TO THE EDITOR:
I was recently disappointed by a letter to the editor titled “Inaction never leads to action” by first-year Richard Denton.
He was writing in response to an editorial referencing the incident of Feb. 21, in which a number of “anti-fascist” protesters assembled on the steps of the South Building. Unfortunately, Denton’s letter is fallacious, inaccurate and dangerous.
His position seems to be that protesting fascism is never fascist. That’s because the protest, by its nature, is anti-fascist. This, of course, doesn’t make any sense. Just because you oppose something doesn’t magically prevent you from being defined by the thing you oppose. You’re still a murderer even if you hate murderers so much that you decide to go out and kill one.
Denton proclaims that “the idea that a protest against fascists is a boon to fascism is plainly fallacious and wrongheaded.” This statement is only true if the protestors aren’t fascists themselves.
Left-wing activists like the ones who showed up to the ‘counter protest’ on Feb. 21 wish to silence the speech of their opposition, and are willing to commit acts of violence to achieve that end. This combination has historically characterized fascism.
I am not defending horseshoe theory here. It simply makes no sense to be so afraid of how violent right-wingers are that you go and beat the shit out of them. It’s completely incoherent. I’m just shocked that no one seems to be pointing out unbelievably stupid this whole situation is.
According to Denton, “the activists made their voice heard, and made it heard loudly. As a result, the right-wing group was not given a unchallenged platform from which to spew their doctrine of intolerance and violence.”
The fact that protesting “fascism” with intimidation is totally ironic. It is made doubly so by the fact that there was no fascist rally in the first place.
