For my part I love violence. I'm not as into it nowadays as I was in my younger years but (and here's the part that die hard pacifists will never get) it's fucking awesomely good fun. In my time I have broken bones, rearranged faces and otherwise hospitalised more than my fair share or deserving (and undeserving) targets.
I feel it's important I point this out because it provides a bit of context to my argument that punching nazis is counterproductive. I'm not one of those Ghandi-assholes who thinks all life is sacred and is totally opposed to violence. Violence is fucking great. It's exhilarating and competitive and kerbstomping some prick who looked at your pint the wrong way is just an intensely satisfying feeling that I'd never take away from anyone.
However violence, in the context of punching nazis, I feel is totally counterproductive. Reason being, you're dealing with two extremes - on the one hand you have knuckle dragging nazi right wingers and on the other you have knuckle dragging right-disguised-as-left antifa assholes. Both these sides are minority but, in the middle you got a whole bunch of people who probably hadn't given it much thought. They are being asked to pick a side.
Watching the clip of what's his face being interviewed in the street when the idiot ran up and hooked him might look great to anyone who has already decided where they stand on this issue but for anyone else, lacking context, I'd expect their sympathies might lie with the victim of the assault. Given that there's no grand adjudicator of right and wrong it's public opinion which decides which side we're on.
Punching Nazis is adding fuel to the fire. Great, if what you want is world war three. But, if you want to end the rise of nazism in the US, I'm not sure that going out your way to alienate yourselves and pushing public support to the nazis is the best way forward.
Think about how the average viewer might have reacted if they'd had a chance to actually hear the kind of bullshit the asshole was spouting, as opposed to witnessing a violent assault on an innocent victim? Yeah, sure you know the kind of guy he is but the public don't and, thanks to the weakest right hook I have ever been embarrassed enough to witness, few of those dumb bastards will ever bother to find out.
So here's a bit of advice - you want to punch a Nazi, no worries. Hell, you want to take a bunch of nazis into a basement somewhere and carve them up with chainsaws, it's all shits and giggles, knock yourself out. But ffs, keep it off camera. You're not winning any friends squeeing like a bunch of little fanboy bitches on facebook and, like it or not, you're gonna need friends to win this thing. Without friends, I'd bet on a legion of sulphed up nazi skinheads pwning a gang of skinny college burnouts any day of the week.
