Sound Familiar?

I think we can all agree that Nazis were terrible.  I have no wish to rehash my post about Godwin's Law, nor am I going to write about extremism or white supremacists or any other kind of racist nonsense.  I am going to move past any condemnation or repudiation of a particular variety of ignorance and hatred even as I ask you to read this.  Read it and forget everything you already think about skinheads and white supremacists.  Read it and think about the paranoia that sees persecution under every hedgerow. Read it and think about the rampant distrust of everyone and everything outside the core group, and the fear and hatred that inspires.  Read it and think about how they fear their own government (and not just on the basis of raw incompetence). Read it and think of all the groups in our society who adopt the same mentality to some extent.  Read it and think about the almost unavoidable violence that arises from assuming that there is some evil plot to rob you of your "rights."
See when I read that article about a guy who is roughly my age and at one time was into similar music, and who found his adolescent rage channeled in an unhealthy and eventually violent direction, I saw the horror of a road not taken.  See at one point in my life you could have probably convinced me that I, as a straight, white male was actually a persecuted minority.  Put me in a poor urban neighborhood riddled with black and latino gangs and see how privileged I look (not so much at all), and I will guarantee you that I will feel un-safe (and in reality I probably am, unless there happen to be some police handy).
From the comfort of my suburban home and the dark wood bookshelf lined walls of my office at church I can easily see that such paranoia is nothing but the insanity of a sociopath.  So I'm not going to judge Arno, in fact, I'm going to give him much respect for getting out, getting past and trying to fight against the sort of hate and fear that once gripped him.
And I'm going to challenge every person who reads this who has ever written, shared or spoken something about "taking our nation back," our "God-given" rights to do just about anything including bear arms, about how our way of life is under attack, about how our religion is being persecuted, about how there is a war on Christmas and/or marriage, about how some nebulous group from the liberal media to the Illuminati is trying to brainwash us and control us.  I want everyone who has ever even thought something about how the blacks, the gays, the "illegal" immigrants, the Muslims, the Jews or some brand of Christian that is different from the one you belong to (or for you Presbyterians, perhaps your own denomination) was trying to ruin things for all the decent, normal, orthodox, traditional people (in other words people like you).
Just freaking stop it, because your rhetoric is the same as a bunch of angry dudes with swastikas tattooed on their necks.  Stop it for the same reason you don't use the N-word, because regardless of context or whether or not you're trying to be funny, using identifies you with a shameful history of dehumanizing people based on race.  Stop it because, while your crowd doesn't always define you, it is probably a good hint about your own convictions if everyone who shares them is a bigot.  If your ideological boat is full of Nazis, get the hell out of the boat.
I'll be honest with you, watching the Westboro Baptist people hold up their "God hates fags" signs outside the funerals of soldiers killed in action was just enough of a shock to my system to force me into a bit of soul searching r.e. my own convictions about LGBTQ people.  I wanted to repudiate their position as strongly as I possibly could, but I also have this deep seated need to try and be internally consistent, which pretty much disqualifies me for ever entering politics.  The obvious and extreme dis-junction between their behavior and Christian ethics held up an uncomfortable mirror to my own ideas, which were never that extreme and always tended more towards fence sitting, but it was seeing the kind of people who were "on my team" at the extreme ends that made me throw up in my mouth a little.
So to all the people who want to make the sorts of arguments based on fear and anger at how (insert name of the people who disagree with you about something here) are going to ruin everything, know that when I hear, read or see your arguments on Facebook I see a swastika tattooed on your neck.
I can give you grace, I can understand that you're upset or afraid, and I can try not to judge you, but I would really like to see you turn and do what my man Arno has done.  Understand, repent, and try to fix what used to be broken in you, and maybe then you might actually be able to fix what is broken out there in the world.