Nazis Around The Corner

[Nolerama]

There will be a Nazi rally under the Gateway Arch in St. Louis on April 18, 2009.

I've been seeing fliers that speak out against their rally, and plans for counter-rallies.

I think both should be able to occur, regardless of my distaste for Nazi beliefs, and what that group represents.

However, a lot of my acquaintances are talking about "beating them up" and "teaching them a lesson."

How are you to get your ideological point across the hate line while you're attacking someone for having strong beliefs?

I say just let them talk their talk, and leave the city. No counter rally. No press. Nothing. If Nazi belief is so detested in the US, then I say ignore it.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

There will be a Nazi rally under the Gateway Arch in St. Louis on April 18, 2009.

I've been seeing fliers that speak out against their rally, and plans for counter-rallies.

I think both should be able to occur, regardless of my distaste for Nazi beliefs, and what that group represents.

However, a lot of my acquaintances are talking about "beating them up" and "teaching them a lesson."

How are you to get your ideological point across the hate line while you're attacking someone for having strong beliefs?

I say just let them talk their talk, and leave the city. No counter rally. No press. Nothing. If Nazi belief is so detested in the US, then I say ignore it.

I agree with you.

I was living in Denver when the Klan came to town. They had a nice little demonstration - all legal like - on the front steps of the capitol building.

The anti-Klan protesters outnumbered the protesters, by a lot.

A riot broke out.

A young girl, a peacenik who just believed in love and beads and pot and whatever - tried to argue a bunch of punks out of throwing a garbage can through the front window of Argonaut liquors and stealing all the booze. They tried to kill her. Almost did it.

Denver Post - Klan Rally, 1993

Such clever, nice, anti-Klan protesters.

Of course, no one was to blame. The Klan pointed out that they didn't rob the liquor store. The anti-Klan protesters pointed out that only criminals would rob a liquor store, they were just there to protest the Klan. But the liquor store got robbed, and a young girl nearly died trying to tell people to love each other.

Rocky Mountain News - Klan Rally

Yeah, I don't like the Klan, or Nazis, or any hate groups. I dislike everything they are, and everything they stand for. They make me sick to my stomach. But if they come to my town to march, I'll make plans to be elsewhere.

Guess I'm just a big old coward. Ask anyone.

 

[Andy Moynihan]

Most I ever did when seeing a skinhead/Neo-Nutzi group talking was to just ask friends and/or anybody around if they were up for a rousing chorus of "Colonel Bogey" and then instruct them in the lyrics and we'd march by singing it top of our lungs until we passed out of earshot.

Nice balance between doing nothing and doing something destructive and it felt better than just taking it as we went by.

 

[MA-Caver]

Where are the Blues Brothers when you need 'em??

 

[Andy Moynihan]

Where are the Blues Brothers when you need 'em??

They hate Illinois Nazis, would stand to reason they'd hate these ones too.

 

[Andy Moynihan]

Most I ever did when seeing a skinhead/Neo-Nutzi group talking was to just ask friends and/or anybody around if they were up for a rousing chorus of "Colonel Bogey" and then instruct them in the lyrics and we'd march by singing it top of our lungs until we passed out of earshot.

Nice balance between doing nothing and doing something destructive and it felt better than just taking it as we went by.

Then, too, "Der Fuhrer's Face" would work quite nicely also......

 

[arnisador]

"teaching them a lesson."

They've proved themselves ineducable.

I'd agree that ignoring these rockbrains would be the optimal approach.

 

[Empty Hands]

I agree that ignoring them would be the wisest course. Still, I can't totally disagree that an ***-kicking is warranted. Really, there is no point in fine debate and getting your point across to a neo-Nazi. They have already demonstrated themselves impervious to reason. Perhaps my size 13s would get the point across?

Of course, then they'd probably tell each other how they had to suffer for the truth and that they are martyrs to the cause. *sigh* You just can't win.

 

[arnisador]

Still, I can't totally disagree that an ***-kicking is warranted.

Warranted, sure. Productive? No. (Still, would it feel good? Well...let's not go there.)

Tolerating this type of attention-seeking idiocy is the cost of freedom of speech.

 

[Thesemindz]

*sigh* You just can't win.

Yes you can.

Continue to ignore them, and encourage others to become enlightened and do the same.

Eventually, once enough people just don't care, we acheive a kind of psychological herd immunity and these kinds of ideas whither on the vine.

Fighting them only draws attention to their misguided beliefs. Ignoring those beliefs denies them the attention they need to perpetuate them.

Of course they're ignorant. Of course bigotry is stupid.

Of course some people will always argue that while their bigotry is stupid, our bigotry is legitimate.

Of course.


-Rob

 

[redantstyle]

ignoring them is the best course.

 

[crushing]

If no one showed up to cover, protest, or otherwise observe their rally, would they have anything to gain by having a rally?

We must be careful that in ignoring them that we don't forget they are still out there.

 

[Flea]

I used to be a journalist, and one of my first assignments was a KKK rally. What really got me was that in between diatribes, they would blast George Thorogood's "Bad to the Bone." Thank goodness Frank Sinatra was around to invent the blues ...
:barf:

Of course counter-protest just plays into their persecution mentality and proves them "right."

I like Michael Moore's approach:

Of course I'm sure the outcome would have been very different without cameras rolling. It was foolhardy and dangerous, but funny as hell.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Freedom of Speech doesn't just cover what you want to say or hear.
It covers what you don't.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

I also consider why they are there. They are there hoping - praying - that people will show up to protest them. Do they really think, in a million years, that people will come to their rallies and convert to their way of thinking? No, they don't think that - they're not that stupid.

But when the 'opposition' shows up, they get news coverage. The Nazis marched in Skokie, film at eleven. If there is a riot, so much the better.

So why give them what they want?

They actually managed it a few years back, in Beloit, Wisconsin.

When the Klan held a rally there, the city responded with a counter-demonstration on the other side of town. Free entry, they had a mini-circus, rides for the kids, local performers, demonstrations from various ethnic coalitions for peace, free hot dogs and balloons and face-painting, and they publicized it like crazy for weeks beforehand. Really did it up right. The day came, the Klan stood on the courthouse steps with their bullhorns and a couple dozen protesters. They yelled and sang for an hour and then packed up and left town. Even the news crews weren't covering them. Everybody was having fun on the other side of town, busy NOT hating each other. Imagine that.

 

[elder999]

Warranted, sure. Productive? No. (Still, would it feel good? Well...let's not go there.)

Tolerating this type of attention-seeking idiocy is the cost of freedom of speech.

Freedom of Speech doesn't just cover what you want to say or hear.
It covers what you don't.

True confession time. Long before I understood what Bob has said here, or, at least, before I'd internalized it, I had a run in with the Klan-deliberately.

I was going to boarding school in Connecticut-this would have been 1973, or '74, and the Klan was going to demonstrate in Westport-or was it Waterbury? Anyway, it was pretty far from Lakeville, where I was, but I rode my bicycle over there with my wrist-rocket slingshot and a bag full of ball bearings, found a good tree to hide in, and proceeded to pepper the Klan-who jumped about as if they were being stung by bees, but didn't seem to find me....I actually got to run out of ball bearings, jump out of the tree and right in front of a Connecticut State Trooper......

....who took my slingshot, smiled and said, You better go home, now,
and so I did. :lol:

Naturally, I'd neither recommend or condone such foolish action today, but now, nearly 40 years later, I can still savor the satisfaction, and can understand the impulse.....

 

[LuckyKBoxer]

I guess I am just a glutton for punishment, I find myself wanting to go watch the circus that things like this innevitably become, just to watch people on both sides at their worst, most ignorant, and most extreme. Its usually a pretty good lesson in human behavior, at least the type of human behavior most people take martial arts to defend themselves against. It always seems that you can watch the crowd and know when the freak out is going to happen and who is going to do it..
regardless of whether its a Hate Group agenda, political agenda, environmental agenda, anything that basically generates emotions, and extremists from either side. /shrug

 

[Bill Mattocks]

I guess I am just a glutton for punishment, I find myself wanting to go watch the circus that things like this innevitably become, just to watch people on both sides at their worst, most ignorant, and most extreme. Its usually a pretty good lesson in human behavior, at least the type of human behavior most people take martial arts to defend themselves against. It always seems that you can watch the crowd and know when the freak out is going to happen and who is going to do it..
regardless of whether its a Hate Group agenda, political agenda, environmental agenda, anything that basically generates emotions, and extremists from either side. /shrug

Something to consider - if you get swept up in the general disorder you can quickly find yourself maced, clubbed, and/or arrested. Not 'being part of it' really isn't likely to get you off.

Even more fun - when I was living in Denver, the Avalanche won the Stanley Cup one year. There was a huge celebration in LoDo, and lots of people went knowing that things were going to get out of hand - one of our friends went hoping to see some 'fights' and so on.

Well, his car got overturned and torched by the mob, along with lots of others (he wasn't in it, it was parked). He laughed about it at first, because he had insurance. Then he found out insurance companies don't cover losses due to 'civil disorder'. He got nothing, and he still owed thousands on the car to the bank. Oops.

 

[Bruno@MT]

Something to consider - if you get swept up in the general disorder you can quickly find yourself maced, clubbed, and/or arrested. Not 'being part of it' really isn't likely to get you off.

The brother of a classmate (both were punkers) went to an anarchist hangout for a drink while he knew there would be a protest.
When he left he got swept up in the riot, and when the riot squad charged, they broke his jaw, his arm, his ribs, and gave the rest of him a good bruising.

Lesson learned: don't be an idiot. I you know there are going to be riots. Stay away. Mobs and riots are unpredictable things. Stay away from them if you don't want to get caught up. As cool as it may appear in your imagination, it won't be nearly as cool if you have to eat through a straw for the next couple of months.

 

[CoryKS]

It seems to me that a person's tolerance for opposing beliefs tends to be inversely proportionate to the popularity of that belief. A lot of people don't have a problem with Klan rallies because they rightly see them as a tiny group of lunatics. But what happens to that tolerance if their ideas take hold in a growing number of citizens? Maybe they're like 1% of the population, but what if they grow to 20%? Or 40%? Would you be as comfortable with the rally if it became a Million Klan March?

Not endorsing violent opposition to the rally, just wondering if those who support the Klan's right to march are doing it from a principled First Amendment stance or because they see them as mostly harmless.