EVAN: Ladies, gentlemen, and the rest, it has been almost two whole years since we released a “Culture War Correspondence”, the feature formerly known as “Evan and Gordon Talk”.
You can thank/blame my co-writer for its momentary revival, and I’ll let him be the one to introduce the topic for this week-
GORDON: “Is it OK to punch Nazis?”
Some of you may remember back in November, when alt-right spokesman Richard Spencer was clobbered during an interview with an Australian news channel, an event which prompted many across the nation (and indeed, the world) to ask that very question.
EVAN: When you first broached this topic with me I remember saying “Is the answer not ‘always’?”, to which you responded “Not by my book, no.”
That in turn led to me greenlighting this whole thing, because I think that may be as much a surprise to our readers as it was to me at the time.
GORDON: I guess part of that stems from who you define as a “Nazi”. I mean, sure, there’s the folks who stomp around in jackboots with swastikas tattooed over their chests…
…But there’s plenty of folks- including Richard Spencer, who totally is a Nazi- who claim to be simple “White Nationalists”. As if there’s any ****ing difference.
I guess that’s to say I probably wouldn’t lay the almighty smackdown on someone’s bigoted grandma, y’know?
Unless you cut me off in traffic one more time, Helen…
EVAN: It sounds like your stance, if you want to really boil it down, is to attack the able-bodied or “those who can take it.”
GORDON: I don’t know if I’d say it’s about attacking those who can take it. Not that I’m in favor of wailing on the feeble (something that the Nazis, for the record, are all too eager to do), just that I don’t view someone’s bigoted grandmother as an actual threat.
If Agnes winds up pulling off the retirement-home-putsch, that might be another story.
It’s not like the Fascist leadership in Germany, Spain, and Italy were all hip youngsters…
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