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Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

feel free to quote me on where I said that. "Not up to anything"?

About here:

for a march that if it had proceeded would probably have resulted in no bodily harm to anyone

This is a completely ridiculous statement when we're talking about a Nazi march approaching Jewish quarters in 1936 Europe.

You can try to characterize that as "protecting a space", but that's disingenuous. They sought a confrontation.

The goal of the anti-fascists was to deny the Nazis from marching through certain parts of London. If there is no confrontation, they would have won. Yet you're saying that the hundreds of thousands of people who showed up were there seeking a confrontation. No maybe's and gray areas, the only group who had no need or plans to do anything if nobody approached them was the most confrontational one.

Nazis saying they're going to march through the local Jewish quarter, fully aware that the Jewish community of the time is deeply entwined with the far-left. Not confrontational at all.

The police who kept attacking the anti-fascists for hours injuring over a hundred people, even though it was clear they didn't have much of a chance to push through. (Just look at the video. We're talking about an estimated mass of 300,000 protesters, before police had things like water cannons and tear gas.) That was just the police being very committed to their job. It could not possibly have been motivated by the fact that the anti-fascists were a bunch of no good commies, Irishmen, anarchists and other miscreants well-deserving a good batoning for daring to defy them.

The state is required to be completely neutral as to the content of the speech in question, especially when applying state force. The anti-fascists certainly had a right to protest, so long as that protest does not infringe on the right of the people they don't like to exercise their own speech. This seems to have been less of a protest than an instance of "we don't like what you have to say, so we're going to fight you".

How is blocking Nazis from entering Jewish quarter blocking their free speech? The anti-fascists made no attempt to stop the Nazis from marching. They just did not let their march be used to intimidate local Jews.

In general I really fail to see how is the unambiguous intention of scaring a local ethnic minority and promoting violence and hatred towards them free speech that needs to be defended with violence if necessary. Especially when "we can not allow Nazis to intimidate Jews here" is somehow so far removed from free speech that it's not just acceptable but necessary to use violence against demonstrators who otherwise would just have eventually gone home.

I wonder, had the anti-fascist protesters been just Jews, would you still argue that the Jews were in the wrong in trying to stop Nazis from marching through their neighborhood?

I'm saying that if you want a race war, if you want there to be actual full out fighting in the streets, well, that's certainly on the table right now.

Framíng this as a conflict between races instead of a conflict between ideologies is white power rhetoric. Let's remember that most people fighting in Cable Street, and in Charlottesville, were white. On all sides. Not that I think you're a Nazi sympathizer even a little, but when well-meaning and thoughtful people like you start internalizing white power rhetoric it really speaks volumes about where the conversation is at around you.

You have two options here; conversation, or killing people whose views you don't like before they can kill you. There is almost no scenario where I will pick the latter, when given that choice. Again, it appears we differ in that view.

Did the anti-fascists physically standing up to police and fascists mid and late 1930's lead to a violent killing spree inside the country? No. So clearly these are not the only two options. Conversation and being willing to put yourself in harms way to defend what you believe in are not mutually exclusive things.

Really, all I'm getting from your posts is that it's okay for you, or people who think like you, to do violence to your opponents, because you're right.

Then you should try to work harder to understand, because there's much more to what people are saying.

That said, there is some truth to that. When you start fighting for a cause and try to change the world, you are always at risk of being wrong, of making the world worse. There's just no way around that problem, it's just a risk you have to take. You can't even escape that with inaction, because sometimes the people who say we should try to avoid fighting are also wrong.

That's just life.