Hey man, if you’re not going give a source why can’t you just give me some more funny memes at least.

If I’m not your audience like 30 replies deep, who is? Lmao? The one other tankie cheering you on? Preaching to the choir?

Bro, you’re the one wasting your time.

I’m here all night.

Hmm… Okay, Quixote.

Nah this is easy. Just snacking and bullshitting while having a few laughs.

Still no source, I see :)

Cool memes, kid. Projecting again, I see.

But alright, buddy sure, just don’t forget to film it. I’ll be really shocked to see you do anything more than memes and tilting at windmills.

(still haven’t found a source, I see)

K weirdo.

Oh no! Your pissing into the wind and tilting at windmills from your computer chair is really fighting the good fight, buddy! I’m sure you’re totally punching nazis you total badass, you ;)

Only because not enough people punch them. The fear that they instill in others should be instilled in them. Every time they say some shit they should be thinking “will this get me punched if i say this right now?” Every time.

You’re probably not familiar with the fact that ProPublica uncovered that right-wing extremist groups both want to incite a race war and they want to see an armed left to both muddy the waters and instigate further violence. They in effect want to bait the left into more preemptive violence because then their BoTh SiDes rhetoric only gets stronger with the apathetic fence sitters.

All this fucking time and all this bluster about punching nazis, and nobody can cite one fucking study or indicator showing that it is actually effective and not incredibly backfiring. You think these fuckers will just sit down quietly? No, they’ll increase their recruitment numbers by targeting the likes of the insecure, then point to these videos about showing how these people don’t even respect their own laws of their land, so why should they? Then they’ll simply continue dehumanizing both you and any other minority group to these gullible suckers, their ranks will rise, and some dipshit will become radicalized and because YOU allegedly punched a nazi, some other dude just went over the breaking-point and decided to shoot up some innocent people. If you’re not going to bring sources, then we’re all juts speculating and I wager I’m far closer to reality.

Besides, in what realm do you live in that you think you’re going to be able to identify nazis outright by obvious tattoos. Yeah, I’m sure you’re going to bust into a dive bar in Mississippi and raise hell. The vast majority of these modern nazis have learned that the power of anonymity and blending in is far more useful.

So let’s just cut the shit with the IAmVeryBadass punch-a-nazi trope, and sure, you’re right… Forget arguing with them online; yes, just cede ground to them — I’m sure that’ll do wonders. But hey, yes, go door knocking instead of fist-punching. Whatever is actually productive at preventing fascists from taking over because we sure as shit know there is zero evidence to support preemptive violence against these groups you perceive to be irredeemable nazis.

And if you don’t like the laws, then fucking do something and change the laws. But shouting about punching nazis on an online forum is the equivalent of shouting at clouds and pissing in the wind. In a way you prove my point, though: we changed many of those laws. We evolved as a society and we clamped down on a lot of fucked up shit. And despite our grievances today, the reason we’re seeing such a backlash from these right-wing extremists is because for the first time in recent history they are actually becoming marginalized from their stranglehold of power from which they once governed behind a thinly-veiled “good Christian” narrative. The rat is backed into the corner and they’re lashing out for fear of their diminished position in society. These are growing pains and we’re working through them.

But the path to violence will muddy the waters for the dumb fucks in the middle who are so easily duped by their recruitment propaganda in the first place, so naturally you must appeal to the lowest common denominator in society

Okay so I shouldn’t feed the homeless because the end goal is to fix homelessness and poverty and that requires systemic change? Fixing fascism requires systemic change but in the meantime we need to make them fear spreading their ideas. Fixing homelessness/hunger requires systemic change but in the meantime we should feed the homeless.

I’ll make a point here to say that I’m not trying to say your feeding the homeless is a bad thing. With respect to addressing symptoms versus root causes, I agree with you. But if feeding the homeless actually led to more homelessness, you wouldn’t be doing it, correct? Just as we all thought feeding ducks was so nice but it turns out that’s the last thing you’re supposed to do. Now this doesn’t directly apply to the homeless, but it does directly apply to punching nazis.

Look man, we’re all on the same side here generally. I’m not here to defend nazis and I hope you see that. I’m trying to just say to consider an alternative avenue for passion because I don’t want you in prison for a felony charge while quite possibly just increasing nazi recruitment when you could’ve been out doing something far more substantive like door-knocking for Harris instead.

As for teaching kids, I guess to each their own. Words only have power if you give them power. I’m not going to let my kid be baited into felony charges because some dipshit easily baited them into throwing the first punch simply because they said some words that says more about them than it does my kid.

And that’s about all I have left in the tank for this conversation. Back to my kids.

Pot, meet kettle. What if I told you that you’re engaging in just as much gish gallopping straw-man discourse as you misconstrue my own arguments all the same? Seems quite clear, but I’m sure you’ll just conveniently cast aside any rebuttal as more straw-man. Convenient.

• No, I didn’t say we can always legislate the problem away — I merely said punching a Nazis isn’t proven to be a better solution

• No, I didn’t say that debating JD vance will stop bomb threats (weird tangential straw-man) — I merely said that punching nazis isn’t proven to be a better solution.

These are, in fact, demonstrable straw-men to my arguments. (Say, how about we grow up and skip the whole straw-men deflective tropes?)

Ultimately: You Still. Haven’t. Provided. A Single. Modicum. Of Evidence. That Punching Nazis. Reduces Nazis. That’s it. Nothing more

Also, it’s incredibly interesting that suddenly you’re trying to shy away from the notion of punching a nazi isn’t preemptive. Quite intriguing. If you actually believed this, then we wouldn’t even have much issue.

I think it’s really interesting you claim yourself to be an expert on this matter of fascism while exclaiming I am not; tell me, what are your credentials? What makes you think that? I’m not seeing any groundbreaking counter-arguments being presented here. I’m not seeing a single piece of evidence proving your case that “Punch a Nazi” is wise.

Fascists and Nazis start off as weird outsiders that find solace and comfort in male power fantasy. You want to get rid of fascists? Get rid of the systemic forces that breed them, wealth inequality, underfunded education, dwindling employment and low pay.

I don’t disagree with this.

But once they’re a fucking Nazi all they understand is Nazi shit.

There are literal organizations for people who’ve been duped by this shit and got out run by the very guys who got out of it.. The problem is your claim is just not true. Once you’re Nazi, it doesn’t mean you’re always a Nazi. But do yourself a favor and ask the founder of that organization what he thinks of the Punch a Nazi movement and whether it’s effective. Considering they once were one, they probably have a bit more insight, don’t you think? I’ll wait.

Like I get it, I hate the scum too. From Boogaloo to Proud Boys to Oathkeepers to 1%ers to the base and so on… These people, uh, let’s just say aren’t deep thinkers. Yes, there are fuckwits across the globe from Russia to Germany. Yet there is a method to off-ramp these people from their path of radicalization, and I have yet to see any evidence that this “Punch a Nazi” thing reduces their numbers and doesn’t actually increase recruitment. The key is indeed making a more compelling case both to the fence sitters, as well as sincerely reaching out.

Anyways, interesting conversation. Life and kids call and I think we’ve exhausted the points we both wanted to make.

It would be a pretty easy argumentative strategy to simply accuse everything as being a straw-man when your arguments are repeatedly, consistently undermined by both facts and sources. At this point, I feel like I’m having a discussion with a Trump supporter the hop-scotch deflection is so profound.

I explained in detail that I know the phrase and its history better than you; that you haven’t evinced a cogent counterargument is not my problem.

Notice: I am STILL waiting for any semblance of evidence that “Punching a nazi,” actually reduces radicalization in any way. Several comments and nothing.

So in the meantime and until you actually produce said evidence, if you want to stop fascists then just get off your computer and go ask your local Democratic campaign what you can do to stop Trump. $10 they won’t say, “Punch a nazi” is the most effective use of your time. After all, you don’t want to be a convicted felon prior to November, do you?

I do however mock and deride language where a nazi or fascist might hide. Much like your defense of a Nazis’ right to exist.

Now that is a straw-man; and unlike you, I will actually back up the reason why: I never defended Nazi’s right to exist; to the contrary and on the record, I’d much rather they not exist — but since at least me and the other user have established that we aren’t going to utilize genocide to get to that point, let alone exclaim that justifies their actions, then we need put our little thinking caps on and figure out more constructive ways at deprogramming them. I’m betting you didn’t even watch that Ted talk, did you? Finally, I don’t mind mockery; I mind preemptive physical violence. Therein lies the difference.

Don’t get me wrong, I know they won’t afford me the same benefit of the doubt. It just hasn’t yet been evidenced to me that punching nazis actually creates less and not more. So I find it kind of amusing I get these unsubstantiated claims of straw-men despite one’s own massive amount of deflection to my points.

You really want to stop the nazis? Quit the IAmVeryBadass bullshit about punching nazis — instead, get off your ass and go punch on doors by canvassing and getting out the vote. Your time will be better served than this romanticizing of punching a nazi online when you’ll never do it anyway.

Don’t rape them, don’t torture them, hell even killing is too far 99% of the time. Fascists thrive on being viewed as strong men and nothing is more humiliating to them than being taken down physically. Words mean nothing to the antisemite

I’m glad we have established the fact that there ARE limits to Intolerance to Intolerance. We can work from here.

The reason Nazis and the KKK rally is partially the same reason the Westboro Baptist yell incendiary remarks: because it’s legal, and along comes some dumbass who can’t contain his temper and they throw the first punch. It gets recorded, then their recruitment surges and that person gets thrown in jail for battery charges while they bait lawsuits for damages. Being taken down physically doesn’t do jack shit. You know what strong men actually hate? Mockery. There’s a reason the mockery and satire of Charlie Chaplin got under the skin of Hitler so much. There’s a reason from Mark Twain to Jon Stewart have been so influential, because they tend to belittle the strong man… And they like nothing more than being belittled.

They know no shame, but they do HATE embarrassment. It’s why Putin has images of him being perceived as a gay clown. It’s why Xi of China outlawed images of Winnie the Pooh. You don’t even need violence to undermine these dumb fucks if you act early enough.

What astounds me is that people will spam the wikipedia page for Paradox of Tolerance, but where’s the spamming of the Ethics of Reciprocation? The Golden Rule? The Silver Rule? A remarkable double-standard where you are actually elevating the violence before anyone else.

So hopefully you’re not making the case that preemptive violence is the only means at stopping nazis.

So please show me: Is there any actual, substantive evidence whatsoever that preemptively punching nazis prevents rising fascism? Or does it just make you feel good and tough because you punched a guy with a swastika in a mosh pit and you’re trying rationalize it? As though in that moment you were storming the beaches of Normandy or something…? Anyways it shouldn’t even be hard to convince me because I, too, hate fascists and if this was a legitimate strategy then that’s great. But what ultimately, almost inevitably, happens is that it seems to backfire, muddy the waters, serve you prison time, and then foster greater recruitment among these sad individuals.

Their words are violence. Physical is not the only form of violence. They make minorities fear going outside. It is proportional to make them fear spreading their message through the only means they understand. They are violating the social contract they are no longer covered by the contract

Sorry, that’s not how it work. Again, review Brandenburg v. Ohio. Someone saying mean things to you that doesn’t amount to an imminent violence or a direct threat doesn’t warrant punching. If so, then you’re falling for the exact same sort of ends-justify-means trap that Nazis themselves use and that should concern you. Hate speech is protected as free speech in America for a reason because if it wasn’t then the definition of Hate could easily be skewed into suppressing whichever “Them” group is unpopular in the moment.

The problem is that you’re going about fighting fascism the wrong way. If you didn’t put the cart before the horse, then it should already be self-evident that fascism is wrong. So this requires going backwards and analyzing why your messaging strategy is failing. Why there is a vector into this radicalization in the first place. Is it genetic predisposition? (hopefully not or at least the bar for evidence is enormous, lest you’re a racist yourself). Is it simply a matter of environmental factors from low education to toxic parenting and diminished opportunity? No differently than the inner-city violence to the white Appalachian poverty & crime, this is probably more likely. So instead of going, “hur let’s punch nazis!”, perhaps we need to assess what are better strategies, from satire & mockery, to actually tackling the key vectors into which a “normie” gets radicalized in the first place. Is this as exciting? No. It’s the harder, more constructive work.

TED Talk - My Descent into America’s neo-Nazi movement — and how I got out

You ask about Richard Spencer. The reason you haven’t seen him, or Michael Flynn, or any of the other ostensibly right-wing nationalist scum is because Trump isn’t in office and their job is to drum up attention from within their own base of echo-chambers. A year later following that interview, he held a neo-nazi rally. What if I told you that recruitment following that video probably ticked up?

Like, I don’t know if you recognize that what you’re doing is opening the pathway to radicalization in your own right. Let’s take an extreme example to prove the point: A terrorist group, such as Hamas. People don’t wake up and go, “gee, let’s go murder civilians!” First it starts with, “punching an Israeli occupier to our land is okay!” and steadily progresses. This sort of behavior is emblematic of quite literally every single fucking extremist group in the world, and that’s not different if you’re fighitng for a just cause or not.

Congrats you discovered law isn’t morality. I will happily give the homeless food in cities where that is illegal.

Congrats, you discovered what feels good isn’t necessarily effective in your end goal.

Lol, lmao even

I love how this was completely and entirely deflected with a modicum of substance. Once again, proving the point that you’re in the “Punch a nazi” thing based on how it feels good to you — not because it actually yields productive results.

I mean, let’s put aside that they threw the first actual punch in the following scenarios but — didn’t we collectively “punch” nazis in the 1940s? Didn’t we collectively punch nazis during the American civil war, and how did that turn out for us… They all vanished, is that right…?

So maybe… Just maybe… We need to put our thinking hats on to figure out an alternative solution to the problem.

Really? They believe you should only attack the intolerant? I thought they wanted to attack me a trans person for existing in front of society, or interacting with children, or because I’m simply an abomination.

Let me make this very clear: I am not excusing the fallacy of their belief set, but yes, they do (wrongly) feel they are fighting an intolerant takeover of their own existence. That’s how THEY would frame it, wrong though it may be. They then justify their actions because of this perceived preemptive intolerance. Naturally it’s total bullshit and what they’re really fighting for is the maintaining of their historically privileged positions in society. Still, that doesn’t change the underlying point I’m making. Both circumstances justify preemptive physical violence via ends-justify-the-means mentality.

I mean fuck, man, we teach our kids the same shit: That crossing the verbal-physical barrier of aggression is a no-go with your siblings. Now if they throw the actual first physical punch, then sure.

By the way, if you think it’s too far to kill, punching also more frequently than you realize can easily lead to death. If you’re uninformed on this, I can provide further sources.

K

I know what the paradox of tolerance is. Some of you here sound really young — like under 20 — and you’ve just recently learned about this concept and it’s blowing your mind and so you repeat for lack of a better, deeper understanding. Yet I say again the untouched point: It does not give you carte blanche to react however you see fit.

That’s not to say we shouldn’t call out fascist behavior; that’s not to say we shouldn’t counter-protest when they voice their own bullshit. That’s not to say that when they throw the first punch that we don’t deliver two punchers harder in return. That’s not to say that when they try to vote, we ensure that we vote in greater numbers to marginalize them. Across the globe we’ve sustained tolerant societies for quite a degree of time without a law that says, “to maintain civil order, we must all punch Nazis, or worse.”

Yes, people should be intolerant to intolerance; but there still requires a degree of proportionality at play here. Punching a Nazi violates countless other laws of society we’ve identified for ourselves that help to also maintain a tolerant society, and until that Nazi punches someone themselves, then there is no reciprocation.

Please review the landmark case, Brandenburg v. Ohio.

Preemptively striking nazi (or kkk, etc.) consequences:

• It’s a bait that often leads to martyrdom and increased recruitment. They take said video and go, “look at the tolerant left! Look at their hypocritical ideals about free speech!”

• Vigilante justice is risky, both for the victim and yourself: 1) The bar for evidence of vigilante justice is tenuous at best, and you may attack someone innocent, or more importantly someone who may escape from the propaganda in time but now may simply double-down. 2) This doesn’t hold up in court. You will get charged with battery and receive a felony while the nazi goes free. Your time is better served dismantling the rhetoric online.

Don’t become what you hate. Ironically the rhetoric you use here is also the logical loophole for which right-wing extremists rationalize their violence as to why they are the good guys.

I mean, I’m just being intolerant to bullshit. You start bullshitting me, I’ll start dodging just the same buddy :)

Don’t dish out what you can’t take back.

You didn’t answer my questions. You first.

Edit: He couldn’t answer.

I did. Many times over the years. Did you?

Again, intolerance to intolerance does not grant carte blanche reaction. If you see a KKK person expressing free speech, one cannot simply shoot them. You understand this, correct?

Like, I know this is cool and bad ass in the punk rock scene but when you unpack it at a societal level, it has seriously flawed logic and risks.

Paradox of tolerance doesn’t grant carte blanche in preemption. You understand this, correct?

Possibly Ron Paul.

Probably Chevy Chase’s Christmas Vacation since it has been tradition every holiday season.

As a kid, Rescuer’s Down Under or The Paper Brigade was re-watched a lot.

Apart from that, it’s a close tie for:

• The Matrix
• Sin City
• The Chronicles of Riddick
• Terminator 2
• The Sandlot
• I, Robot
• Joe Dirt

Just good replay value.

(Comment 2 of 2)

Empathy can be useful even to put yourself in the shoes of the wicked. I’ll be honest: If I put myself in the shoes of a desperate Gazan whose children and wife were blown up by an Israeli air strike, I wouldn’t just think, “Hamas did this!” I would say, “I thought Israel were the good guys and yet look how little they value the lives of us body shields?” At which point in my grief and blind revenge I would join the movement to seek revenge — especially if I’m of limited economic opportunity (what job is there now that Gaza is in ruins?) and of low education. The Taliban fought a war from caves against a force far exceeding Israel and ultimately won. Just as the Vietcong ultimately did. For Israel, this is their Vietnam; this is their Vietcong. Now, strategically, if you were tasked with being the David against the Goliath that is the IDF and you were severely out-gunned, it simply would not be wise strategy to sit in the open against someone who has precision-targeted air force. Knowing your enemy and knowing that Israel holds itself to a moral standard of not harming civilians, I too would probably hide among the civilians. What I would NOT expect is that my opponent who holds the moral high-ground would suddenly decide that killing as many civilians as it takes is 100% okay. Perhaps there was a miscalculation, but then I’d also just go and huddle in my tunnels as the civilians incur the majority of damage above. Does it really impact anything for terrorists who can simply recruit a new army from the surviving orphans, get new weapons from Iran and Lebanon, and have the next leader take its place no different than what happens with the Taliban, ISIS, Al Qaeda? 20 years of failed US interventionism as a stronger fighting force no less suggests a resounding No.

Let me give you a hypothetical. Just suppose you’re wrong and Bibi is doing this solely to remain in power. Suppose he knows that this won’t eliminate terrorism but only exacerbate it but doesn’t care. Suppose he and his cronies want to annex new beachfront property and as Naomi Klein spells out in The Shock Doctrine and to paraphrase Milton Friedman that a crisis is a great opportunity for profit — consider that at least my methodology permits outsiders to immediately protect innocent civilians no matter where they are or whether they’re victims of offense or victims of a defensive maneuver. Surely you’re aware that perception is reality and that many in Russia wrongly believe just as Hamas that they are doing the right thing. That in fact they are the oppressed by NATO, by Nazis, by creeping Jewish annexation shoving them into tighter and tighter slums. After all, so goes the saying that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. So naturally, heinous crimes against civilians are justified everywhere under false pretenses that it is actually THEY who are on the defense and retaliating for an arbitrary act of the opposition from their perspective of reality. At least with my approach, we can cut through the bullshit of “he started, they started it; I’m justified/they’re justified” and just go straight to the quantifiable reality: “Who is actively inflicting more pain and suffering at this present moment on innocent people?” And that is, at this moment, 100% Israel. Keep in mind that when October 7th happened while I was no fan of Netanyahu’s actions and stoking the flames of day-in-day-out suffering of Palestinians, I was still in Israel’s corner and felt sorry for the civilian lives lost. Do you see how my allegiance isn’t to nationalism but rather humanism? And in maintaining such optics, you’re able to in the moment identify the key threat to innocent loss of life independent of alleged justification that is often in the eye of the beholder.

So could the crisis for innocent civilians end if Hamas surrenders? Possibly, yes. But that necessitates expecting the terrorists to do what Israel themselves as the “good guys” have been unable to do—practice reasonable restraint. You and I both don’t expect Hamas to do the “right” thing; but we do expect the “good guys” who supposedly hold themselves to a higher moral standard than that of a terrorist organization to do the right thing in valuing innocent human life. Yet actions speak louder than words and we care not what excuse a murderer has when they kill an innocent child; only that they did.

Ultimately I don’t believe you can excuse the civilian death toll incurred by Israel by exclaiming, “The murdering of innocent civilians will stop when the murdering terrorists suddenly value innocent human lives like we supposedly do!” That doesn’t make sense, again, is a race to the bottom where only the civilians will suffer.

You mention that you’d have no problem with an independent group investigating Israel for their actions, and that is exactly what is happening at the ICC. Bibi shares crimes against humanity charges alongside Sinwar and Putin. (Keep in mind that Jack Smith who worked at the ICC to prosecute war lords is now the lead prosecutor against Trump right now).

(Comment 1 of 2)

A couple logistical things: I think we’ve generally exhausted our points and are increasingly going in circles; so given the diminished bystander audience by this point I’m going to make this my last comment and oblige you with the final response if you so wish. Upvoted and thank you for the discussion.

Moreover if you don’t mind I’m changing my response style slightly to (slightly) tamp down on the increasing length of these while also trying to remain on-point without too much meander.

• A criminal cannot justify their crimes by saying, I could’ve killed more if I wanted to or even tortured them in greater numbers. Yes, Hitler could’ve used scalding hot water instead of Zyklon B and conducted MORE torture. Hitler could’ve killed double the amount of people he killed but he didn’t. Such restraint! Naturally we wouldn’t praise Hitler for committing less war crimes and instead merely focus on the fact that war crimes and murder was committed at all.

• Israel has a right to defend itself, but that does not give carte blanche to kill as many civilians as they unilaterally deem appropriate in their calculus.

• Thus executing 4 civilians for every 1 Hamas target is exactly the same as releasing a bomb knowing those same number of civilians will die for the target you seek.

• Yes, the main difference IS where it is happening. Ukraine isn’t actively targeting civilian centers inside Russia; they’re playing defense on their own territory. Location matters because the Hamas soldier inside his own building isn’t an imminent threat to the civilians of Israel relative to the threat Israel poses to the innocent civilians of Gaza. Again, their bullets cannot reach Israel and ultimately neither can their rockets in any meaningfully significant quantity that wasn’t par for the course preceding October 7th for that matter. The world would not stand for Israel doing to Gaza if this was simply the same par for the course rocket attacks that have happened for decades. This proves the rockets aren’t the primary motivating factor for killing this many innocent civilians.

• If Ukraine began to kill more civilians in Russia than Russia killed in Ukraine by an order of magnitude no less, then the waters would then be muddied and my support for them would, too, wane. Does Putin share responsibility for the murder of those civilians? Absolutely. Would Ukraine as well? Definitely. In the end, they should all be prosecuted for war crimes, just as the ICC is actively doing. If you think it’s worth it, then you better be willing to pay the piper at the end and be held accountable for the “justified murders.” After all, something tells me that Bibi wouldn’t be such a proud martyr then if he was actually held accountable for the demonstrated war crimes he has committed. Something tells me if it was he who had to be on the front line in Gaza that he wouldn’t have ordered this invasion.

• The Gaza Health Ministry of elected officials actually answers primarily to the PA and Fatah first. There is no indication past or present that the distinction between civilians and Hamas targets is erroneous. Even if we take US Intelligence of Hamas strength versus the number of Hamas killed by said US intelligence, the numbers line up quite closely. In fact, most independent watchdogs suggest the civilian death toll is far higher when factoring in the number of bodies remaining under rubble, those still missing, and the disease and famine situation.

• Please don’t add words to my mouth. I said that it’s okay if there was an imminent threat, but when there is an alternative strategy that ensures civilians are protected and you can wait for, say, the “snipers” to come in to pick these targets off, then change the entire paradigm. Like I said, the scenario laid out before us is factually much closer to that of a hostage standoff and siege in a children’s school. Nobody would abide by having the police set the building on fire.

• There is no lying down and taking it; there are viable more reasonable paths out of this that everyone on the sidelines is telling Israel: Double-down on defensive, border, intelligence. Get a new leader in. Stop blocking Palestinian statehood, start wining Hearts & minds, and giving them self agency. Start working with the PA and Fatah with better faith, and stop creating more terrorists than you’re eliminating when you tear apart families with wanton collateral damage. Stop assassinating your own Prime Ministers who in good faith sought out a 2 state solution. Ultimately the rate of innocent civilian lives being murdered is higher now than ever before. I don’t take that as a win in any capacity. I also don’t think it would be acceptable anywhere else to continuously annex chunks of Palestine for Israel. After all, we don’t accept that when Russia did that in Crimea and the Donbas… Why is it acceptable for Israel to do that with Palestine? Have you ever seen a map of Israel vs. Palestine over the decades? At this point I’m almost beginning to wonder if Hamas is a convenient excuse propped up to justify territorial conquest. I wouldn’t put it past Netanyahu. Several times your excuse to justify Israeli actions is, “I mean they could’ve killed more; they could’ve annexed more more rapidly!” Of course, but it’s all a matter of how much they can get away with no different than a toddler probing the limits of their parents.

To me the following remain immutable facts:

• Quantitatively, Israel has invoked, by many factors, more suffering upon Innocent Civilians than Hamas has since both before or after October 7th. The response is thus more heinous than the attack which prompted it. This is frankly undeniable. Even if you disagree with the official numbers, surely you agree that the civilian death toll is well beyond the ~1200 of October 7th. The debt in blood has been repaid many times in all actuality.

• There is only one way you can justify these mass, willful murders (which, it is murder): That they will prevent an even greater number of civilian casualties from happening in the future both in Gaza and Israel… And ultimately, the evidence for that is extremely shaky and to me does not meet the standard for justifying murder. Like I said: There are several viable strategies Israel can protect itself that would make it all but impossible for Hamas to commit another October 7th attack let alone the dozens of the equivalent Israel has now committed in Gaza.

• Reaction to an alleged first-strike does not give Carte Blanche to commit as many war crimes as one desires.

• Restraint of a murderer for not killing 10 innocent people does not excuse their killing of 5.

• Restraint of stealing only half of the land instead of all the land is no excuse.

• Israel both had and continues to have better options that ensures the protection of Israeli civilians while not requiring to kill 30,000 civilians and counting. The USA, speaking from experience, agrees.

• The instability wrought by Israel in destroying civilian infrastructure from schools to mosques to residential housing, food & water, all the while killing women and children is exactly what one does to plant the seeds of radicalization for decades to come – NOT eliminate it. Especially when the likes of Lebanon and Iran tend to be the sources of all their needs. After all, moles will simply begin digging tunnels anew.

• The greater you try to play whack-a-mole with Tunnels “50 meters” down, the less it makes sense to target the civilians who largely reside above. After all, Israel isn’t simply using bunker busters to reach these tunnels; and these manholes and entrances are everywhere that it’s quite literally impossible to target them all without actually dropping a nuke on Gaza. Moreover, if it was that easy for Hamas to do (a) they would’ve done it for their October 7th attack, and (b) if it’s that easy to do, then it’s equally that easy for the much wealthier and capable nation of Israel to dig equally-deep tunnels to stand guard and listen. A small price to pay for the safety of Israeli civilians, after all.

I just want to note that under the ghetto conditions Israel has boxed Palestine in, that too, is no way to live. This creeping territorial annexation as the innocent civilians get pummeled by the “good guys” in far greater numbers than what Hamas is capable of doing to Israel speaks to the dire conditions they too live in. Make no mistake that, “Let the Palestinians die” applies just as much if we let things be par for the course… Hence why radicalization is so prominent in the first place. After all, as I said: Radicalization and terrorism simply does not manifest out of thin air. Wealthy countries with good education and solid civilian infrastructure and room to breathe and self agency do not have radicalization problems. Including Muslim nations.

Your justification for the deaths that have occurred could just as easily be used as justification to drop a nuke. So for whatever reason, there is a red line for you here — and perhaps it’s because it evokes an imagery that is incompatible with your conscience. But perhaps like journalists were shown footage of October 7th that you should start viewing footage of the aftermath of IDF strikes and lifeless bodies in Gaza. I’ve also seen enough testimony from countless independent humanitarian aid workers and especially physicians engaged in the Hippocratic Oath who speak to the horrors they’ve seen. I wonder, have you? Would you be able to pull the trigger?