What can a city do when neo-Nazis start marching down its streets?
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.
Got it. Fight back, but not for your rights which have been taken away from you.
You do realize a society can do more than one thing at a time, right?
Like, demanding police chiefs to arrest Nazis under the same circumstances that they arrest left-wing protesters is not going to magically diminish the work of left-wing lawyers and politicians to redefine the rules so that protesters, in general, are not being arrested. Even application is kind of the point of laws, and not simply allowing but actually advocating that an unequal application of the law be perpetuated (because it wouldn't be fair if the Nazis got the same treatment as left-wing protesters) is, itself, incredibly damaging to the legitimacy of the government as a whole.
Fuck's sake.
That... was literally what I was saying.
Read it again.
Okay, but it won't happen, so what's the point of demanding it rather than just working to redefine those roles and working to elect politicians who will do so?
It reminds me of some vegans who go out and protest meat eating. That's not going to stop people eating meat. Working on campaigns to convince people why they should stop eating meat is what should be concentrated on.
I do not see what demanding they be arrested accomplishes when you and I both know they won't be.
This you?
And furthermore, it's a lot easier to get cops to arrest people than to get cops to not arrest people.
I don't know how I could have been any more clear that I was being sarcastic.
... yes. You were being sarcastic. Which is what makes that response contradict your current point.
You mock the idea that we should never try to stop something because "We could never stop it", yet, then say, without any sarcasm or irony, "Okay, but it won’t happen so what’s the point of demanding it" on another issue.
Do you... not see the contradiction?
I'm saying arresting Nazis won't happen but changing the laws to make it so that protesters won't get arrested at all is a possibility, especially on a regional or local level.
One relies on the cops cooperating. The other relies on just telling them they can't even be there.
Yes, and you dismiss the idea of attempting it because "it will never happen" after mocking the approach of "It won't happen so why try".
I legitimately don't know how to simplify this any further.
Do you... do you think the cops listen when they're told not to be somewhere and they want to be there? Do you think that's not cooperation?
Yes. I think cops will not go places if they're told they will be facing things like fines if they do. They like getting paid.
And I think it's much easier to do that on a local level than telling them to go arrest the Nazis.
So there's the power to coerce cops to follow the law, but not the power to coerce cops to do their job and ensure others are following the law. Do we have the power to make cops enforce any laws?
You think it's easier to make cops respect people's rights than it is to get them to arrest people they don't give a fuck about.
Okay.
Yes. It's called money.
Yes, if it costs them money.