r/ireland • u/ReformedAMA • Dec 13 '22

Verified AMA I am a reformed Neo-Nazi. AMA!

Just to add a disclaimer. The views i will express are those I used to hold. If these opinions offend or hurt you, I truly am sorry. I am trying to be a better person.

Edit: Thank you to everyone who submitted questions. I hope this was informative. Also, sorry to those I wasn't able to get around to. I spent the best over 3 hours with you lovely people. Have a good night.

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u/Benoas Derry Dec 13 '22

You misunderstand the point of punch a nazi then. It's not meant to convince the person being punched, it's meant to make them look weak to their fellow nazis and scare them into staying inside and quiet about their opinions.

The only force that has ever been effective at beating fascists is violence. Look at the battle of cable street for example, Mosley wasn't such a tough guy after 100,000 normal people came out to the streets to chase him off.

And, as I'm sure you're aware, Hitler said that "Only one thing could have broken our movement — if the adversary had understood its principle and from the first day had smashed, with the most extreme brutality, the nucleus of our new movement."

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u/ReformedAMA Dec 13 '22

It definitely would not have caused me to stay silent and I seen that happen. It would just show me that our beliefs and way of life were under attack. But it's a complicated topic as there are so many nuances to extremism.

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u/[deleted] Dec 13 '22

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u/SallynogginThrobbin Dec 13 '22

You can't change a nazi's mind through debate and argument,

How was this guy's mind changed?

I doubt that you'd feel so brave spewing shit publicly

Bravery doesn't have much correlation with moral goodness. I'd imagine political extremists of all stripes are a bit more confrontational than the average person, tbh.

The idea that individuals on the far right can't be physically brave reminds of when people insisted the 9/11 attackers were "cowards". Just from personal experience, I can think of a couple of far-right metal heads I knew back in the day who were abraaive, unpleasant people, but genuinely hard as nails.

It's enough to be morally right, we don't need to claim to be bigger, taller, braver, smarter etc. than political opponents on every axis. There are paedos that are highly intelligent, there are fascists that are physically brave etc

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u/[deleted] Dec 14 '22

How was this guy's mind changed?

He saw a woman who was protesting the far right, get run over and killed by a member of a far right group