this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2023
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In 99% of cases, you would be correct. However, these are Neo-Nazis we're talking about here. Like, if they got their way, I'd be dead, so so would a lot of other innocent people. Their ideology has caused unspeakable horrors, and it'll happen again if we let our guard down. There has to be a social cost to being a Nazi. Like, this shit is getting way too close to the right wing mainstream. This isn't a matter of just "people we don't like". They're dangerous. Name them. Shame them. Ruin their lives. Force their evil ideology back into the deep, dark fringes where it belongs.
Does the violence of Doxxing accomplish that? I see no evidence that Doxing has done anything but embolden them. For me, if I look at the actual impact of these sorts of things, it doesn't seem that Doxxing is effective at actually fighting back, and is, in fact, making things more dangerous for folks like you and me, not less. Sure we get that rush of dopamine when "Karen the Racist" is fired for her own stunts when revealed to the company, but we don't check back in within 6 months to see that these people have largely recovered.
Retribution only begets more retribution. Personally, I'm more for restorative justice - even for those we find reprehensible.
Heck if the purpose is to "defend ourselves", going the route of retribution seems counter to that goal.
As for social costs - they already exist. I wouldn't be a friend with a proud neo-nazi, nor would most people. But this level of Doxxing is amplifying that social cost to unproductive levels - and I fear it serves as nothing more than a leftist/liberal virtue signalling performance.
If a drug dealer should receive compassion because of the systemic inequities that led him to "offend" - thus deserving restorative justice, why are closet Nazi's that much different? We already know that retributive justice doesn't work, and many of us would rather see it dismantled. Is every Nazi unfixable? I think the only people that can really answer this question are Germans. (And if anyone from Germany is here now, I'd love to hear your view on this - if it worked, what didn't work, etc)
Sometimes you just need to throw some hands to prevent worse violence down the line. It isn't a perfect world and we're a bunch of upjumped apes. I'm not saying we shouldn't try to be better than that, but we should at least be realistic about the hand we've been dealt. That being said, perhaps you're right about going the restorative justice route. I just worry because, this is getting normalized way past what anyone should feel comfortable about. Like, I feel we should do everything we can to prevent people from becoming Nazis. If naming and shaming deters people from going down that rabbit hole, I think we at least have to consider it.
Agreed, but in our world, with the powers that be sympathizing with fascism more and more, it's increasingly important to never be seen as throwing the first punch. Throwing hands needs to be in response to something meaningful. Otherwise we cede the moral ground in the eyes of many and reduce our ability to build more political power.
To be clear, I understand what I'm asking for seems AGONIZING, to "turn the other cheek" feels incredibly dangerous in the moment. But we have to understand that "turning the other cheek" is a social performance that helps build our power, and makes us safer. Doxing, by contrast, earns very little sympathy from a person that sees things in the common "both sides" narrative.