whack of the sharp edge to the most sensitive region when one’s about to be assaulted? When one’s life is threatened how about Kathy Griffin-ing them while punching their detaching head over and over?
I absolutely do not recommend any of these. Don’t do any of them. They are beyond BAD ideas. The Kathy Griffin option is downright evil, and anyone who thinks what she did was “funny” has a broken, twisted, severely defective, very unfunny, funny “bone.” The high road is… generally… better. But they are my way of bringing up several unanswered questions and important observations…
The high road isn’t always best: sometimes it may be the worst road. There can be little doubt the high road was taken back in the 30s: Neville Chamberlain. Of course Hitler thought Chamberlain had played him because it saved Britain from immediate assault: something they weren’t ready for yet. Those who use Neville as an easy example need to consider that. Perhaps when Roosevelt promised not to get involved in the war? OK, I suppose there could be something to conspiracy theorists claiming FDR was planning behind the scenes to get involved anyway, though rejecting a shipload of Jewish refugees indicates probably not. The most likely: Occam Razor-ish, answer is we were dragged into it by world events like Pearl Harbor and the German’s attacks on shipping.
But, still, one wonders…
What if Jews, collectively, had done what Antifa is doing? What if the reaction to Brownshirts had been the masses getting in their face and beating back? I’m sure some would have tried to frame the defenders as the same as the Nazis, like they do Antifa today.
What this all comes down to is an important question: “How; and just as important when, do you react to bullies?” And Nazis pretty much are, by definition, “bullies.” Much of the left these days acts more like some mothers when their sons are confronted by a serious bully problem: try to convince their sons to do anything but confront them, frame bullies as mild annoyances, and claim their sons are over reacting. Their answers are similar: don’t push back, try to be friends, just avoid them… don’t get off your ‘bike’ and beat back. Authorities like principals sometimes make it worse. It’s no surprise sometimes victims feel society is on the side of the bully.
The question being, “When does it become necessary to get off your ‘bike’ and beat back?” War, of course, is the extreme example of getting off that ‘bike.’ But isn’t war: legalized mass murder, a sign we may not have gotten off that “bike” soon enough? Those who have had the experience, or are familiar with those who have had a serious bully problem, know sometimes not pushing back makes some of them get more aggressive. And historically it can mean ending up dead: tied to a fence in Texas, dragged behind a car until you bleed out…
I am not defending Antifa, but their actions raise an important question: when do we push back? Is it better to continue to skip down this road, hoping something like the end to The Turner Diaries, or Auschwitz-ian ovens, won’t be the final destination?
I merely intend to ask important questions, to open up conversation: not encourage violence. But if you think it isn’t becoming that bad, yet, the signs are out there that it is. What about the congresswoman who messaged support for those who drive cars into groups of protestors, or states that attempt to give legal approval to such actions? Way before Charlottesville there were those posting memes and suggestions on how to murder protestors by driving into crowds. My own state has made it legal if they block your way if you claim it wasn’t intentional. In such cases, like Stand Your Ground, it’s up to the prosecutor to prove otherwise: that’s the system we live under. Lying about intent, or supposedly feeling “threatened,” are too easy paths to walk headed towards legalizing murder.
Dealing with Nazis, racists and such is similar to dealing with bullies in many ways. Sometimes it becomes a matter of if you don’t stop them soon they go from insults to kicking you, to more kicking and punching, hanging you from a fence in Texas or a tree, burning you alive, burying your carcass in a Mississippi field, shooting at you as you drive away because you wouldn’t turn your music down then claiming he committed murder because he saw a gun (never found) and felt “threatened.”
Again: “It’s no surprise sometimes victims feel society is on the side of the bully,” when organizations and legislators go out of their way to enable such behavior. And how far is this from enabling those who shoot up churches, clinics, Oklahoma City? Is any of that all that far from from invading Czechoslovakia, then Poland, then France, Russia, bombing England…
Yes, today’s Nazi numbers are small, in comparison, but so were the numbers of those who helped Hitler… at first. Which brings us back to Antifa. I admit, like many Americans, I know little about these folks. Their tactics obviously questionable: at best. But, in some ways, maybe they’re ahead of the curve? As WWII proved: sometimes you might have start punching Nazis.
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Inspection is a column that has been written by Ken Carman for over 40 years. Inspection is dedicated to looking at odd angles, under all the rocks, and into the unseen cracks and crevasses that constitute the issues and philosophical constructs of our day: places few think, or even dare, to venture.
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