Political affiliation is a protected class. I don't really know what the word "Nazi" means these days because people have used it to label everyone from far-right conservatives to Trump voters to people who self-identify as neo-Nazis. Unless a person registered with the NSDAP prior to 1945, technically they are not a Nazi.

> I don't really know what the word "Nazi" means these days because people have used it to label everyone from far-right conservatives to Trump voters to people who self-identify as neo-Nazis.

This coyness about the dilution of meaning is utterly irrelevant here. We're not discussing figurative Nazis or the erosion of the term. We're discussing people literally waving modern variants of historical Nazi flags, historically used Nazi flags, inventing new similar flags, chanting english versions of Nazi slogans, publishing extensive content about racially motivated violence that cites pre-existing Nazi dogma, and cheering acts of spontaneous and fatal violence against those that oppose them.

This is not some case of the excluded middle. The word "Nazi" is used judiciously here and no one seems to be feigning confusion except the people who think it should be okay to endorse acts that even our conservatively run justice department things could be categorized as hate crimes.

And forgive me, but it's difficult to not hear a note of falseness in this kind of protest. Many of these people in these rallies self-identify as Neo-Nazis, and use slogans that have been associated with violent white-supremacist movements for decades. A powerful deductive intellect is not required to make the connection here.

If all that's required to make this right in your book is the prefix "neo-" then please, let me offer you a chrome or firefox plugin to tighten up everyone's language to match one you'll understand.

So I ask: are you actually confused here or is this simply a rhetorical tactic?

Over the years, a common argument I've heard against the tactic of calling all kinds of right-leaning people Nazis and Racists was that one day we might really need to identify Real Nazis as Nazis and then nobody will believe it (the boy who cried wolf).

And here we are.

I understand in these tumultuous times, life comes at you fast. Let me give you a quick guide on how to recognize a real nazi. Is your subject:

- Waving a flag with symbols associated with nazi imagery?

- Deliberately using the "heil"?

- Chanting, "Jews will not replace us!" while making a salute?

- Wearing a conical white hood, open or closed, and white (and possibly scarlet) robes at torchlit rallies?

- Calling themselves neo-nazis?

Who is actually confused? Are you?

That's not the problem. The problem is that for many, the years and years of calling your run-of-the-mill Republicans and whatnot "nazis" has diluted the term, just like GP mentioned.

So, now, when people try to get others to understand that the Nazis we now have are almost exactly the same we had in Germany way back then, people don't really make that connection (even if they say they do) on emotional level. Instead, they associate the self-professed Neo-Nazis with the "nazi Republicans" and the not-really-a-nazi-alt-righters that have been cried at in the 2000's.

Source: many acquaintances who are clearly very, very confused on the matter.

One would think the literal swastikas would clear that up. These people aren't being terribly subliminal anymore.

One would think that, for the people calling Republicans "nazis" in the 2000's, the absence of swastikas and Nazi Hails should have cleared things up. But they did it anyway.

People are not simple creatures, and things like crying the wolf actually do confuse us pretty easily.

So you're actually agreeing that someone waving a swastika and calling for the extermination of jews can be considered a Nazi, yet you choose not to do it, just to spite those lefties that annoyed you in the 2000s?

And, specifically, they annoyed you with their use of slightly-hyperbolic rhetoric, used to underline their contention that the Republican strategy of racial division and incitement of culture wars may create fertile ground for a resurgence of staples of the fascist ideologies? And that, if we continue down this path, America may some day start electing strongmen playing on feelings such as xenophobia?

I am not doing any of that. I'm just pointing out that this is a very real case of "crying the wolf" effect working it's voodoo, and that maybe, in the future, something could be learned from all this.

Personally, I'm not even from the US, and find many of the policies of the Republicans almost absurd. Where I'm from, your run-of-the-mill republican would be considered so deep into the right wing as to be completely niche. Almost alt-right, if you wish.

Look, I see where you're coming from. But is it so hard to see that waving the nazi stamp around willy-nilly really will dilute the meaning and connotations of the term, no matter how much you think it was justified. Nazi's are probably the Satan of modern times, literally the thing people use to mean "the worst there can ever be". However Republican policies seem baffling to me, I see no reasonable way to stamp them with that kind of stamp. They're 50% responsible for running your country, for God's sake :)

I can see how that criticism isn't completely invalid. I just don't see how it connects to this case, considering the website in question chose to name itself after a well-known Nazi propaganda paper (as in the realest, 1930s Nazis in Germany: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Stürmer)

There's also some confusion about terms, obviously. The meaning of Nazi has morphed and includes more than actual, card-carrying party members. The dictionary lists "a person with extreme racist or authoritarian views" as one of the definitions. It is also meant, and generally understood, as an insult, and a reference to a certain mindset (cf "Grammar Nazi"). And while neither Trump nor most other Republicans would be considered Nazis, there are some obvious tendency at play in the party that invite the comparison, such as the attempts to disenfranchise groups of voters, or, more recently, the Presidents' encouragement of police officers to "rough up" arrestees.

Welp, I guess there is no use calling people who self-identify as Nazis or say Nazis were right about race and sexuality by any name at all anymore.

Shut it down, "alt-left." Shut it all down. Someone was not precise and we can't use words anymore.

Sure you can, no one even implied otherwise.

The only thing I said was that the term you are talking about most probably does not inspire the loathing it should (and once did) after all the crying-the-wolf. And considering that, I tried to hint that maybe in the future it might be sensible to take this effect into account before going down the same rabbit hole again.

> And considering that, I tried to hint that maybe in the future it might be usensible to take this effect into account before going down the same rabbit hole again.

To who? Is it implicit that I've misused the term? That I am misusing it here?

Who requires this admonition? If not me, then why are you burying this dire warning arm-deep in a comment thread on HN?

    > - Chanting, "Jews will not replace
    > us!" while making a salute?

Sounds like an idiot anti-semite to me

    > - Wearing a conical white hood, open
    > or closed, and white (and possibly
    > scarlet) robes at torchlit rallies?

Sounds like a Klan member to me

They're all deplorable, and I'm sure there's a great deal of overlap between groups, but why sacrifice accuracy by calling them Nazis?

They're calling themselves Nazis. They wave flags, with Swastikas.

I do understand that GWB wasn't a Nazi. And maybe there was a bit too much wolf-crying. But even if the boy has had this annoying habit at crying "wolf" every day–does that render you unable to recognise a wolf when he's staring you in the eyes?

Who is "they" in this sentence? The original comment was giving a hypothetical subject.

Someone waving a flag with a Swastika, non-ironically, yes, they're a Nazi. Someone calling themself a Nazi? Yes, they're a Nazi.

Holocaust-denier and notable anti-semite and crazy person David Icke? A delusional idiot, but not a nazi. KKK members who believed National Socialism was still socialism and battled Nazis in WWII? Racist fuckheads, but not Nazis. Francoist Faciscts? Probably not Nazis, although I'd forgive you for making a strong case for it.

We have words and phrases like white supremacist, anti-semite, racists, and Nazi. They all mean things, and there's plenty of overlap. I'm not sure what we gain by mislabelling one group as another, other than opening ourselves up to accusations we're crying wolf.

Wellll... I mean I gave a list of things to watch for in a collective group. If a collective group is doing all these things, on camera, proudly... you're probably safe calling them Neo-Nazis and "Nazi" for short.

While the Klan has a long and inglorious tradition, it merges seamlessly with the pro-Nazi elements of the US in world war 2, for the most part. And Nazis are what folks had in mind when they say, "Anti-semite".

So I'm curios if YOU were ever confused. Or if this is for the rhetorical masses (who by and large don't seem too confused once they see a picture, that I can discern).

    > If a collective group is doing
    > all these things

If a collective group is doing any of the other things you've mentioned, I'd say they're pretty definitely a Nazi.

    > [the Klan] merges seamlessly with
    > the pro-Nazi elements of the US in
    > world war 2

I don't think that's accurate. Overlap, yes. I'm not sure what muddying the water between different hate groups achieves.

    > Nazis are what folks had in mind
    > when they say, "Anti-semite"

I don't think that's even slightly accurate. Anti-semitism is a (terrible) feature of many many ideologies, from ISIS to mediaeval Iberian Catholicism, to people who believe that we're all controlled by shape-shifting masonic lizard aliens.

    > So I'm curios if YOU were ever confused

Yes. Is David Duke a Nazi? Milo Ywhatever-his-name-is? Gamergate people? The_Donald?

> Yes. Is David Duke a Nazi?

Duke acts in accordance with most of their principles, so yes.

> Milo Ywhatever-his-name-is?

He hangs out with some self-proclaimed Nazis, but we've yet to see him walking in a march waving the flag.

> Gamergate people?

I actually think most are sexist. I see plenty of post-gaters resisting Trump and decrying the violence we're discussing.

> The_Donald

The reddit? Or DJT himself? For the reddit, I don't even know what it is. It's like one of those lego advertisement cartoons that doesn't have to make sense so long as we all agree we should buy Legos.

As for DJT himself? I would have said no before last week, but that last press conference really left me wondering.

The problem is that real Nazis will not do anything of the above. What you describe is just the behavior of the plebs and not of the leaders.

I've seen plenty of people, these last few days, using those exact same acts of violence to label every Republican a Nazi. It's been hard to avoid on social media. I've seen an equal number insisting that the definition of Nazi is crystal clear and anyone who suggests otherwise is covering for Nazis.

Thing is, the latter never seem to aim their ire at those who are actually stretching the definition of Nazi to tarnish their political opponents. It's always aimed at those who observe this happening and criticise it.

No, we just have been yelled at for soo many reasons and so long, we concluded that whoever yells at us is always wrong.

> Political affiliation is a protected class

This is not true at the federal level, which is generally what people mean when they refer to "protected classes". However, there are some states that prohibit discrimination based on political affiliation, including California. [1]

1: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...

The folks in question seem to eagerly and happily apply the word "Nazi" to themselves and embrace the so-called ideals of the German Third Reich.

So if you'd like to nitpick over the semantics of "Nazi" versus "adherent of a Nazi-Party-of-Germany-inspired philosophy", be my guest. But I'll be busy opposing them with my every breath, because that's what we do to Nazis.

What do mean by protected class? Cloud flare isn't a restaurant, they can pick clients based on politics.

> Do you think that businesses shouldn't be allowed to discriminate against skateboarders, or people who refuse to wear shirts and shoes?

I don't believe that businesses should be allowed to discriminate against anyone who is behaving in a lawful manner.

Is that belief what you're calling a "weird personal ideology"?

> Do you have an similar argument for why Nazis shouldn't be fired, or why we shouldn't consider whether the people that we do business with employ, or are, Nazis?

If someone's beliefs don't negatively affect their ability to do their job, why should they be fired for their beliefs? Should Democrats be fired? Should atheists? Are "Nazis" the only people capable of bias and discrimination?

Likewise, why should someone's beliefs be a factor in whether I do business with them? If I'm buying something from someone why would anything other than price and quality of the product or service even come up?

> why should someone's beliefs be a factor in whether I do business with them? If I'm buying something from someone why would anything other than price and quality of the product or service even come up?

Okay, let's make an example. Let's make a really blatant one.

Imagine you're Jewish. Furthermore, imagine there are two bakeries in town: Bob's Bakery, and Pastry 88.

All of the people working at both of them are perfectly civil when you go in to buy a donut. But everyone in town knows that Al Hilter, the guy who owns Pastry 88, is a Nazi. And now and then Mr. Hilter takes out ads in the local paper espousing his Jew-killing views.

Bob's Bakery and Pastry 88 are right across the street from each other. You have a hankering for a donut. Where are you gonna go to fulfill this desire?

Let's make it a little more complicated: Pastry 88 makes an amazing lemon-filled donut, and Bob's Bakery Bob's kid has a major lemon allergy. So you can't buy anything with lemons in it at Bob's. And you love lemon donuts. Do you love lemon donuts enough to give money to someone who has said that you should be gassed and have your tanned skin used for lampshades?

Let's make it even more complicated. Bob believes absolutely everything Al does, in fact his views are somehow even worse than Al's, but because he's not allowed to express his opinion nobody knows what he really thinks and he can only plan his genocide in secret.

Is it okay for me to buy donuts from him then?

Also, neither business is carbon neutral, nor do they plan to be. Refusing to buy doughnuts is implicit fat shaming, so you have to buy from somewhere. Due to a local endangered species deciding to build nests on the only road into town, no doughnuts can be shipped in from the outside.

I'm beginning to think that the only reasonable thing to do in the ridiculous hypothetical is to lease another corner on the same intersection and open up "Solomon Cohen's Pro-Semitic, Lemon-Friendly Bagel Shop and Delicatessen".

> I don't believe that businesses should be allowed to discriminate against anyone who is behaving in a lawful manner.

This principle doesn't seem very robust. Can a bar refuse entry to children? Can a cinema kick someone out for talking during a movie? Can a dance club have a dress code?

> Can a bar refuse entry to children?

If it's legal for children to enter a bar, I don't see why a bar should be able to refuse entry to children.

> Can a cinema kick someone out for talking during a movie?

If they're causing a problem for other people in the cinema and refuse to stop, sure. A right to be access a product or service shouldn't override other people's right to get what they paid for.

So for "lawful manner" in my above post: "lawful manner, or manner that doesn't negatively impact other customers".

> Can a dance club have a dress code?

If a club wants to only allow a specific type of member then it should be a private club.

> If a club wants to only allow a specific type of member then it should be a private club.

All clubs are private, they just have varying degrees of specificity in their entrance requirements.

That's really the entire point here. Private entities have the right to choose who they will do business with unless the law prevents them from doing so, as it does in many cases (sex, race, etc).