[phatskat]

I disagree on the “nazification” point, your main point, because fascism is the kind of insidious thing that can’t be allowed a foothold. To your point 2, even if the Nazis were allowed in to be the butt jokes, it’s still allowing them in and tolerating them.

If an establishment is aware of Nazis in their ranks and they aren’t condemning them, then they’re supporting them by way of not removing them. It’s the paradox of tolerance at play.

I don’t want to really derail into different aspects of communism, just want to say that most communists I’ve met or been exposed to only believe in violent revolution if peaceful revolution isn’t an option. Again, this isn’t, to me, an equivalent to the violent beliefs of Nazism.

[bit-anarchist]

I have to disagree on fascism being this insidious bogeyman. While I agree that they ought to be fought against, IMO this is reaching into red scare territory (which is fitting, given that both share a really close ideological root).

I also disagree that merely keeping a Nazi in your establishment is support for Nazism. Simply not removing a Nazi is no more than not removing a person, it doesn't speak whether the ideology will actually take root.

The paradox of intolerance, in its original form written by Karl Popper, is about discussions. In this context, intolerants are people who forego argumentation. Kicking a person, Nazi or not, who has been acting peacefully and has been engaging in argumentation isn't "intolerance against intolerance", it's intolerance proper. You may argue that you are trying to prevent a future situation with this, but unless it is a 100% guaranteed (which I argue it isn't), it's just plain intolerance.

Finally, bear in mind that there are more equivalences in beliefs than you think. Mein Kampf didn't speak anything about Jew mass murder (and it still happened), and most (as in, the ones you see "marxist-leninist" in their profile) socialists admit that a nonviolent approach is basically impossible. In the end, both ideologies share the willingness to dehumanize and murder their opposition (and for similar reasons, Nazi-brand racial hatred derives from the same core idea).

[ericmay]

> Finally, bear in mind that there are more equivalences in beliefs than you think. Mein Kampf didn't speak anything about Jew mass murder (and it still happened), and most (as in, the ones you see "marxist-leninist" in their profile) socialists admit that a nonviolent approach is basically impossible. In the end, both ideologies share the willingness to dehumanize and murder their opposition (and for similar reasons, Nazi-brand racial hatred derives from the same core idea).

Spot on. It's interesting to me that we've failed to stomp out communist sympathies but I guess we didn't stomp out Nazi sympathies either.

Both are authoritarian ideologies that are incompatible with free expression, free trade, and free peoples. Yet people openly talk about being communists despite the above and despite the fact that tens of millions of dead precisely because of communist ideologies and failed economic policies. To claim that fascism and specifically Naziism is an insidious boogeyman means you should also claim the same about communism. Curious how some/many folks don't or don't seem to understand that.

[bit-anarchist]

Tbf, communism is indeed more broad than Hitler's Nazism, from pre-marxists to Proudhon ancoms (although a similar comment may be made about the common sense definition of Fascism), hence I changed scope towards traditional Marxist-Leninists.

[ericmay]

It's more broad but I don't think that changes anything with respect to the destructiveness and need to stamp out the ideology. Nazism is just a flavor of either authoritarianism or maybe just a flavor of a broader racial/cultural superiority ideology. Typically in the west we reject the whole tree and not just some of the branches. I apply the same argument to communism. And you can certainly find more charitable interpretations where maybe some freedoms are still present, but you can do the same thing racial or cultural superiority ideologies or similar.