i have been vocal about the necessity of violence toward "nazis" for a very long time, and while these socratic dialogues on youtube and elsewhere are actually an ideal medium for this kind of discussion, it's easy enough to take anything you want out of context and frame it in a way that seems silly or obtuse. i insist that my arguments were always quite subtle, but the bottom line is that you have to actually read the dialogue in order to understand the debate.

so, let's make two things clear regarding the necessity of violence towards nazis.

the first is that there isn't a choice in the matter, and that the absence of a choice is what defines a nazi as a nazi (that being the second thing). if you have a choice to avoid violence, you are not dealing with an actual nazi. so, let's actually talk about the second thing first, then.

it might surprise you to learn that i'm also a free speech maximalist, as i'm arguing that you have to show no mercy to nazis. isn't that a contradiction? well, if you're upset with me, then you're enforcing your own speech rules: you're trying to protect the nazis. you are raising your voice and telling me it's wrong to threaten nazis, and i should be quiet - which is policing my speech. then, you claim i'm advocating violence; but, that's what i'm saying about the nazis. the point i'm making is just that everybody actually agrees that some limit has to exist - nobody is in favour of unrestricted speech. we have laws against libel, against uttering threats, etc and nobody actually disagrees with this. so, when i say i'm a speech maximalist, i mean that you need the most stringent requirements possible to justify speech restrictions - it's not enough to be offended (anyone can be offended by anything; it's irrelevant), there has to be a concrete understanding of meaningful harm, it has to be meaningfully defined and it has to be a credible threat.

so, what's the deal with the nazis, then? who are these people? what is a nazi?

a nazi is not somebody that says something mean to you at a party, or acts in a passively aggressive manner towards you without justification or even somebody that says something racially derogatory in a crowded room. no, a nazi is something far more dangerous than that: a nazi is somebody that seeks to actively politically organize the machinery of society to eliminate a set of groups they find undesirable (like jews, or homosexuals, or leftists) from the gene pool, or from the cultural memory. so, a nazi does not merely say something mean about jews - a nazi is actively politically engaged in eliminating the jews from the planet. a nazi doesn't push a queer person aside; a nazi has the queer person executed. a nazi isn't rude to communists; a nazi has the communists rounded up and imprisoned, placed in camps or shot. it is due to the nature of the nazi's violence that reason and argumentation is foregone as meaningless; as you cannot reason with a hungry bear or a rabid dog, you cannot reason with a nazi - you must kill or be killed. the illusion of choice is held at your own peril. there is no logic but the logic of violence; if not pre-emptive, then in self-defence.

so, when i say that there is no peaceful debate with nazis, it's important to understand what i mean when i say 'nazi'. and, it's equally important not to be overly broad. see, this is the tricky part: i can place down an abstract definition of what makes a nazi a nazi relatively easily, but it's a lot more difficult to decide whether any specific group or individual fits that definition or not. due process is necessary, and evidence must be consulted as rigorously as possible. by placing nazis in a very limited, specific category and claiming there is no choice but to fight them, i am also implicitly arguing that violence has no place in the vast majority of discussions and debates. i will be just as quick to insist that you not throw that word around lightly as i will be to insist that those that fit it's definition are treated appropriately.

today, the most dangerous nazis in the world are not white supremacists (who have no meaningful organized movement) but are rather militant islamists. euroskeptics like marine le pen do not fit my definition of a nazi, but isis and hamas both do. the saudi theocracy is a nazi dictatorship. etc.