive intellectuals donā€™t really have anything to say about because those groups are not the focus of their interests. My guess is guys like that are fundamentally disturbing because they imply discourses and demographics that, really, progressives feel donā€™t need any conversation about and donā€™t actually have anything to say about.

Art Bell is actually where Alex Jones got his start, if I recall.

Thatā€™s where I first heard him, ranting about Bohemian Grove on Art Bell.

As an audience member at Dingusā€™s viewing of Silence of the Lambs might say, ā€˜stranger than fictionā€™.

Rich white kids, what could go wrong?

A freaking Quaker school?!? WTH is wrong with this world?

Ok this is a story about real Naziā€™s, but pretty interesting.

This is just WWE schtick. I donā€™t believe him for a second.

This needs to be a movie.

It has Tarantino written all over it.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/arrests-in-domestic-terror-probes-outpace-those-inspired-by-islamic-extremists/ar-BBUyN0v

I almost thought it was a movie, but I guess thatā€™s not precisely the same story. Similar elements, I think.