The brazen appearance of white supremacist groups in Nashville left the city grappling with how to confront hateful speech without violating First Amendment protections.

They first arrived at the beginning of July: dozens of masked white supremacists, shuffling out of U-Hauls, to march through Nashville carrying upside-down American flags.

A week later, members of a separate neo-Nazi group, waving giant black flags with red swastikas, paraded along the city’s famed strip of honky-tonks and celebrity-owned bars. The neo-Nazis poured into the historic Metro courthouse to disrupt a City Council meeting, harassed descendants of Holocaust survivors and yelled racist slurs at young Black children performing on a downtown street.

The appearance of white nationalists on the streets of a major American city laid bare the growing brazenness of the two groups, the Patriot Front and the Goyim Defense League. Their provocations enraged and alarmed civic leaders and residents in Nashville, causing the city to grapple with how to confront the groups without violating free speech protections.

Non-paywall link

  • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    The brazen appearance of white supremacist groups in Nashville left the city grappling with how to confront hateful speech without violating First Amendment protections.

    The neo-Nazis poured into the historic Metro courthouse to disrupt a City Council meeting,

    Arrest. Them. Holy shit, that’s something that in any reasonably sized city would be worth at least a night in jail to cool off, even if you were some fucking normie instead of a neonazi fuck. It’s not that fucking hard.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Arrest them for what exactly? Is disrupting a city council meeting anything but a civil infraction?

      I don’t want this sort of thing going on, but what law would justify jail time?

      I mean maybe they did do something to justify it, but I don’t know that disrupting a city council meeting should land people in jail. People also disrupt city council meetings when they try to pass anti-queer ordinances. And they should.

      • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Arrest them for what exactly? Is disrupting a city council meeting anything but a civil infraction?

        Criminal trespass, easy. Fuck, that’s levied all the time as a club against left-wing protesters. Yet when actual neonazis show up, they get nothing? Fuck that.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          I think the answer to that is not ‘also arrest the Nazis,’ it’s ‘don’t arrest the left-wing protesters either.’

          Balancing the scales doesn’t solve the problem.

          • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            Balancing the scales doesn’t solve the problem.

            And neither does playing by the gentleman’s rules of boxing when your opponent is using brass knuckles. Fucking “They go low, we go high”? Did we not learn our lesson? If a weapon is used, the correct answer is to make the opposition see why that weapon was banned in the first place - it’s the same reason why many signatories of the Geneva Protocol allow for retaliation if chemical weapons are used against them.

              • grue@lemmy.world
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                6 months ago

                Left-wing protestors respect the social contract. NAZIs don’t, and therefore do not deserve to be protected by it.

                • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                  6 months ago

                  People don’t deserve equal rights under the law? Are you sure that’s the position you want to take up? Because it sounds like a very Republican position.

              • ShepherdPie@midwest.social
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                6 months ago

                Left-wing protestors not getting arrested isn’t even on the table here, so I don’t see why the argument should be couched based on that.

              • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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                6 months ago

                So left-wing protesters should continue to be arrested as long as Nazis are also arrested? Really?

                … what? Not arresting Nazis isn’t going to magically un-arrest left-wing protesters.

                • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                  6 months ago

                  It’s also not going to arrest Nazis that have already done these things. So how about we don’t arrest anyone for protesting and just make it legal from now on?

          • JJROKCZ@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            Arrest any and all groups that storm in and disrupt government functions, simple as that

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              Which means that people in the government can argue that virtually anything the government does is a “government function.” Mayor’s press conference? Government function. Better arrest those protesters. Governor’s mansion? It has public tours. That’s a government function. Better arrest those protestors.

              Look what happened without that law when a president wanted a photo op with a Bible in front of a church. And you want to make that even easier?

              • JJROKCZ@lemmy.world
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                6 months ago

                You can protest outside the building perfectly fine, storming into the chambers and stopping the agenda is blatant disruption and I won’t argue it.

                • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                  6 months ago

                  But how do you make it clear that is the government function that can’t be disrupted but the press conference afterward can because it does not count as a government function?

          • grue@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            Balancing the scales doesn’t solve the problem.

            Good point: the correct answer is, don’t treat them equally, because they don’t act equally. What we should be doing is exactly the opposite of what we are doing: fucking-up the NAZIs while leaving the left-wing protestors alone.

            This is not hypocrisy, by the way. This is a simple application of consequences: those who do not respect the social contract do not deserve to be protected by it.

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              It may not be hypocrisy, but it is suggesting that the law continue to be applied unequally (just the opposite way around), which is definitely not a progressive position.

        • Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
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          6 months ago

          Criminal trespass…

          Most city council meetings are legally open to the public. It is in fact their main purpose.

          • Monument@lemmy.sdf.org
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            6 months ago

            They’re open to the public unless certain members are asked to leave.

            A public building can still kick someone out, and if they don’t leave, then that’s trespassing.

          • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            Most city council meetings are legally open to the public. It is in fact their main purpose.

            I’m used to normal city council meetings being private, and public ones being the exception.

      • Nougat@fedia.io
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        6 months ago

        Civil disobedience can get you arrested, and while you might beat the rap, you can’t beat the ride.

      • ShepherdPie@midwest.social
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        6 months ago

        After seeing federal agents literally kidnapping people off the streets of Portland for “looking like protesters,” yes absolutely they can arrest them even if the charges are bullshit or won’t stick.

    • aodhsishaj@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Both you and @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world are arguing the same point. The only difference is @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world wants nobody arrested and you want to also arrest the Nazis.

      First of all ACAB let it be known. However I think it’s more likely to get a local city council to allow for anyone using intimidating imagery, (defined by swastika and similar iconography) to be detained and removed from chambers. It’s been done elsewhere with great effect.

      The issue is how to get it enforced because unfortunately, those that burn crosses are the same that join forces.

      https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/long-painful-history-police-brutality-in-the-us-180964098/

      https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/54960/public-display-of-swastika-in-the-us

      https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/germanys-laws-antisemitic-hate-speech-nazi-propaganda-holocaust-denial/

  • Reality Suit@lemmy.one
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    6 months ago

    If you punch a nazi, and you get two friends to punch a nazi and then they get two friends to punch nazis, before you know it, everyone is punching nazis.

    • cynthorpe@discuss.online
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      6 months ago

      Ikr? Killing Nazis cannot be discussed? I’m pretty sure that’s 100% okay, and a global pastime. My comment was removed for saying it. 🤷‍♂️

    • DandomRude@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Exactly, I can’t for the life of me imagine that these clowns are in the majority in any major city.

    • P00ptart@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      How do you do that, when they protest illegally? They go in without permits in u-hauls and just create chaos out of nowhere. It’s planned, but not in the public eye.

      • DandomRude@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Then it’s not a question of free speech, I suppose. I’m not from the US, but I assume that demonstrations have to be registered in your country too. If this is the case, the police can easily crack down, break up these illegal gatherings, impose fines and so on. I am of course aware that there are sympathizers among the police - but they have to abide by the law if they want to keep their jobs. I don’t understand why there is any need for a discussion about freedom of expression at all when these demonstrators just disrupt public order and try to intimidate people. That has nothing to do with freedom of speech - sound more like a felony to me.

        • P00ptart@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          I absolutely agree but I’m many cases they hide behind masks and then take off before enough meaningful presence can be mustered against them, even in a big city like Nashville. These guys are cowards that rely on significant advantage of numbers and surprise to intimidate. Then take off before anybody has time to do anything about it.

          • DandomRude@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            Well, that’s a real problem. In this case, there is probably nothing much to do but rely on the civil courage of citizens and hope that someone will at least take down the license plate number or that maybe a critical mass will form quickly enough to detain these idiots until the police arrives. I am glad that such actions by fascists do not (yet) exist in my country (Germany). In the city where I live, even a whole bunch of sad Nazis would have no fun at all if they tried something like that. But that can be quite different elsewhere in my home country too. I wish you the best of luck and hope that you find a way to deal with these morons. Be save!

  • ArxCyberwolf@lemmy.ca
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    6 months ago

    Laugh at and ridicule them. Make it very clear that you aren’t scared of them and that they’re rejects of society who amount to nothing. Take away their sense of power and they’ll leave. It’s worked in the past on several occasions.