SIO9: Punching Nazis, with Eli Bosnick

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:29 Thomas: Hello, and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. I'm your host, Thomas Smith, and this is episode number nine. All right, well, today I've got a bit of a sort of a preemption. I had a different episode planned, but then this whole Nazi-punching video went viral, and actually it has a lot of people arguing back and forth. I did a few statuses on it on various social media. By the way, you can befriend me on Facebook.com slash Thomas Podcast if you'd like to be my Facebook friend and catch all this stuff or follow me at T and the B or at SeriousPod. Those are my two Twitter accounts. I Twitter more serious stuff on the Serious Pod thing and more jokes on the T and B. But anyway, all that aside, there's a lot of disagreement actually in our little online communities about this.

0:01:17 Thomas: And I wanted to get to the bottom of it. I was going to do a Thursday talk on it, but Eli Bosnick was willing to come on because we disagree on it. And it's It's always good when we get a chance to argue with each other about something. So I want to thank Eli for coming on. It was a long discussion. I edited down a little bit, but a lot of stuff, a lot of moving parts in this discussion. So here I give you my debate with Eli Bosnick over whether it's okay to punch Nazis. And I suppose you'll have to judge for yourself.

0:01:58 Thomas: Joining me right now is Mr. Eli Bosnick, back for umpteenth time. How are you doing, Eli?

0:02:05 Eli: I'm good, Thomas. Thanks for having me.

0:02:07 Thomas: Thank you for coming on, I really appreciate it. First, I do want to say, just a split second here to praise one Eli Bosnick, because we've pretty vehemently disagreed on this issue, the issue of punching Nazis, which is what we're here to talk about today. How many did you punch on your way here? Did you... We'll get to that, we'll get...

0:02:21 Eli: Well, see, that is important. I I do actually need to caveat a couple of things. The first is, no matter no matter what, no, no matter how convincing and hip, do not hit anybody. Don't take punching advice from a podcast seriously. I can't believe I have to say that, but I am very careful about, like, the things I say publicly, and I want to be very, very clear that I am not inciting anyone to violence. The reason why we're having this conversation, little background for people who don't know, so I

0:02:57 Thomas: I was going to get to that. I merely asked you how many people you had punched on the way to the podcast. That's not one question, and you can't just give me a solid answer.

0:02:59 Eli: For Thomas, for it was because there was an old guy on the way here, and he looked Nazi-esque, right, our most Nazis Asian. If

0:03:12 Thomas: Yeah. That. There had to have been a few, right? I mean, it's got to be a few. Yeah. Anyway, we, how did we introduce this? Let me say, I won't start with my view, I guess I'll let you start, but I do want to at least cover for it because there are people, believe it or not, Eli, there are People who aren't friends with either of us on Facebook, which is, I know I it's, it's weird.

0:03:34 Eli: No, get out of here. That's a terrible idea. Why aren't you friends with

0:03:38 Thomas: And there are people, there are listeners who, uh, who don't stay up to date with this kind of thing. So tell me quickly, first off, tell me what happened and tell me who Richard Spencer is because there are people who may not know these things.

0:03:38 Eli: Us on Facebook?

0:03:50 Eli: So yeah. Okay. So there's a couple of like straw men and clarifications we need to make before we even get into the conversation. So the is a Nazi and is one of the founders of the alt-right. He says he's the first to use the term alt- right. He has written essays about ethnic cleansing and genocide and whether or not Jews are people. You, if you're not familiar with him, probably saw him in that video of the people all going, Zig, Heil, Heil Trump, Heil our leader. That's him. He's the guy on stage shouting that in that video. So that's who Richard Spencer is. And I cannot emphasize enough, Richard Spencer is a Nazi. He's not just like a guy. He is a Nazis. And he was at the Women's March doing an interview. And halfway through the interview, someone comes up and sucker punches him in the face and then runs away. And the conversation that's come up has been, Is it okay to punch a Nazi now? Now, a little background here.

0:03:56 Thomas: Okay. Yeah,

0:05:00 Eli: A little background here before we get into the actual thoughts themselves. I get sort of a one-way, Thomas made the terrible mistake of giving me his cell phone number once, so I get a one way commentary thread because I listen to all of Serious Increase Atheists, I, and so I have a one way commentary threat with with Thomas

0:05:17 Thomas: That's close enough. I like that. You know what you two, two thirds of that was like the new name. So I, I thank you. I appreciate it.

0:05:22 Eli: Atheists only so I have, have a one-way thread with Thomas where I'll just be like, I disagree with you, and most of the time Thomas is just like, nah man, here's why you're wrong. And so I get like a one on one lesson with pretty much every podcast Thomas does where I'm wrong. Um, and so Thomas posted the thing, and we did not see this, which is important, Thomas hosted the thing about like, it's not okay to punch Nazis. And I genuinely, like, almost as a joke, because I saw it and I saw people like, oh, violence is never right, I was like, come on guys, of course you can punch a Nazi. You can always punch a, like, it's a Nazi. It's a Nazi. That was, that was it. That was what I came to Facebook, like, not from an intellectual position, just like command.

0:05:23 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah,

0:06:04 Eli: Command was my argument. So, and then a bunch of the really, really smart people in my life sort of vehemently disagreed with me. And so I thought this was interesting because I realized that I actually did not know why I was wrong on this. And I want to be very, very very clear at the outset. I believe I am wrong on this. I just don't know how to think my way out of this thinking. And I think in the secular community, we don't often enough go, hey, I'm wrong. Help me learn. So at first Thomas was like, hey do you want to come on and discuss this? And I was like I don't really want to debate a pro-punching Nazi point. But as I've become more and more convinced that I'm incorrect on this because Noah, my co-host, no illusions, disagrees with me on this and just a bunch of smart people in my life.

0:06:04 Thomas: Yeah, I

0:06:54 Eli: There's no philosophy of punching department. A bunch of super smart people in my life, Thomas, have all disagreed with me and I want to learn sort of live and I want people to see where my ideas are coming from, where they're wrong and, and watch sort of in real time. Obviously it's recorded, but in real-time watch me learn where I'm wrong. And, and if I'm wrong, I want to be able to admit it here on the the air because that's the way we should be approaching ideas, not

0:07:20 Thomas: Feel like I'm gonna be in one of those Socratic dialogues where Socrates starts off saying, like, I know I'm wrong, why don't you just explain why I'm wrung, and then he just owns the guy toward the end, there's, it was so, Socrates was so bitchy, it's amazing, like he was really, or You're setting a high bar, but I do want to say you're setting it up as though you're the only one who thinks this, and you're not the only one who think this. I mean, the reason I really wanted to have a conversation about it, I was going to just do a commentary on Thursday, but it's so much, and I figured we would have so much much to talk about that. I figured we should make time on, on the interview Monday here to do it. And the reason is because even now, as I posted this thread where we're, we were seeking questions, I thought, Oh, we get, you know, handful of questions. But then Eli told me like, Oh, kind of a big deal. So we got a hundred

0:07:30 Eli: By The End Nazian They're I'm Not I'm Kind

0:08:09 Thomas: Of questions yet. We got a 100 questions in about a second and there's no, sorry, everybody. There's no way I can go through all of them, obviously, but, um, clearly, this is an issue that people disagree on. And like, I think you're setting it up in a way that, that gives you're sending the lowest expectations for yourself, which is I'm totally wrong. Watch Thomas totally dismantle my position. Ready? Go. And then I'm like, uh, if I, if, if if I do anything short of that, then I lost, but But I do want to maybe not frame it that way. I would also like to say that it's certainly possible I'm wrong on this. And I will admit, I'll come clean with my biases off the bat. I didn't know anything about this guy. Now, I don't know what rabbit what cave I've BEEN living in, but I just didn't know that much about him.

0:08:09 Eli: Of a Huge Deal

0:08:59 Thomas: And certainly that could account for why I had the reaction I had. But don't know that I would have felt any different, but I just wanted to come clean with that. Because he said some horrible stuff.

0:09:10 Eli: I Mean, he is a huge proponent of race theory and all sorts. I mean, he, again, he is a Nazi, it's very important people understand that. He also wrote an essay, or he published an essay, on black genocide. Give me one second, I'm gonna pull the quote. Uh, this is from alternative, this is from the Wayback Machine, and I just have it as a tweet from at Keegan NYC, uh, that says Richard Spencer said this, and some people are upset he got punched in the face. Okay, so this, this is on the Wayback Machine, www.alternativeright.com forward slash main forward slash the magazine forward slash is black genocide right. This is the quote, and he published this, seems to be the sort of final thing, but no one denies that he published it.

0:09:58 Eli: He published this and is behind this. So this is, this is the thinking of the guy we're talking about, right? Right? Instead of asking how we can make reparations for slavery, colonialism, and apartheid, or how we an equalize academic scores and incomes, we should instead be asking questions like, quote, "does human civilization actually need the black race," end quote. Quote, "is black genocide right," end unquote. And if it is, quote, "what would be the best and easiest way to dispose of them," end quote. With starting points like this, wisdom is sure to flourish, enlightenment to dawn. So again, this is a Nazi, and I And I want to be clear, like, because the statement that I made on Facebook, again, just sort of half as a joke, but, but found people not arguing against is, is it okay to punch a Nazi, not should it be legal to punch a Nazi, because I don't think anyone thinks it should be legal to Punch a Nazi.

0:10:38 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So that's a good clarification. So you're, but, but this is interesting. I mean, that's what becomes so messy about it. Like there are so many practical, weird concerns. I think we, So let's try to separate the question a little bit. As I've already said, I took a firm, I don't believe in, you violent protests and hurting people, bystanders, whatever. And I don'T believe in punching people. I tweeted something like that. I don't know. Just to have it be said. And separately, don't let me forget this too, Eli. There is a focus problem that I think we will largely agree on. Like probably 100% agree on where there's a difference between saying, yeah, punching a Nazi isn't okay. And then spending 48 hours defending a punch Nazi when everything else is happening, you know, like in the world. And

0:10:58 Eli: Right. Absolutely. I'm, yeah,

0:11:44 Thomas: Yeah, so we'll put a pin in that and save it for later. Cause I think we'll agree on that, but I wanted it to be said for me, for my sake, just once, like, here's a tweet on this. I'm not cool with the punching of that guy. But I think Trump's a bigger issue, you know, like, so I want, I really did want to walk that line of, yes, I'm saying this is wrong just so people can't, you know, complain about, oh, where are you liberals with, talking about free speech when someone's being punched for their free speech or whatever. So I wanted to do that. And I didn't really know how big of a disagreement it would be. So having said that, I would also like to say that just describing it for me personally, when I saw that video, um, it's not as though I felt bad for him. So I want to, I want to make a distinction and I don't really, I can't try to guilt people too much for getting some sort of enjoyment out of that.

0:11:45 Eli: I'm so glad you pointed that out because punch

0:12:38 Thomas: Now I'd never get enjoyment out of violence. I'm, I'll have to say though, that I, I this is a peculiar thing to me too. Like if there's a video of people, uh, wiping out on skateboards, I I can't watch it. I have to skip it as fast as I can because I just, I don't, I can'T handle that very well. It's, it's a weird thing for me. I mean, anyway, so I already have a bit of sensitivity there and I understand not everybody's like that. Like some, some people are, you know, a lot, most people I think are a little different. So there's that sensitivity there, but I didn't feel bad for him. It wasn't like I thought, oh, poor guy. Like if I saw a video, if I happened to see a video of just some guy getting punched, like a, you know, just a good upstanding citizen, some random asshole punches him, I would feel horrible. Like I would, that would actually bother me quite a bit because I, I, I'm really affected by violence to, to innocent people.

0:13:29 Thomas: Uh, especially if I, if I see like a visceral video of it, I can't, I I'm Really affected by it. I hate it. So I just want to point out that I,I didn't have that feeling. I felt, I had a feeling of this is just pointless and wrong. Like there's no, I wasn't like, oh, poor Richard Spencer. Oh, he probably, you know, poor guy. Like I feel really bad. He's a fellow human being like, no, so I want to clarify it was somewhere in between that, but overall I think it's wrong and pointless. And I think that the biggest argument against it for me is this just, it doesn't do anything. I mean, there's no, there wasn't any point later on in the video where he's like, you Know, I got to reconsider. Maybe I was wrong. You know what? It was that knock in the head that got me to reconsider all my views.

0:14:15 Thomas: It doesn't do anything. And furthermore, I think there's very real and dangerous practical concerns that I tried to point out in the tweet. Free to fight back on this metaphorically. Let's not, let's, yeah. Feel free To go back on those, because I know you've talked a lot about out the slippery slope stuff, but I don't think I was making a slippery slope argument, but you can, you can tell me if I was, but it's, it's more in the actual consequences of the attitude that punching someone is okay. That punching someone you disagree with for any reason is okay, even if this guy is particularly punchable. Who, okay, how many people are allowed to punch him? Do we all get to punch them?

At what point, now, what if he's on a dangerous surface where he could have have fallen and died and hit his head and then you would have killed him, is that cool? What if his, what if he has kids that are nearby him, uh, what if his family, is it okay to punch him in front of his family? Like all these things that I don't think are slippery slope, they're actually just very practical concerns

0:14:28 Eli: You feel free to punch me on this.

0:15:16 Thomas: Of human beings, the fact that I, I think we have this cartoonish notion of a punch, like they're from the from video games and from movies where you punch a guy and there's a sound that goes, and then like they go ah, and like that's how a punch. But there's very real concerns to violence. Like there's the idea that we would allow, and it's such a reason why I'm against violence like this. I mean, it's not really a laughing matter. People die from things like this, people get hit too hard, people get brain damage, people, all this stuff that there's no reason to open that Pandora's box of like, okay, just this specific punch is okay if you hit him just enough to where it just knocks a little sense into him. I, it's just not a good rule.

0:15:57 Eli: There's a lot to break down there. Um, so, so I want to, because I want To take apart one of the straw men that, that came up and it, you actually phrased it. And so I, I want TO, I WANT TO stop and and concentrate on it for a second, which is, the um, argument that I'm coming from is that I don't think it should be legal to punch a Nazi, right? So that just the practicality of that, like, how the law, we're like, okay, how Nazi are you? Like, well, you know, I don't like the Jews, but I really like the Chinese, so I don't really like, am I a Nazi? Right? Like, it, it becomes absurd. The other thing is, um, is it okay to punch a Nazi is not the same as, is it okay? To punch someone you disagree with.

And crazily the last 24 hours of my life have been me going like, ah, come on. It's okay to bunch of Nazi and people going so you can punch anyone who doesn't like vanilla ice cream. And I'm like, no, no. I said, Nazi, I need you to defend Nazis. So even just now, right, when you said punch, you had to change it to someone because the sentence, empathetically speaking,

0:15:59 Thomas: Go ahead. Right.

0:16:16 Thomas: Yeah.

0:17:02 Eli: Does feel a lot better when we say someone we disagree with or someone with differing political views as opposed to a literal Nazi. Right?

0:17:13 Thomas: That's fair, yeah. Um, I would say I'm glad that I misspoke and said that because you do, it's that's good to clarify, because I, I think you're right that there can be a level of that that we could differentiate, differentiate, and we could say, yes, this doesn't necessarily lead to a slippery slope argument in that direction. Having said that, I don't know how much that matters for the rest of my concerns that I mentioned.

0:17:26 Eli: Right. Absolutely. And you're, that is totally correct. That is to, I just wanted to, I wanted to put that out there so

0:17:42 Thomas: No, you're right. You're right, I think that, because you identified that part of my argument that I mistakenly talked about when I didn't mean to. Let's finish that thread and then get back to the other thing, because I would say that only issue with that is, a Nazi, it is somebody who's worse than just someone you disagree with, it. I would like to attempt to make an analogy and see if, and see if there's any chance that, that, that you can see it this way.

If you are an apostate in a Muslim country, people are going to view you very much like we might view this Nazi. And that's just, that's just true. I mean, even though it's wrong, even though ultimately you and I can argue there's a basis in fact, there's, there's a factual reality we can back all this up with and we can objectively say this guy is a Nazi and the apostate in the Muslim country or just or just even in the Muslim community in the U.S. just to keep it in the same country, an apostate in a Muslim community, in the US, that's that, that person is actually OK by this objective basis, in fact.

But the problem is, I don't actually think most of our policies are able to account for all that, and especially not in real time, given the fact that there can be misunderstanding and there can, you know, what I said, policies, I shouldn't have, because you already said it should still be illegal, I'm sorry about that, I, you're saying it's okay, like if you're granting it some sort of moral permission, I think we can still talk about that, the consequences of that, without talking about the law.

So I, so I want to ask you, say there's a heavily traditional conservative Muslim community in the U.S. somewhere, and they view an apostate with the same just disgust, just moral outrage that we view this Nazi.

0:19:30 Thomas: Nazi, is is it not valuable to talk about a rule, and again, not, not a law, I'll grant you, not a law, but a sort of a moral okayness that we have, that that we should never resort to violence over disagreements of words of any kind. Sure.

0:19:47 Eli: It's interesting because you, you actually just made the point that I was going to make, which is that this point, which is obviously people have brought this up to me over the last couple of days uh quite a bit, is actually just a different way to shift the language to someone we disagree with. Um, but you're doing it from the bottom up as opposed to the top down, right? So as opposed to just say, instead of saying, not saying Nazi, you go, but what about someone who thinks X is equivalent to Nazi? And the way I would respond to it, at least logically, and this is what I can't wrap my head around, because like that sounds really good, but here's why I can't wrap my hat around it. Right? We agree at base, if someone is trying to murder you, it's okay, and follow with me because I know I'm about to take, take a little bit of a journey. If someone's about to murder you, everybody, except for a couple of Quakers out there is going to go, yeah, you can punch that person, right? You can punch that person.

0:20:36 Thomas: Yeah. We should we should That's a good point that we, there's so much here, sorry, that we haven't been able to set everything up, but I do, for the sake of letting everyone know what page we're on, I do believe in self-defense. And if your face, if someone is imminently threatening you, yes, I totally am. I'm not a pacifist in that regard.

0:20:41 Eli: Right. There's a, right.

0:20:57 Eli: So just as we would say, and we all agree with that, right, if someone's trying to murder, you, you could punch them until they can't murder you anymore, right? I think that's a pretty fair basis to say, just as it would be an unfair question to say say, yeah, but what if I'm in a community where I think someone believing strawberry is the best ice cream is just like murder? If you say it's okay to punch for murder, isn't it then okay to punch for liking strawberry ice cream? See, what I've had to do there is I've had to shift the language. And the answer to that is one that you actually gave, which is that person who thinks X is the same as Y is wrong, right? So if someone, if a Muslim community thinks apostasy is as bad as being a Nazi, we have to end the conversation philosophically on they They are wrong.

0:21:04 Thomas: Yeah.

0:21:51 Eli: They're wrong about that. They need to address the point of, of is it okay to punch a Nazi, right? Because that's not an argument. It just shifts the posts to a different subject about which we disagree. We need to talk about the thing which we agree on, which is the Nazi, and whether or not it's okay to Punch the Nazi. Because that is what I want to find my flaw in thinking of, right. Because it's just a dialectic trick. And just as we would dismiss the strawberry ice cream example, I think we also need to dismiss the apostasy example.

0:22:24 Thomas: Okay. So the distinction I would draw there is when when I said there is a strong reality, like objective reality of fact that you're appealing to in that case, and I would agree with, I think that's easier to do when you're talking about something self-defense. It's much easier to make an objective decision on whether or not someone is actually threatening your life. It is a visceral thing. It s a very tangible thing. It's a physical thing.

Switch that over to ideas, and it's not so clear to me that that's a very easy distinction. So, you're challenging whether or no this is equivalent, and I think it's valid solid to do so. But I would also argue that as we've learned in this election, it's very difficult to all be, to all think and know we're on the same page about everything. Is it not prudent to say as a rule, even if again, ignore, I think, thank you for not trying to double down too much on the law versus whether it's morally okay thing, because I think think the consequences are largely the same, to be honest. But anyway, is it okay to have a moral rule that we can do this with someone we view as a certain level of bad? And I would say that given that

0:23:13 Eli: But

0:23:45 Thomas: There's, yeah.

0:23:45 Eli: Do you under, I want to pause you there because again, we had to shift to someone we view as a certain level of bad, right? We couldn't say Nazi because when we talk about Nazi, we get stopped, right, at Nazi. So we have to go to someone we view is a certain level of bed because that broadens out to a scope into which we all agree physical violence. And again, like I'm not saying physical violence is right. I'm trying to find an intellectual intellectual pathway to say physical violence is wrong. But when we broaden out that scope, it becomes obvious, right? Because there are people who think Anita Sarkeesian is a certain level of bad. There are people who think I'm a certain level of bed, right. That's why I don't want to allow that shifting of language. If we say, you know, can't we have a moral rule that it's not okay to punch a Nazi?

0:24:35 Eli: I, and again, I'm not talking about a law. I'm talking about about a moral rule, right? The things that we justify for ourselves that we want society to be better at. And that's why we're drawing a distinction, by the way, between the law and morality for people who are wondering why we are being pedantic. It's like, you know, if someone kills your kid, you want to hack them to death with a meat cleaver, but the law is better than you, right, and that's we don't let the law, it's not like, yeah, no, go for it, dude. Here, here, use mine, right? So the law is better than the individual mandate. So my question here becomes, right, when we really hold ourselves to the argument of we can't have a moral mandate for punching a Nazi because that's the intellectual thing that I can't get over and that I'm hoping to to be convinced of,

0:25:21 Thomas: Okay. So let's, strongly rejecting any move to turn what's happening into a generality and you're, you're insisting that we look solely at just punching a Nazi. Like literally that's the only thing.

0:25:35 Eli: And, and I'll say why.

0:25:37 Thomas: And that's okay. No, I think you've made it clear why I think, I Think it's. And so what I'm going to do is for the sake of getting to the rest of it, I'll say, okay, let's, let't only talk about the philosophical rule. Is it okay to literally punch what we're defining as by the way, cause it's not an actual Nazi. Like he's not in Hitler's Germany in 1940s, like a neo-Nazi, somebody with Nazi views, I guess.

0:25:40 Eli: Okay. Right.

0:26:04 Thomas: Because you have to draw a distinction between someone who has committed actual violence and someone who is only said words. So let's just talk about that, just that. So we'll just go with Richard Spencer. So I would argue that legally, this is one of the things that as even Even though our free speech laws are very, broad. Yeah, in this country, we have a wide latitude for speech. But however, it's not infinitely wide. And I would say that if there's anything that this person has said that actually is inciting violence against others, he is punishable by law. And therefore, I would Say that would be the correct remedy. Just as I would say, it a good idea to punch a thief? I would Say, while you maybe couldn't be blamed for punching a thief.

0:26:54 Thomas: Now again, and I want to draw a distinction, again, between catching someone in the act of a crime and cold, clocking someone who's not looking, like in the case of this Richard Spencer. He was giving an interview. He was looking the other way. Someone punches him in the side of the head. So, is is it okay to do that to to a thief who's already... been I don't know, he's just kind of standing around, already been caught, and punching, I would say no. And the reason is because if Richard Spencer is saying anything that is truly inciting violence, we have a legal remedy against him, he can actually be arrested for that. If he's not doing that, he merely has odious views, and the best way to deal with it is to try to dismantle those views. And I just don't think... I really I want to go back to the second part of what I said earlier, because I'll grant you the first part, and just, we'll go ahead and talk just about this Nazi.

0:27:42 Thomas: And I'll say that the consequences of this rule is that, again, to go back to what I said, can we... how many times can we punch him? Can everybody punch him? Is a morally OK if a lot of people punch him? How hard can a lot of people punch him? Is it OK to kill him with a punch? Like, is it OK? OK, I mean, these are things that we just should not be thinking about, and we shouldn't have to think about, and we shouldn't rely on citizens to think about. We should rely on our legal system to punish him if he indeed is inciting people to violence.

0:28:11 Eli: We're talking about two things. I want to be very clear, again, we are not talking about legal consequences, we are talking about social consequences, right? Punching is never a legal consequence, right. There is no law. There are laws that allow social consequences. Right, but there is no law that's like, "All right, man, Thomas stole all your scooter, go... no, it says it's section three, you got Andrew there, and he's like demonstrating how hard you got a punch." Like, there isn't, there are no legal consequences. So what we're talking about here is whether or not this is a socially accepted social consequence. And your second part, you make what has been the most valid point, and what gives me the most pause, and why I wanted to come into this conversation saying, "Hey, I think I'm wrong, help me think my way out of this," right, as opposed to, like, "I'm here to debate pro-punching," right?

0:29:01 Thomas: Yeah.

0:29:01 Eli: Which is necessarily, where do we draw the line on physical violence, because that does become a little bit of a slippery slope, right? If it's okay to punch, is it okay to stab someone? And it's like, you know, someone you punch, you don't necessarily stab in a social consequence situation, right. And we see social consequence situations, and we all have basic moral intuitions that tell us what is okay, right? Sometimes we yell at people, and there are things that are worthy of yelling, right? And there are things that are worthy of punching, and there are things that are worthy of killing in a social situation. And the question of where we draw the line there isn't the question I asked. The question I ask is not, what can we do to a Nazi? It's, "Is it okay to punch a Nazi?" So that's, that's what I'm having trouble getting my head around because well

0:29:51 Thomas: OK, let me let me phrase it a different way then, if the entirety of your position and anyone who is listening, if If the entirety of their position is, I watched that video and I thought, eh, good, that's a bit of a different thing than defending the practice in general. But we need to argue about the practice. I'll tell you why. Because we aren't in a position in everyday life where we are considering, like maybe you or I would say we see this guy, just giving an interview. You. We are not in a position to know, okay, here's what's going to happen. I'm going to go hit him in the side of the head. It will hurt him a little bit, but it will not end up being too dramatic. He'll kind of walk away. It'll be fine. And we're not in the position to know every consequence of our actions.

0:30:38 Thomas: So we have to talk about things from sort of an unknown rule where, okay. If the rule is we're morally okay with doing this, I'm trying to show that that there are potential consequences worse than what might have happened in this video. Because if all you're trying to say is, I'm kind of okay with this video, then honestly, I'm not going to argue that much with you. Because yeah, I mean, he was caused a little bit of pain. It wasn't too severe. He said, I am fine. You know, honestly, whatever. But that's not the position we're in in life. We're not in a position in life where we get a video of the the future and we know what everything is. So I think that's a very important thing to think about. And so when we're looking at the potential consequences of this, I truly think that'S the biggest problem.

0:31:25 Thomas: You don't know how hard that guy was going to hit that guy. Like, let's get into his head right before that. Let's actually, let's say this. Maybe that's a good way to talk about it. You're a little Eli on this guy's shoulder, the guy who punched him, and I'm a little Thomas on this guys shoulder and we're on either side. And he's a, he's thinking, thinking, should I go do this? Could jump in, let me know if I have you right. You are saying yes, and I'm saying no. Is that right? I mean, can we put it that way?

0:31:53 Eli: My intuitive answer, and this is again why I came to this, being like, I think I'm wrong, help me think through why I'm wrong, my intuitive answer is yeah, yeah, I'm saying yes, but then the intellectual part of me is like, that's a really good point, we don't know what would happen. But then there's another side to me, and and I'm sure plenty of people are screaming minute their phones right now because of how dense I am, that thinks, but there are a lot of actions that we don't know the consequences of, right? Maybe he goes up and shoves the guy, right, a gentle shove in the back, but someone is walking through with their ancient sharp objects collection, and Richard Spencer falls face first onto it and dies. Right There's so many things that that get involved in if we're talking about the idea of not knowing the consequences, that that it's very easy

0:32:07 Thomas: Yeah. Yes, but okay,

0:32:41 Eli: For for me to go, so

0:32:41 Thomas: You make a semi-good point, but I would have to point out that if we had Andrew Torrez here, and one of the reasons I think opening arguments has made us all smarter, is he would say yes, but there's a reasonable expectation of consequences. Consequences when you, when we're talking, Oh, uh, what if I happened to bend over and tie my shoe? And then a gust of wind knocks the guy over me. And then he falls down onto a thing like that's a, that's not a reasonable thing to have foreseen. A sharpened object collection is not a reasonable things to have overseen.

0:33:08 Eli: Is it a reasonable expectation that when you punch a Nazi, the physical consequences for the Nazi will be in line for what we believe the social physical consequences for a Nazi should be?

0:33:27 Thomas: That's a good way to put it. So I would say no, there is too much risk of, of physically harming another human being is a messy thing going up. So, so So let's talk about, we're both the little angel and the little devil on this guy's shoulder. You're saying it's OK because while you don't know exactly how it's going to happen, you think it's reasonably certain that the consequences for Richard Spencer are going to be in line with what you think socially the consequences for his positions should be. Is that, do I have you correct?

Because that's actually a really good way of putting it. So I would say while I'm a little bit sympathetic to that, and while I would say there's a good chance that that'll be true, I don't believe that that's a chance that we should take as a society. I really don't. For mere words, again, are we, oh, can I get you to agree? I should have said this earlier. Can I getyou to agree that if he were literally inciting violence, that's a different thing because he would be able to be arrested. Contested uh we could hold him accountable

0:34:00 Eli: Yeah, sure.

0:34:29 Eli: I think we should put a pin in that because it's a tricky piece of language literally inciting violence.

0:34:30 Thomas: There okay well it's not in the law I mean it's something in thelaw that that we could have andrew tell us

0:34:42 Eli: Right. That's about the legal consequence. But when it comes to inciting violent, what we mean by inciting violents and like, because Spencer's smart, right? Spencer's not dumb. So Spencer knows the difference between the end of that essay on black genocide, right? Which is so clear, right, on a social level about what he thinks should happen and him legally saying, kill all the black people you can find. Go out into the street and kill them, right? But socially, we understand them to mean very similar things, right, not legally, but socially we understand they to mean to mean legally things. So I do want to put a pin in that because I think you have a really, really good point here, which is about the uncertainty of your action, a reasonable expectation of the harm being done, and whether we trust, and

0:34:43 Thomas: Yeah yeah the reasonable expectations of consequences yeah I don't know how how strong this guy is I don't know how when you run at a guy and hit him too I don't you could kill a guy like that like it's it's you or I could like it's it's not that hard. People are pretty fragile.

0:35:42 Eli: To add to your point here, do we trust everybody to make that decision? Not just you and me, but do we entrust everybody in society to hit a Nazi as hard as they deserve to be hit? Now look, and I also want to give a little, we haven't touched to this yet, and we should probably wait, but I'm going to say that there are a lot of feelings feelings involved in what has happened to this country with this issue and what the rise of someone like Spencer means to be a person in this country, and I, I do think that's worth acknowledging, because even just then, as I said, like, oh, do we want to trust everybody to punch a Nazi, I sort of heard the voice in my back of my head that was like, yeah, white guy who's not affected by this at all, let's, oh no, what if he gets punched too hard, right? And I think there's a lot of people, why, which is why this argument has become so passionate.

0:35:50 Thomas: Exactly. Yeah.

0:36:36 Eli: I think there's a lot of people who are like, oh sure, let's worry about the minutiae of how hard Richard Spencer gets punched while he casually has a deplorable to celebrate Trump's election while he reads Milo's contract which just granted him a $250,000 book deal. How oppressed groups have to be losing before the before it swings the other way, no, no, no, that's not, that's not what I was saying, but before our caution turns the other way, but, but back to the point you were making, again, do we want to trust everybody, right? And it's something that you and I have talked about quite a bit, is like, I don't trust everybody to treat the people I disagree with in my movies or disagree with on my show on Twitter the way I want them to be treated, which is why, like, like, if someone tags Ray Comfort in a thing, even though I really don't like Ray Comfort, I say, like, don't tag Ray. Let's leave the heathens out of this, right? Because I don't know that that person is going to understand, like, rape threats aren't okay, or

0:36:59 Thomas: Before we're okay with potentially killing a human.

0:37:41 Thomas: Yeah,

0:37:41 Eli: Murder threats aren't okay, or just abusing Ray in his house because he's a guy who's wrong about stuff, like is not okay, because of the art I make, right. And by the same token, I think where you make a really valid point, and where I may be wrong, is this idea of how much do we, if we're gonna say it's okay socially to punch a guy, how much do we trust the world, because I don't think any of us like, and let's be real here, if you know anything about violence, a punch can absolutely kill someone, look, there's a cartoonish, and you mentioned this already, the cartoonish notion of the punch, and we're all like cartoon punch for Richard Spencer, but like, if Richard Spencer had been killed, none of us would be having this conversation.

0:37:42 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. Yeah

0:38:27 Eli: Just as we all still wouldn't be, we wouldn't be.

0:38:27 Thomas: And let me illustrate.

0:38:29 Eli: Sad, and

0:38:30 Thomas: I am someone who actually does watch MMA from time to time, mostly because I have a friend from high school who is quite good at it, and I follow his career. But anyway, it's one thing when you're in a padded ring and the surface you're going to be falling on is pretty soft, and you've got a referee looking out for you. You can very easily be knocked unconscious by a punch, even not even that great of a punch. But when you're not looking, you can very easily be knocked unconscious. You can, and what would be a harmless fall onto the ground, were you a conscious human being, turns into you are falling and your body is not able to stop itself. And you can hit your head very easily at a rate that would kill you.

0:39:15 Thomas: It's completely reasonable to expect that there's a solid chance of serious injury in this case. And I just want to emphasize that. Like people, like, like I said, and like you just said, there is a cartoony version of punching someone that's all kind of kittens and rainbows and like, ow, oh man. Like, but it's real life is kind of messy and there's a real chance of that.

0:39:37 Eli: I want to concede that, and I want anyone who might be on quote-unquote my side of this to really have a gut check on that, with the acknowledgement of how angry we are, with the acknowledgment of how poisonous this world has become, and you, if I'm wrong on this, and, and I, I think I am, right, I think I came on because, because I think I am, and I want people to see me be wrong and know that it's okay to be wrong, but, like, we also need to acknowledge that me being wrong means a world where Richard Spencer says this stuff, right, knowing the legal lines that he needs to walk, and the social, the only social consequence he'll ever have is the occasional mean tweet buried in a sea of compliments and the money he gets and the deplorable and being on the news, right? And Milo's $250,000 book contract is still there, even though he did that thing to that trans kid at the university, right?

0:40:32 Eli: The freest of speeches does mean a world that is full of darkness, right, and I think that's what a lot of the, I'm gonna say, pro-punching people are struggling with, is the, like, so, is that the emotion, and this is what I've seen a lot on threads I've discussed this with, but the emotion of, so we let the Nazis win, right.

0:40:44 Thomas: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Let me, let me, lemme respond and sum up. First I want to praise you for putting it, I think in a way, I think us combined actually, because I think you're a very intellectually honest person. And we put the argument in a way that was better than I think I would have put it by myself, which is, can we trust, like you just said, can we trust? Do we trust as a moral rule, every individual in society, to conduct this little thing we're going to be morally okay with properly, in a way that won't kill a human? And I don't trust that. And I do not think, and furthermore, let me make another point, consequentially, because I am a consequentialist, I really am. If consequentially I, it was reasonable to expect that this behavior would prevent more Nazis, or would make it, uh, change this guy's mind.

0:40:50 Eli: Right.

0:41:39 Thomas: Or if he were drastically hurt would change his followers minds. I would be strongly forced to consider like, you know, maybe consequentially it's, it's okay to engage in, in some amount of this behavior. However, it's only going to make it worse. I mean, I really, I really am sympathetic to what you're saying. Like I, I wish that it were true that this punch changed anything. It's only gonna make it worst. So given, so I just wanna hit on maybe, I think it's maybe like three points that are the reason that I am anti this punch. And the first would be, um, sure. So So let's let's OK, we'll isolate that then there.

0:42:11 Eli: Well, I want to talk about whether or not it makes it worse. Right. Let's

0:42:18 Thomas: There's no really no chance in my mind that this makes anything better. There's certainly doubt. I'm not saying I'm 100 percent certain, but I cannot see a path to violence against this person making there be less Nazis. Go ahead and respond to that.

0:42:18 Eli: Talk.

0:42:34 Eli: Yeah. Well no, I, it's not that I actually have a response to it. I just want to give this argument its druthers because I, I reached out, um, and sort of made a, like, cause again, the way that I try to work through arguments is, is one of the things I'll do is I'll say, is this your argument? Uh, and I asked earlier today if people meant that like, uh, the Way is not violence because Because dialogue works. And Noah, who has been very patient, Noah disagrees with me on this, as I said earlier, and has been very patient throughout this process, both in private and in public, in not being like, hey, sorry, one of the people who hosts my show seems to be approving of punching publicly. But he said this, and I think this is a really good quote, he said, he says, basically, this was a second person, so I'm going to change it to first person, but he basically said, I believe violence doesn't solve problems.

0:43:22 Eli: One has the whole of human history backing that up. And by punching this dude or publicly endorsing it, you've made this guy more credible to his allies. You've made him better known to everybody else and you've sacrificed the moral ground. And that I think is a really interesting point, except you just made what I worry about being the counterpoint to that. Right. So again, just to give Noah, yeah, just give Noah his due there. I think that was really well. He also said the exact same thing you did earlier, which is, did the racism get punched out of him? Which, of course it did. Like, he didn't, he didn't like, oh my gosh, Jews are people. Jews are people. I'm so sorry. Right, exactly. Exactly.

But I want to refer to something that actually Tom of Cognitive Dissonance brought up in this conversation, which is unless this punch made him change his mind or discouraged him from this behavior, right? Right. And so as evidence of that, and again, I'm just throwing this out there and I want to hear the counter argument is this New York times article. So there's now a New York Times article, which makes this whole experience worth it. New York time says attack on alt-right leader has internet asking, is it okay to punch a Nazi?

0:43:33 Thomas: Yeah, I did. OK.

0:44:33 Eli: So if you ever think this is a stupid episode, remember we're doing the same shit as the New York types. And at the very end, um, this is the quote that they have from Spencer. They say, Mr. Spencer said he is worried about being attacked again. I don't think I could go out to an inauguration event without bodyguards or a protest or a conference, he said. I am more worried about going out to dinner on an average Tuesday because these kind of people are roaming around. On Periscope, Mr. Spencer also expressed concern about the spread of this footage of the attack online. I'm afraid this is going to become the meme to end all memes, he said, that I'm going to hate watching this. Now, what I want to propose is we all know what it's like to be afraid.

0:45:19 Eli: And I forget who did it. So forgive me for not giving a direct shout out. But one of the women, I posted this quote in the conversation I was having. And one of my Facebook said, yeah, I can't imagine what it is like to walk around being afraid of being attacked, that must be so terrible, Richard Spencer. Right. But what does it mean when Richard Spencer is afraid to go to an inauguration or a protest or a conference?

What does it mean when Richard Spencer getting punched becomes a meme that he hates seeing? Now, the answer to that is, I don't know, right? I don't know. But I do know what it means, uh, for a trans person to be afraid to walk out in the street at night, right? I know what it's like to be afraid to be, I don't know what it is like to walk certain streets or behave certain ways. It limits behavior. If, and we all agree it limits, if the behavior being limited is evil, is it still wrong, right? Because we all, I mean, obviously, oh my God, it's horrible. We don't ever want any trans person or person of color or oppressed group to feel afraid to say who they are and be who they are. But what if you're a Nazi? Do we want Nazis to be afraid to stay who they want to be? Do we feel they are? And be who they are socially? Again, not legally, socially.

0:46:44 Thomas: So you've, uh, so the question you're asking assumes the question I asked. So I asked whether or not this will have any effect on someone's beliefs or make there be less Nazis or, or somehow reduce, I guess. So are you assuming, because it sounds to me like you've already assumed yes. And then you're saying, I don't know, I'm not sure. You're asking because it's an evil thing that he thinks is the violence that made him think it less or made him less comfortable with it. Is that okay? Do I have you correct?

0:47:13 Eli: I guess here's where I would say, and again, I'm totally willing to be wrong on this. Here's where I would say, I think the evidence for, like, yes, this will create less Nazis, right? And again, I, I think this argument has already been lost at, do we trust people to do the punching? But but I want to address these points because people might have them, um, is that there are things that one does in society, right, that used to be common that are now socially discouraged even though they're not legally discouraged, such as using the N-word. Right, all of the people who used to publicly and frequently call African-Americans the N-word, or most of them, right, they are now relegated to a non-mainstream part of society because socially we've all sort of said, yeah, I mean, if you just go around calling people the N-word, you're gonna get punched, right?

And, and the amount, and we did did not get more people who call black people the N-word because of the social consequences that came from that, or the people that call Jews kikes, right? We have various people throughout history who have behaved badly and then

0:47:29 Thomas: Yeah, sure.

0:48:17 Eli: Received social, not legal, consequences for that behavior, and that behavior has died out because of it. That that would be my evidence.

0:48:26 Thomas: Going to be a little difficult to evaluate on the fly. I mean, I could argue that it's not the violence that did that. It could very easily be the social pressure, to which I would say, absolutely, we should have an enormous amount of social pressure against Nazis and an enormous among of taboo at bringing up those subjects or expressing those those opinions. So I think I would have to be a little agnostic on that. I hope you don't see that as kind of weaseling out of the question, but I don't know that either of us could prove one way or the other that it was the threat of violence that did or didn't change that. Does that make sense?

0:49:06 Eli: I, I just know that, like, the media I consume, and honestly, like this, what I'm thinking of is like the Die Hard movie, where they make Bruce Willis wear the sign in Harlem that has the N-word on it, right? Like, that's a social, like that was what occurred to me. That's how dumb I am, by the way. I was like, I was like, I'll use Die Hard as an example.

0:49:23 Thomas: Is that Die Hard 3? I don't

0:49:26 Eli: I think it's Die Hard 3, the greatest of Die Hards.

0:49:26 Thomas: T even remember. Yeah. Oh, okay.

0:49:29 Eli: The most

0:49:30 Thomas: Okay. New new argument. Forget all this.

0:49:32 Eli: Controversial thing I'll ever say on this show. No, but, like, I'm talking about that social construct and you're absolutely right and I do want to concede that point that there is absolutely no way we can separate the social pressures of that and the immediate physical violence parts of that. But I did want to offer that because it's something that I think would come up for people and I think actually your point transitions really well into what we agree on but something that we haven't really talked about yet. And it goes all the way back to the very beginning, which is, yes, there should be a tremendous amount of social pressure against being a Nazi, right?

0:49:32 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, yeah,

0:50:09 Eli: And my question is, is there, right, because what we're seeing right now, especially in the secular community, is a lot of people talking about punching a Nazi during the Women's March. And I think a lot of those people are doing it because they don't want to talk about what very well appears to be the largest demonstration in U.S. history across hundreds of cities against what they say. I will say this. There are people out there who make their living promoting bigotry, right? And promoting rape apology and promoting misogyny.

And if I were them and I saw the Nazi punching thing catching on, I would want to talk about that way, way more than I would wanna talk about 2.9 million human beings taking to the street to protest Trump, especially if I had spent the last four years or eight years trying to make or at least making parts of being a Nazi socially acceptable. Right. Because, like, let's let's not beat around the bush too much here. The idea of, like, cultural Marxism. Right. It's a fancy word, but it means that, like, it's a bad idea to think that all cultures are equal. And look, someone in the comments right now is using the, like, Eli thinks that Al-Qaeda is an equal culture to, uh, to Sweden. Wrong again, Bosnick. I love when you call me Bosnick, thank you for

0:51:42 Thomas: Yeah.

0:51:42 Eli: That, thank you. You um, but, but no, but we also, we also are aware that, like, people who rail against cultural Marxism, they dovetail in incredibly well with the racial theory of rituals, Richard Spencer, because when they're talking about cultural Marxism, they're not talking about Al-Qaeda and the U.S. They're talking about black people and white people or they're talking about trans people and straight people, right, and we know that, right, and that's that's the trick, right, is when you challenge them on it and go, well, what do you mean cultural Marxism? Which two cultures are unequal in your mind? They go Al-Qaeda and Nazis and matchbook men, right? So I think something that we agree on and sort of dovetails really nicely into what you just said about, like, the social consequences is what we see now, especially in the secular community, is or that right now, we have for the last few years had it very good.

0:52:38 Eli: And with that has come, and this is something I've said before, I don't think it'll surprise anybody. With that has become a certain apologetic for bad behavior, which has facilitated the rise of someone like Richard Spencer, has facilitated the rise of someone like Milo because it has become more important to us that the social consequences of free speech not exist than it is that the people doing the free speaking don't hurt people with their speech.

0:53:09 Thomas: So we are transitioning to that focus problem that I I talked about, I think, and this is something we agree on, it's something that I, again, I'll admit, I wanted to put one tweet out there to make sure that I was firm on the ethics of punching people, you know, or sorry, punching Nazis, to to not equivocate, like, like, uh, you stopped me from doing earlier, but

0:53:29 Eli: If your brand is anti-social justice, what I would have focused on yesterday would have been the punching of the Nazi. Right? Right. I would have, it would have been trying as much as possible to make the left look bad and take anyone who disagreed with me and didn't approach this with an open mind. And again, like I've made three pro-Nazi-punching statuses now, but I came on here because I think I'm wrong. Right. I didn't have an aha moment. Right. There was no moment where I went, oh, my gosh, Thomas, I'm long and you're right, which is part of the problem with live conversations. Right. I'm going to sleep on it, and four days from now, I'll make a less pro-punchy status. And ten days from now, that's why my Facebook is public. People can go back and watch me make anti-social justice Facebook posts.

0:54:15 Eli: But I came on this with the opinion that, hey, I think I'm wrong about this. Let's talk through why this is wrong. And if the people you're listening to and the people your supporting are focused right now on trying to make the left look bad, I think we all owe it to ourselves to ask why.

0:54:33 Thomas: Yeah, very, very well put. But would you mind now, because I asked some people for questions, I've got three or four great ones here. Would you mind if we take a little quick stab at answering some of them? So, yeah, Ashley Greg asks us, this one's probably a little more toward your side, but I think we should have ones from either side. Knowing that violence can cement ideals and push others into radical ways of thinking, do you think punching is the best recourse given that it could lead to radicalization of others? What do you think about that?

0:54:46 Eli: Questions. Yes. Listener question. Ooh, I'm Andrew.

0:55:06 Eli: Yeah. I mean, I, it sort of brings me back to my earlier point, which is that violence absolutely concretizes certain ideas and it may also kill others. Um, you know how much a part of social pressure, which we all agree is a huge part of letting go of bad ideas is violence and what percentage of it. And the answer is, I don't know. I think it's a really good point and a really good question and something that the pro-punching, again, I'm not pro- punching, but the pro-punching, someone's going to be like, Bosnick pro-punching. I get it. The pro-punching side really needs to grapple with is, do we want, and again, this is not fair, but I'm going to do it to myself. If we were in the minority, right?

0:55:51 Eli: And again, we have to shift the goalposts to say this, but if we were, if we had a bad ideas. If we were Nazis, would we be punched out of our ideas? I've never been punched out. I can't say that I got punched out on an idea.

0:56:03 Thomas: Well, and something I was going to say earlier that touches on that is, do you think that the constant threat of violence that people like Sam Harris, Ayaan Hirsi Ali are under. Do you think think that threat of violence has stopped their ideas? Do you think, and I'm not making the value judgment, just looking at the threat of silence question neutrally.

0:56:22 Eli: No. And in fact, no. And, and in fact I think it is driven Sam. And I say this constantly publicly. I think it's driven Sam to the right, right? There's no question that like the people who gave, who sent death threats to his daughter or arranged for sending death threats to his daughter by calling him an Islamophobe and a person who wants us to nuke the Middle East drove him farther to the right, right? There's

0:56:50 Thomas: Well, then that would be an argument against your point, right? Because so, yeah.

0:56:51 Eli: No, I, oh no, I agree. Yeah, absolutely. It is, it is an argument against our point. People do not, you know, the threat of violence, but again, counter the, that is that N word thing or the kike thing, right. So I live in it. I don't know. And again, I've lived in a society my entire life if we're saying that word isn't okay right at least in front of people. I'm from upstate New York so you could kind of say it with your friends, but like, you know, that was what, how I really learned that is, is not through, I wish I could say, "Oh, I was so empathetic and I was just a great person and I knew it would hurt other people," but there was also a big part of my growing up that was like, dude, you say the wrong thing in front o someone right, you will get punched and that will change and that's, that's a social standard, so I know that's a little bit of a duck and dodge from that question and I hope that person forgives me, well

0:57:33 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, no, it's fair. Let me go next to Sean. I don't know how to pronounce his last name. H-A, it is like laugh, but H, but then an E-Y. So Hoffie or is it Hai? I don't know. Anyway, thank you, Sean, for the question. And this would be more toward my side of it, but we can both comment. A question that's been on my mind. We're always told that violence is never the answer. I agree most of the time. I'm really a pacifist in many things, but at a certain point, is there an occasion where words fail and more drastic measures are required? Our country was founded after all, only after protests gave way to riots, gave way to revolution. So I would say that if you're going to draw the analogy to the the founding of our country, very different thing because we were under the power of a foreign leader who was, you know, imposing things on us. And were we to try to rebel, there would be very strict violent consequences, a little bit of a different thing.

0:58:33 Thomas: I would say that if we were under a alt-right Nazi regime who was enacting measures that were like that, like that were we're actually enacting these ideals, like starting a genocide or a cleansing of some kind, then I would absolutely say some sort of rebellion would be necessary. I mean, we could never let things get to that point. So that would be a different story. Go ahead.

0:58:53 Eli: Let let me put let then Then let me poke at you with what was brought up on my wall, because someone made a very similar point. They said, "Obviously, you know, if the Nazis were in charge, then I would absolutely say a violent rebellion would be needed." So, and the question the person brought up, and it's a funny line, it's not a real argument, but was, "So we need to wait until the Nazis are cops?" Right, because the question is, is like, you know, what level of power does Richard Spencer need to possess before we say, "Okay, you are too dangerous"? I mean, let's not get this wrong, a white supremacist, Steve Bannon, wrote the inauguration speech. The Trump administration has admitted it. Steve Bannon wrote the inauguration speech. What levelof power do we need before violent resistance which

0:59:36 Thomas: Yeah. Because we live in a democracy, I believe that... Well, yeah, that's hard to say. I I mean, it did and it didn't. We live in a democracy that has a stupid electoral college, but for that, it might have worked. But in terms of Congress, I mean you can't argue that anyone, we got what we deserved. You know, liberal voters got the Congress we deserve because we didn't vote. There's no, okay.

0:59:41 Eli: Didn't work? Let me, let Let me poke, let me poke at that slightly because, and someone's going to scream Godwin's law on their phone any second. Germany was a democracy. Hitler was elected. And I, I, I don't think that Germany, especially German Jews got what they deserved.

1:00:22 Thomas: Well, it wouldn't have the, it didn't have the same systems and balances of power that we have. And I would also say that one of the reasons it was so bad was because of the multi-party, of having multiple parties where a 30 percent minority could, with enough division, gain that much power.

1:00:38 Eli: Absolutely. I'm not, I'm Not, I'M

1:00:40 Thomas: So I would say we would. OK, so we would be in a different situation. And well, maybe I'll end up being wrong. I certainly hope we're in a difference situation. I think we are. If the alt-right were were motivating and in control enough of Congress where those two branches of government, the executive and the were able to enact violent policies, actual violent policies against people. I truly hope we will not get that far. It's not impossible. I would have laughed at you a few years ago. Now, it's a little scarier. It is too scary to laugh at. However, if that happened, it would be a different situation. It really would.

1:00:40 Eli: NOT MAKING, SAYING THEY'RE EXACTLY, WELL, LET

1:01:22 Thomas: I think that would be room for for violence.

1:01:25 Eli: ME PUT A LITTLE PRESSURE ON YOU THERE, RIGHT? Because we can all imagine a policy that we would rise up as one being like, kill the Jew day. Kill the Jew Day, we all pretty much understand It, and we all agree. But we're currently in a government that is dissolving the NEA, dissolving THEA, and kicking millions of people off their health care, which will effectively kill them. They won't pull a trigger, they won't put them in a gas chamber, but will kill those human beings.

There are people who will die because of the government choices being, I mean, and I'm not talking about, please don't Obama drone strike comparison, because we know that there's a huge difference between that, and at least I hope we do.

I'm not talking to you, obviously I'm talking to people listening, but you know, the truth is like, okay, the alt-right, which is now in charge, right, Steve Bannon's the alt-right, the alt-right which is now in charge, is gonna take away some health care and kill some people, and the the Christian right, right, is going to, if they get their druthers, uh, enact laws which makes it impossible for our wonderful, amazing friend Callie to be the woman that she wants to be and be safe, safe in the places that she wants to be safe.

1:01:27 Thomas: Okay, sure. Yeah,

1:02:36 Eli: Like, I, I guess my question is like, does it need to be not to go Godwin's law again, but like, does it need to be gas chambers before violent resistance is an option?

1:02:45 Thomas: I think so, especially given that Obamacare the, did not exist prior to what, 2010 or whatever it was. So it's, it's a little bit rough to say that therefore getting rid of something that's been around for six years is like a genocide. I mean, it is like going to kill millions of people.

1:03:02 Eli: But it is going to Kill. It is going to kill not millions, but it's going to this action. I mean, I've, and I've heard it. I'm sure you've heard it as well from listeners who are just like, and we've all seen the sympathy pieces from Trump voters who were like, if I don't have my ACA, I'm going to die. Or people who didn't know that ACA I

1:03:18 Thomas: No. So, so the, The answer is no, we can't resort to violence over the defunding of a government program like that. I just don't.

1:03:25 Eli: I Totally, I, I agree with you as well, I just think it's, it's an awful murky water, right, because I do think, right, let's say a thousand people die because Obamacare gets taken away, right, we all agree no that's not worth violent resistance, that's why We march, that's why we work at a local level, but

1:03:38 Thomas: Well, the proper thing to do would be to advocate change in government all the while, maybe through charity, trying to keep these people from dying. I mean, that's more effective than violence against people.

1:03:42 Eli: Yes and and that is yes yes Absolutely, and I'm not, I'm not making that as an argument, I hope everyone understands, I'm not saying like, oh, the proper response to ACA being removed is to kill your local senator, right, I don't want to give poor Andrew a heart attack, right, what I'm talking about though is when we talk about the things governments need to do, right, in scare quotes, in order to get us to to immediately say, oh yeah, violence would be acceptable, right, so if a thousand people are going to die because their ACA is taken away as a political move so that red team can win points, um, and on the other hand, if you had a government that just said, today's kill a thousand people day, right We would absolutely say that is worth violent revolt, so It's, it's just interesting to me how blurred those lines become and how accepting we can and need to be, again, I'm not saying not saying that Thomas is wrong here, please don't, yeah sorry

1:04:31 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, different thing. Yeah, no, it's interesting. It's an interesting thing to think about. I don't think we have time to explore that more, but I'm glad you at least talked about it. But yeah, but to get to the point where words are failing, therefore more drastic measures are required. We've already talked about this a bit, but for me, I just don't think that the violence is an effective action. So again, it would be a different thing if we had proof of that. But I think at best we could be agnostic about it, and given what we just said about Ion Hercia Lee and Sam Harris, there could be evidence to the contrary. So that would be my response to that part. Kelton Lewis asked, does this incident ultimately just give the alt-right ammo to attack and demonize the other side? Sort of a similar question. I I think we've kind of covered that, but I wanted to thank you for the good question and say, for my part, I think there's at least a danger of that.

1:04:53 Eli: Yeah

1:05:38 Thomas: I'm willing to say it's 50-50, but that's at best. Like, I, what do you think, I mean, I think we've covered it a little bit, but if you want to make a brief, uh, statement on that.

1:05:48 Eli: I mean, you know, again, I, I think we have answered it, I mean, were they not going to attack and demonize us anyways, uh, you know, I, again, I want to give credit to Noah here, who, who said, like, this gives the other, we, we lose the moral high ground, now the darker side, this is, I guess, what I'll say, yes, it absolutely loses us the moral high ground, and that matters, and it is something that quote unquote my side of this conversation needs to grapple with, the darker side of me says, but nothing matters, the alt-right is in charge, they wrote the inaugural speech, Milo has $250,000 worth of book contract right now and mocks kids, at trans kids, at his talks, right, if nothing works, right, and we can, we all agree nothing works, and punching feels better, like, like, honestly, that's my answer.

1:06:20 Thomas: Here's What, here's Where it would have worked if the a hundred thousand more people in swing states had voted for Hillary, that's all it took, that's all, it's nothing, anyway, but yeah. I agree I agree, it

1:06:47 Eli: Is like What Thomas Is saying is he wants you to punch a Pennsylvanian, not my words. That's Thomas, what, crazy Don't

1:06:51 Thomas: Might Be more effective, tell You what, it might, might be more effective to have punched A, yeah, yeah. Andrew, yeah let me know if this is okay. Might have been more effective, to punch a liberal non-voter, who is right now, probably thinking like, God I can't believe how bad Trump is. But they didn't vote. I mean there's gotta be at least 100,000 of those people, if not millions.

1:06:56 Eli: Do this to Andrew, don't Take punching advice from a podcast.

1:07:14 Thomas: There's gotta be millions of those people in swing states that maybe a good punching would have done. But anyway, yeah

1:07:19 Eli: But Kelton You're right, that's Kelton, you really do ask an incredible question, which is it does lose us the moral mandate, that is why I think I am wrong, I can't Think my way out of it, again, it's probably because I'm too stupid, I can't think my way through it and to the other side, but you're right, um, in that it does give them ammo, it does lose us the moral high ground, and it does, slippery slope aside, set a precedent for punching people for thinking things, this

1:07:27 Thomas: Yeah.

1:07:44 Thomas: Well I, I think that you, your best, uh, arguments were when you talked about merely isolating it to Nazis and not, and and, rejecting the move to generalize further than that. I think that's, there may be a better argument that, that counters your resistance to moving to generalities there, but I don't, I can't think of it on the fly. So I was willing to just concede that. So, yeah.

1:08:07 Eli: This is what I would counter my own argument with, right, in the resistance to move to generalities is the fact that in an intellectual argument you don't want to move to generalities, doesn't mean that people won't, and at a certain point you need to accept the reality of the fact that if you, if we make socially, uh, if we make punching a Nazi okay, that will leak into other parts of sociability.

1:08:31 Thomas: Well, maybe I should just have you argue against yourself. That would be a a good way. I'll just, next time it'll be Eli Versus Eli. Yeah. Yeah, okay, well, let me, there's a final question that I want to at least call out again to thank everyone for their questions. This was a much tighter time frame, so I couldn't go through all of them, but to encourage that in the future, thank you so much for the participation.

Eli, if it's okay with you, I'm going to read this, and then it sort of goes into what I'm going to make as a tiny bit of a closing statement, and then I'll give you the final, final word on that. So, Charlie Miller asks, at what point are you certain enough of your position that violence against someone who is not an immediate and direct threat to you becomes that goes to what I'm going to try to sum up my thoughts.

And again, I'll give you the final final word on that, but I would say overall, if your position was, I saw the video and I was kind of okay with with it, I would say, yeah, that's a different thing.

1:08:35 Eli: It Just People Are Like Bosnian Schizophrenic

1:09:24 Thomas: That's okay. In my book, it's okay when you know all of the extent of the consequences. When you've seen it right there in video form, you've seeing that the guy is okay still. That is a different story than when Eli and I are on the guy's shoulders before he's going to do it, when the consequences aren't known. And that's the position we're in as a society when we're making these rules. And I think, Eli, you at at least agreed with that much. And I would say that there's several reasons why I think it's not okay to say, yes, it's morally okay, even if it's still illegal, to punch Nazis. So there's uncertainty. There's uncertainty of the consequences of the hitting. That's what I've already talked about. How much damage it's going to take.

1:10:09 Thomas: There is the uncertainty of what if two people just decide they're going to do this in the same day. One is kind of fine and then the second punch really does a guy. And there's all kinds of uncertainty there and inconsistency and danger there. There's also the idea that if we make this societally and again, socially, morally kind of okay, even if you want to say, yes, only Nazis, that doesn't deal with the issue that I didn't really bring up, which is what if in a future situation you're wrong about it? I mean, what if you're right? What if you were wrong about, let's say that quote by this guy, I'm already forgetting his name, Richard Spencer. Let's say we're dealing with not Richard Spencer, we're doing with the next Nazi because we've established that Eli is right and it's okay to punch Nazis. So then we got the next Nazis. Ah, there's a Nazi right there. I found one.

1:10:55 Thomas: There's always the chance you're wrong about something, was misattributed, something was misquoted. Maybe he doesn't actually think as bad of the things that you thought he thought. There are lots of reasons why I think Eli actually put it best. Can't we trust individual members of society to be making these decisions? We need to trust the justice system that if someone is inciting violence, we can punish them for that. We needs to trust our institutions. We cannot trust individuals making these decision. And finally, as a final point, I'll say, furthermore, again, blanket, I'm against violence for mere words. I really am, unless it's literally an incitement to violence, which is a weird corner case situation, but I would say that that violence against someone for mere opinions, no matter how bad they are, no matter the fact that we're talking about a neo-Nazi, it may not give them a chance to change their mind, it may do irreparable harm to their person.

1:11:53 Thomas: Before the chance that they could have been able to just change their minds and carry on with their lives and realize that they were wrong. And I just don't think that's power that we should give everyday citizens over each other. I really don't. So that's my kind of final three little arguments there. Eli, I'll give you the final word. What do you think?

1:12:15 Eli: Yeah, I mean, I think you hit on pretty much every point, I would, I would just shift this ever so slightly in talking to again the pro punching side and say, you know, yes, we can't be sure, yes, we don't want to assess it, right, yes, it is a slippery slope, yes, we do have to be aware of how certain are we and how certain will the next person be, all the things that Thomas just said, and in that accept that we are in a world that will allow evil to flourish, right, we cannot, right, because that's the feeling that comes up for me when I hear those words, right, is, is not, oh yeah, Thomas makes good points, it's, don't you see how awful it is, don't you see that Richard Spencer just smiles and sneers and takes the money from a go fund me that a goddamn liberal started.

Him? Don't you see how fucked up the world is? In a world like that, and the desire to fix it right, blocks our conscious minds. Why I came on here? I want you to see me being wrong, and and I don't have a good answer. I don't have a good answer, aside from, you know, my refrain on this show and every show, is what are you gonna do?

And I think we all know, on our side of the punching thing, we all know that punching isn't what we really want to do, right? Punching is not actually the solution. It's not actually the change we want to bring to the world. There are punchers, and we're not those people, but we're in a tremendous amount of pain. We're really hurting. This world is a much darker place, and it feels, at this point in history, like desperate times call for desperate measures.

1:13:54 Eli: And I guess the challenge I would put to myself here, and the challenge I put to everyone who started in my corner, and I hope you're less in my corner now, or maybe you're still in my corner. Everyone who started in my corner is, how can we be change in the world? How can we do that? How can you be positive change in the world and not let the worst parts of ourselves take over? Because I know I certainly do, and I think there's a lot of people out there that just drown in the dark, and you can't let it happen. You can't let it happened, or we end up just punching people for don't liking pregnant pregnant mothers or whatever. It's not a road we want to follow, right? It's the darkest, worst parts of ourselves. And even though it makes the world worse immediately, I think it makes the better long-term.

1:14:39 Eli: And that's a challenge to me, as someone who is wrong, and a challenge to anyone who was on my side, to be better than.

1:14:46 Thomas: Well said. I don't know what to make of the fact that I don't know what side you're on, since you're so willing to argue against yourself, but you're also still kind of on that side. But either way, thanks for coming on and talking about this. I'm blown away by how many people were, I don't know, I guess on either side of this and really care about the conversation that we've had. I hope it's been not a letdown for those people. I hope that we have explored it properly and maybe given some people things to think about or things to change their mind on. So thanks, Eli, so much, as always, for coming along. Truly, thanks. Thanks for doing this.

1:15:21 Eli: Thanks for having me, Thomas.

1:15:46 Thomas: Alright, that does it for today's episode. I want to thank my listeners, thank my patrons, thank Eli Bosnick for coming on. I'm curious to see what people think about this. It generated a ton of comments on Facebook, a couple different statuses, so clearly something people care a lot about. I hope this conversation provided some things to think about about this debate, so... Oh, if you'd like to comment, you can on the site, of course. But also, I could use a couple voicemails. I've got a few, but I could use more for Thursday's show. So if you would like to call, 916-750-4746. I also promise I will take down the background music. Some people thought it was a little distracting. I did so myself, actually, but it sounded a little weird without it. Anyway, I'm going to take that out Thursday, but give it a call, 916-750-4746.

1:16:36 Thomas: If you have a comment, uh, it'll be a good way to get it played on the show. So thanks for that. Thanks for listening. And I'll have to see you guys on Thursday.