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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   30588 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 22, 2025

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I agree with most of this, yes.

As I said elsewhere in the thread, I am leery of the "other tactics (even stochastically)" bit, which I think can too easily be used as a bludgeon against free speech expressing what the bludgeon-wielding side deems to be wrongthink. If it is appropriate for non-violent pro-life activists to refer to abortion doctors as murderers - and it must be appropriate, because that is their legitimate moral belief and freedom of speech means nothing if they cannot express it - then it must remain appropriate for non-violent pro-immigration extremists to refer to ICE agents as Nazis.

But that's only one part of your post, and really a whole other conversation from the core issue here.

I see little problem with censoring content creators to not use fighting words (which due to mass media propaganda, terms like Nazi and Fascism and similar are) that basically dehumanize those you oppose. There’s a shift in context simply because of the March of technology that enables people to marinate in content like that, and creates vortexes that people fall into and come out ready to commit violence against their “enemies”. This isn’t 1980 where exposure to political content was time and space limited by technology and people had to in the famous words of William Shatner “get a life”. The content is ever present and available every time you open your phone. And if the person on that end sees “X is a [fighting word]” especially heavily upvoted, liked, and shared, with the filterbubble hiding contrary opinions, it’s seen as social proof that this person or group of people are profoundly wrong and evil, and deserve to be destroyed. That’s how you get people to be okay with killing, and a nonzero number of people actually willing to kill.

This is how propaganda works. OG Nazis wanted radios in homes so they could send audio of speeches and the sound of wild applause at the threats against political enemies or in that case Jews could be heard by every German who would see this as social proof that most Germans are on board with those ideas. The reason to have video of thousands of ordinary people cheering to show before every movie is again to create the illusion of social proof so that Germans seeing those newsreels believe that this is what Germans want. We have much tge same thing in our media especially social media, where lots of people are being given tge impression that most Americans think that they live under a fascist dictatorship with ICE as the Gestapo rounding up Jews immigrants. And that’s breeding violence.

Just because you don’t like something doesn’t make it “fighting words,” and it definitely doesn’t supersede the 1st Amendment.

How about it causing actual real life shootings? We’ve had 9 months of crying about Nazis, Fascists, White Christian Nationalists, and Gestapo, and we’ve now had within that same time frame dozens of incidents of Teslas being destroyed, several incident of people showing up to the homes of government officials, an assassination, two incidents where ICE officers are shot at (and detainees died), and several riots in Los Angeles. Exactly how many incidents need to be tied to the “MAGA = White Christian Nationalist = Nazi” do we need before anyone that isn’t on the right can say “yeah maybe calling everyone who doesn’t agree with us fascist and calling ICE tge Gestapo is a bridge too far?” Like are we waiting for something bigger? As I see it, if the words are causing actual violence, then it’s not all that hard to make a case for those words being “fighting words”. And this is where we are — stochastic terrorism inspired by claims that MAGA is fascism and therefore must be stopped at all costs.

I don’t see any other option. Either the Nazi and Fascist talk is banned from social media and media figures or influencers lose their jobs because they’re comparing MAGA to Fascists and Trump to Hitler, or we simply allow the current media atmosphere to remain until the next assassination. But I can’t understand how people cannot make that connection and I hope it doesn’t mean that those spreading these messages want more terrorism.

"Stochastic terrorism" is a bogeyman made up to justify suppression of right-wing speech; it is not an actual exception to the First Amendment, not even when the right flips the script. Nor is it "fighting words"; "fighting words" are an insult offered in the moment which provoke a violent reaction (and in the landmark case, was used to justify a conviction for calling a cop a "fascist"). The doctrine is fortunately mostly dead.

Is 'punch a Nazi' fighting words?

Sorry, that was too much of a hot take.

How about 'helicopter rides?'

I find it hard to think that a person wouldn't take a threat of violence or death seriously, no matter how jaded with irony and self-referential internet culture. If Nazis are irredeemable cannon fodder that can be slaughtered without scruple of conscience, then no one should be called a Nazi unless they actually are. Same goes for pedophile, or any other group that is convenient to other.

No and no. The courts have routinely protected far more aggressive speech, as in Brandenburg.

True threats can be legally prohibited, but “mere advocacy” is not enough.

content creators

fighting words

People really, really, really seem to misunderstand what "fighting words" are. Even if we ignore that the Supreme Court has been backing away from treating fighting words as a real thing for several decades now, even in the cases where they are treated as a real thing they require the person saying the words and the person hearing the words to be in each other's physical presence. They're called "fighting words" because they're words that will likely lead to an actual fight, then and there.

then it must remain appropriate for non-violent pro-immigration extremists to refer to ICE agents as Nazis.

No, because the Nazis were a real and defined party, of which there are approximately zero surviving members. Referring to them that way is way more biased and way more loaded.

It’s not polite, and it’s not good epistemics; weak men are superweapons. But public discourse is never held to that standard. People insult and insinuate by analogy all the time. Technical usage of the term “bitch” does not prevent me from using it as a shorthand.

This seems like a needlessly pedantic hill to die on. Substitute "Nazis" for "murderous white supremacists", or however you want to phrase the combination of immorality and ideology which Leftists are clearly pointing to when they call people "Nazis". But I don't think anyone is honestly confused about this. It's only technically wrong in the same sense that "Senator McExample is a fucking asshole" would be inaccurate insofar as McExample is not literally an ambulatory anus.

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But I don't think anyone is honestly confused about this.

Nazis have replaced the concept of Satan and demons as the "ultimate evil" in secularized Western culture. I do not think this is merely a pedantic issue when it's not merely in accurate in the way of an ambulatory anus, but as an effort to mark one's enemies as not just bad, not just evil, but THE ULTIMATE EVIL beyond any and all redemption.

a needlessly pedantic hill to die on

New flair inspiration, thank you.

This seems like a needlessly pedantic hill to die on

No, this is actually an important issue. Being marked as a nazi is something that broad swathes of society agree means that it is perfectly acceptable to ruin your life and kill you - and there are at the very least people out there attacking people they consider nazis and getting away with it (see Bikelock dude). What counts as a nazi is something that is actually pretty important... and also extremely nebulous.

While the literal meaning obviously isn't being used anymore, we can't just use "murderous white supremacists" anymore because the term has clearly expanded far beyond that - to say nothing of what the Israeli/Gaza conflict has done to destroy any remaining shared meaning of the word. Given that this is an appelation which makes you fair game for political violence I think establishing exactly who is and isn't a nazi is pretty important.

The people this label is routinely applied to pretty clearly aren't white supremacists, or often even white, and certainly aren't murderous.

Well, no, but I don't believe abortion doctors are murderers, either. Or indeed that pro-lifers are just patriarchal oppressors obsessed with Controlling Women's Bodies™. That's not in question. It's just that inaccurately ascribing evil motives to the opposition is still the bread and butter of politics, and you don't meaningfully have freedom of speech if you start banning individual instances for being especially untrue or incendiary.

Believing that abortion doctors are murderers is not a statement about their state of mind, it's a claim about how to characterize the actions that they are uncontroversially known as doing. In theory you could use "white supremacist" the same way, but that doesn't happen in practice; it pretty much always means attributing motives that you can't know or actions that they did not do.

"Controlling women's bodies" goes along with "white supremacist" and should be condemned for the same reason.

It's not just the literal words, it's the surrounding context. If pro-lifers started talking about punching murderers, and calling people murderers, then calling people murderers would contribute to stochastic terrorism a lot more.

Also, calling them Nazis specifically is not a "legitimate moral belief" anyway. Pro-lifers think abortionists are literally murderers. Nobody thinks ICE agents are literally members of the Nazi party, and probably not even that they want to kill millions of people.

Pro-lifers absolutely should be allowed to talk in general terms about how they think murderers should be punched, and also allowed to say that they think abortion is murder, and also allowed to say "you had an abortion so in my book you're a murderer". The current standard for where speech stops being lawful is when it is directed to inciting imminent lawless action and is likely to produce such action. I think that's a good standard.

The current standard for where speech stops being lawful is when it is directed to inciting imminent lawless action and is likely to produce such action.

Hate speech is another exception to lawful speech and doesn't require incitement. technically wrong, mea culpa

I think you mean "whence" ("from where"), not "whither" ("to where").

Do you have a source on otherwise lawful (i.e. not threats or incitement) hate speech being unlawful in the US?

Hate speech is used as evidence in prosecuting hate crimes, but technically that's just an enhancement charge and I don't really want to fight about this or dig for sources. Statement redacted.

The current standard for where speech stops being lawful is when it is directed to inciting imminent lawless action and is likely to produce such action. I think that's a good standard.

I generally agree with this, but the zeitgeist on the ground has an awful lot of lawless action (political assassinations and attempts thereof) these days. It's obviously hard to tie specific actions there to specific speech, but the big picture is normalizing the idea of lawless action, not a single clear call for it. How much can I complain about "turbulent priests" before I'm responsible to the state when Thomas Becket gets murdered?

And I've never gotten a good answer on how "imminent" applies: can I promote a planned riot as long as it's more than, say, 12 months from now?

Not “turbulent priests.” “This turbulent priest.” It wasn’t ambiguous in the slightest.

And I think you’re overstating the amount of violence on the ground. One murder is too many, but it’s simultaneous not an awful lot. It represents less of an ongoing threat than, say, Summer 2020.

And I've never gotten a good answer on how "imminent" applies: can I promote a planned riot as long as it's more than, say, 12 months from now?

The rally in Brandenburg v. Ohio was on June 28, 1964. The march was planned for July 4, 1964.

Note that the "imminent lawless action" test is for mere advocacy; actually planning a riot in detail (e.g. "Charlie, you take group B up on the hill with the bottles; Jim, take group A with the Molotovs) would probably not be protected.

And I've never gotten a good answer on how "imminent" applies: can I promote a planned riot as long as it's more than, say, 12 months from now?

IANAL but my understanding is that, as long as your speech does not constitute a threat, and as long as you are not actively conspiring with others, that's protected speech. If you are planning the detailed logistics of a riot a year from now that might not be protected. But for a silly example, the whole area 51 raid thing a few years back - saying "that's based and I fully support this. everyone should go, they can't stop all of us" a month before is, under my understanding of the law, in the clear.

How much can I complain about "turbulent priests" before I'm responsible to the state when Thomas Becket gets murdered?

I think that one falls under criminal solicitation (intent that the crime occurs + request/order that some specific person commit the crime), because it was said to specific people who would be expected to take it as an order. The state would have to prove intent, but in the Thomas Beckett case that seems not too difficult.

And I've never gotten a good answer on how "imminent" applies: can I promote a planned riot as long as it's more than, say, 12 months from now?

Didn't the Supreme Court rule that Trump's speech on j6 didn't count?

It depends on the judge you get and how many appeals you want to suffer through, but my understanding of the Supreme Court precedent on incitement is something like "My fellow activists, let's go right now to burn down the courthouse!" and then you all go right then to burn down the courthouse. If instead you all go to lunch, and some of the the people you talked to burn it down tomorrow but you didn't repeat your speech before they did, that wasn't incitement.

Didn't the Supreme Court rule that Trump's speech on j6 didn't count?

I don't believe any such case reached the Supreme Court. Or any court, for that matter. There were a lot of cases against Trump, but incitement to riot was not one of them.

Nobody thinks people have to literally be members of the defunct German political party NSDAP to be called Nazis, not any more than you have to specifically commit an unlawful killing to be called a murderer.

Er... I certainly think that. It is really toxic how people apply "Nazi" to mean "someone I think is authoritarian" and I think it should be reserved for actual Nazis. I also think you shouldn't be called a murderer unless you deliberately take someone's life.

I would defend calling Hitler-admiring Jew-exclusive white supremacists in favour of violent action "neo-Nazis" or, colloquially, "Nazis", despite their lack of membership of the NSDAP.

Nobody thinks people have to literally be members of the defunct German political party NSDAP to be called Nazis

I would also accept members of other contemporary Nazi parties, or a member of Rockwell's American Nazi Party.

I'll trade you "only calling people cultural Marxists/communists/bioleninists if they are actual members of Socialist parties".

I'd make the trade, if this means people that had a che shirt or hammer and sickle poster in college are treated the same as if they'd had a swastika poster- that is, completely excluded from polite society.

Counter-offer: You concede that most Communists were, even at their worst, less evil than the Nazis, and I will acknowledge that some Communists were as evil as the Nazis (e. g. the Khmer Rouge).

I'm not discussing actual communist regimes; I'm discussing American social mores downstream. The reality of who across the sea was worse is strangely uncorrelated.

A lame offer, indistinguishable from what we have right now.

Why would I trade you three labels for one?

It's easier to find card-carrying Socialist party members than Nazi party members.

I propose taking "bioleninist" out of the one side (who even uses that term?) and adding "fascist" to the other.

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