[The Man]

The more I think about this issue, the more I have to come down on the side of “it is impossible for there to be such a thing as a preemptive attack against a Nazi.” Nazis carried out a campaign of systematic extermination that claimed eleven million lives mainly on the bases of such uncontrollable factors as ethnicity, disabilities, sexual orientation, and so on. By identifying as a Nazi, a person is claiming this heritage for themselves. In other words, they’re claiming all this violence for themselves.

An attack on a Nazi is an act of self-defence. And it is effective. Street violence was deployed in the United Kingdom to prevent Oswald Mosley and his blackshirts from taking part in the political process (in particular, physically denying him access to specific areas). This was a major factor in preventing fascism from taking root in Britain. Similarly, Spencer is now a laughing stock and is apparently in hiding. This, to me, is a net good. Nazis should live in fear; they should be afraid to show themselves in polite society. One outcome of the ACLU-Skokie thing that is seldom remembered is that, after obtaining the permit for the march, the Nazis decided not to march in Skokie because they would have been putting themselves in personal danger by doing so. It’s difficult for me to think of a more ideal outcome than that.

That said, I think it would probably have been even better if someone had used the old “pie in the face” trick against Spencer, and I highly endorse doing this to Nazis in the future.