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[Bobby Roberts]

Huh, I just learned that both you and David Wong are white guys at the same time.

Who told you I wasn't white?

edit: nevermind, I probably know what this is about.

 

[Hindl]

Reading this thread I get the feeling a lot of people believe the Civil Rights movement worked solely because of peaceful protests

 

[KoopaTheCasual]

I do find it a bit funny that in the year of 2017, you have not commented "the shooting was not necessary"in a thread about a black man/woman being shot by the police or "the beating of a black man was not necessary" once, but when a swastika armband wearing white man gets knocked down, you're saying it wasn't necessary...



Not sure if I should confess this, but what the hell... That was my doing.

I normally hate going through post-histories, but I would love this to be a common thing.

Any finger-wagging jackass, who says "please be nice to nazis!" I want to see receipts that you showed the same love and respect to black victims of police brutality, or else you're just a nazi sympathizer in my eyes. Point blank.

 

[Acerac]

The punch was not necessary.

A lot of things aren't necessary. That said, douchebags getting punched makes the world better for people who aren't douchebags.

 

[Alligatorjandro]

Wait is that David Wong guy the one who wrote the best oks?

 

[ahoyhoy]

The punch was not necessary.

Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.

 

[Spuck-uk]

Yeah that's in Sweden, they made a statue in her honor, but then politicans took it down, the statue was promoting violence, the same discussion we're having here today.

Nazis had a huge prescense here in Sweden in the 80s and 90s, the city where I'm from was the HQ for NSF (National socialistisk Front), but they got their ass kicked every time the showed their faces in the city, everywhere, and then they dissapeared. Funny how that works.

But now they are back under another name, NRM, and we will kick their ass everytime they show their face again.

No Nazis on our streets, I said it back in the late 90s, it still rings true.

On Topic: The dude got what he deserved. Here in Sweden he would be arrested for hate crimes. Fuck that dude.

You're a good dude Hjod.

 

[kamineko]

Putting yourself out there as a Nazi isn't political speech, it's intimidation. If you're a minority, LGBTQ+, mentally ill (and many more) and somebody is on your street celebrating the folks that mass murdered people like you, that's not the same as wanting a millage increase for the new school gymnasium.

If you aren't frightened/threatened/angered by this bullshit, consider the fact that the ability to remain high-minded about this fuckery requires a certain amount of privilege. Everything is abstract and low stakes when they aren't coming for you.

 

[kewlmyc]

Weird, can't bring myself to care that a nazi got assaulted. Wonder why that is.

 

[Vicetrailia]

That nazi was bullying people until he got knocked the fuck out. Happens to bullies all of the time.

 

[Slayven]

The lenght people will go through to support and protect hate are astounding. If a tenth of that was focused on getting rid of it, we would all be holding hands and singing

 

[D i Z]

There is some seriously wild shit being said in this thread.
And holy shit, a lot of people are just not ready to do anything but run and hide from confrontation of any kind.

 

[baddvision]

i don't condone violence. unless they're a nazi than abso-fucking-lutely!!!

Tolerance or not, 800mg would make you comatose.

10mg is a basic starter serving.

You also don't gain tolerance the same way to edibles you do to smoking.. and eating that much would just mean you are wasting money. Besides it would suck.

Someone eating 100mg is usually enough to make someone absolutely regret eating that much.

10mg is enough to get almost anyone pretty damn high.

not if you're joey coco diaz

 

[TheRealCanadianBros.]

Someone post that jpeg of the Joker with the caption about everyone losing their minds when a Nazi gets knocked the fucked out.

 

[LucidMomentum]

Guys standing up to bullies makes YOU THE BULLY.

Just be a good model minority and hope they don't want to end your life I guess.

 

[jiiikoo]

I normally hate going through post-histories, but I would love this to be a common thing.

Any finger-wagging jackass, who says "please be nice to nazis!" I want to see receipts that you showed the same love and respect to black victims of police brutality, or else you're just a nazi sympathizer in my eyes. Point blank.

This was my thinking as well. At least be consistent with the hating of violence.

EDIT: And I just went back to January of this year because I couldn't be arsed to go thru anymore pages. I wouldn't be surprised if he (?) hadn't said a single word in a thread ever about a PoC being on the receiving end of violence.

 

[Slayven]

I normally hate going through post-histories, but I would love this to be a common thing.

Any finger-wagging jackass, who says "please be nice to nazis!" I want to see receipts that you showed the same love and respect to black victims of police brutality, or else you're just a nazi sympathizer in my eyes. Point blank.

You would be shocked, because when it happens people are strangely silent. There is a thread right now about a racist serial killer in Louisiana. Not even a hundred posts last time i looked

 

[Liu Kang Baking A Pie]

I do find it a bit funny that in the year of 2017, you have not commented "the shooting was not necessary"in a thread about a black man/woman being shot by the police or "the beating of a black man was not necessary" once, but when a swastika armband wearing white man gets knocked down, you're saying it wasn't necessary...

Yessss

Jesse Williams's words at the BET Awards one year ago are still so relevant:

And let's get a couple things straight, just a little sidenote - the burden of the brutalized is not to comfort the bystander. That's not our job, all right - stop with all that. If you have a critique for the resistance, for our resistance, then you better have an established record of critique of our oppression. If you have no interest, if you have no interest in equal rights for black people then do not make suggestions to those who do. Sit down.

 

[Lesath]

I don't disagree, but i'd imagine there is many different reasons and circumstances to how movements grow or don't. You've certainly had groups in the past who grew out of their opponents resistance.

The interesting question to me is; what makes them grow, and what makes them implode? Due to all these threads, I've looked at a shit ton of accounts of former white supremacists, and virtually all of them are explaining the same story as to how they were de-radicalized. Punching and beatings doesn't seem to have much of an effect. But what does seem to have an effect is showing empathy, as it helps destroy their world view. The guy who lead one of the most infamous skinhead groups in America, was later de-radicalized when he was shown kindness, and it motivated him to start Life after Hate.

And it's not just him. You have hundreds and hundreds of testimonials online of how people gave up on it after interacting with people of other races. There is this documentary made last year, that I've not seen, but it's about a black man who convinces 200 Klansmen to quit by simply interacting them. Same thing with stories like Scott Shepard who was a "Grand Dragon" who got into prison and was forced to reform. Robert Örell who is a part of Exit Sweden and the Free Initiative basically just also reaffirms this. The Free Initiative claims that their intervention had a serious effect on the amount of drop outs in hate groups. They want to have a international network in Europe that is funded by the European Union to deradicalize across all the EU states

I assume a lot of people are not really interested in this because ultimately it's about violence for violences sake. It feels good to hate somebody, so there is no need for nuance. This is not just about neo-nazis, but also people on the right, because they got Trump in office. So we already have people making excuses for being violent against Trump supporters.
We know the sociological factors that compels people to become white supremacists. It's not ideology, politics, logic, facts or reasoning. It's an emotional response. People are weak, miserable and have no purpose for living. Somebody in a hate group pulls up to them, gives them power, position, goals, a new truth and a sense of being.
That makes them feel good- And because they are so weak, they are willing to trade kindness, human decency and compassion with hate. The self is absolved. You're no longer you. You're a part of the group. It's a collective now. You don't have to think independently anymore. It's a psychological coping mechanism.

It's the frustration-aggression principle. Frustration leads to violence on others who are unrelated to the events, because somebody needs to be the punching bag for the outlet. And this goes left-wing radicals too. Somebody has to pay. And the rhetoric is equally valid; go out and harm people wear the confederate flag, go out and harm people with MAGA caps. The policy of responding violence with violence, doesn't stop because of how you feel about it on a case-by-case basis. It's a bit like with the death penalty. It's a pathos based response because you're so blinded by your feelings, you're not looking at it objectively. You're so trapped in thinking about hurting the criminals, you forget that other innocent people will suffer in the chain.


This entire discussion is a quagmire. One side dismissing the "what if" hypothetical, due to their own "what if" hypothetical. It doesn't really matter what someone elses concern is. You're right. Everyone else is wrong.
I just don't see the empirical evidence that suggest this. And it doesn't make sense to me, why you'd think that you could isolate violence to only one faction. If violence is how we deal with haters in general, then there are many many people who are about to get fucked over, and people are perfectly justified in assaulting them for citing their hate towards a particular group. To me, neo-nazis are not really interesting at all or the cause for concern. It's everyone else, as well as the domestication of normalized violence on the left as a response to the normalized violence on the right.



Btw, referring to your quote, I don't disagree with that at all. However, not tolerating the intolerant doesn't have to mean unmitigated violence.

I will state that I appreciate your effort into posting and sourcing of how kindness and understanding can defeat hate; it is a far improvement over those who would simply quote some historical figure or another and let the appeal to authority argue for them.

Still, as others and I have stated many times throughout this thread, donning the Nazi symbol is a declaration of violent intent, hardly different than wearing the Klan hood or waving the flag of ISIS, and is at the very least an intimidation tactic.

When we speak of empathy, why should we extend it to the aggressors before we extend it to the victimized? What do the minority groups feel when they see someone openly hate them in such a way, and what do the minority groups feel when the response of the general public is apathy ("neo-Nazis...are not a cause of concern"), scrutiny ("responding to violence with violence"), and even sympathy for their oppressors and those associated with them ("you forget that other people will be hurt in the chain").

When we speak of objectivity and rationality, why is this logically terrible slippery-slope, both-sides-"can't-isolate-violence-to-any-one-faction", argument about the normalization of tit-for-tat violence more concerning to you than the oppression of minorities?

 

[googly]

The punch was not necessary.

It was 100% necessary, should be expected when you put that armband on.

 

[thecouncil]

Keep in mind that a congressman recently bodyslammed a reporter and people cheered. Something tells me there's a bit of an overlap between those people and the people denouncing this violence.

 

[Aizo]

I'm typically against violence. I don't know that I could stop myself from hitting a guy wearing a Nazi armband, honestly.

 

[Doc Holliday]

as reminder, this is what we're dealing here folks...


https://www.apnews.com/5052c3f47ffc...ficial:-Hitler-speech-found-at-suspect's-home

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — The Latest on the killings of two black men in Baton Rouge (all times local):
A law enforcement official says a copy of an Adolf Hitler speech was found at the home of white man accused of killing two black men and firing on a black famil

 

[jiiikoo]

as reminder, this is what we're dealing here folks...


https://www.apnews.com/5052c3f47ffc...ficial:-Hitler-speech-found-at-suspect's-home

Not all nazis though!

 

[rtcn63]

So much for the intolerant right cross

 

[BitStyle]

as reminder, this is what we're dealing here folks...


https://www.apnews.com/5052c3f47ffc...ficial:-Hitler-speech-found-at-suspect's-home

This is why people can miss me with that "Modern Nazis aren't real Nazis" mess. They willfully subscribed to the ideology knowing full well what the goals of it are.

 

[Username1198]

Slippery slopes are for waterslides, not punching racists

My man.

 

[Brinbe]

Fuck YT for taking those vids down and fuck that Nazi. Deserved that KO. And fuck all these 'violence isn't the answer' shitposters. Y'ALL AIN'T SLICK. YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU'RE TRYING TO DO.

 

[Slayven]

I don't disagree, but i'd imagine there is many different reasons and circumstances to how movements grow or don't. You've certainly had groups in the past who grew out of their opponents resistance.

The interesting question to me is; what makes them grow, and what makes them implode? Due to all these threads, I've looked at a shit ton of accounts of former white supremacists, and virtually all of them are explaining the same story as to how they were de-radicalized. Punching and beatings doesn't seem to have much of an effect. But what does seem to have an effect is showing empathy, as it helps destroy their world view. The guy who lead one of the most infamous skinhead groups in America, was later de-radicalized when he was shown kindness, and it motivated him to start Life after Hate.

And it's not just him. You have hundreds and hundreds of testimonials online of how people gave up on it after interacting with people of other races. There is this documentary made last year, that I've not seen, but it's about a black man who convinces 200 Klansmen to quit by simply interacting them. Same thing with stories like Scott Shepard who was a "Grand Dragon" who got into prison and was forced to reform. Robert Örell who is a part of Exit Sweden and the Free Initiative basically just also reaffirms this. The Free Initiative claims that their intervention had a serious effect on the amount of drop outs in hate groups. They want to have a international network in Europe that is funded by the European Union to deradicalize across all the EU states

I assume a lot of people are not really interested in this because ultimately it's about violence for violences sake. It feels good to hate somebody, so there is no need for nuance. This is not just about neo-nazis, but also people on the right, because they got Trump in office. So we already have people making excuses for being violent against Trump supporters.
We know the sociological factors that compels people to become white supremacists. It's not ideology, politics, logic, facts or reasoning. It's an emotional response. People are weak, miserable and have no purpose for living. Somebody in a hate group pulls up to them, gives them power, position, goals, a new truth and a sense of being.
That makes them feel good- And because they are so weak, they are willing to trade kindness, human decency and compassion with hate. The self is absolved. You're no longer you. You're a part of the group. It's a collective now. You don't have to think independently anymore. It's a psychological coping mechanism.

It's the frustration-aggression principle. Frustration leads to violence on others who are unrelated to the events, because somebody needs to be the punching bag for the outlet. And this goes left-wing radicals too. Somebody has to pay. And the rhetoric is equally valid; go out and harm people wear the confederate flag, go out and harm people with MAGA caps. The policy of responding violence with violence, doesn't stop because of how you feel about it on a case-by-case basis. It's a bit like with the death penalty. It's a pathos based response because you're so blinded by your feelings, you're not looking at it objectively. You're so trapped in thinking about hurting the criminals, you forget that other innocent people will suffer in the chain.


This entire discussion is a quagmire. One side dismissing the "what if" hypothetical, due to their own "what if" hypothetical. It doesn't really matter what someone elses concern is. You're right. Everyone else is wrong.
I just don't see the empirical evidence that suggest this. And it doesn't make sense to me, why you'd think that you could isolate violence to only one faction. If violence is how we deal with haters in general, then there are many many people who are about to get fucked over, and people are perfectly justified in assaulting them for citing their hate towards a particular group. To me, neo-nazis are not really interesting at all or the cause for concern. It's everyone else, as well as the domestication of normalized violence on the left as a response to the normalized violence on the right.



Btw, referring to your quote, I don't disagree with that at all. However, not tolerating the intolerant doesn't have to mean unmitigated violence.

Daryl Davis again?
http://www.thedailybeast.com/kkk-do...ashes-with-blm-activists-in-film-during-qanda

In the film, the trio sat down at a Baltimore bar for a chat. Thing get heated when the two young men question why Davis has spent the past thirty years trying to get white people to overcome their racism instead of helping his own people.

”What does that do for people?" Rose asks of Davis in the film. ”Infiltrating the Klan ain't freeing your people." He added, ”Befriending a white person who doesn't have to go through the struggles of you, me... that's not an accomplishment. That's a new friend. That's somebody you can call."

”And this is coming from a dropout," Davis shoots back, condescendingly.

”You don't tell Steve Jobs he ain't successful. He don't have no college degree. Bill Gates ain't got no college degree," Rose replies. ”Neither does Monica Lewinsky," says Davis. ”OK, shit, and what?" Rose says. ”She's giving blowjobs in the White House and doing whatever she was doing..." ”...Well, maybe you could give Obama a blowjob and make a lot of money, too," interrupts Davis.

Fuck him

 

[JaseMath]

The concern for the physical well-being of flag-bearing nazis on this self-proclaimed liberal forum will never cease to amaze me.

Pretty sure the discussion is more about violence as a means to an end.

 

[Sunster]

Daryl Davis again?
http://www.thedailybeast.com/kkk-do...ashes-with-blm-activists-in-film-during-qanda


Fuck him

yea I saw that on PBS. He did not respond well to those guys and clearly did not respect them, he was making all kinds of assumptions while they raised some good points.

 

[Slayven]

yea I saw that on PBS. He did not respond well to those guys and clearly did not respect them making all kinds of assumptions while they raised some good points.

The way the dude got so angry and the language he jumped too is telling as fuck. Is he deprogramming klan members or are they programming him?

 

[Walter White Walker]

Wearing a Nazi armband and threatening people gets you punched. Guy learned a good lesson that day. It probably won't stick because he's an idiot, but there you go.

 

[The Kree]

The way the dude got so angry and the language he jumped too is telling as fuck. Is he deprogramming klan members or are they programming him?

Yo.

 

[BitStyle]

Daryl Davis again?
http://www.thedailybeast.com/kkk-do...ashes-with-blm-activists-in-film-during-qanda


Fuck him

People don't delve deep enough into the aftermath of Daryl Davis's conversions either. They interviewed one, and he still held all the same racist thoughts, he just though that Davis was now one of the good ones.

From this article:

Despite his vow that he would never be photographed with Davis, the former grand klaliff has since posed for a picture. It made Davis's book, of course. "Yeah, Daryl is a friend," he confirms. "He's articulate, intelligent. He relaxed my views – on him, as an individual."

Davis received thank-you notes after making a cash baby gift to one of Doles's former fiancees. Doles's children have met Davis. They like him. But Doles is quick to qualify Davis's generosity: "My children weren't supported by a black man."

Having quit the Klan, Doles plans to enter politics: "I definitely follow the Nazis. National Socialism is my religion. I believe in it and I look for the Fourth Reich."

He says it calmly, matter-of-fact, utterly without irony. Doles's agenda is now set by the National Alliance, founded by William L. Pierce, author of "The Turner Diaries" and inheritor of George Lincoln Rockwell's Nazi following. The alliance's literature embraces "racial cleansing of the land," takes a firm stand against "negroid" jazz and rock music, and, by name, Barry Manilow.

But Doles doesn't mention the implications for his friend, the black musician. Such talk would be impolite and impolitic. "I respect him," the neo-Nazi says. "I'll shake his hand. But I'll take my views to my grave."

Chester Doles vows to take his Klan robes to the grave as well. They are a prize – and a piece of himself – that he will never relinquish to Daryl Davis.

 

[Stinkles]

In 1938, millions of plumbers, dock workers, doctors, politicians and more crossed a line. They chose to align themselves with a political movement that thrived on violence and hatred. It was wrong. it was actually quite obviously wrong in many ways. But those people? You could argue that they never knew it would get that bad. They just thought that maybe the Jews and Gypsies would be run out of town, that germany would stop being so attractive to those "awful people." So, 100% already on the wrong side of history and ethics and even christianity. But there was at least the context of ignorance.

Ragdolly Glassjaw Hitler in Seattle did not have that excuse. He wore a Swastika armband in 2017, to identify himself as a literal Nazi. He called a black guy an ape. He threw a banana. And he did this with a full and historical understanding of the fucking Holocaust.

Society does not tolerate murder, rape, or theft. It has no obligation to tolerate Nazis. This guy had his freedom of speech and he used it to yell Fire in a crowded theater. Tomorrow he still has the freedom to espouse his views, and society should react quickly and efficiently to object to them. With a fist.

 

[Sunster]

The way the dude got so angry and the language he jumped too is telling as fuck. Is he deprogramming klan members or are they programming him?

ya they definitely hit a nerve, he was literally crying.

 

[Chmpocalypse]

Huh, I just learned that both you and David Wong are white guys at the same time.

Holy shit, David H. Wrong got banned? Nice.

 

[Liu Kang Baking A Pie]

As nationalistic ethnic cleansing has lead to rampant murder and exile of the Rohingya in Myanmar, GAF debates whether punching a threatening Nazi who was wearing a swastika is too much.

 

[Ponn]

Pretty sure the discussion is more about violence as a means to an end.

Whatever makes you feel more comfortable with your position of protecting Nazis and letting them run around harassing minorities. Making YOU and the Nazis feel comfortable is the most important thing here.

 

[Caelus]

As nationalistic ethnic cleansing has lead to rampant murder and exile of the Rohingya in Myanmar, GAF debates whether punching a threatening Nazi who was wearing a swastika is too much.

In 1938, millions of plumbers, dock workers, doctors, politicians and more crossed a line. They chose to align themselves with a political movement that thrived on violence and hatred. It was wrong. it was actually quite obviously wrong in many ways. But those people? You could argue that they never knew it would get that bad. They just thought that maybe the Jews and Gypsies would be run out of town, that germany would stop being so attractive to those "awful people." So, 100% already on the wrong side of history and ethics and even christianity. But there was at least the context of ignorance.

Ragdolly Glassjaw Hitler in Seattle did not have that excuse. He wore a Swastika armband in 2017, to identify himself as a literal Nazi. He called a black guy an ape. He threw a banana. And he did this with a full and historical understanding of the fucking Holocaust.

Society does not tolerate murder, rape, or theft. It has no obligation to tolerate Nazis. This guy had his freedom of speech and he used it to yell Fire in a crowded theater. Tomorrow he still has the freedom to espouse his views, and society should react quickly and efficiently to object to them. With a fist.

Preach.

 

[Ernest]

X GONNA GIVE IT TO YA!

 

[jay]

Pretty sure the discussion is more about violence as a means to an end.

Are you generally against the American Revolution, the Allies involvement in WWII, or the North's actions in the Civil War? Or do you find state sanctioned violence to be acceptable?

 

[parrotbeak]

As nationalistic ethnic cleansing has lead to rampant murder and exile of the Rohingya in Myanmar, GAF debates whether punching a threatening Nazi who was wearing a swastika is too much.

We should just wait though, until that happens and then call the police, national guard, federal government, Australia? ummm...UN? (Oh shit.)

 

[thiscoldblack]

He was basically asking for it.

 

[Gentleman Jack]

To be honest, I don't believe "Nazi Punching" is effective either because it won't change their dumb beliefs.

The point isn't to change beliefs.

The point is to shove them back into the hole the came from instead of wearing their horrible beliefs on their sleeve. Given that he removed the armband, there's a data point for the efficacy of punching.

 

[Black Republican]

You would be shocked, because when it happens people are strangely silent. There is a thread right now about a racist serial killer in Louisiana. Not even a hundred posts last time i looked

"maybe hes just mentally ill?"

 

[thequickandthedead]

So is there a mirror for the video?
Edit: nvm found it

 

[kcp12304]

Daryl Davis again?
http://www.thedailybeast.com/kkk-do...ashes-with-blm-activists-in-film-during-qanda


Fuck him

He did apparently make up with them later on. Had dinner and said it was a misunderstanding. If that means anything.

 

[Liu Kang Baking A Pie]

Here's an editorial from the New York Times this week shining a light on the genocidal racists some of you are defending.

The Nazis' First Victims Were the Disabled
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/13/opinion/nazis-holocaust-disabled.html

I sit facing the young German neurologist, across a small table in a theater in Hamburg, Germany. I'm here giving one-on-one talks called ”The Unenhanced: What Has Happened to Those Deemed ‘Unfit'," about my research on Aktion T4, the Nazi ”euthanasia" program to exterminate the disabled.

”I'm afraid of what you're going to tell me," the neurologist says.

I'm not surprised. I've heard similar things before. But this time is different — the young man sitting across from me is a doctor. Aktion T4 could not have happened without the willing participation of German doctors.

I have a personal stake in making sure this history is remembered. In 1960, I was born missing bones in both legs. At the time, some thought I should not be allowed to live. Thankfully, my parents were not among them.

I first discovered that people with disabilities were sterilized and killed by the Nazis when I was a teenager, watching the TV mini-series ”Holocaust" in 1978. But it would be years before I understood the connections between the killing of the disabled and the killing of Jews and other ”undesirables," all of whom were, in one way or another, deemed ”unfit."

The neurologist does not know much about what I'm telling him. While he does know that approximately 300,000 disabled people were killed in T4 and its aftermath, he doesn't know about the direct connection between T4 and the Holocaust. He doesn't know that it was at Brandenburg, the first T4 site, where methods of mass killing were tested, that the first victims of Nazi mass killings were the disabled, and that its personnel went on to establish and run the extermination camps at Treblinka, Belzec and Sobibor.

Three years earlier, when I first arrived in Germany, I was consistently confronted with the treatment of those with disabilities under the Third Reich. But I soon realized I had to go back even farther. In the 1920s, the disabled were mistreated, sterilized, experimented on and killed in some German psychiatric institutions. In 1920, the psychiatrist Alfred Hoche and the jurist Karl Binding published their treatise, ”Permitting the Destruction of Unworthy Life," which became the blueprint for the exterminations of the disabled carried out by the Third Reich.

In Dr. Ewald Melzer's 1923 survey of the parents of the disabled children in his care, they were asked: ”Would you agree definitely to a painless shortcut of your child's life, after it is determined by experts that it is incurably stupid?" The results, which surprised Melzer, were published in 1925: 73 percent responded they were willing to have their children killed if they weren't told about it.

I am also Jewish. At the Karl Bonhoeffer psychiatric hospital in the Berlin suburb of Wittenau, where the exhibition ”A Double Stigma: The Fate of Jewish Psychiatric Patients" was held, I learned about, as the exhibition title suggests, how Jewish patients were doubly stigmatized by being separated from other patients, denied pastoral care, and were cared for not at the expense of the Reich but by Jewish organizations. Jewish patients were singled out for early extermination; by December 1942, the destruction of the Jewish patient population at Wittenau was complete.

The young neurologist in Hamburg did not know this history.

It is only at the end of my talk with the neurologist that I notice he wears a hearing aid. I want to ask if he knows about ”100 Percent," the film produced by deaf Germans to show they could assimilate and be productive citizens who worked. Did he know the hereditary deaf were singled out not only by the German authorities but also by those with acquired deafness who tried to save themselves? Too often, even those of us with disabilities do not know our own history.

Not many people know about disability history in the United States. They do not know that in the United States in 1927, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote that ”three generations of imbeciles are enough" as part of his opinion in Buck v. Bell, in which the Supreme Court ruled that compulsory sterilization of the ”unfit" was constitutional. This decision has never been expressly overturned.

Many Americans still do not know about the so-called ”ugly laws," which in many states, beginning in the late 1860s, deemed it illegal for persons who were ”unsightly or unseemly" to appear in public. The last of these laws was not repealed until 1974.

Why is it important to know this history? We often say what happened in Nazi Germany couldn't happen here. But some of it, like the mistreatment and sterilization of the disabled, did happen here.

A reading of Hoche and Binding's ”Permitting the Destruction of Unworthy Life" shows the similarity between what they said and what exponents of practical ethics, such as Peter Singer, say about the disabled today. As recently as 2015, Singer, talking with the radio host Aaron Klein on his show, said, ”I don't want my health insurance premiums to be higher so that infants who can experience zero quality of life can have expensive treatments."

These philosophers talk about the drain on ”resources" caused by lives lived with a disability, which eerily echoes what Hoche and Binding wrote about the ”financial and moral burden" on ”a person's family, hospital, and state" caused by what they deem lives ”unworthy of living."

Experts point out the recent Republican health care proposals would strip Medicaid funding that helps the elderly, the poor and the disabled live healthier and more dignified lives. A recent New York Times article quoted the Rev. Susan Flanders, a retired Episcopal priest, as saying: ”What we're paying for is something that many people wouldn't want if they had a choice. It's hundreds of dollars each day that could go towards their grandchildren's education or care for the people who could get well."

In the article, Flanders, whose father had Alzheimer's, is described as ”utterly unafraid to mix money into the conversation about the meaning of life when the mind deteriorates." Practical ethicists are similarly unafraid to do this. As were the Nazis. Third Reich school textbooks included arithmetic problems on how much it would cost to care for a person with a disability for a lifetime.

Three years ago, I was the only visitor at a museum dedicated to the history of the Reinickendorf area of Berlin. The museum building was once part of Wiesengrund, which, in 1941, housed the ”wards for expert care" of the Municipal Hospital for Children.

Down a hall with fluorescent lighting, in a white-walled room, were 30 wooden cribs. On each of the cribs was a history of a child, some as young as a few months old. This was the room in which these infants and children were experimented on and killed: the 30-bed Ward 3, the ”ward for expert care" at Wiesengrund.

My heart raced; my breath shortened. I couldn't stay in that room for long. The room evoked the first four weeks of my own life spent in an incubator. Nobody knew if I would live or die.

What kind of society do we want to be? Those of us who live with disabilities are at the forefront of the larger discussion of what constitutes a valued life. What is a life worth living? Too often, the lives of those of us who live with disabilities are not valued, and feared. At the root of this fear is misunderstanding, misrepresentation, and a lack of knowledge of disability history and, thus, disabled lives.

If your finger is hovering over that Reply button to defend fucking Nazis, first spend at least one hour watching a WW2 documentary or reading a book before replying. When you have absorbed that information and that pesky thing called "perspective" keeps nagging at your specious arguments, listen to it.