(September 4, 2017 at 10:03 pm)bennyboy Wrote:(September 4, 2017 at 9:31 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: That has been the case with some Americans. Some have acted to silence free speech through violence or its threat. The torchlight parade was such a threat, which resulted in a death the next day. They can surely march, but they don't have the right to be free of disagreement, and the certainly do not have the right to quell disagreement with violence.^
Absolutely. I despise those fuckers. They're immature, willfully ignorant, and they are by far on the wrong side of history.
BUT they are a group of individuals, and I will tend to treat them as individuals first and as group members second: that means no matter what I think of the group, I'd extend all the privileges of citizenship to each, including those of free speech and in the US the right to bear arms.
I still don't know whether the torchlight parade constituted a threat-- I don't know what was shouted, what was actually done. I wouldn't put it past white supremacists to break the law, but I haven't actually seen video of that from Charlottesville.
I agree that pasting the onus of one's crime against an entire group is horseshit.
The threat that I see is not criminal, but rather, sociopolitical. I don't see that anyone marching in those parades is breaking any laws, so long as all they're doing is marching, and I would defend their rights too -- because so long as they're not hurting people, a simple march, odious though it may be, is only the right to free speech and free assembly being exercised.
I have seen video of one supremacist breaking the law -- driving his car into counterprotesters -- and he is being prosecuted. Good.