I was - I have been demodded as a knee-jerk reaction to someone not understanding my point, or not being able to tolerate it. That's fine with me. Anyone who knows me or has read anything I've posted in the past knows that I am not in any way a Nazi sympathiser or apologist. I am, however, a big believer in justice, and that means that I'm going to be against vigilante violence, whether it's against Nazis or not, and whether it's by police, random bystanders or Batman himself.
I thought long and hard before using those words (and before posting in this thread at all), and I did it because what matters isn't necessarily what you or I think about the legitimacy of their position. What matters is that someone has set themselves up as judge, jury and potentially executor in this case. And whether they're right or not is irrelevant. Because if they can set themselves up in that way, even for a righteous cause, other people with differing viewpoints can and will as well. You hate Nazis, right? Of course you do. All right-thinking people do. But there are people who believe that other positions are just as bad. And while it's easy to say that these people are wrong, that doesn't take away from the fact that they believe they're not, with just as much fervour as you believe that Nazis are wrong. And if this punch is justified, then they can feel justified in taking the same approach.
This isn't moral relativism. I'm not saying at any level that these positions are equivalent. What I believe doesn't matter in any of this - what matters is the belief of the people throwing the punch, or swinging the axe, or pulling the trigger, or whatever action they believe is justified.
In fact the way you get rid of moral relativism from the equation is by saying that no, the decision is not one to be taken by individuals; it's to be taken by a firmly established law. Yes, I understand a lot of why this doesn't always happen in the US. That doesn't mean that the 'right' approach is to turn to vigilante violence, though. I can see why it's tempting, and I can understand why people do it and support it (and even why there's a mob reaction against everyone who rejects it). But I can't condone it.
And for everyone criticising me for using the phrase 'political position' to describe Nazism, would you not describe it as an extreme right-wing ideology? Because that's the language of politics. Placing it outside that sometimes is a dangerous move, because it treats it like it's some kind of special case, and it isn't. It's an example of the worst one of the most unpleasant extremes in politics has to offer, and treating it as something separate makes it more difficult to say that other positions in the same part of the political spectrum have many aspects that are just as bad.
