People fail to grasp what is being communicated in this metaphorical story.
Notice that the bartender does not respond by ignoring the Nazi. He immediately and swiftly confronts the Nazi and lets him know he's not welcome in the bar.
Further, the bartender warns that if you just ignore the Nazi, the Nazi will show up with more friends tomorrow.
If they are in your community, you need to confront them swiftly and decisively as the bartender in this story did.
WARNING
If you confront Nazis in person, understand that violence can happen. Hurting others makes them feel powerful. Remember the violence at the Unite The Right protest, such as the teacher who was beaten into the hospital or the car that was driven into a crowd of people.
@CypherCloudsculpter @wilbr
Honestly, most of them aren't going to wear swastikas nor iron crosses.
They constantly change the symbols they display in order to hide from others what they are. If you want to identify them, you need to stay abreast of that stuff.
The iron cross was just for the purpose of the story, which I didn't write.
@tofugolem @CypherCloudsculpter yeah that's why I felt the need to interject about learning to identify them by smell, which comes from experience.
My "smell" is when someone seems to think that everything's a joke that they're in on but you're not. I don't know why but when someone's smiling but my heart has dread in it, I've learned to pay attention to that. Maybe they're not a "Nazi" but they're probably bad news.
They think they are smarter than the other conservatives because they are able to hide among them. They call the other conservatives "normies."
This is funny because they are so much dumber than the other conservatives.
@bnmng
That's a big grey area for me.
But it's why I brought this up.
If an instance blocks a whole instance over toleration of Nazis, that seems like confronting them and keeping them out of the bar.
But simply blocking them at the individual level? That's more complicated I think.
I understand that the fediverse is supposed to be a place where people can protect themselves from harmful people, but if all anyone does it block, are we properly confronting them?
@bnmng
Twitter is another matter.
Twitter tried to keep the Nazis out. Now that Twitter is owned by someone determined to let the Nazis in, and ban anyone who is against Nazis, we have no choice but to consider Twitter a lost cause.
By leaving and letting everyone know why we left Twitter, we hurt them in the advertising dollars where it matters.
But generally, I try to confront them as much as possible. They are much dumber than other conservative groups.
Yes we are ignoring them just like we are ignoring Gab or Truth Social, which also run Mastodon.
Fediblocking is simple exercise of freedom of association.
No need to engage with the fash.
Right they must be confronted on a legal and physical level. But not in our bar.
@sean @bnmng
All metaphors fail when examined too closely. It really depends on what you mean by "our bar," I guess.
I'm half Japanese, but other than that, I'm not part of a marginalized group. I feel its my responsibility to confront them as much as possible, and I feel frustrated that others aren't.
They've managed to grow a lot in recent decades. They nearly succeeded in overthrowing our government.
It's time to take them more seriously.
I take them extremely seriously. But their ideology is not debatable. Whenever someone gets you to debate your right to exist, you're automatically losing.
I won't engage them in a war of words. They must be defeated politically and legally.
They've lost the right to participate in civilized discourse.
@sean @bnmng
I'm not talking about getting into a logical debate.
If a nation is sliding into fascism, those who have been sucked in will no longer respond to reasoned arguments because fascist propaganda stokes existential fear.
But you do have to confront them, or they take your silence as tacit agreement and move forward.
@pete @sean @bnmng
I'm not going to pretend to know what's the best course.
Scottish communists stopped Scottish fascists by following them around as they were giving speeches and passing out pamphlets. The Scottish communists generally did childish things to disrupt the Scottish fascists.
Fascists desperately want to be taken seriously.
@bnmng @pete @sean @melissachimera
As I already stated, different rules apply when a society is descending into fascism.
The ones who have been sucked in by the fascist movement will probably not respond to reasoned arguments anymore.
It is possible. It's been done. There are people who have been argued out of it. I just don't know if it's worth the time or effort given how often that approach fails.
@crazygrape @pete @bnmng @sean @melissachimera
When I was a child, adults around me were still debating the Vietnam War. I recall liberals throwing the word Nazi at war supporters and thought they were overreacting.
Then Reagan came and the Nazi accusations came again, and I still thought it was an overreaction.
By the time of Bush II, I had to admit that those calling Republicans Nazis were right. It's only gotten worse since then.
@sean @tofugolem
@melissachimera
I can go for hours doing "one the one hand.. on the other hand.." On the one hand, confronting them gives them oxygen like Melisssa said,
On the other hand, I've read good stories about engagement - even positive engagement like the Muslims who offered tea to the people protesting their mosque, or the son of the Stormfront founder who's heart was turned by kindness showed by fellow Jewish students in his university.
@bnmng @sean @melissachimera
With fascists, positive confrontation is not what you're after.
Look into stories of past fascist uprisings that failed.
In Scottland, Scottish communists took the wind out of their sails by following them around whenever they gave speeches or passed pamphlets and openly ridiculed them.
In England, there was significant violence involved in suppressing the English fascists.
Two scenarios come to mind. The first is from Sister Act in which nuns show up at a bar. A dismayed biker-type tells his buddy, "If this becomes a nuns' bar, I'm outta here." https://youtu.be/UINnCLkg0Jw
Second, on a more dramatic note, is Cabaret.
A Nazi is thrown out of the Kit Kat Klub in the movie's beginning. The movie closes w scores of them seated for a night out at the same club.
The influx of Nazis also drives away clientele who would otherwise continue patronizing his bar.
I once found out the hard way that ignoring the first signs of "jock itch" is not the way to deal with a fungal infection of the testicles.
How to keep Nazis out:
1. Don't spend any time posting about and interacting with them.
2. 
3. Oh hey, look, I have a new keyword to filter posts by. Thanks. 
@tofugolem Thanks!
I just heard this story from @gregolear on #TheFive8 last Friday. (He couldn't remember where he'd read it.)
It’s long so I’ve posted it at https://pastebin.com/raw/fcq3FAt6
@MangeyOctopus
Originally, skinheads were working class guys.
Bald Nazis did show up dressed like skinheads, which made the skinheads angry, but we shouldn't forget that it was the mainstream media that convinced everyone that all skinheads are Nazis.
The skinheads that weren't Nazis became extremely violent anti-racists, but in the end, they could not win out against public perception, and the anti-racist skins all drifted away, defeated by the media.
@tofugolem Where I grew up, Nazi punks were told decisively to “fuck off.”
If Gen X has any wisdom to pass on to future generations, let it be this.
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