Allow me to share a story that’s been copy and pasted countless times:
The Parable of the Nazi Bar
I was at a shitty crustpunk bar once getting an after-work beer. One of those shitholes where the bartenders clearly hate you. So the bartender and I were ignoring one another when someone sits next to me and he immediately says, “no. get out.”
And the dude next to me says, “hey i’m not doing anything, i’m a paying customer.” and the bartender reaches under the counter for a bat or something and says, “out. now.” and the dude leaves, kind of yelling. And he was dressed in a punk uniform, I noticed
Anyway, I asked what that was about and the bartender was like, “you didn’t see his vest but it was all nazi shit. Iron crosses and stuff. You get to recognize them.”
And i was like, ohok and he continues.
"you have to nip it in the bud immediately. These guys come in and it’s always a nice, polite one. And you serve them because you don’t want to cause a scene. And then they become a regular and after awhile they bring a friend. And that dude is cool too.
And then THEY bring friends and the friends bring friends and they stop being cool and then you realize, oh shit, this is a Nazi bar now. And it’s too late because they’re entrenched and if you try to kick them out, they cause a PROBLEM. So you have to shut them down.
And i was like, ‘oh damn.’ and he said “yeah, you have to ignore their reasonable arguments because their end goal is to be terrible, awful people.”
And then he went back to ignoring me. But I haven’t forgotten that at all.
While that’s an important parable, it’s not really relevant to this article. The parable is about not letting the intolerant (whether neonazis or whoever) into your space because they’ll ruin it, the article is about a (seemingly!) normal pub that has lots of bits and bobs including a Nazi armband. There’s no mention of actual neonazis gathering there, and the only ones who seem to be going in that direction are whichever “libertarian” knobs wrote the original post (who I’ll bet have never set foot there either!)
Seems like a classic internet overreaction from everyone involved to me. There’s a big difference between your collection being that one from Father Ted (alternate link) and just having a piece of history on display which (seemingly!) nobody is trying to glorify. I would naively hope that people old enough to be drinking in a pub are mature enough to understand the difference.
No they’re not. It was on display as a captured war trophy for 80 years. They weren’t displaying Nazi paraphernalia as an indication of sympathies, it was quite the opposite.
the armband – which was stored in a glass cabinet on top of a pillar in a dimly lit part of the pub
Fairplay if a prior bar patron had ripped it off a dead nazi they killed, but up high in a cabinet is not how you display war trophies. Too respectful.
If you'd kept it with a knife jammed through it these past 80 years it wouldn't be a problem now would it?
You have to avoid the potential for the appearance of impropriety when it comes to nazi scum.
Nothing in this article states "display it in a bar".
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Wait until you learn that half of Americans don’t want Universal Healthcare, even if the cost in taxes would be cheaper than paying premiums to private insurance companies.
Honestly, I dont think this is truly stupidity, at least beyond what is typical of everyone else, because intelligence is not the same thing as knowing facts. I dont think being uninformed is really the best word for it either, because if someone tells you something is true that conflicts with what you already think is true, just accepting this isnt really the intelligent thing to do, verifying it would be, and as most people do not have the expertise to verify most things, the best one can usually do is look to those one trusts as a source of information, and if the people that back up this new information are unknown to you but the people you already trust assure you that what you already believe to be true, is true, you dont really have a good reason to abandon that. What I think this is then is that a huge fraction of the population puts their trust in the wrong people, partly due to self perpetuating bad luck (one’s parents and family are likely to be the first people one trusts, and thus whoever they trust is likely to seem trustworthy to you as well, and if you are unlucky with what group you are born into and they trust the wrong sources of information, there’s therefore a decent likelihood that you will as well), and partly due to the fact that those that wish to intentionally deceive for their own ends are likely to know all kinds of psychological tricks to make themselves seem more trustworthy, and probably will be more willing to use them to manipulate public opinion to their own ends than an expert that just wants to share what they know.
or for a TLDR: I dont think counterproductive political opinions like this are a result of mass-stupidity, I think they’re proof that propaganda works, and that under the right set of circumstances, you or I or anyone could be made to fall for them.
Yes, belief is social. What our in-group believes is way more important for what we believe and how we change our minds than one might think.
Like, if someone is a flat-earther, changing their mind with facts and figures isn’t going to be very effective. Their in-group believes otherwise. And when you come at them with contrary facts, the brain treats it similarly to a physical threat to its survival. In ancient, pre-history humans, this might have been an advantage. The guy who didn’t go along with the group got left for dead. Unfortunately, modern life is more complicated.
If we want to make the world better, we should probably focus on breaking up shitty ingroups (eg: fox news, the gop) and fostering groups that are worthwhile (I can’t think of an unassailable group, which may indicate another problem)
An unassailable group seems impossible given that there shitty people out there, who if they join such a group, immediately mean that someone is not necessarily trustworthy because of merely being a part of said group. Even a belief that one’s group is an unassailable paragon seems problematic as if one truly thinks that one’s group is unassailable, then any accusation of wrongdoing by an outsider towards a member will get dismissed, and you could get a situation like some religious groups get with priests or others that they see as inherently good and trustworthy, where when an abusive person inevitably attains that status, allegations against them are dismissed and covered up.
That is by far the most empathetic take on the Catholic Church I’ve ever seen. I grew up catholic, and I’m not there yet, but I find it admirable that you are :)
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