people who are like “but what if people decide I am a Nazi and punch ME”:
this is literally not how antifa works. there are not roving gangs of antifa traveling around being like “do you ship white-dude slash ships? PUNCH HIM IN THE FACE”
antifa do sometimes punch people who are not Nazis! specifically, if you are at a riot where antifa and nazis are fighting each other, some antifa might confuse you for a nazi and punch you. your political opinions LITERALLY DO NOT MATTER. antifa sometimes punch other members of antifa.
you can eliminate your risk of being punched by antifa to zero by avoiding riots. this is inconvenient for people who want to go to protests and for UC Berkeley students, but for most people this is not actually something you need to be worried about.
this post is intended to defend a specific claim not to go ANTIFA YAY. I am saying this because many people have responded by defending the claim ANTIFA BOO rather than arguing with anything in my post, and this is mildly annoying.
if we must know my opinion on ANTIFA BOO OR YAY I suppose I am on the BOO side, mostly because I prefer the sf bay area to be riot-free
Epistemic status: Too angry, I know.
One: Antifa (over here) have every incentive to make violence easier to use. They decrease accountability and seek plausible deniability. They legitimise violence as political discourse. They don’t incite violence for the thrill of it, but they actively recruit thrill-seekers, because squeamish, conscientous nerds don’t make for great rioters or street fighters.
Two: Have you ever missed work because somebody tampered with the railways? Have you ever missed work because somebody wanted you to miss work, because anti-capitalism? Has your little sister ever missed a doctor’s appointment in the city because anti-capitalists cut the power lines to the railway signals and she had to sit in the train for three hours? Has anybody ever lit your roommate’s car on fire parked two meters on front of your kitchen window?
Three: Miss me with that George-Bush-League collateral damage rhetoric.
Oh, hey, and they apparently did cut someone that was friendly to them and not at a riot recently.
Plus they try to get people that aren’t at riots, and in fact have no connection to WNs, fired.
So “not being at a riot” is insufficient to protect one from Antifa.