To be sure, but we have to decide whether we think those tactics are just strategically ineffective, or actually ethically wrong. If you try to say “both”, then you’re going to face some hard choices on the day it looks like a nasty tactic can get you a victory (and that day always comes.)
Well, there is not only a question of effectiveness and morality, but there is also a question of trust.
Brutal tactics can backfire, but they can also work. And there are times and places that even I might be willing to engage in those tactics.
But those tactics are costly, and there is far too much temptation to use them in situations where it is not warranted - in part because political ideologies thrive on a siege mentality and treating themselves as the underdog, even when they are actually quite popular or are even in the middle of going Full Overdog and bulldozing everything and everyone in their path.
A lot of actual, literal Nazis had to be shot during the second World War to put an end to the Nazi regime. Since the alternatives were worse, I would say it was correct - and perhaps even praiseworthy - to do so.
However, lots of people have been tricked into killing and dying for terrible political ideologies over the years, so my bar for when to use these sorts of tactics is a lot higher. And, here’s the trust part - I don’t trust the kinds of people who are hyped about this latest punching incident to keep that bar high. And ironically, exactly the sorts of people who are saying “hey, wait a minute” instead of cheering are the people I would trust more on when to initiate political violence.
If we could actually have a nice clear line at “it’s okay to punch people who openly call for genocide or certain genocide”, that might be okay. But let’s be realistic. That isn’t going to happen. Politicals will deliberately blur the boundaries in order to be allowed to punch people they want to punch. They already distort definitions of words like “violence” and “racism” for their own ends. There is no reason to believe they would stop. …and then the counter-punching would begin.
Thus I’m stuck opposing punching Nazis even though under other circumstances I might permit it.
