Current Post On Trae’s Blog:
"Don't waste any time mourning. Organize!"
-Joe Hill
My brother texted the family group chat this quote before he went to work today. I'm not in a good place this morning, but we can't lose ourselves to despair. I know I have a lot of anger right now, but getting into whose fault that is won't help anyone.
Dwelling on the people I will never forgive won't help anyone.
I'm not that optimistic, but hope is a choice we can still make. It's a hard one to make this morning, but I'm still going to do my best. We are where we are, and focusing on yesterday won't change that. We can only move forward, and save as many as we can along the way.
There will be a tomorrow because we're going to make sure there's a tomorrow.
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Sometimes, you need to make the opportunity.
Yea gonna have to agree with her
And Lynn becomes the first master of a new Jedi order. Brotherhood, peace, and understanding – ‘cept those gods-damned Nazis. Fark them.
Where do I sign up?
But…Terrence *wasn’t* a nazi. The smart money is on Terrence being a garden-variety asshole. I do not know Terrence’s political beliefs.. It’s never come up in-comic. He might actually *be* a (neo) nazi, but you can’t tell that from the fact that he showed up in costume. Lynn is confusing the symbol with what it points to. That’s intolerance.
This isn’t a bad plotline but did Terrence really stand there quietly all this time saying nothing that would identify him to Lynn before the big punch scene? He didn’t try to explain himself? Nobody asked him a question or said something that required Terrence reply with spoken words around Lynn the first time around?
I’m sorry, but if a person owns a Nazi uniform and wears it for fun, they’re at least a little bit of a Nazi.
(Clarification: Lynn spotted him from across the lobby at first, and then immediately went to get Ruth — not looking at his face.)
Yup. If it walks like a duck AND quacks like a duck, you treat it like a duck. If it’s three mice standing on the shoulders of each other in a duck costume and quacking, then it’s trying to act like a duck and should not be surprised when you tell it “Go fuck off, duck.”
I am reminded of Prince Harry going to a costume party in a Nazi uniform, and not understanding why it might have been a public relations faux paus (I know I spelled that wrong.)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1481148/Prince-Harry-faces-outcry-at-Nazi-outfit.html
Well, actually a modified shirt, but the implications are still there. I wonder if Lynn would have punched Harry!
Wearing a Nazi uniform in public is generally considered a threat by the various minorities who were slaughtered by Nazis. This is helped by modern far-right assholes wearing Nazi-like uniforms while calling for the death of various minorities. So if you wear a Nazi uniform in public, you are threatening various people, and everyone, including you, knows it. Issue a death threat to a bunch of minorities, Ima call you a Nazi even if you happen to be a “pro-Confederate Libertarian whatever” asshole instead.
1) It is legal in the United States to wear a Nazi uniform, you’re an asshole for doing it, but it’s legal. First Amendment, free speech, yada yada. People can voice their feelings, it’s America, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Freedom! And Eagles.
2) Wearing a Nazi uniform does not in and of itself constitute a threat, it’s just rude and makes you an asshole. Words aren’t violence; actions are violence.
3) In the United States, it is legal to walk down the street wearing a Nazi uniform and chant damn near anything you want, including “Death to XXXX” where that amalgam of x’s constitutes one or more religious, minority, or oppressed groups. Still legal, you’re just an even bigger asshole and starting to get close to territory where the cops come talk to you about the scene you’re causing. Not causing a scene is probably best: cops like excuses to punch Nazis and then frog-march them away.
4) In the United States,you and any number of your Nazi uniform wearing asshole friends can file the paperwork, pay some nominal fees, and hold a public rally or march so long as you only walk, talk, hand out leaflets, maybe use a megaphone or PA system. In fact, included among those fees will be police to watch over you, making sure nobody attacks you, and making sure you stay on your best behavior and don’t break the law, like touching anyone with your nasty Nazi uniform wearing hands.
5) In the United States, if you do all the above and then you lay your shitty asshole hands on someone or fail to leave a private location once your are told to leave by the police (tresspass!), congratulations! Everyone gets to punch the fuck out of you for being a shitty, asshole, Nazi Uniform wearing, racist, dick-bag.
So what you guys really really want is for Terrance and his ilk to throw the first punch, then it’s self defense and you get to reasonably defend yourself or whomever from his assault and battery. Or you call the PoPo/50 and have them ask him to leave, bump that shit up the levels, keep you hands clean.
“Threats of violence” and “Speech likely to cause a disturbance” (the Fightin’ Words rule) have both been held by the Supreme Court to not be protected under freedom of speech. Similarly to the “Fire in a crowded theater” rule, these are situations where the public good is determined to outweigh a narrowly-defined type of speech. “Death to [minority]” and “[minority] are subhuman dogs” would both qualify as unprotected by those standards. Now, whether the uniform itself devoid of any verbal speech qualifies as a threat I admit is debatable, but it definitely qualifies as “likely to cause a disturbance”.
However, all questions of legality are irrelevant. Cops are generally white-supremacist adjacent at a minimum, the DoJ doesn’t consider far-right violent extremists a concern, the courts have been packed by far-right ideologues, and the latest addition to the SC has made it clear he intends to punish democrats by any means necessary. If the law gets involved, the racist basically wins by default. Don’t call the cops, just cover your face and punch until he stops moving.
R.A.V. v. City of St Paul , National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie, and Yates v. United States beg to differ.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R.A.V._v._City_of_St._Paul
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_America_v._Village_of_Skokie
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yates_v._United_States
“Fighting Words” require an immediacy and proximity. I get up in your face and spew a torrent of horrible words to you about how I think you and some member of your family routinely engage in illegal sexual activities with each other; if I get up in some minority person’s face and shout that I’m going to beat (him) like an old drum; or if rouse a group of people to attack, right this minute, that exact person right over there: those would constitute fighting words or direct incitement of action, as would a couple other situations.
The person making the claim of “fighitng words”, “Clear and present danger” or “threat” has to prove the immediacy and the proximity
Let’s clear up something about 1st Amendment – it is the freedom to have an opinion contrary to the Government’s without fear of persecution. It forbids the Government from taking action against you if your opinion is opposed to its. I does NOT forbid or bar consequences of one’s expressions from non-Governmental sources, i.e. being ejected from a private venue and/or getting punched for wearing a Nazi uniform. “Free Speech” has no application outside of that, especially in a private or interpersonal context. Further, the ability of private property owners, such as universities or hotels, to restrict what is displayed or said, even in their “public” areas has been repeatedly upheld. If the Convention didn’t ask the controversy-generating “Nazi” troll to leave BEFORE the venue got around to it (to save the venue’s reputation!), it would reflect badly on the Convention, and might cause the convention to lose the venue for the future.
I find that differentiating between the various varieties of White Supremacists to be spurious reasoning at best. Nazi, Neo-Nazi, Alt-Right, Identity Evropa, etc., they’re all the same. Their origins may be different, splintered, from different branches of the same tree, or even hate one another, but their ideologies are the same. We just call them Nazis. Because I don’t have to know which branch of the racist, genocidal tree he sits on to call a Nazi a Nazi.
Saying Terrance isn’t a Nazi because he wasn’t part of the German Socialist movement of the 30s and 40s, and might *just* be a Neo-Nazi minimizes the danger that the normalization of their ideology presents. It’s a PR spin, just like the Alt-Right is. Call a spade a spade, and a Nazi a Nazi. Don’t let them fool you. And it’s never wrong to punch a Nazi.
you are assuming that Nazi and garden-variety asshole are mutually exclusive and BOY are they Not
Terrence’s previous actions and comments have substantiated him being AT LEAST a garden-variety asshole. For a GVA to wear a Nazi uniform at a public event of this type does move him up a notch, especially since he apparently knew about the restraining orders, and didn’t bother to check about that, or about whether the uniform was a problem.
That said, I’m not sure that wearing a Nazi uniform requires one to be a Nazi. Terrence, based on his previous appearances, really could just be that stupid…
While it’s possible to wear a Nazi uniform and not be a Nazi, I don’t think you can wear a Nazi uniform in public for fun and not be at least a little Nazi.
There’s one breed of human that can, but they’re a serious rarity – and constitutionally obnoxious as hell to boot. I’ve known a few that are for anything at all that others will find shocking/annoying – regardless of it’s symbolism or meaning. Mostly sociopath types that don’t actually give a crap about others or others’ causes, but find that they make amusing toys to rile people up. Andy Kaufman types (for the old folks that remember him), but worse.
Fortunately – for ease of dealing with them – they tend to be big enough buttmunches that they deserve the punching in any case.
When in doubt, punch a Nazi.
You know, I do believe Captain America would agree with Lynn here. Punch Nazis. all of them.