Jihad

Yes. I do believe Nazis have a right to free speech.  I agree hate speech should be constitutionally protected.  But as demonstrated by the Boston Police on the Common in the weeks following Charlottesville, no one has any right to a megaphone.

Natalie Wynn pushes forcefully into the shrapneled edges where paranoia blends with all the ways liberal democratic values can be turned piercingly against themselves by deceitful malefactors and . . . most alarming of all . . . the clueless.

Us.

Yes, we are all a bit racist. We are all a bit fascist. We are all a bit Nazi . . . little Hitlers lurk inside us all. And this brings up the importance what the Muslims call “jihad”.

I’m not familiar with an equivalent term in Christian or Jewish theology - or at least none come to mind. ( . . . ? . . .)

Some Marxists groups talk about “self criticism”, but Wynn is, to my mind, engaging in what even atheists might recognize as a ”spiritual struggle” where there are no sure certainties except this very dangerous and very necessary “warfare”.

What’s portrayed in this video is a chilling struggle which leads one on towards an infinity of snares and pitfalls. And as frightening as is all this grappling with self, identity, agency, and essence, what can be more loathsome and horrifying than an identity based on hatred, superiority, or the crushing of human hope? Because that‘s what racism and fascism and Nazism is about: the crushing of human hope.