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Comment by jabashapa | Hacker News Reader

Im a Jew and this sounds like bullshit to me. I wonder if anyone interviewed his fellow prisoners to see how real his was.

This prison culture exists but his view is tainted by being a total outsider to it, and it appears, a desire to gain sympathy by exaggerating.

He sounds like a rich kid in prison getting manipulated and bullied because he’s not able to defend himself or attract allies.

The fact that he claims to have dealt with nazis in America outside of prison makes me think he’s a huge liar.

There are no nazis in America. There are racist poor idiots in prison and outside that wish they were nazis. The few that try anything violent get locked up in prison like the common criminals they are. Other violent crime is a massively bigger problem.

Trust me, I’ll be the first one ready to fight if anyone starts killing Jews.

That tiny tiny tiny rally in Virginia was organized by agent provocateurs probably from Russia.

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> There are no Nazis in America

My first memory of Jewishness in America was my local synagogue being burned down, with swastikas spray painted on the sidewalk out front.

In JR High I was mocked for being a Jew - for my people having killed Jesus. Also for being chubby and smart, but Jew was easy to throw into the mix. My uniformly Catholic teachers pretended not to hear it.

Russian provocateurs may have organized the rally, but it was Americans that showed up to carry torches and chant about blood and soil.

When I spent a summer in Raleigh NC, one person told me I could not be a Jew, obviously, because I had neither horns nor tail.

You’re welcome to play No True Scotsman, but if you think anything short of throwing people in a gas chamber is nothing but bullshit you need to pull your head out of the sand.

My first memory of Jewishness in America was my local synagogue being burned down, with swastikas spray painted on the sidewalk out front.

Were those Nazis that committed those acts, or wannabes? I think that is parent's point. How many of those "Nazis" can name a single plank of the Nazi platform? (And I'm sure that more than one can do just that, but not even a majority.) In other words, are they Nazis or more like the character Otto in the movie A Fish Called Wanda?

Otto West: Apes don't read philosophy. Wanda: Yes they do, Otto. They just don't understand it. Now let me correct you on a couple of things, OK? Aristotle was not Belgian. The central message of Buddhism is not "Every man for himself." And the London Underground is not a political movement. Those are all mistakes, Otto. I looked them up.

But at the end of the day, IMO, it's all just semantics. Some people irrationally hate Jews, some have a distaste for blacks. Whether or not they fit a particular label or not is a distraction from the fact that there are violently hateful people out there, and there weren't Jews they'd find someone else to hate that isn't like them.

> Were those Nazis that committed those acts, or wannabes?

Does it matter? If you throw up a symbol of the Nazis while burning down a synagogue (that is to say, performing one of their most memorable policies), what distinguishes a wannabe from a real Nazi? Enumerating the policies which Hitler campaigned with?

Does it matter?

That's my underlying question. There was more to the 30-40s era Nazi platform than just hating non-white Christians. But now it's "don't like Jews? Nazi!" and the haters pick that up by spraying symbols, and then we all play along by pulling out the fainting couch. Do we do anyone a service by acting like dealing with ignorant, hateful white people is the same as defeating Hitler himself? Personally, I think we'd do everyone a great service by ditching the labels, a label the wannabes hope you pin on them, and just call it like it is: un-American white people who don't buy into the melting pot ideal that has made the country what it is.

There definitely is an overuse of the word "fascist" and "Nazi" but if you're chanting blood and soil, reading the Daily Stormer and advocating for the same violence the original Nazi's were, then I think it is absolutely appropriate to use that label, to me anything else is downplaying the threat of those ideas.

to me anything else is downplaying the threat of those ideas.

Fair enough. My perspective comes from growing up in Indiana, probably one of the last places left that still had the occasional KKK rally. And frankly were it not for what they advocated, it was kind of pathetic. A dozen or so middle-aged rednecks pissed off about how it's not 1954 anymore, wearing Halloween costumes. The protesters would outnumber the participants. And there frequent calls to just quit protesting. Let them have their little get-together with an audience of...no one. I think that would be a lovely idea.

Keep an eye on them, that's for sure. If they commit a crime, investigate it, prosecute them. But otherwise quit giving them press, quit giving them labels that they like. Because calling them Nazis gives them credibility they don't deserve, IMO. They're surrounded by people that think they're assholes, so they only have the power we choose to give them. They can't pass any laws, they'll never get anywhere near a majority (underlying racism in the current political system is a long way from these nutters). Unlike the U. S. South of last century, the police generally aren't on their side. So keep a close watch, keep them contained, keep the amount of press proportional to the participation. If it's the "million Nazi march" on the Mall in D. C., then the NYT and WAPost should most certainly report. But if it's twelve sad, old guys in funny outfits, could we not make it tomorrow's headline?

>Were those Nazis that committed those acts, or wannabes?

I'm pretty sure a wannabe means they want to be, and not only that but they'll transform their behavior to mirror that which they want to be.

"If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck."

As a person with relatives and ancestors from Germany who were persecuted, killed, and hurt during the Holocaust, I'd say any idiots who try to even act like the Nazis of that era should be labeled as such, lest we allow that behavior to fester.

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