Help So... you find out your friend might be a neo nazi...

[old.Tohtori]

I don't understand what you mean specifically by "doesn't work any better". Are you suggesting hating someone for what they do is the same as hating someone for what they are?

Evidently me trying to stop an argument isn't ok to you people either...fine.

Wish you'd make up your mind though.

Yes i am, if they don't effect someone elses life. Not all chavs do, so not all chavs should be hated. As an example.

By the way i knew that talking about nazis, neo or old, is a slippery slope as it's usually people who are against it with ZEAL who start calling others nazi supporters and other twisted sh*t like that simply for saying ANYTHING else but "Nazi boo hiss!"

 

[rynnor]

Ultimately - there is a big difference between wanting someone dead because of their race, and disliking someone for being an aggressive shit.

Actually - ascribing a group of people to a negative stereotype that ignores their individuality is exactly what the Nazi's did.

Next step would be to declare them 'un-persons' and start reducing their legal rights.

Edit - I think people should study the Nazi's and realise that the things that drove them were not unique but common to all humanity - look at Rwanda, the Khmer Rouge etc. etc.

 

[Raven]

So many revisionists, wont someone think of the children!

 

[nath]

Yes i am, if they don't effect someone elses life. Not all chavs do, so not all chavs should be hated. As an example.

Well that depends on how you define a chav, and on this we may differ. I'd only call someone a chav if they were an aggressive, loud-mouthed, anti-social shitbag. I can see that if someone said all chavs are scum, and a chav is defined as anyone wearing burberry, that'd be unreasonable.

Actually - ascribing a group of people to a negative stereotype that ignores their individuality is exactly what the Nazi's did.

It's not a negative stereotype of a group if what you use to group people is a common negative traits. That's like saying "you can't call all members of the Ku Klux Klan racist, that's a negative stereotype". They're members of the Ku Klux Klan *because* they're racist. It's only if you use arbitrary traits to group them that may or may not have anything to do with the negative traits that you could call it a stereotype.


This all hinges on ones definition of chav - and that could lead us in to a semantic arguement (perhaps it already has).

 

[old.Tohtori]

This all hinges on ones definition of chav - and that could lead us in to a semantic arguement (perhaps it already has).

Quite true.

I just think "wanting to get rid of anyone via prejudice" is wrong.

If you want certain individuals off the planet, that's a different can of worms.

But, to close up my "opinion" here;

I wouldn't drop someones friendship if they found out to be neo-nazi, or racist, or whatever. IF they don't force it and behave around me. AKA, don't drag me into it.

I think nazis had good bits, while majority of it was naughty.

Modern neo-nazis can believe in it as much as others can in other stuff.

I'm not supporting it, even if i don't judge it.

Hope that clears all up and we can go fight about pie or something.

 

[nath]

Quite true.

I just think "wanting to get rid of anyone via prejudice" is wrong.

Well yes, prejudice is a key word. If you're saying "I don't want violent, aggressive, anti-social shitbags in my society", there's no prejudice there. If you say "I don't want chav's in my society" I see that as an identical statement. If you don't think of the word chav as the same thing, then it's easy to see it as prejudice.

 

[rynnor]

Well yes, prejudice is a key word. If you're saying "I don't want violent, aggressive, anti-social shitbags in my society", there's no prejudice there. If you say "I don't want chav's in my society" I see that as an identical statement.

If you are assigning those traits to a group of people thats pretty much the definition of prejudice.

Dont worry about it tho as every human being on the planet has prejudices - its part of how our brains make sense of reality - the important bit is to realise this and try not to let innate prejudices affect how you deal with people.

 

[old.user4556]

Bravo! What a thread!

 

[Scouse]

Man, I can't be arsed reading all this but I would like to say this (and I can't believe I'm defending toht here)::

If nazi ideas were all bad then what does that say about the entire german population?

Lets face it, Germany had to think that the ideas of the Nazi party were good - or are you calling all germans of that era racist homocidal maniacs?

You can't rise to power and stay there without the popular vote. I know it may rub people up the wrong way, but there you go...

 

[ECA]

Man, I can't be arsed reading all this but I would like to say this (and I can't believe I'm defending toht here)::

If nazi ideas were all bad then what does that say about the entire german population?

Lets face it, Germany had to think that the ideas of the Nazi party were good - or are you calling all germans of that era racist homocidal maniacs?

You can't rise to power and stay there without the popular vote. I know it may rub people up the wrong way, but there you go...

You really dont know much history if you think it was all nice and democratic.

 

[DaGaffer]

You can't rise to power and stay there without the popular vote. I know it may rub people up the wrong way, but there you go...

They got to power via the popular vote (and a backroom deal), but they certainly didn't bother with the population's opinion thereafter.

And actually, I did point out in an earlier post; yes, the German population were complicit in the Nazi's atrocities; in their defence, after a lot of initial denial, Germany has faced up to that fact (unlike Japan).

 

[Ctuchik]

Next step would be to declare them 'un-persons' and start reducing their legal rights.

i wouldn't go as far as not calling them humans but giving nazis (neo's or old) the same civil rights as the rest of us isnt exactly smart. thats the same as saying that they have a point in their filosophy and that we atleast should listen to them.

democracy is good in many ways but on this matter it fails... imo.

 

[Chilly]

some people are too thick to vote. problem is, who judges?

 

[nath]

If you are assigning those traits to a group of people thats pretty much the definition of prejudice.

I'm assigning those traits to a group of people that have those traits. However, I'm not claiming to be able to spot one of these people solely by looking at them, or by listening to them speak. The only way I'd consider them part of that group is if they had those traits. End of story.

 

[Zenith]

Contrary to popular opinion I have to side with Toht..

This is a prime example of people letting their hatred/emotions cloud their objective thinking.

Never did Toht said thait Nazi were a good political group, he didnt try to defend the masskilling of Jews or anything like that. He simple put out that everything that happened in Germany during the Neo-nazi regime were bad(read: evil). Come on, somehow a middlepopulation country like Germany managed to invade and threaten the whole of Europe with a huge military might. The things they did during the timespan of WW2 were horrid and fearsome and much deserved of the hatred most of the world feel about it. But can't you see and through your hatred and atleast achnowledge that they managed to run their economy and massproduction effectively? Just to not get the bandwagon on me, Im in no way defending or sympathizing with the Nazis, I feel the same hatred that you feel regarding to the killings in the concentrationcamps, just trying to see things in a objective way.

 

[Raven]

Contrary to popular opinion I have to side with Toht..

This is a prime example of people letting their hatred/emotions cloud their objective thinking.

Never did Toht said thait Nazi were a good political group, he didnt try to defend the masskilling of Jews or anything like that. He simple put out that everything that happened in Germany during the Neo-nazi regime were bad(read: evil). Come on, somehow a middlepopulation country like Germany managed to invade and threaten the whole of Europe with a huge military might. The things they did during the timespan of WW2 were horrid and fearsome and much deserved of the hatred most of the world feel about it. But can't you see and through your hatred and atleast achnowledge that they managed to run their economy and massproduction effectively? Just to not get the bandwagon on me, Im in no way defending or sympathizing with the Nazis, I feel the same hatred that you feel regarding to the killings in the concentrationcamps, just trying to see things in a objective way.

Exactly, you are wasting your breath though

 

[Tom]

The things they did during the timespan of WW2 were horrid and fearsome and much deserved of the hatred most of the world feel about it. But can't you see and through your hatred and atleast achnowledge that they managed to run their economy and massproduction effectively?

I won't acknowledge that they did, because I don't consider the appropriation of property and labour from subjugated minorities a valid method of running an economy.

 

[Bugz]

Whether you acknowledge it or not, in purely technical economic terms, they ran an economy efficiently.

 

[DaGaffer]

But can't you see and through your hatred and atleast achnowledge that they managed to run their economy and massproduction effectively?

Oh for fuck's sake, another myth. The German economy, despite all the wealth they looted from all over Europe during the war years, never managed a rate of growth higher than the UK's. The German economy was actually less efficient under the Nazis than it should have been because the Nazi heirarchy had a botched system of centralised planning but from multiple directorates (it was the worst of both worlds economically; inefficient control and inefficient competition). Its that trains running on time shit again. The Nazis weren't efficient. Instead of productively harnessing their occupied territories they looted everything that wasn't nailed down. They didn't even really harness the German population effectively; when the UK, US and Soviets had women on the production lines so the men could fight (and women in the Russian case) the Germans wanted their women to stay at home pumping out aryan babies.

Don't confuse the effectiveness of the Wermacht with the economic abilities of the Nazis.

 

[throdgrain]

They brought in slave labour from across Europe to run thier farms, the same people who went on the rampage once Germany began to be invaded.

Thier excellent military equipment was always hampered by having many different companies making different weapons and equipment. Thier tanks, while superb at the job, were pretty unreliable, Pkw IV excepted, and when they broke down there often wasnt a standardised parts bin, parts had to be made to fit.

 

[yaruar]

Whether you acknowledge it or not, in purely technical economic terms, they ran an economy efficiently.

No they didn't they increased production with slave labour and increased their deficit by even higher by bribing the chosen population with huge benefits.

That and they killed a large proportion of their population which is always good at reducing the burden on society and making jobs go further.

 

[rynnor]

the German population were complicit in the Nazi's atrocities; in their defence, after a lot of initial denial, Germany has faced up to that fact (unlike Japan).

Do they accept responsibility? When I have spoken to Germans about WW2 they tend to blame it all on Hitler which doesnt sound like accepting collective responsibility to me?

 

[DaGaffer]

Do they accept responsibility? When I have spoken to Germans about WW2 they tend to blame it all on Hitler which doesnt sound like accepting collective responsibility to me?

I'd say up until 1989, yes, they took responsibility; their courts, legal system and school systems were all very anti-Nazi; kids were taught about it school etc. (once again, unlike Japan), and West Germany paid war reparations. Since unification things are a bit muddier. Most of the neo-Nazi groups come from the former DDR. And I think now we're about 3 generations away from the war it gets increasingly difficult to take personal responsibility and it becomes easier to put their country's demons in a box marked "Nazi" and leave it at that. But you can hardly blame them for that. No-one wants to be reminded that granddad beat jews up or grandma shopped their neighbours to the SD. You can no-more castigate a German in 2009 for the Nazis than you can have a go at a Brit for...well...most of our history.

 

[Poag]

Just to pass in my 2pennies on the original subject.

About a year or maybe 2 ago i was out with a friend and a friend of this friend, two ladies if you must know of 27 and 28. Anyway, late on into the evening the friend of the friend was very drunk and said something along the lines of 'Look at the black girl she with that guy, god she looks so inferior' the girl she was refering too looked coked up too high heaven and was being dragged along by her guy.

I liked the girl and we met up a few days later, the 3 of us again. I came right out with it after we'd eaten and said in a kind joking manner 'Are you a nazi?'
My friend looked kinda uneasy at this point but she evidently knew that FoF was, gave FoF the nod and she said she was.
That was it, nno further discussion was necessary. I still go out with them from time to time and its not really a big deal.

Its only a big deal if you choose to be offended by it, shes not out there beating people up or preaching hate, nor is she riding around with swastika shaped pubes and nipples.
Theres a certain difference between a Nazi Thug who does the above, and anormal person who shares the ideals and may/may not get more involved with the iconography.

All in all, if you just ask them, if they are your friend they'll explain it to you, and tbh..if they are actually a good friend...you should probably have picked up on it by now

For me and FoF, its not really an issue....i've seen her house...she does have a swastika necklass, she also has an iron cross necklass because it looks good, and i'll freely agree that the Iron Cross is one of the medal shapes i associate with courage and country.
I've not asked her if she has any posters of women riding swastika's hidden away...i'll ask her next time i see her


Also, there is a huge difference between the Nazi hardlines of the 1930s and the neo-nazi majority of today.

 

[ECA]

...

 

[Poag]

Just adding an addendum to the above.

The point I am trying to get accross is that neo-nazis or nazis in the modern day and age do not have to be murderers, racists or the like.
They can just be normal people like you and me who have some ideals that maybe considered a bit extreme by the 'norm' masses.

[edit]Ideals that aren't 'that' weird either.
Like same race relationships. This is FoFs biggy. She wont scream at people walking down the street arm in arm with peopel of another race, but she silently doesn't think its a good thing. She has friends of different races and they are actual friends not some 'Oh must not appear to be non PC infront of people'....I do not know if they know her ideals on inter race relationships.
She herself has stated that when she finds her guy he will have to be white and of pure blood...as in no inter race in his history/recent history...i didn't ask too much about this at the time so i'm not sure how far back it has to go to be pure.

 

[yaruar]

Just adding an addendum to the above.

The point I am trying to get accross is that neo-nazis or nazis in the modern day and age do not have to be murderers, racists or the like.
They can just be normal people like you and me who have some ideals that maybe considered a bit extreme by the 'norm' masses.

A neo-nazi who wasn't racist would be a very shit nazi indeed. The defining factor of being a neo-nazi is being a racist scumbag. A large majority of them are violent thugs or associated closely with violent thugs.

 

[DaGaffer]

Just adding an addendum to the above.

The point I am trying to get accross is that neo-nazis or nazis in the modern day and age do not have to be murderers, racists or the like.
They can just be normal people like you and me who have some ideals that maybe considered a bit extreme by the 'norm' masses.

Maybe not murderers, but I think you'll find being racist is kind of the point!

Personally, while I accept some of my friends (and indeed family, particularly the older generation) have views on race I don't share or like (and I sure that really PC-types would find me racist because I don't believe in cultural relativism), I don't think I would be able to have a friendship who was racist to the point where they described themselves as a Neo-Nazi or joined an organisation like the BNP. Who'd want to be friendly with someone who displayed such poor taste and pig-ignorance?

 

[Poag]

Yes, i probably should have edited that to 'extreme racism' or somethign when i did my edit.

:/

 

[yaruar]

Yes, i probably should have edited that to 'extreme racism' or somethign when i did my edit.

:/

I'd count being completely against mixed race relationships and believing in 'racial purity' to be at the more extreme end of racism myself.

I've never actually had anyone give a good reason why either, i can fully understand not fiding people with different skin colour sexually attractive, as it's just a physical characteristic and we are all driven to a certain extent by our specific desires, but to disagree with other peoples relationshps on ideological ignorance.....