All right, you primitive screwheads, listen up.

For months now I've sat back and politely kept quiet as people began to opine about the patriotic duty to pre-emptively punch Nazis in the face. At first I figured, fine, people are just venting their spleen, let's let them get it out. But lately I've seen a disturbing uptick in people who think Nazi-punching is some kind of national sport in the United States.

These people are idiots.

It's sometimes necessary that a Nazi gets punched. If you happen to be Johnny-on-the-Spot in that moment, go with God and the hopes and prayers of your fellow Americans. But punching Nazis without necessity is stupid beyond words. The people most advocating pre-emptive Nazi-punching aren't just misinformed: they're stupid. Here's why.

1. IT FEEDS INTO THEIR NARRATIVE.

Ideologies thrive according to how well they match the observed world. The scientific method is an ideology: it matches the observed world pretty well and has a whole lot of adherents. Religions are ideologies: their adherents believe Creation manifests the truth of their chosen scriptures. Naziism is an ideology. And in the modern American strain of it, the ideology is that "white Christian Americans are suffering an unheralded genocide."

I can hear what you're thinking. "But that's stupid." It's very stupid, yes. Now shut up. Nobody cares what you think, least of all the Nazis. Saying that an ideology is stupid is a stupid way of countering an ideology. Christians don't suddenly decide to walk away from the Cross because someone says, "the idea Christ was literally resurrected is stupid." Nazis don't abandon their belief in white Christian American genocide just because you say it's stupid.

So. White Christian Americans are suffering an unheralded genocide, and your way of convincing them they're wrong (and bystanders that their ideology is stupid) is... to pre-emptively punch them?

Your narrative of "it's your patriotic duty to punch Nazis" is a Nazi recruiting tool.

You are recruiting Nazis.

Stop it.

Stop being stupid.

2. THEY WANT YOU TO PUNCH THEM.

In every state in the Union, if you punch a Nazi they are legally entitled to pound your head into the pavement until you are incapable of continuing to fight. The police will show up and they'll ask what happened, and one of this guy's friends will whip out a cell phone and reveal he videotaped the entire thing and it's already been sent to the Daily Stormer. So, with photographic evidence that you threw the first punch, the cop does the only lawful thing possible under the circumstances: arrests you for assault and refers you to the district attorney for prosecution. The Nazis will scream that it was a hate crime, and they'll hold up your social media posts about how it's a good thing to punch Nazis as evidence that your attack was motivated by hate. And when the district attorney grudgingly admits that your crime was a textbook hate offense, the Nazis will throw a party.

After all. They won. And they won by using the tools of "the libtards" against you. The same laws you so demanded to be passed to protect minorities also protect Nazis, because they're, you guessed it, minorities.

You are a necessary component in their victory.

Stop it.

Stop being stupid.

3. SO WHO'S A NAZI, ANYWAY?

I get called a Nazi about once a month by someone who's too stupid to realize I'm on their side. "You think it's a bad idea to punch Nazis? What are you, a Nazi sympathizer?" Except usually it's not that well-reasoned. I once had someone accuse me of being a misogynistic woman-beater because I was wearing a trilby.

I was wearing a Stetson.

Yes, this guy was so out of his head with frustration and self-righteous fury that he mistook a Stetson for a trilby. (If you don't know your hats, this is like mistaking the Statue of Liberty for the Golden Gate Bridge. They're both architectural landmarks and that's about all that can be said for commonality. Likewise, a Stetson and a trilby are both hats, and that's about as far as it goes.)

In the heat of the moment, when your passions are running high, your abilities to identify are at their weakest. This is why soldiers wear uniforms. It's because in the heat of the moment they only need to ask two questions: "Is this guy armed?" and "Is he dressed like me?" If the answers are 'yes' and 'no', someone's going straight to hell.

If your violence trigger is, "I think this guy's a Nazi," then every heated argument runs the risk of becoming violent. Identification is really hard when you're under stress, and it becomes terrifyingly easy to justify violence against people who are not your enemies.

You are priming yourself to harm innocents.

Stop it.

Stop being stupid.

4. SO WHEN IS IT OKAY TO PUNCH NAZIS?

It's okay to punch Nazis only under the exact same conditions it would be okay to punch a Jew, an African-American, a homosexual, or any of the other minorities the Nazis hate.

If someone walks up to me with a crowbar in his hand and says, "I'm going to kill you," well, I'm not going to ask if they're a Nazi or a Jew. Their creed doesn't matter. What matters is that they have expressed a clear intent to commit imminent violence and the means to commit that violence are at hand. Once that happens, cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.

If someone is initiating violence (except in response to a clear threat of imminent violence, backed up by the means to imminently commit it) against another person, you are legally and morally entitled to use what force is necessary to end the aggressor's ability to bring violence, up until the moment they're either dead or give unconditional surrender.

That's it. That's the only time in which it's acceptable to resort to violence.

No exceptions.

If you believe otherwise, you have become the evil you claim to oppose.

Stop it.