If you think sucker-punching a white supremacist is a good thing, you might be a liberal fascist

Perhaps you’ve seen the above video of Richard Spencer, the outspoken white supremacist, getting sucker punched in the head by an angry protester during a live interview on Inauguration Day. Or perhaps you saw social media celebrate that a racist, alleged neo-Nazi got his just desserts. But if you got any pleasure out of seeing this vicious attack, you need to do some soul searching.

Now, I am not above enjoying seeing someone who really deserves a sock in the mouth get one. It’s human nature, though a sinful one, to see someone else get a dose of instant justice when they need it, as Alex Griswold noted at Mediaite. But I also agree with his warning that cheering what became virally known as the Nazi Punch is a detriment to society.  And I am glad that even leftists are recognizing the rise of fascism in their ranks.

Here’s what he said:

[A] central tenant of civilization itself is that these evil urges are best suppressed by a set of legal and moral imperatives. For hundreds of years, American society has proudly embraced the conceit that other citizens can say things that shock us, disgust us, infuriate us, even say things that we believe are fundamentally dangerous, but we will not retaliate outside of the law. Crazier yet, those who most strongly believe in democracy have often gone out of their way to defend the rights of those who would dismantle it, having faith in the strength of their fellow citizens’ convictions to prevent the unthinkable. Spencer had every right to spout his beliefs unmolested, no matter how evil or sick.

If we as a society say that Spencer deserved a potentially deadly, or disabling, punch to the head simply because we disagree with his views, what’s next? Where does the line get drawn? When does someone decide that what you are saying deserves your blood splattered on your shirt, or worse, the ground? At one time, this wasn’t something that even needed to be said. But now, our virtual Twitter jabs are becoming physical ones.

Some might say, “Well, it was just one punch, it didn’t kill him, and maybe he learned his lesson.” But again, if we celebrate this act of, luckily, non-lethal violence, what happens when a punch causes brain damage? What if it kills? The fact that he holds terrible views qualifies for him being beaten down?

Griswold noted the hypocrisy of the many liberals who celebrated this so-called Nazi Punch:

The hypocrisy is blinding. Nazis, you see, are fascist, jackbooted thugs who suppress others’ liberties and murder those they find despicable. To stop this threat, we must become fascist, jackbooted thugs who suppress others’ liberties and murder those we find despicable. The cure isn’t worse than the disease, it is the disease.

And then, who gets to decide who is a Nazi and who isn’t? Griswold continues:

Even if you buy the lesser notion that Nazis deserved to be punched in the face, who decides who the Nazis are? Spencer swears up and down that he’s not a Nazi. That’s obviously a questionable claim. But the number of people in American politics who are called Nazis or racists and protest that they aren’t is… well, everyone at this point.

Going by many people’s judgment, Donald Trump is a Nazi. Before he was a Nazi, Obama and Bush were the Nazis, Reagan was a Nazi, William F. Buckley was a crypto-fascist as I recall. Today, dozens of people have called me a Nazi. And if we’re talking about ideologies that led to the murder of millions in general: Obama was also supposedly a communist, as were Bill and Hillary Clinton, as was Bernie Sanders. Going by death toll we ought to punch communists twice as hard as Nazis, right?

Spencer, though despicable as he may be, deserves the same First Amendment rights the rest of us enjoy. He should have every reasonable expectation to stand on a street corner anywhere in America and spout his racist beliefs without fear of bodily injury or death. To celebrate any other outcome is just wrong.