“Rallies with guns cannot be treated, for First Amendment purposes, in the same fashion as rallies with no guns.” – Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern in The Guns Won [via slate.com]
“Rallies with guns cannot be treated, for First Amendment purposes, in the same fashion as rallies with no guns.” – Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern in The Guns Won [via slate.com]
Yeah, does make it a bit more dangerous to attack and provoke armed folks exercising their first amendment rights doesn’t it?
In each of these recent incidents it’s quite clear which side wants to deny the other side the right to speak.
I hate to say it, but these leftist goons need a lesson in respecting the rights of others.
Yes, armed people at political rallies does gives one pause when one wants to provoke the other side in order to create a confrontation in order to suppress their free speech.
No more violent ANTIFA thugs.
I wonder what Powerserge thinks of these Antifas?
lol go to your room!
You have to ask? [insert helicopter joke here]
I agree with you that there were protesters who went to the rally to beat up Nazi’s.
What I don’t understand is why you say it like it’s a bad thing.
Let me get this straight; you don’t understand why violently refusing someone’s exercise of his constitutional rights is a bad idea? What if the right involved is one YOU wish to exercise? If someone else objects to it, do you think he would be entitled to shoot you? *THAT* is why. Be vewy, vewy careful what you wish for, there is a government which would love to be totalitarian, and which is listening.
It’s a bad thing for the same reason that it’s a bad thing for me to light up leftie ANTIFA thugs on sight. In a free country, you don’t get to assault people just because you disagree with them. Believe me, it is far prefferable to the alternative.
IdahoBoy,
The rule of law is what keeps those nazis from killing you for not liking them. And if they do- as in the driver who murdered that girl- the rule of law puts them in jail forever. There was a time when that wasn’t the case, when it was pretty much open season. If you want to play that game, okay, but don’t expect others to care if you lose.
Why stop at Nazis? Why not anybody with an NRA cap… or a Star of David?
In fact, they DON’T stop at Nazis, and actually started with NON-Nazis. Hell, the Revolutionary Communist Party has a LOOOONG history of going after other COMMUNISTS with baseball bats.
Anti-fa are just fa. They’re indistinguishable from Ernst Roehm’s SA. They even want to kill some of the same people. Ask the Jews thrown out of Chicago’s “Dyke March”…
According to antifa, my free speech is violence and their own violence is free speech. Infuriating.
Well put!
Truth.
Concise, catchy, and easily condensed into the electropictograms that the mush-head masses prefer.
Also meme-ready, perfect for making tumblrinas & lolcows everywhere uncomfortable.
Done & done.
Prost, sir!
A goosestepper is a goosestepper is a goostepper. There’s no difference worth bothering with, whether they’ve got a picture of Hitler, William Pierce, Stalin or Mao hanging in their mom’s basement.
So you’re defending a well regulated militia of unabashed racists?
Choose your friends wisely. It’s not just ANTIFA that goes after racists. Think Adolph Eichmann, Gerald Bull, etc.
I will defend both their 1st and 2nd amendment rights, as any freedom loving American should. That’s part of the deal of being an American. I may absolutely abhor these groups, I may vehemently disagree with them, but at the same time, duty binds me to help protect their civil rights guaranteed under the Constitution.
What “duty”?
There’s no statute of limitations on the Oath you take when you join the Army, Navy, Air Force,Coast Guard or when you take the naturalization oath to become a citizen.
I’m defending the absolute right of a group of people to express their views peacefully, after obtaining an (unconstitutional) permit, particularly against a group of thugs who showed up unannounced with a specific goal of denying their right to free speech, as violently as they could manage. Now, how about you state *your* case, how could you figure that was legal? If someone came at me with one of those clubs, I would have shot him a few times, and then let him beat me as much as he liked.
Yes kid. In America, even people you find deplorable have rights. Don’t like it? Move to Venezuela where your rights are directly proportional to how much the guy in charge likes you.
“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” – Attributed to Voltaire
“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” – Voltaire
“The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.”
– H. L. Mencken
Ooh, I like that one!
It is always better to let them talk up their particular political views. Many years ago, here in Tucson, AZ, the KKK showed up and tried to get people interested in the KKK.There were no protests that I can remember, it was pretty much a big yawn for us here in the Olde Pueblo. After about a year, they left for lack of interest. They talked, we listened and were not interested and they left.
This debacle only got any disreputable (both sides in my book) a lot more press and interest than just ignoring the rally.
The funny thing is that Antifa, the Nazis and the KKK are all leftist fascists! It makes me feel good seeing the left fight with itself.
I am embracing the new reality. If you wear a MAGA hat or something conservative in a liberal area you deserve to be punched. We all know you are intentionally instigating violence so you are the unlawful one. You might as well be yelling “white lives matter” at a rally.
If wearing a MAGA hat in a liberal area is calling to be punched, then wearing a short skirt in a bar is asking to be raped.
I wish I could say Leftists were consistent….
Rallies with guns protect protesters from counter-protesters with rock, bottles and clubs.
Today’s Nazis are the Leftist Thought Control and Political Correctness advocates.
How are white supremacists any different than black power or gay pride activists ?
Well they aren’t much different than those that think black people are better than white people, but the general stance of LGBT pride folks isn’t that they are better than straight people.
Well, the LGBTs certainly demand and get better perks and privileges from the government than ordinary folks. AIDS, a largely self-inflicted disease afflicting fewer than 1/3 of 1% of Americans get 10% of the NIH’s research grants. That’s 30 times it’s fair share. That money should go to fighting Zika and other wide ranging diseases. They also get sex change operations covered under Medicare, while ordinary folks get no coverage for ears, eyes and teeth.
None of what you just said is at all accurate. Morons like you on the right is making it a lot harder for the rest of us on the right won’t don’t give a damn about your stupidity and your unnecessary proselytizing.
Gun rights are for everyone. Not just for ‘Cis white men’…. god I hate that term so much too, even BEING LGBT… But hey, I guess someone people need to be reminded of this stuff on occasion.
Tell that to the businesses the gaystappo has shut down. You can be gay all you want. You don’t have a right to my labor, approval, or support.
@Noishkel:
Can you please provide citations for how anything he said is “inaccurate?” Saying “everything you said is inaccurate” is not actually refuting a point. I’ve seen CDC data supporting the percentages he quoted, and it would just be silly to claim AIDS is not primarily a disease affecting gay males. It DOES require blood/blood or semen/blood contact, and there aren’t a ton of ways to do that transfer outside of male-to-male anal sex. I mean, if you have proof otherwise I’d be happy to be proven wrong.
I thought today’s nazis were the guys with nazi flags marching against the removal of Comfederate statues.
You are correct sir!
As opposed to the guys wanting to beat up a gay Jew because he says things they don’t like? Please, as far as I am concerned, the left has done far far worse in just the past year with far fewer consequences.
None of the ‘Nazi!’ screaming morons don’t have a single clue about actual Nazis, the WW2, fascism, or really much of anything.
This will probably fall on deaf ears because everyone has a throbbing hate hardon, but the Alt-Right is distinct from National Socialism or white supremacy. The Alt-Right has big and growing presence on the internet because they are about traditional gender roles, celebration of white culture, self-improvement, and common defense of white identity. All the things that have been driven outside of mainstream culture today. But by all means keep setting up straw men and knocking them down, don’t let me stop you. 🙂
There also is a literal neo-Nazi racist cadre among them. Most of the alt-right excuses it the same way the crl-left excuses the Black Bloc/antifa groups.
You are confusing allow with support. Freedom of speech is a Western value, deal with it. If the Republicans would stop playing silly disavowal games the Alt-Right wouldn’t have to exist. I am not conceding any of my rights or demanding others to concede theirs because of the current moral panic about Nazis under the bed.
Nazism has always been a left ideology. It’s only been pushed as a right-wing ideology because all of the Americans who supported Hitler and the National Socialist party in the early days wanted to distance themselves after the fact.
Communism and Fascism are only degrees apart on the left side of the scale. Communism was traditionally international in scope whereas Fascism was primarily nationalistic.
So while the mainstream media and even the groups themselves would label as “alt-right” that is just nonsense. Both the white nationalists and the antifa folks are leftist ideologically and both fascist in reality.
So is your definition of ‘left’ basically “whatever I don’t like?”
Because it sounds like that’s what your definition is if you take white nationalists, who probably vote the same way you do nationally, and consider them ‘left’
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like them either, but I’m not going to engage in the ‘no true scotsman’ fallacy in response.
I’m not sure what white nationalists actually believe, but fascism is a leftist ideology. The Nazis controlled the private sector for “the good of the people.”
Huey Long is the closest thing America has had to a successful fascist, and he was pretty far to the left.
They are evil white people.
/sarc (if you didn’t get that to begin with)
The second amendment protects all other amendments including the first. Without the ability of the people to fight back tyranny, no other amendments will stand by themselves. The people of the United States of America need to be armed, to prevent presidents like Obama and possibly were such as Hillary Clinton from being over to take complete control over the United States. And to prevent Future Leaders from eradicating our constitutional and civil rights Liberties in this country.
This exactly. The bill of rights stands only with all amendments supporting each other. Strip one amendment and all the others quickly fall
Absolutely correct and obvious. Look at Venezuela today. How is it that They the People of that nation express their petitions for redress of grievance? The country is so devastated that even its armed soldiers are begging for food! They the People are reduced to throwing rocks and excrement at the government’s police and soldiers – hoping that retaliation will not be lead.
Look at Mexico today. How is it that They the People of that nation express their petitions? They can’t defend themselves from the tyranny from either the private nor public sector.
And so on; take a tour of the world today; or at any time in history.
If it is so that the sovereignty of a nation is vested in its People, then how is it that that respective People can possibly express their pleasure if they are disarmed?
FDR spoke of the US as the “arsenal of democracy”. As such, he argued that it was America’s duty to sell arms to the People of allied nations the wherewithal to resist invasion.
Today, we have a new regime; one under which the Federal Government – e.g., AG Eric Holder – chooses which people of other nations deserve to shop at our “arsenal of democracy”. The military and police are welcome. Some criminals are welcome (e.g., the Sinaloa Cartel). Nevertheless, the ATF hangs a sign in every FFL: “The People of Mexico/Venezuela/. . . not served.”
Do we believe that our Creator’s endowment of the RK&BA was specific to us Americans? Or, did [S]he endow all mankind without discrimination?
The UN Black Helicopters are on their way to your residence.
Bring it.
Hope they’re better pilots than the ones who were monitoring the demonstrators.
That’s what the MANPADS are for.
A Barret .50 BMG makes a *dandy* improvised, short-range MANPAD…
I thought they were for antifa manginas. You know, for those “special times” when they need to stay sanitary and fresh.
A MAN PAD for you sir!!!
http://rare.us/rare-news/across-the-u-s-a/florida-man-cruised-around-in-his-convertible-with-something-glaring-in-the-passenger-seat-and-no-one-bat-an-eye/
“Dozens of white nationalists showed up toting semi-automatic weapons, as did some counter-protesters, making it all but impossible for police to intervene when violence erupted. In short order, peaceful protesters were forced to hide as armed rioters attacked one another with clubs, smoke bombs, and pepper spray.”
This is completely incorrect. Two protesters who have no firearms engage in a fistfight. It is expected that a police officer will come over and arrest them. Well, except that the mayor and governor had issued “no arrest” orders. No arrests without explicit approval.
There were well over 1000 armed, sworn agents in Charlottesville (local police, state police, national guard). There was fighting all over the place. There were 4 arrests. Only 4 arrests. This did not spontaneously happen. It was ordered.
“[armed demonstrators made] it all but impossible for police to intervene when violence erupted.”
Police rarely seem to intervene at such demonstrations anyway. I would much rather have an effective means to defend myself than hope that police will intervene this time.
Regardless of your 1st amendment right, common sense has to win out. I support their right, but would we support it if it was NAMBLA or American ISIS. If you’re going to go march in a rally that is put on by the KKK and Nazi’s then you have to know that people will not, no one, be OK with that. That’s starts out the conversation at provocation level turned to 11.
That’s also the reason most of the III% folks bailed early. You know what you get when you have 1 good guy marching with 10 Nazi’s, 11 Nazi’s.
All that proves is that the III%s don’t have the stones to stand up ideologically and philosophically to bullies and tyrants.
Sure, they may be lumped in with the bad groups because of “guilt by association” but then that’s when you need to go offensive and very public about the fact that free speech of all kinds needs to be defended. What’s the point of free speech if any speech that we disagree with can be stopped with violence? I don’t care if it is American ISIS or NAMBLA – to counter that you very publicly denounce those groups, not with threats of violence, but with sound reasoned arguments.
The real issue here – and the antifa folks have admitted it in various circles – is that they are afraid that the white nationalist rhetoric might stick or grow. Well if that’s the case then you have to ask yourself why that is…it is not a cause, it is a symptom and so we would need to find what is causing it.
Well, when you’ve had the left at the political level, media, entertainment, higher education, etc. bully people with any other sort of opinion or view different than theirs you are going to push people to the “opposite side”. They think they need to go to that group to combat the other side justly. What they don’t understand is that they end up becoming the thing they hate.
ISIS and the Taliban and Al-qaeda only exist because they are the self viewed opposites to the Western military aggression that they have experienced for years because of our military empiricism. If we were to get out of Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, etc. and cut ties with Saudi Arabia I guarantee you that a lot of militant Islam would go away or no longer be directed at the US.
We are fighting fire with fire and throwing tinder and gasoline on the whole thing…both domestically and abroad. What do you think the outcome is going to be?
I think you meant imperialism.
empiricism – the theory that all knowledge is derived from sense-experience.
The Punisher,
“If we were to get out of Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, etc. and cut ties with Saudi Arabia I guarantee you that a lot of militant Islam would go away or no longer be directed at the US.”
I think militant Islam would be coming after us regardless. At any rate this is a perfect example of why free speech is so important! It means that people like The Punisher can share their ideas for solutions to problems facing our nation. And it means others can review that idea and verify its strengths and point out its errors.
Rick,
I used to have your mindset. Now I support peaceable free speech assemblies no matter what the topic of the assembly, even offensive topics like white supremacy. I changed for three reasons:
(1) Silencing “offensive” topics sucks when it is your topic.
(2) Public speech enables us to demonstrate the flaws of a topic to the public.
(3) When a group cannot air their grievance in public, they are more likely to lash out destructively in anger and frustration … and to get a “voice”.
Think of it this way. A free speech assembly is almost always a “sales pitch” — presenting an idea and hoping the public buys into it. Really bad ideas (such as white supremacy) will fail in the marketplace of ideas and virtually no one will buy them. Therefore, let people express their ideas and let the free market choose the winners.
Or as Louis Brandeis said with respect to offensive or dangerous speech, “… the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.”
But in this case they aired it publicly and violently. I’m not worried much about the mutual manual combat. No matter how crappy the other side is, I’m for them when it’s against the Nazi’s and the KKK. I’ve also watched hours of tape on Charlottesville by this point, and it looks like the majority of the instigators where the frat bro white supremacist folks, but still generally 50/50, up until the loon felt comfortable enough to copy ISIS and use his car as a weapon. There’s no way to justify that escalation, no one was shot, stabbed, it was just a brawl. Lots of testosterone little effect, until the car.
Now that that barrier has been cleared, I’m very worried that the next white-power (that’s what it is) march could escalate into guns/bombs/more cars, both sides could escalate into a shooting conflict could embroil us all in something that I have zero desire to be a participant in.
I WILL defend me and mine, but I’d hate to do it against someone that I don’t have any personal animosity towards.
My fears are rooted in that the antifa types view everyone who isn’t a leftist and some who are as just as bad as the white power people.
I’m not that worried about it. I don’t think it is likely here.
Rick,
I was not there and I have not seen video of the assembly: thus I have no idea who assaulted/battered whom.
At any rate, my point remains that EVERYONE (which includes white supremacists and the KKK) should be able to PEACEABLY assemble and float their ideas to the public without counter-protesters assaulting, battering, or murdering them.
That’s the problem though, the KKK folks weren’t murdered, the other folks were.
I’d have less problem if it had been a demonstrator killing a counter-protester when in fear of their life, but that’s not what happened. The Nazi/KKK person escalated to terrorism, zero difference than what happened in Barcelona today, fewer people killed, but that’s a pure fluke.
It’s the escalation that I worry about, now the Antifa folks can legitimately say that murdered one of us at the last klan rally, so we’ll shoot them at the next, and then the counter-responses continue to escalate to make any protest area become fundamentally Route Irish on American soil, and the 12 year old trying to go to school doesn’t care if they died from a Nazi or Antifa bomb. That’s a horrific scenario that I never thought would look like I could connect the dots from the America I live in to there, without Michael Bay being involved.
My carry and car gun has escalated from my BP9CC to a G19 and an AK, but not because of ISIS, but because of crazy Americans, on both sides.
Nothing is real anymore. It’s all identity politics and feelings. The economy isn’t just in the back seat it’s been kicked out the car to make room for more feelings.
I can walk up to seventy year old woman, beat the shit out of her and spit on her as she lay bleeding on the ground and as long my politics are right I’ll be a goddam hero and she’ll be a nazi piece of shit because feelings.
War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength.
Ah, government and leftist “rightthink.” God help us if we practice “wrongthink” and say anything about it. It’d be the re-education camps for us!
Shire-man,
I am getting really tired of it myself. There is a definite scarcity of coherent thought these days.
I don’t think too many of these “Lefties” understand the first amendment; it is the right to FREE speech, not the right to impose YOUR speech onto other people.
Well, they do have a point. They can’t be treated the same. You actually have to take protesters with guns seriously and not ignore them. Kinda goes back to the whole idea of the government should fear the people.
Note: I am speaking of protests in general and am in no way supporting “white supremacists” or any other a$$hole group that only views people through the lens of race.
Another Note: There is some fishy stuff going on in Charlottesville. I don’t buy the media narrative at all.
TOTALLY CONCOCTED NEWS HAS BEEN SUPPLANTED BY TOTALLY CONCOCTED EVENTS.
All of this must have been orchestrated many months ago, and likely in the assumption that Hillary would be President, therefore this bs is likely delayed by a week or two in its fruition. It don’t make a sh_t, come the next civil war, I’m hunting POS libs and (D), and all foreigners [regardless of situs] who finds the slightest enjoyment in the predicament.
“PEOPLE WHO ERASE HISTORY ARE PROBABLY PLANNING ON REENACTING THE WORST PARTS OF IT”
“EVERY RECORD HAS BEEN DESTROYED OR FALSIFIED, EVERY BOOK REWRITTEN, EVERY PICTURE HAS BEEN REPAINTED, EVERY STATUE ANS STREET BUILDING HAS BEEN RENAMED, EVERY DATE HAS BEEN ALTERED, AND THE PROCESS IS CONTINUING DAY BY DAY AND MINUTE BY MINUTE, HISTORY HAS STOPPED, NOTHING EXISTS EXCEPT AN ENDLESS PRESENT IN WHICH THE PART IS ALWAYS RIGHT.”
— GEORGE ORWELL 1984
https://m.9gag.com/gag/aoOPdEm
Did you put on your tinfoil hat this morning?
Well you vote for democrats, your the enemy. Pretty simple.
I’m a bit confused. All these articles seem to indicate the “alt-right” group was armed. From my understanding the ones that we see here in this picture are the Pennsylvania Lightfoot Militia and they were not there to serve either side. They remained calm and independent and stood their ground in an attempt to maintain peace longer than the LEOs.
All the pictures of militia I saw were wearing Confederate morale patches.
CONFEDERATE MORALE PATCHES???….THE HORROR!!!
…and? If your assertion was true, ANTIFA would have gotten chopped into dog food.
In my view, Gov. McAuliffe did not want this protest/demonstration to occur, and it is likely that he pressured the Charlotte mayor to cancel the previously issued permit and security plan. After the ACLU got a federal court judge to order the permit reinstated, Gov. McAuliffe had to find another way to effectuate his intent. As it turned out, he used the presence of the armed militia men as his EXCUSE to order a state of emergency and closed down the protest half an hour before it was scheduled to begin. (Remember his line about how the protesters were better armed than the state police? And remember that he backed Hillary’s disarmament plan, as well as tried to cancel all of Virginia’s CCW reciprocity agreements with other states?) At that point, there had been nothing but the usual yelling, intimidation etc by the Antifa trying to keep protesters out of the park.
One of the scheduled speakers reported that the north half of the park was completely barred to public entry and was filled with state police. Police also manned the streets east and west of the park with barricades blocking the streets completely, but no police were on the main street on the south side, where the Antifa had gathered. When the state of emergency was declared, a police line of riot gear equipped police formed in the north end of the park and pushed everyone in the park directly south–and into the maw of the Antifa.
Although one can question his objectivity, since he was to be a part of the protest, his report is consistent with what video we see of the event before its cancellation: http://dailycaller.com/2017/08/14/heres-how-the-virginia-state-police-provoked-violence-at-charlottesville/
And if what he says is true, then Gov. MCAuliffe is responsible for the manner in which the event unfolded.
Mark N.,
If what you say is true, that sounds to me like Governor McAuliffe deprived hundreds of people of their rights under color of law. He should have to pay the $10,000 fine to each and every person who was there. Oh, and serve 2 years in prison for each person that he deprived.
I don’t like any *insert natiaonlity or race* supremacy groups (black, white, Hispanic, or what have you.) But, I support their right to tool up and/or protest.
The Bill of Rights isn’t just for people we like or agree with. I am a half-breed, so I am a lesser human in the eyes of any supremacy group.
But, guess what, I’m a “lesser human” with a mofo’n AR and body armor.
And that’s how freedom works, folks.
+ eleventy billion!
You get as much freedom as you are prepared to fight to the death to protect.
Well said sir.
The heading of the article is it’s own answer. This all comes down to the piss poor education system filled with leftist ideologies. Teachers who’ve been educated by leftist professors preaching their Marxist philosophies. Indoctrinating the youth much in the way the Hitler youth were mesmerized with ideas of the perfect society. Most adults today have no idea what is in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. They have no grasp of the true meaning of Freedom or how to preserve it. This has been happening for more than 40 years. Slowly creeping it’s way into the body of our nation much like cancer does. You never realize it’s there until it’s to late making the fight to destroy it all the harder.
Antagonists have often demonstrated their propensity to beat on you for voicing a different position … therefore I think it is wise to be armed for self-defense at free speech rallies.
By “different position”, do you mean unabashed racism?
My wife lost relatives in the Holocaust. I will never punch a Nazi myself, but I won’t condemn anybody else who does it.
Exactly. You’re the political equivalent of a “moderate” Muslim. Cheering the bloodshed but too timid to act.
Then you have just surrendered *YOUR* right to freedom of speech, but you have not affected mine.
Then you’re a cretin. If you think it’s ok to punch Nazis, you must then accept that under the same rule it would be ok for me to light up ANTIFA like the 4th of July.
IdahoBoy,
No matter what topic is at hand, there are people who will beat on/kill you because you do not agree with them.
Let the KKK and white supremacists call for ethnic cleansing or whatever other such nonsense they espouse. And we, the good and decent people of this nation, will remind them that we will promptly incapacitate anyone who sets out to murder the masses. And, we the good and decent people of this nation, will demand that government try and convict all the people who conspired to murder the masses.
Here’s the thing, some of what these neo-Nazi scumbags and their KKK friends are saying and calling for in public clearly amounts to incitement. If someone is egging other on to do you harm or is already throwing punches or engaged in other violent activity, you are within your rights to punch them in the face. Now, if you went to the event hoping to get to punch someone in the face, I don’t really think that puts you in the right. But if you went there to express your condemnation of their white supremacist views and protect others’ rights to do so, you certainly shouldn’t have to run away and let yourself or others take a beating.
That is the problem with most Antifa groups. They are there to engage in violent confrontation. That doesn’t mean most of those opposing the hate groups were there to engage in violence. Most were not.
Redneck revolt had quite an armed presence there as well, though they put their efforts towards escorting clergy members to their cars and standing guard over the staging area.
I never thought I would say “Hooray for the Socialists!”, but I just did.
If you want to get Redneck Revolts concept of free speech then go to their Youtube channel, click on the vid where you will see “comments disabled for this video.”
The voices of opposition can not be allowed to speak.
There’s that Slate.com sh_t again. Next time flush twice.
I draw the line at public property. If people want to preach intolerance, they shouldn’t be allowed to use my tax dollars to do it. No preaching at public parks, public squares, public buildings, or any other public space. Private property only.
And no police protection for their rallies.
Are you referring to catholic preaching, or just muslim? And since you prohibit police interference, they can simply shoot anyone screaming at them, to death, right? Have you thought this through, at all?
Too bad the SCotUS already told you to take that position and shove it where the sun don’t shine.
Let me first say white supremacists suck. If that actually needs to be said… Let me also say you’ll likewise never see me standing on the side that flies the red flag with the hammer and sickle upon it.
So, that being said I’d only ask you one question: who gets to decide what is preaching intolerance and what isn’t when we outlaw certain public demonstrations in the future?
“Preach intolerance”
It’s imperative that you understand the fundamental problem with your position. Someone, some government agent, presumably, has to decide what constitutes “intolerance.”
To me, defining marriage as a publicly declared bond between one man and one woman, according to thousands of years of human tradition, is not “intolerance.” Others may disagree.
I said this in 1980 when the Nazis marched through Skokie, and I’ll say it again. Freedom of speech applies to everyone, even ignorant, hateful assholes. That’s the only way it can possibly work.
We don’t need the First Amendment to protect people who say nice things. Those people don’t need protecting. We need the First Amendment to protect people who say things that others will find repugnant.
One man’s intolerance is another man’s identity. Who decides what the standard is for allowed and not allowed? You? I mean, how ridiculous are we going to get here?
That’s a totally unconstitutional position. Content based regulations of speech are highly unconstitutional.
Being from Idaho myself, I’d like to point out that I’ve never met an Idahoan who would agree with IdahoBoy’s ranting. He must be a new arrival. IdahoBoy, friendly advice: you may want to reconsider where you live if you hate the Constitution and freedom so much. Also, if you’re going to spout anti American propaganda, please change your handle. It would be much appreciated!
If people we rightfully revile cannot spew their “hate speech” publicly without being attacked or having to be armed to prevent attack, then the First Amendment means nothing. Refute them and rebuke them – but don’t attack them,
No one can with complete accuracy sum up what happened in Virginia. There are eye witness accounts from clergy of antifas defending peaceful protesters from violent ws/nazis. Claiming the left in general and the antifas were the people provoking violent confrontation is just wrong.
Funny, it wan’t the alt-right that illegally showed up to disrupt a permitted event.
A great American recently said both sides were at fault, and is still being shouted down.
Well, here’s a whole heaping does of [citation needed] in regards to ANTIFA “protecting” ANYONE except their own. Thus far, they have exclusively shown up to events to instigate and engage in violence, and that’s literally ALL there is to it.
Unless and until someone somewhere can actually field any evidence to the contrary, and they haven’t so far because it probably doesn’t exist, THOSE are the facts on the ground.
I feel like schools need to do a better job of teaching (could end this sentence here…) exactly from whom the 1st amendment provides protection against the suppression of free speech (hint: its not private parties)
If you come to protest near me and my carrying a firearm dissuades you from airing your opinion, other areas of criminal or civil law may or may not apply but it is NOT a 1st amendment violation.
am i missing something?
Not an expert, but I am pretty sure you’re correct. OTOH, private parties ARE prohibited from hitting me with a club.
Confederate symbols are coming down all across the country as they should. They did lose the war via surrender after all.
So should we take down all the Napoleon statues in France then?
Those monuments went UP after that surrender. So, what’s your point? The entity which owns them has every right to remove them, antifa does not.
“Confederate symbols are coming down all across the country as they should.”
George Washington (POTUS #1) was a slave owner.
Should this 554 foot-tall monument be torn down?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Monument
Thomas Jefferson owned slaves.
Should this memorial to him be destroyed?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Rushmore
And *exactly* who gets to decide what gets destroyed?
FDR owned slaves and use his Klansman supreme court justices to make it declared legal. The monument to him shouldn’t be torn down, but it should be corrected so it isn’t full of revisionist history calling him a saint or even a remotely competent leader (Seriously, who burns crops during a famine?)
Hmmm …. As I recall, we beat the tacos out of Mexico in the Mexican-American War in 1846-48. Does this mean we should have kept Mexico and not permit any statues memorializing the losers? After all, the United States won, didn’t we?
We should have kept Mexico. We didn’t because of bigots in Congress and slavery. (All the predominately Hispanic “Mexican” states would have entered the Union as free states and were on the wrong side of the Mason-Dixon line.
You think you have a Mexican population “problem” now lol. BTW Mexico is no easy conquer (ask france) the U.S would have taken major loss of life it would have rewritten the history books as we know it.
America did conquer Mexico. And the Mexican population problem is just 1st generation immigrants and illegal immigrants and all the problems that come with having a large population of people living outside of the legal system.
If we had taken all of Mexico, Mexico wouldn’t have all the problems it does, and America would have a tiny border with Guatemala.
Nah, they are mostly coming down in shitty lefty areas where mobs overrule law and order. Chaos and thuggery are nothing to be proud about.
This is all coming about due to history revision as taught in government re-education camps, i.e. public schools, for decades.
The Confederacy, while enshrining the institution of slavery into their founding document, was not seceding primarily due to the slavery issue. There was much more going on. And while Lincoln has also been knighted, sainted, anointed and worshipped as the “Great Emancipator”, he cared little to nothing for abolition. In fact he couldn’t stand the abolitionists. His sole motivating thought was Empire. He wanted the Union at all costs.
The left is completely unhinged and spoiling for a fight. Considering they bring bricks and other weapons, carrying a gun seems smart.
Saw a “comparison” that the two extreme sides were like the “Violent Imperial Empire and the Violent Rebal Alliance.” No awards guessing which side wrote it.
A better comparison would be the Iran Iraq war, the Vietnam China fighting, or the Pakistan Indian conflict. In other words “Apox on both your houses.” President Trump was correct to blame the extremists on both sides.
So, according to Slate … the first amendment implies that wrongthinkers must not be armed, so they can be freely thumped into into silence?
I’m not getting that from the text. Or am I reading their article wrong? I do wish they’d break it down for us.
The protesters may represent a viewpoint that I find objectionable, repulsive, or simply disagreeable (not the antifa thugs; they seem to me like criminal mobs). Honestly, I don’t know what they stand for; I understand they objected to the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue on public land, which I also object to – but I have little understanding of the groups’ core values and beliefs based on what’s been published.
To the degree they may be celebrating/protecting/elevating/being white/Euro/etc. I have no strong disagreement with that either, so long as they do not object to me doing the same nor prevent me from exercising the rights, freedoms, and responsibilities to which I am duly entitled as a citizen.
I absolutely believe in their right to gather peaceably to express whatever those views may be, as well as their right to bear arms in a manner consistent with the supreme law of the land.
Someone who objects to the exercise of either right because they find the person(s) exercising that right to be objectionable is someone who is will not object to absolutism, or to the un-making the American experiment.
A bloodbath seems inevitable at this point and such an event could end up leading to an erosion of both the first and second amendments.
Agreed, all it takes is the next event to have both AUNT TIFA (joking) and any militia or Barbecue Supremacists/Alt-Luau/TikiNation show up armed at the same time, and the police pulled back by Democrat authorities and boom, say hello to a howling scream for gun confiscation.
We have to be wary of what is on our horizon, all it takes is one picture of a dead body, and the media will start accusing ALL gun owning Americans as Fascists, Alt whatevers, and thus their deepest hope will have been laid at their feet.
As if the media wasn’t calling for that everyday, all day, already, it is bound to get worse before it gets better.
Honestly, though, I wouldn’t blame police too much for bailing on that situation. Some types of people just aren’t worth putting your life on the line for.
Part of me hopes they’ll just kill each other off in equal measure and then maybe the grownups can get back to business.
And yet in Europe, where they have no guns, they have no free speech. You can be jailed because revving an engine to keep it warm is racist (and don’t you dare report crimes by Muslims).
…”Tearing down Confederate statues..”
I see statues of soldiers, I see the graves of soldiers, I see memorials to soldiers.
I don’t see North or South, I don’t see good or bad, and I don’t see Black or White.
I find it historically offensive, Orwellian, disrespectful, and disgusting to disrespect soldiers and their history in this way.
I am a retired US Army Soldier and I have zero tolerance for theses vile people or their actions.
In Charlottesville at least, the idea wasn’t to destroy the statue, but to move it to a museum.
There’s also a difference between the grave of a rank and file soldier and a monument that glorifies high ranking commanders and leaders of a military force that was fighting to preserve a system in which a core value was the ownership of other human beings.
I certainly don’t agree with any erasure or revision of history, but I also don’t agree with deification of those who were on the wrong side of it. I also don’t agree with the methods of those who go outside the law to destroy monuments. Such methods are low brow and uncouth and I just can’t abide that.
Say the same thing about Japanese war cemeteries
What about Japanese war cemeteries?
Japan was a foreign country. Four states in the confederacy were members of the original thirteen states and founding members of the country. All soldiers in the confederacy were American citizens prior to the start of hostilities. Lee commanded the entire US Army until the war began.
Don’t know how you was raised but I was taught to respect graves, no matter their location.
There is soooo much derp going on with anyone siding with the left.
You can’t defend your own freedom of speech while stomping down others, no matter what is being said or how much your feelings are hurt.
The Neo-nazis have a right to assemble and the same rights as anyone else. Regardless of their stances. And yes, they are morons just like ANTIFA. They are 2 sides to the same POS coin.
Why is this so difficult to understand? The only thing I can think of, is the cursed millennial snowflake moniker. Everyone is a winner, no one can be told they are a looser and feelings are above all logic.
They came for my neighbor and I said nothing. They came for the other neighbor and I said nothing….they came for me and no one said anything.
“Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
The constitution does not apply when only citizens are involved. The first amendment protects you (to a degree) from retribution and censorship from government entities, but not from private individuals and organizations.
For example, Godaddy terminating hosting for the Daily Stormer is not a first amendment violation (it’s just good business).
The guy that punched Richard Spencer was not violating Spencer’s first amendment rights, though he did commit assault (assuming the whole thing wasn’t a publicity stunt).
Only because ISPs have been dodging the obvious necessity of being treated like public utilities. When something is essential to modern life, it should come under much more scrutiny than a mom and pop grocery store.
To all the wannabe lawyers on here from an actual lawyer who practiced in constitutional law – The 1st Amendment does not protect incitement.
But according to U.S. District Judge Glen E. Conrad the 1A does protect the right of this particular group to gather in this particular place to say the particular things they were planning on saying.
Also I didn’t see anyone advocating incitement or saying it was protected. (I did skip some comments). I did see a couple of comments approving violence in a vague sense, usually violence against racists or nazis.
I note, with more than a little amusement, the following:
When the police, who as we all know are armed and extremely racist, show up these people throw rocks and Molotovs. They smash stores, loot and start structure fires.
When a group of militia, who as we all know are armed and extremely racist, show up suddenly those same folks that bravely stood up to the cops are scared to even speak, nevermind throw some rocks and bottles of gas.
Why is that, I wonder?
Just a guess. But getting shot sucks.
Cops are better men than me. Come at me with anything other than harsh language and you bleed. I know this cause I’ve seen me do it.
There has been a lot of talk in the media of how Trump equated the violent leftists to the racists and how that is indefensible. The media lies, and I didn’t hear all of what Trump has said on this, so I don’t know if he did equate the two groups. I’ve also heard media members say that the antifa types don’t bear any responsibility for the violence.
In my opinion, the violent left is worse than white nationalists. This is the first white nationalist rally in my lifetime that I’ve ever heard of that got violent. I’m sure there are some that got violent that I didn’t hear about. This isn’t the first rally of leftists I’ve heard of that has gotten violent this summer, let alone in my lifetime.
The reason the violent left is worse than white nationalists is because, as everyone’s mama told them, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” I don’t really care what a fringe group is saying. I care if a fringe group is attacking people and destroying property.
I will believe that the antifa types bear more responsibility than the white nationalists, until I see evidence to the contrary, for the same reason I believe the antifa types are worse than the white nationalists.
And as a final point, it is very hard to be worse than a Nazi.
Rallies aside, the statistic remains that since 2001 more acts of violence have been perpetrated by white nationalist groups than any other. The Antifas might brawl at rallies and destroy property which is illegal, juvenile, and unbecoming behavior, but in terms of death toll in America since the Sept. 11 attacks, the white supremacists have it in the bag.
Not saying that the left won’t catch up (violence tends to escalate until it boils over) but these are the stats as of now.
I’ve heard that before, but always from places that I don’t trust like the Southern Poverty Law Center.
I honestly don’t care about how many reports of hate crimes there are. I want to see convictions before I believe it. The statistics would have to be about white nationalists, not hate crimes. The only hate crimes I’ve seen since Trump was elected were black people attacking white people.
A further reason that antifa types are a more serious threat is that they have backing from local officials, or at least are given room to act by the local officials. I’m not worried about Sessions being hands off with white nationalists. He is personally responsible for the death of a white nationalist.
The media also agrees with the antifa people’s political ideology, so they won’t be critical of them or report that they are a problem.
“The media lies…”
I’ve sorta stopped paying attention to this but two days ago it was put front and center for me.
I was at a Chinese restaurant where they had CNN on the TV. CNN ran Trump’s statements and then had a panel, including Marc LaMont Hill, on to discuss it. The headline at the bottom of the screen said, and I quote, “In raging news conference, Trump defends racist protesters: “fine people on both sides”.”
That’s absolute malarkey and they know it. I actually couldn’t believe the whole thing.
Fuck the media.
Absolutely! The MSM just keeps ratcheting up their blatant lies and omissions. They’re at a ZERO trust level, but will likely go lower.
Charlottesville and it’s fallout makes more sense if you see it as part of an effort by the establishment to put down the populist movement that put Trump in the White House. The media, democrats and establishment Republicans are pushing the “Trump and everyone who supports him is a racist” narrative hard. They see Chalottesville as an opportunity to unseat Trump and return to pursuing their respective agendas. I don’t think they are above fomenting civil strife to retain their power. With the outpouring of support from Democrats and Republicans (I’m looking you, Rubio, you opportunistic scumbag), I think ANTIFA and fellow travelers will be emboldened to commit more violence. Things have the potential to get very very out of hand.
I will repeat myself. It was white Jewish socialist lawyers who said way back in the 1970s when I was a black teenager, its a great thing in America that the kkk gets to march in all black neighborhoods while carrying guns.
Those same jews didn’t support black people having guns however. The jews, homosexuals, and socialist progressive
anti-kkk protesters, are all against blacks having guns.
They totally support only the government having guns.
The Klan has absolutely no power in America in 2017. Its not like when the Democratic party vice-president candidate, was an open klansman, in the 1920s, at the “klan bake”.
Virginia governor, democrat Terry McAuliffe tried to allow black felons the right to vote because he says he cares so much for blacks. But he publicly said he didn’t want these newly freeded black voters being able to buy guns, two years ago.
McAuliffe is a racist pig.
Why hasn’t anyone invoked Goodwin’s Law against the Leftist groups? They are the ones that starting screaming about Nazi’s so that should have been the cue for everyone else to pivot slightly to the right and ignore anything they said after the first Nazi was screamed.
Thank you for taking your masks off. Many of the above. So you don’t support the free speech of the KKK.
I know you don’t support Ann Coulter speaking at Berkeley, did you???
You don’t support Milo speaking at Berkeley did you???
And when candidate Trump was shut down from speaking at Chicago last year during the campaign, the Chicago police being given a stand down order by the mayor, you didn’t support Donald Trumps right to free speech did you????
The three L’s, Libertarians, Liberals and the Left don’t support the Bill of Rights. But they do support legal public marijuana intoxication, and they support shooting up crystal meth to improve their sexual experience legally in public.
Screw Nazis. They can catch a bullet.
Libertarians do, as a matter of fact, support the Bill of Rights. Moreso than most, as it happens — and at least every bit as much as you, if not more.
No amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth to the contrary is ever going to change that, either. Why you insist on promulgating such an obvious, bold-faced lie that you damned-well know you’re completely unable to support or defend is beyond me.
But, carry on, anyway. You can look forward to being corrected on that demonstrable lie each and every time to spew it. That I can promise.
Categorically those tearing down Confederate monuments don’t have the slightest idea or knowledge of what they are doing! Ignorance of the War and the causes for it run rampant on the left! Now we are seeing attacks on monuments in the North such as the Lincoln monument. Protester want to dig up bodies of soldiers that served their country in our Nation’s worst crisis. I would rather see them buried for their ignorance 12′ under! Having clan on both sides, any desecration to Union or Confederate should immediately be punished with extreme bias!
So you’re in favor of treason and white supremacy. Marching with the Nazis in Charlotteville were you? But it was about taxes or some nonsense you say! I’ll quote the VP of the country you’re loyal to, the country the USA beat in the Civil War, the CSA:
“The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution African slavery as it exists amongst us the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the “rock upon which the old Union would split.” He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the “storm came and the wind blew.”
Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics. All fanaticism springs from an aberration of the mind from a defect in reasoning. It is a species of insanity. One of the most striking characteristics of insanity, in many instances, is forming correct conclusions from fancied or erroneous premises; so with the anti-slavery fanatics. Their conclusions are right if their premises were. They assume that the negro is equal, and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights with the white man. If their premises were correct, their conclusions would be logical and just but their premise being wrong, their whole argument fails. I recollect once of having heard a gentleman from one of the northern States, of great power and ability, announce in the House of Representatives, with imposing effect, that we of the South would be compelled, ultimately, to yield upon this subject of slavery, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics, as it was in physics or mechanics. That the principle would ultimately prevail. That we, in maintaining slavery as it exists with us, were warring against a principle, a principle founded in nature, the principle of the equality of men. The reply I made to him was, that upon his own grounds, we should, ultimately, succeed, and that he and his associates, in this crusade against our institutions, would ultimately fail. The truth announced, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics as it was in physics and mechanics, I admitted; but told him that it was he, and those acting with him, who were warring against a principle. They were attempting to make things equal which the Creator had made unequal.”
TLDR? They were racist traitors.
So many Nazi symps.
What you’re actually seeing here is not sympathy for Nazis, but a full-throated defense of free speech for all — including those opposed to Nazis.
If you don’t see that, then you obviously haven’t read a damn thing anybody here has written and you’re just defaulting to your feelings on this debacle, feelings which are built totally on your own preconceived notions on the matter and have absolutely zero interest in reviewing factual arguments.
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