Well, no one called him a Nazi. The problem is that it’s a damn slippery slope, and an extremely unnecessary one at that, to compare Nazis to any group. Panzerfaust by himself wasn’t the problem, the problem is that more extreme people will feel welcome, if that’s the general tone of the discussion.
As for the name, again, by itself I wouldn’t see it as problematic either. The word “Panzerfaust” is used in German for any type of shoulder-fired rocket launcher, but I also would expect more extreme people to understand it as a reference to Nazism and feel more welcome than they should.
This is what I think apologists just can’t figure out.
So much of the transmission of nazism isn’t outright. It’s purposely put behind plausible deniability, it’s done through signalling, it’s done through co-opting, it’s done through bad faith arguments about mod policy and free speech, it’s done through half-jokes that aren’t really jokes, it’s done by ‘just asking honest questions’ that reinforce nazi framing etc.
And that in and of itself is enough to do the damage they want to do. Those who are rushing to the defense of these trolls are, for lack of a better term, just serving as useful idiots without realizing it.
The nazis and communists were both socailists. Maybe just maybe that is the real problem, the mass of “society” stepping on individuals for some grand believed “betterness”.
Well, no one called him a Nazi. The problem is that it’s a damn slippery slope, and an extremely unnecessary one at that, to compare Nazis to any group. Panzerfaust by himself wasn’t the problem, the problem is that more extreme people will feel welcome, if that’s the general tone of the discussion.
As for the name, again, by itself I wouldn’t see it as problematic either. The word “Panzerfaust” is used in German for any type of shoulder-fired rocket launcher, but I also would expect more extreme people to understand it as a reference to Nazism and feel more welcome than they should.
This is what I think apologists just can’t figure out.
So much of the transmission of nazism isn’t outright. It’s purposely put behind plausible deniability, it’s done through signalling, it’s done through co-opting, it’s done through bad faith arguments about mod policy and free speech, it’s done through half-jokes that aren’t really jokes, it’s done by ‘just asking honest questions’ that reinforce nazi framing etc.
And that in and of itself is enough to do the damage they want to do. Those who are rushing to the defense of these trolls are, for lack of a better term, just serving as useful idiots without realizing it.
The nazis and communists were both socailists. Maybe just maybe that is the real problem, the mass of “society” stepping on individuals for some grand believed “betterness”.