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
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    70
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    3 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
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      18
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      3 months ago

      Criminal trespass…

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

      • PugJesus@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        3 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.

      • Monument@lemmy.sdf.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        3 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.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      15
      arrow-down
      5
      ·
      3 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
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        39
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        3 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
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          9
          arrow-down
          15
          ·
          3 months ago

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

          • PugJesus@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            25
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            3 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
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              5
              arrow-down
              7
              ·
              3 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?

              • PugJesus@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                8
                arrow-down
                2
                ·
                3 months ago

                It’s also not going to arrest Nazis that have already done these things.

                You’re fucking kidding me, right? You don’t pre-arrest people. You arrest people after they’ve done shit.

                So how about we don’t arrest anyone for protesting and just make it legal from now on?

                God, why didn’t we think of that brilliant solution before? How many left-wing lawyers and political organizations have simply overlooked that we can just make it legal to protest?

                • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  3
                  arrow-down
                  6
                  ·
                  3 months ago

                  I see, this is one of these “never try” situations. We could never stop left-wing protesters from being arrested so we should never try to stop it and advocate for that to end and instead just call for other people to be arrested too.

                  Because we shouldn’t want people to have rights, we should want other people’s rights taken away.

                  • PugJesus@lemmy.world
                    link
                    fedilink
                    English
                    arrow-up
                    9
                    arrow-down
                    2
                    ·
                    3 months ago

                    I see, this is one of these “never try” situations. We could never stop left-wing protesters from being arrested so we should never try to stop it and advocate for that to end and instead just call for other people to be arrested too.

                    No, it’s apparently one of those noble martyrdom things, where the correct response to getting brutalized by Nazis is to roll over and show how very moral you are by just passively taking it.

                    Because we shouldn’t want people to have rights, we should want other people’s rights taken away.

                    You do realize that this is already happening to left-wing protesters, right? The only thing you’re advocating for is that left-wing protesters get the full force of the state laid down on them while Nazis are allowed to roam free because “It wouldn’t be fair” to apply the same goddamn laws to them as long as those laws are on the books.

                • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  3
                  arrow-down
                  2
                  ·
                  3 months ago

                  I’m sure police chiefs will get right on arresting Nazis too. What’s your point? We shouldn’t advocate for not arresting people for protesting?

          • ShepherdPie@midwest.social
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            7
            ·
            3 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.

              • ShepherdPie@midwest.social
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                3 months ago

                Because allowing these nazis to continue marching in the street will have zero impact on what happens to left-wing protestors, and denying these nazis the right to march on the streets will also have zero impact on what happens to left-wing protestors.

                • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  3 months ago

                  Okay, but you said left-wing protesters not getting arrested isn’t on the table. Why not? Why shouldn’t we do what we can to change that?

                  • ShepherdPie@midwest.social
                    link
                    fedilink
                    arrow-up
                    1
                    ·
                    3 months ago

                    Yes, but I don’t see how that applies to this situation. The jack boots who arrest people for expressing their First Amendment rights aren’t going to stop just because some neo nazis were allowed to harass people on the streets via some left-wing action. They don’t care about fairness or our rights and many of them are probably sympathetic to extreme right-wing groups.

          • grue@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            3 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
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              3 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
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                edit-2
                3 months ago

                Punching NAZIs is always self-defense, even if they haven’t punched you yet. 'Cause they’re going to, 'cause that’s what NAZIs do.

                • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  arrow-down
                  1
                  ·
                  3 months ago

                  So you are saying that yes, the law should be applied unequally.

                  As I said, Republicans agree with that position. You and they are just at odds with who the same laws should help and who the same laws should oppress.

                  Free speech for me and not for thee has been one of their modus operandi for a long time now.

                  • grue@lemmy.world
                    link
                    fedilink
                    English
                    arrow-up
                    1
                    ·
                    3 months ago

                    I’m not arguing with you about this semantic bullshit. To be a NAZI is to declare your intent to commit a crime. NAZIism is a criminal conspiracy.

                    There is no “equal protection” issue here, unless you think criminals deserve to be protected.

      • grue@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        10
        ·
        3 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
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          3 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
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        3 months ago

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

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          5
          arrow-down
          4
          ·
          3 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
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            7
            ·
            3 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
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              2
              arrow-down
              3
              ·
              3 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?

                • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  3
                  arrow-down
                  1
                  ·
                  3 months ago

                  Outside the building is often government grounds too. Those buildings can be in plazas which are entirely government-owned.

                  So, again, you’re saying you can’t protest the press conference (except from a great distance).