Captain America #275 - Violence Against Hate Speech

[informationgeek]

"Today is difficult, but cheering violence against speech, even of the most detestable, disgusting variety, is not a look that will age well." - Nick Spencer

"Look, if we're saying it's okay to commit acts of violence against people whose views we hate, we should put that paper." - Nick Spencer


Writer: J.M. DeMattis
Artist: Mike Zeck

So with Neo Nazi/White Nationalist/Alt-Right Darling/genocide advocating Richard Spencer getting punched, Nick Spencer came to his defense to say violence against him and his speech is a bad thing. It got a steamy between Nick and his Twitter followers, eventually getting to him about his views and writing on Captain America. During of which, he cites this issue as Captain America's views on his stance to fighting hate speech with violence.

A lot of websites done posts about this, but let's take a more in-depth look at the issue with its relation to Neo-Nazis, hate speech, and violence...



So we start with Steve Rogers, when he had as secret identity, walking his lady, Bernie Rosenthal, and his land lady, Anna Kappelbaum home. On the way there, they spot that the town's synagogue has been hit and had the Nazi Swastika painted on its doors.





Steve: --we've been busy floating on air, right? I'd like to go Bernie -- but I've got a lot of important business to take care of the next few days!

Bernie: Well, you DO have freedom of choice in the matter...


Then we get hit with a couple of interludes with Zemo, Sam Wilson declaring he's running for a spot in the House of Representatives, Neo-Nazis, and then this...




Onto the rally itself! Steve shows up to support the protesters, Bernie's ex-husband (Sammy Bernstein) shows up as well, and then things get underway...








We have another interlude and then back to the action!




Captain America jumps onto the stage and starts speaking to the crowd...







Oh, and Bernie figures out Cap is Steve. ZOMG!!!


Anyhow, what do you think? Here's a few articles that went on about this subject and topic.

Comments

[commodus]

This does make sense for Captain America's character. So obsessed with freedom that he often seems to neglect the responsibilities which come with it.
If one persons position is based around dehumanizing others, and another persons position is that ALL human beings are worthy of dignity and equality - how can you equate the two? How can anyone defend an idea which would rob people of their liberty?

As I say, I can believe the character feels that way - because his behaviour in Civil War was very similar - but it's tone deaf, and comes across as quite callous and risible to stand in a vandalized Synagogue and champion the rights of the vandals to the Rabbi's face.

[ozaline]

I agree in the Synagogue scene Steve is being pretty tone deaf (especially in downplaying the motives of the vandals, which I don't think he'd do), but he is correct that if you jail or attack someone based on an idea, even a reprehensible one it's an attack on all. Freedom of speech exists for all or for none, you jail or attack someone for simply speaking and you create martyrs, and energize their side.

It's not defending the idea of the Nazis, Steve made it pretty clear what he thinks about the Nazis; it's defending the right to express ideas, because if we start policing correct thought, that could be used against us later when the people in power have a different idea of what correct thought is.

Weimar Germany had hate speech laws that included jail time, many Nazis including leading party members were jailed... it didn't stop them.

[laughing_tree]

My thoughts on the comic: I think it makes the mistake a lot of "killing is wrong" comics do, in that it goes too far in its condemnation by saying that both sides are *equally* bad. It's the whole, "If you do this, you're no better than he is" stuff. (I know it doesn't specifically say that here, but there's a clear attempt to equate.) Want to say physically attacking people who promote evil viewpoints is bad? Want to condemn that? Go for it. But don't say it's *just as* bad as the people expressing those viewpoints in the first place. There's an important difference.

As for the real world incident... Ohhh boy, my feelings are mixed there. On the one hand, I agree with the folks saying punching the guy doesn't solve anything. The people saying such acts will intimidate Nazis into backing down come off as naive to me, frankly. Individuals can back down to the threat of violence, but groups as a whole just get angry in response and double down rather than let their perceived attackers win. That's how it typically works. See every group in history ever.

However, this line of criticism is premised on the assumption that the purpose of these kinds of minor attacks is to solve the problem, which I don't think needs to be the case. Maybe the puncher just wants to vent indignation at a Nazi spouting Nazi crap, without any illusion that it'll change anything. Maybe he sees all the horror going on politically and just wants to eke out some satisfaction from the knowledge that something shitty happened to someone who deserved it today? And if that's the case, who can blame him?

So, basically: Meeting vile speech with violence doesn't solve anything, true. But something doesn't need to be a solution to be satisfying in other ways.

[ozaline]

Assault is assault period. I can't blame them for the impulse to punch a Nazi, but I can blame them for giving into it.

Like you said violence only makes their fellows double down, so not only do we need to persecute assault so that we can have legal defense if it happens to us, but it it is the opposite of a solution.

If you want the satisfaction of hurting a Nazi, boot up a copy of Wolfenstein.

[tcampbell1000]

Right this moment, I feel this sort of high-mindedness is missing the point. Over the last decade, we've created an environment of largely consequence-free speech, coupled with cultural fragmentation. It's this environment that opened the door for the return of Nazism. Since culture is slow to change and our government seems unlikely to prioritize hate crime, it falls to us to send a message loud and clear: speeches like this have consequences.

We've seen what happens when you try to engage this group in honest debate: it's like debating Dadaists, except that instead of just feeling annoyed at the end you've let them turn you into a platform for their toxic views. The genocide of others is an inevitable part of their platform. That platform *CANNOT* coexist with the values of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all, not in any form.

Ideally, people like these would be booed and laughed out of any forum they appeared, but we can't always wait for the ideal situation. Waiting for society's values to reassert themselves on their own has caused enough trouble already.

[richardak]

Consequence-free speech? When people get hounded out of their jobs for what they say? When it has become unusual, to say the least, for a university to say that its campus is not a "safe space" and that students are expected to be able to confront any ideas? You think you're living in this libertarian paradise of absolute free speech, and that the success of ideologies you disagree with is proof of why free speech is bad. You have it exactly backwards: it is the already existing widespread efforts to suppress ideas you don't like that has made those ideas stronger.

[tcampbell1000]

And I don't believe, as others are saying, that a violent incident "only makes others double down." What would "doubling down" even constitute here, anyway? Resorting to violence? Then we could abandon the ridiculous pretense that the neo-Nazis are debating in good faith in the first place. Getting somehow even MORE racist and suggesting that maybe the last Holocaust didn't go far enough? If there's any chance of them doing that, then maybe we should go ahead and actually fight them before they get any bolder.

[thehood]

Right, their point of view is nowhere near peaceful or acceptable.

[ozaline]

"Doubling Down," would be their gaining more support from further radicalized individuals who will see one of their leaders getting punched, and say "see those Queer/Jew/Muslims really are out to get us!" then they get more followers and their cause gets bigger, and then they'll have the resources to inact their insane fantasies.

Again see Weimar Germany...

I understand Spencer actually incites violence, so he should be in jail. But we shouldn't be adding more fuel to his fire.

[richardak]

Weimar Germany had very strong laws against "hate speech". The National Socialists constantly ran afoul of them. Far from stopping them, they made them stronger and helped them take over. It has been said before, but apparently needs to be said again: sunlight is the best disinfectant. There is no greater weapon against bigotry than free speech.

And that does not mean free speech for the ideas you like or the ones you disagree with but consider "respectable". If you believe in free speech, except for the ideas you hate, then you do not believe in free speech.

[reveen]

Weimar Germany was a pretty wild time far and away removed from our current cultural mindset, stability, and understanding of rights. Claiming that something as mild and mundane as hate speech laws contributed to Hitler's rise is pretty ridiculous when you have the Great Depression and the near constant political violence and civil wars going on at the same time. It's like telling someone that eating fatty foods caused their cancer while they're living under a leaking nuclear waste container.

Hey, y'know what would really have stopped the Nazis? If instead of arresting Hitler and Nazis Weimar Germany just popped them in the head and dumped their corpses in a river like they did to Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebkneckt.

[lego_joker]

There is no greater weapon against bigotry than free speech.

I feel that's only applicable when said bigotry is actually on even footing with its opponents, as "just" an idea among several, not already folded into national policy.

Actually, lemme ask you something... if, by some chance, it could be objectively proven that bigots in America outnumber their opponents by a margin of something like three to two, would you say it's moral to let them have the run of the country?

[lb_lee]

Like many douchebags, Spencer can dish it out, but god forbid he take it. Getting punched? Feels dramatically appropriate after what he pulled in Whitefish.

Also, the comic grates. Captain America was being preachy as hell even before the violence started. If I had to be scolded by outsiders taking umbrage at my language while I fix up my trashed place of worship, I'd get pretty grouchy too. (Come to think of it, I HAVE experienced things like that. Even reporting people who assaulted me to the cops often had folks wringing their hands about the damage I was doing and left me feeling even more alone than before, because it made it clear to me that the people around me didn't actually care about preventing violence, but just the appearance of it.)

It mostly just feels like smug condescension, and it puts a sour taste in my mouth because it feels too familiar.

[philippos42]

I'm actually disappointed in Marc DeMatteis's script here. I get it, being Jewish he would have had a lifetime's worth of opportunity to get sick of a particular flavor of Jewish self-righteousness--the sort of self-righteous person who excuses their own violence and bigotry by pointing to past horrors. Coming from that context, I appreciate what he's trying to say. But it comes off like, "A yarmulke is as bad as a Nazi armband."

[freezer]

Sorry Mr. Spencer, but if sucker punching Nazis is wrong, I don't want to be right.

[freezer]

Or to let David Willis respond:

[ozaline]

That'd be threats and incitement to violence which is illegal.

[lego_joker]

I suppose I'll throw in my own two cents on the matter...

The urge for peace and "understanding" between white supremacists and their victims is... interesting, insofar as it implies the "ideal" America (perhaps the "ideal" nation) is one that has room for the ideas of both. In turn implying the ideas of each may be moral, or at least useful, under certain circumstances.

Soullessly, objectively speaking this may be... no, is true. America's made some strides in peace and tolerance, but it was built on the genocide of non-whites; even MLK Jr. (every conservative's favorite liberal) said as much. Thus the reason that so many non-whites in America live in fear, and react so viscerally to dialogue like Spencer's; Spencer the person might be an outcast even among conservatives, but America's leaders do have evidence that views like his can lead to national success (or at least won't fatally impede it).

Hence, I can't exactly blame Spencer's targets for trying to shut down his views at every opportunity. Historically speaking, that S.O.B.'s already got a head-start than he deserves; I see no point in giving him more.

[philippos42]

I'm very much in favor of engaging and subverting the alt-right. I don't think youthful nationalist sympathies damn a man forever. I imagine that even some of the kids defending Hitler on 4chan are really hungry for something better than the "conservatism" of Grover Norquist and Newt Gingrich. If the Left is demonized, national-socialism and race-consciousness may seem a more attractive alternative. Unfortunately, their rhetoric keeps demonizing the Left. We should try to get through to them, and help them--not their beliefs, but the persons who are looking for something.

That said, normalizing the smiling white nationalist is not acceptable. We have to defend actual Americans, and people around the world, from his fantastical America-for-whites-only nonsense.

The man with a false answer, who seeks to shut down the "regressive left," is a trick, whether he dresses up in religious clothes, racist clothes, or libertarian clothes. I fear that Richard Spencer will probably lead anyone foolish enough to follow his "alt-right" movement into being useful idiots of the same corrupt business interests that have taken over the mainstream right. Such did the Christian Coalition and the TEA Party before him.

[ozaline]

I'm not calling for understanding, my fear is that punching Spencer makes him stronger; I didn't even know who Spencer was before today to be honest. Now my reaction to this story learning about Spencer is...

"Wow what a dangerous asshole."

Now maybe somebody else learned about him today, and becomes his follower. That is my fear!

[sadoeuphemist]

Seriously I don't understand what this has to do with free speech at all. The guy who punched the Nazi was not a government agent, nor was he a part of an organized effort to go around Nazi-punching. He was a lone guy acting on his own. If some asshole mouths off in public and gets socked in the head by some rando he pissed off, that's an issue of assault, it's got nothing to do with free speech. If a clip of it goes viral and people approve of it and say 'hell yeah, punch Nazis!', this is not trying to push through legislative action to legalize Nazi-punching, it is not organizing Nazi-punching brigades. I don't see how approving of Nazi-punching is any less an expression of free speech than Spencer and his ilk advocating black genocide.

[ozaline]

You're not wrong.

The assault was not a free speech issue, and people who are in favour of it are exercising free speech.

And I know I've said in this thread that "freedom of speech exists for all," and "the protection of law exists for all*," but I'm not meaning to imply that at this time Mr. Spencer is lacking in either of those, nor is he likely to in the near future.

I was carrying the idea that there are people who it's acceptable to assault to it's logical conclusion, and perhaps because I'm kinda scared right now of where we're going I got hyperbolic in a few points.

I'm scared that if we make it a cultural policy to meet words with fists, that we only make the nazis stronger in the end, and that it'll lead to some greater violence, and I'm scared of the wild shift to the right we're seeing in the States and that'll drag Canada with it.

I know that last point is what's driving the pro-punchers as well, and I guess we just have to disagree on that point.

"What conceivable reason could you have not to hate me?"

[deh_tommy]

"Because it's too easy! It's the easiest thing in the world to do, any imbecile can hate! It's lazy! You wanna know what takes effort? Being nice. Is it so hard to be nice to some people? But what am I supposed to do? Call you a jerk over and over, and hope that one day, you'll wake up and go ""I'm cured! Yeah, the first million times didn't work, but the millionth and one, that was the magic number, that's what got through!""? How likely is that gonna happen?

And don't get me wrong, There's times when we need to be angry. We need to fight. If not, we'd be goose-stepping our way to work right now. But, it should be one of the last options, not always the first. Because when you get angry, you don't think straight and people take advantage of that.

And maybe you disagree with me, okay, fine. You know what? I'll listen. I'll listen to what you have to share. And even though so much of what you say feels wrong, I'll still keep it in my mind that you could possibly be right, because if I'm not willing to change for you, how am I supposed to expect you to change for me? I want to be similar enough to see more how we're similar than fear how we're different. And you know what? It's gonna be hard. It's gonna be so hard and I'm going to fail a lot - heck, I've failed a lot already - but this is the one thing I'm certain the more I do it, the better I can get at it."
-Doug Walker, ''I'll Be Home for Christmas''

Re: "What conceivable reason could you have not to hate me?"

[lizard_of_aus]

Good speech, that, and a valid philosophy too. Glad to see I'm not the only one who rewatched it over and over until I memorised it line by line.

[pyrrhocorax]

I don’t understand what Steve wants the Jewish people to do here. He not only doesn’t want them to use violence against those who would destroy them, he also thinks they shouldn’t even form a large peaceful protest group, because the nazis are few in number! What would he have them do, stay at home and cower?

[wizardru]

I think the writing (which feels awfully tone deaf now) was intending to say 'don't give them attention, they're just a fringe bunch of crazies and we're actually getting them media coverage they wouldn't otherwise get and you're legitimatizing their crazy by doing so'. That made several wrong assumptions, but I assume that's what Cap is thinking.

It's weird that this was written in 1982, though, as the Skokie March incident was only a five years in the past (and the court case only three). I think it's interesting that while the American Nazi's won the right to march, they failed to do so when it was clear that it would end badly for them if they tried.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/movies/chi-perspec-skokie-movie-20130116-column.html

[tcampbell1000]

http://priorwaltering.tumblr.com/post/156197930416/here-is-something-i-think-people-dont-understand

[ozaline]

I guess ultimately it boils down to this... I don't see a difference between white supreamicists and jihadists. To me they're identical... terrorists.

Aaron Sorkin said in an episode of the West Wing that the KKK is to Christianity as AL Qaeda is to Islam, and I think he was spot on.

The goal of terrorism is well terror, getting us to grossly over react. The Western World could not have played into first Al Qaeda then Daesh's hands by eroding civil liberties, and I'm sick of it. If someone has voiced terrorist sympathies then they should be watched closely within the bounds of the law, if they have engaged in terrorist activity then they should be treated as such.

But if we abandon our principles out of fear, then we empower them an we've been doing that for 16 years... and it's in no small part due to the government, media, and yes the populace over reacting to one flavour of terrorist that we're seeing the resurgence of another.

Yes we must be ready to fight, but the greater wisdom is in knowing when not to.