Here is a quick question for you on your personal security: Which group poses a greater threat to you as a human being? Is it Antifa or “Nazis?” Stated another way, are you more likely to be physically assaulted by Nazis or by “anti-fascist” activists, commonly known as Antifa?
The question was underscored by recent riots in California, in which Antifa thugs — masked, lobbing explosives into the crowd, and wielding weapons like glass bottles — did what Antifa do, which is attack anyone whose opinion differs from theirs. In particular, one young lady (nicknamed “Moldylocks” for her awful dreadlocks, her awful-er nose ring, and her smug attitude of entitlement) was punched in the face by a known Neo-Nazi as she tried to throat-punch him wearing weighted gloves.
She also had a bottle she probably intended to use to glass someone — anyone — who got in her way. (There’s some speculation that, in fact, she was putting M80 fireworks inside glass bottles to create improvised explosive devices.) This is what Antifa do: They wield violence indiscriminately to shut up people whose opinions are wrongthink. Moldylocks has since been interviewed (uncritically and trustingly by softball-wielding representatives of the media) and appears to have lied through her unwhitened teeth about the incident. At least, that’s what it looks like when comparing her statements to video of the punch. The same people who celebrated when alleged Neo-Nazi Richard Spencer was sucker-punched on a city street are now wringing their hands over the “sexist” assault of Moldylocks.
Now, the fact that at least some of the people the Antifa thugs were attacking are actual Neo-Nazis is immaterial. To Antifa, anyone to the right of Karl Marx is a Nazi or some other form of ideological enemy. And in the minds of the Antifa, anyone whose ideology eventually, kind-of, sort-of, maybe possibly could be construed as somehow leading to something bad is worthy of being violently assaulted until they shut up.
The argument goes like this: Nazis and/or fascists (who, as we’ve said, can be defined as anyone to the right of the communist/socialist/radical leftists who form the ranks of Antifa, aka the “Black Bloc” or “AnCom” or whatever they’re calling themselves today) promote a hateful and dangerous ideology. Left to fester, that ideology eventually leads to mass murder as it did in World War II. Therefore, physically silencing Nazis and fascists is a good thing, regardless of the violation of others’ free speech rights, because those whose ideologies reside on this slippery slope to violence don’t deserve free speech.
To buy into this philosophy you have to ignore a couple of glaring philosophical problems. The first is that the Antifa are using the very violent tactics of brownshirts and historical fascists to silence dissent. They’re quite literally using the very thuggish methods they claim Nazis will eventually use in herding their victims to the gas chambers.
The other problem is that by this “slippery slope” logic — wherein its okay to assault anyone whose philosophy eventually leads to something bad — the Antifa themselves are advocating for a philosophy that has racked up millions of victims. While the Antifa believe that “global communism dindu nuffin,” it has in fact killed thousands on thousands of people. Pol Pot, Stalin, Mao, the Soviet Union… anti-capitalist philosophies invariably lead to totalitarianism and statist murder (except in Sweden, where socialism led merely to rampant feminism, Volvos, and Ace of Bass).
Given the numbers, it’s clear the risks of global communism far outweigh the gains (unless you really, really like Ace of Base). So by the logic of Antifa, violently assaulting cultural Marxists, to include Antifa and “Black Bloc” activist thugs, would be justified, regardless of the violation of free speech it represents. Right?
To put this in perspective, “Nazis” don’t exist. They haven’t existed since World War II, when Hitler put a bullet in his own brain. Neo-Nazis, Hitlers’ ideological progeny, are a tiny and marginalized group whose members are almost universally reviled. Together with the remnants of that Democrat-founded social organization the Ku Klux Klan, overt racists whose philosophies are pinned to “ethno-nationalism” are a still a tiny fringe group in modern politics.
You’ve been told that anyone and everything on the right side of the aisle is now the Racist Alt Right™, but like the “militia” scare of the Clinton Presidency, this threat is far overblown in our media. The real threat represented by these isolated nutjobs is minuscule compared to the very real physical threat represented by Antifa activists. As evidence of this, you need only look to the number of people who have been silenced and assaulted by Antifa versus the number of people physically assaulted by Nazis (Neo- or otherwise) in recent months. The same is true of, say, the KKK versus Black Lives Matter. The former is hated universally, while the latter has been tied to the murder of police officers. It’s fun to hate racists, but the actual number of victims they’ve achieved in recent years is so small as to be nonexistent.
We can’t say the same about people intimidated, attacked, and beaten by Antifa, anarcho-communists, BLM activists, and Democrat “Resist” agitators. There have been several news reports in the last few months that left-wing activists are arming themselves with the firearms they so desperately want to ban — presumably so they can start murdering Trump supporters (excuse me, “Nazis”).
My point is that every human being reading this is in greater danger of being assaulted by Antifa thugs than they are to be Nazied by Nazis, regardless of the Left’s histrionics about the Nazi Threat Posed By Nazis Who Should Be Punched for Being Nazis. To Antifa and their supporters, everyone they don’t like is a Nazi who should be violently silenced to prevent more Nazis, while everyone they do like is a beautiful and peaceful person — and any violent thugs with whom those beautiful and peaceful people are affiliated are either masquerading as one of the beautiful people or nobly punching dangerous Nazis into silence, because f–k Donald Trump.
Antifa and their supporters consider this belief a completely logical, nuanced, and consistent political opinion and not at all a series of fallacies intended to evade responsibility for calling anyone with whom they disagree a Nazi, an Alt-Right Racist™, or a fascist. In other words, to Antifa and their ilk, violence is always justified when the victim is a Nazi, because screw those guys, but punching a dread-locked, bottle-wielding, sap-glove-wearing terrorist is sexism. And said terrorist isn’t affiliated with the noble men and women of Antifa just because she says so and she dresses like them and she posted on social media that she wanted to take a hundred Nazi scalps. Even though she obviously lied in an interview about the incident, she can’t possibly be anything but the victim. She’s certainly not the aggressor, because her opinions are right, and your opinions are wrong.
Right?