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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    5 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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      5 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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        5 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.

        • Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
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          5 months ago

          Criminal trespass…

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

          • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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            5 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.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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          5 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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            5 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.

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

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

              • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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                5 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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                  5 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?

              • grue@lemmy.world
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                5 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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                  5 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.

          • grue@lemmy.world
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            5 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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              5 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.

          • JJROKCZ@lemmy.world
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            5 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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              5 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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                5 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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                  5 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?

    • aodhsishaj@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Both you and @[email protected] are arguing the same point. The only difference is @[email protected] 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/

  • Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    5 months ago

    Treat them like our American predecessors did. If they’re wearing swastikas then shoot the fuckers.

    • dan1101@lemm.ee
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      5 months ago

      Sounds right to me. Nazis invaded Europe, tried to take over the world, and slaughtered millions in gas chambers. The US military should be deployed to arrest or neutralize Nazis whenever they appear.

  • Coach@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Yeah, I don’t give a flying fuck about a Nazi’s First Amendment rights, just like they don’t give a flying fuck about anyone else’s rights.

  • MyOpinion@lemm.ee
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    5 months ago

    Arrest them for an unlawful assembly like they do to everyone else they don’t want marching.

  • Hptyhop84@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    The greatest generation knew how to deal with Nazis. Flamethrowers, bombs, artillery & bayonets. That’s all the conversation needed.

    • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      No, no, you see, war is bad, therefore, we should take the high road and let the Nazis slaughter us while we lodge diplomatic complaints at the UN in the hope of getting them to stop, eventually, someday. /s

  • Billiam@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Point.

    Laugh.

    Call them “weird”.

    Make them realize how unpopular they really are.

  • LostWanderer@lemmynsfw.com
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    5 months ago

    They are being disruptive in a way that isn’t kind; arrests would be the best way to deal with them. They are white nationalists, shouting slurs at black people who are fellow citizens in the USA, we should not let them believe this behavior will go unpunished. It will make it worse in the future, enabling hate groups to thrive is something a sane country should never allow.