I have a vague idea to create a wiki for politics-related data. Basically, I'm annoyed with how low-effort, entirely un-researched content dominates modern politics. I think a big part of the problem is that modern political figures use social media platforms that are hostile to context and citing sources.
So my idea for a solution is to create a wiki where original research is not just allowed but encouraged. For example, you could have an article that's a breakdown of the relative costs to society of private vs public transportation, with calculations and sources and tables and whatnot. It wouldn't exactly be an argument, but all the data you'd need to make one. And like wikipedia, anyone can edit it, allowing otherwise massive research tasks to be broken up.
The problem is - who creates a wiki nowadays? It feels like getting such a site and community up and running would be hopeless in a landscape dominated by social media. Will this be a pointless waste of time? Is there a more modern way to do this? All thoughts welcome.
I'm just gonna focus entirely on the common misunderstanding of the use of violence against Nazis in WWII because that's such a common argument for punching nazis and it's really quite wrong on so many levels.
"But Nazis were stopped by violence in WWII." That's a meaningless statement without the missing last word. Violence stopped Nazis militarily, after they had already seized power in Germany and were invading other countries. Today we're not in a military battle with Nazis, we're in an ideological battle.
So why did the Nazis seize power in Germany? Because they weren't punched enough? Well the exact mechanism behind how the nazis seized power is a complex web of illegal political maneuvers, political violence, and yes, some degree of ideological success by the nazis. But a key part of that ideological success was the fear of political violence by their opponents - most notably the Reichstag fire - to justify the power that they were illegally taking. It was basically "desperate times require desperate measures". So in the ideological battle, the perceived* use of violence by Nazi opponents was actually a key part of their victory within Germany.
Meanwhile, over in the US, the contrast between the violence employed by the German American Bund (the US version of the Nazi party) and largely Jewish peaceful protesters ended up being a massive embarrassment to the Bund from which they never recovered. Again, ideologically, non-violence proved quite effective.
Point being, and this should be obvious - violence is a really bad option for succeeding in an ideological battle. Yes, in a military battle, it's the only rational option. But in an ideological battle, it's actually counterproductive.
*Obligatory caveat that whether the Reichstag fire was actually set by nazi opponents remains debated, but suffice to say the political atmosphere at the time made it plausible.