I joke about punching Nazis from time to time, but I also joke about running across the White House lawn without wearing pants. Neither of those things are likely to ever happen, and I don’t generally recommend people try it. In real life, if I ever punched anyone, they would have to be an imminent, immediate danger to myself, or the people around me. If I knew punching someone would prevent them from committing an immediate, imminent, and in-progress heinous act against others, I would do it, and I would *still* feel bad about it.
I abhor violence. I understand that there are times when violence must be used, as I won’t zero tolerance something when it is the most workable solution, but it is to be something avoided at every cost until it can’t be pushed aside as an option. People have the right to say what they feel, even if it’s something truly awful. There are exceptions here as well, for example yelling fire in a crowded theater, but I’m speaking of those who adopt stances of bigotry, who say unpopular things. That speech much be protected. Too many times in our history, we’ve decided it was okay to stop people from speaking freely by methods we would consider coercion, or suppression. I don’t have to bring up examples like McCarthyism to stress why it’s such a crucial right to protect.
A Nazi has a right to exist. That right extends to speech, until that speech is used to incite harmful action against others. It’s often disgusting, abhorrent, vile, and shocking, but it can still be said as long as it’s not advocating action that results in people having their rights infringed upon. I don’t have to like what they say in order to protect it. Either rights are rights, or they’re just privileges we revoke on a whim, when we feel it’s something people shouldn’t be allowed to say because we don’t like what’s being said. We can’t do that. The temptation is there, I understand, but we cannot do it, and then later complain when someone else tries to do the same to us. It works both ways, as much as we might hate to hear what other people are saying, even if we know what they’re saying is wrong, even if what they’re saying is filled to the brim with hateful ideology. Until they seek to act on it, it is protected, and until a Nazi is actually trying to enact their policies, until the KKK is harassing people of color in their homes, at work, or burning crosses on their front lawns, they are protected too, as despicable as it feels.
Often, the right thing does not feel good. Sometimes it leaves us feeling regret, pain, it haunts us, we feel like enablers at times, but it is what must be done because it is the right thing to do, and those rights must be protected, even if it costs a little bit of my soul to keep it that way. Principles don’t mean shit if we’re willing to throw them away at the first sign of resistance. We have to hold fast and do what is right no matter the cost.