Meanwhile in Florida, they’re banning even the thought of pro-palestinian speech. Idaho even still has laws on the books that allow the wearing of masks in public racist events because of their wide swath of KKK supporters. The world is a fucked up place.
A couple of months back, we had literal nazis on i4 in Florida - and some of them got arrested – not for being Nazis. But for NOT GETTING PERMITS to hang signs. The left the rest of the Nazis alone on i4 with signs so long as they weren’t being hung on the overpass. This shit went on for weeks. I asked a black detective of the Altamonte Springs PD why tf they weren’t getting arrested, and he wouldn’t answer me.
why tf they weren’t getting arrested
Because being an asshole isn’t illegal in America. And you wouldn’t want it to be, either.
Nazis are not only grumpy assholes, they literally want to kill entire groups of people just because of their skin colour or ethnicity. A democracy can‘t tolerate people like that because they themselves are anti-democratic.
Can’t prosecute people for what they think or want, only what they do. And again, you wouldn’t want that to be the case.
I mean… There are other models? Being a Nazi publically is illegal in a number of countries. America doesn’t have restrictions on hate speech but Canada does. Here’s how it works here :
You are totally allowed to express your opinions in private, to other people directly. If you are at my house and call me a slur - still legal. You are a fucking asshole and I am allowed at any time to tell you to leave for any reason and if you refuse to leave my house you are then commiting a completely different arrestable offence.
But if you take your paint and decide to mark a big swastika on the side of your house or wave a sign with “we should kill ____ people” (for any of the protected categories of people race/sex/sexuality/religion/gender/mental illness etc. ) on an overpass or assemble in a big group white pointy hoods with the express purpose of working yourself up to a genocide. That is illegal.
It’s the aspect of public expression which makes it illegal.
Americans tend to think that any checks on their freedom of speech is a sudden descent into 1984 but laws like this have quietly existed on our books for the past 30 years.
That is certainly a way to do it, but I don’t think limiting public expression is good. Bad things done with noble intent are still bad things.
Perhaps being a member of a group that committed a series of genocides, was a military enemy of the and US, and is grounded in nothing but conspiacism and pseudoscience that had to be stopped by the combined military force of half the western world should be illegal.
The main downside of protecting Nazism is genocide - what’s the upside?
Would you defend the rise of ISIS in the US for the same reasons, and if not, why not?
what’s the upside
That all groups are equally protected under the law, whether you like them or not. I’m sure AIPAC would love to designate supporting the liberation of Palestine a hate crime. I’m sure that corporate lobbyists would love to designate unions as a violent and disruptive organizations.
Would you defend the rise of ISIS in the US for the same reasons
If they are committing concrete acts of violence, no. If they rise as a political body, then yes.
Would you defend the rise of ISIS in the US for the same reasons, and if not, why not?
I’d defend someone who’s being arrested for wearing an isis t-shirt
However, wearing face coverings in Florida for these purposes, IS: https://www.flsenate.gov/laws/statutes/2011/876.12
And it hasn’t stopped cops from arresting people for being black, etc in the past.
Florida has laws on the books prohibiting facial coverings at events like these, they were breaking the law.
https://www.flsenate.gov/laws/statutes/2011/876.12
As with anything, it’s easy to find a law they were breaking and arrest them for THAT instead. They do it for their political opponents, but not Nazis.
