Atheist Life Hacks: How To Become A Nazi Sympathizer
Posted on April 20, 2017 by Godless Mom
I spent yesterday evening listening to Dan Arel on the Lalo Dagach podcast. The topic of discussion was punching nazis, the comically surreal issue that seems to have the skeptic community divided… still. I listened after I noticed Matt Dillahunty had been drawn into the conversation as well as Stephen Knight of the Godless Spellchecker podcast. I was poring over tweet after tweet and finding it difficult to sift through the overt snark and connect the ideas Dan was putting forth, so I thought I’d look for a better source. I needed to hear the guy out, because nothing he was saying on Twitter made any sense at all.
It needs to be said that Dan Arel is a man who I’ve admired for a long time, whose books are invaluable additions to the godless conversation and who, I am sure, has introduced logical thought into the minds of many. When I launched the campaign to help free Mubarak and my web site crashed with too much traffic, he was first to contact me offering help. He’s passionate, committed and hardworking and I have always been a fan since I first came across him on Twitter.
I guess that’s why this is so disappointing. I’m totally happy to have him hold a differing opinion from me on this topic, this is not the part I find disappointing. The part I find disappointing is that, it would seem, anyone who goes at him hard enough with opposing opinions is being labeled, by Dan, as a nazi sympathizer or “engaging in outright nazi apologism”. Including, now, Matt Dillahunty. Matt Dillahunty and Nazi apologism are two things that I would have never thought I’d see together. Ever.
So, I listened to Lalo’s podcast and I wondered what the fuck I’d gotten myself into about ten minutes in. I had a lot of trouble with pretty much everything Dan said, but the one issue that stood out was when he clarified that the nazis he advocated punching were nazis who clearly called for genocide and had a platform and influence to get their message across to people. We don’t punch nazis with no platform, he assured Lalo. We don’t punch white supremacists who don’t advocate for ethnic cleansing. We only punch nazis like Richard Spencer. We only punch popular nazis.
http://godlessmom.com/atheist-life-hacks-become-nazi-sympathizer/
https://soundcloud.com/lalodagachpodcast/ldp-009-dan-arel
