Tuesday, August 15, 2017

Do not share this photo (is it wrong to shame Nazis by sharing their newsworthy pictures)

Whatever you do, have a heart and do not share this picture, no matter how tempting it is.
And do not place it above the fold while writing about it.
I do not know a lot about Peter Cvjetanovic, outside of the fact that he is upset that a photo of him at a white national rally has gone viral. The one thing that I do know for sure is that he is a dumbass. My proof that he is a dumbass? He got photographed at a white national rally!

The same can be said of everyone who was ever photographed at a white national rally on the side of the fence that seems to be a little pro-Nazi, you are a dumbass (outside of the leadership, who I assume are making money selling white national merchandise and therefore, want their photos to go viral).

Maybe Peter Cvetanovic did not have a father to teach him not to be photographed doing stuff you do not want connected with yourself. Maybe Peter Cvetanovic did not have teachers who would ask, "Do you really want that on your permanent record?" Maybe Peter Cvetanovic did not receive the memo that we are now living in the age of Twitter and Facebook, a world of retweets and shares, where your identity can be learned within an hour if you are dumbass enough to be photographed doing something that other people are going to be upset about. Maybe Peter Cvetanovic was asleep the day that the history class covered the wearing of masks when you are engaged in stuff that will make you look like a murderous bigoted f***head when historians get around to writing history.

Or maybe Peter Cvetanovic is proud that he is a f***ing Nazi, and forgot that most people are not. Or what we like to call--being a dumbass.

Personally, I love the whole "It is wrong to try to get Nazis fired from their burger-flipping jobs." You do realize that we live in a world where if a fast food employee spits in a customer's burger and tweets about it, they are DOOMED to be fired. Do you really want a Nazi touching your food?

(As an experiment, I encourage pro-Nazi restaurant owners to openly admit that they are white nationalists--let's see if your customers want Nazis to have businesses in their neighborhoods.)

In the fifties, it was ok to get people fired for being communists. In the thirties and forties, in one country (Nazi Germany), it was ok to kill Jews and other minorities, as well as political rivals. Oh wait, two countries did that (let's not forgot Communist Russia). In the Reconstruction, some felt it was ok to enact laws to keep minorities in their proper places, and remind them that former slave owners were still controlling the local government (why do you think there are all those glorious Confederation war memorials? They serve a purpose to remind minorities that they are living in a world where they were considered property and not human beings). And let's not forget the torture and conviction of heretics during the long dark history of Christianity.

History shows us time and again that bad things happen when you are a member of a group that other people do not like.

And the ultimate goal of white nationalists? Oh yeah, to be able to persecute people that they don't like!

Oh, they claim to be patriots. I imagine that if Tweeter and Facebook existed in the days of the Founding Fathers that the British would have been tweeting, "Does anyone know this person standing beneath the Liberty Tree?" and that the Americans would have been on Facebook saying, "Does anyone know this person giving aid and comfort to the British?"

And what does the study of the American Revolution tell us? Oh yes, cover up your face and identity when doing things that can turn around and bite you in the ass. Proof that the Founding Fathers were not dumbasses? Oh yeah, there is a high number of pen-names being used in the Federalist Papers. And no one asked for the evidence of their political beliefs not to be shared.

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