WTF Armed Neo-Nazis Crash Detroit Pride with Police Escort

Jolene Benoir

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Which, since the march passed off apparently without incident, would clearly have been just as much an over-reaction by the police as it was at Ferguson. Surely those policing this event should be applauded for not over-reacting as much as did their colleagues in Ferguson rather than be condemned for not so doing?

I'm horrified that anyone, let alone Nazis, are allowed to take guns to demonstrations, and I'm unhappy that Nazis are allowed to demonstrate at all, though I do understand the legal and constitutional issues there are not completely clear-cut.

But given that things like this are allowed to happen in Detroit, for reasons that must seem good to someone, surely it's better that the police attend than that they don't?

Furthermore, since we know the Nazis are bringing their guns along, then surely it's only wise for the cops to be appropriately armed for the operation, too?

I'd rather the police had been there to arrest them than to protect people from them (or to protect them) but surely the police couldn't not have been there?
Yes, of course, all of that is very reasonable and in light of what happened in Charlottesville very subdued. Of course most people would not support an all out melee between opposing sides. It could be taken that they were indeed there for that purpose.

I think people are mainly objecting to the double standard. When you factor in the concerted effort by some neo-nazis to use police and military service to learn weapon's training and the opposite reactions, their loyalties and very different policing strategies will be questioned, rightly or wrongly. When people with more melatonin gather with or without guns the response is quite different, obviously. That has left a very sour taste in people's mouths regarding police behavior in general and not many, in particular those who have been on the receiving end of their less than stellar behavior at times, are willing to give any benefit of the doubt regarding their intentions.
 
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Katheryne Helendale

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Any time a group of Nazis gather for a demonstration of any kind, I would rather the police show up to keep things in check, because I absolutely do not trust a group of Nazis to police itself.
 

Bea McMahon

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As you may know, I'm a Detroiter. You can imagine the commotion this is causing here.
I'm horrified and outraged by these Nazi filth in my town, at Motor City Pride.
I can't find the quote right now, but the police chief was quoted as saying that the police were a mobile barrier more than an escort. The Nazis were armed, and were prepared to open fire.
Whether or not this was all handled in the best way will be debated; I am merely thankful that no one was injured.
The Detroit Police Department does have a community relations officer to work as a liaison with the LGBT community; she is an African-American lesbian. They have tried to improve relations with the community. Many of the officers at Pride were seen wearing rainbow pins on their uniforms.
 

Bartholomew Gallacher

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The only thing Nazis deserve is a bullet between their eyes. They're NAZIS.
Wrong. Exact this approach only creates more of whatever you want to battle against, and you can see by the so called "war on terror" how great it worked so far, which was the biggest terrorism growth program funded by America in the recent history! And exactly this is why there is law, a juridical system in place and the police, because otherwiise there would by only violent lynch mobs without end.

The consitution makes no selection on religion, race, personal stance or whatever in order if you've got human rights, or not. Either you got them, or you don't. This includes the freedom of speech.

Or how Voltaire put it " I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." You cannot exterminate Nazis by violence; instead you should battle the fertile soil which made it possible for them to grow upon. And you need to talk to them. Talk talk talk.

Look for example at the black piano player Daryl Davis and how he was able to convince Ku Klux Klan members to leave it.

What they deserve is any dispute and counter demonstration and stuff which is possible, also getting judged by the law when needed; and the disdain of society as well.
 
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Kara Spengler

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If the law permits people to participate in demonstrations and counter-demonstrations while openly carrying firearms, some people might think it's a bloody stupid law and a disaster waiting to happen, but that's the fault of the legislators, as well as that of whoever drew up the detailed regulations about conditions under which permits may be denied or allowed for demonstrations and counter-demonstrations and also of whoever granted the permits for the counter-demonstration.

However, if the Nazi demonstration/counter demonstration was, in fact, lawful, then I think I would rather welcome the presence of large numbers of heavily armed cops on the scene.

What's the alternative -- leave the fascists and anti-fascists to settle their differences between them and hope both sides can shoot straight?
When I first moved to DC a weapon ban was in place (not just firearms, any weapons). I just found that logical for any big city, lots of people and weapons do not usually make for a healthy combination (especially with such a target rich environment like a countries' capitol city). Besides, it is not like there is anyplace in a city you can go hunting. Or even fire a weapon for ANY reason without the risk of hitting someone else. Nope, eventually someone sued the city over that law.
 

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Or how Voltaire put it " I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." You cannot exterminate Nazis by violence; instead you should battle the fertile soil which made it possible for them to grow upon. And you need to talk to them. Talk talk talk.

Look for example at the black piano player Daryl Davis and how he was able to convince Ku Klux Klan members to leave it.

What they deserve is any dispute and conter demonstration and stuff which is possible, also getting judged by the law when needed; and the disdain of society as well.
Talking has only gotten us so far and theres not enough people out there talking ... the underlying problem hasn't been dealt with and more people are being radicalized every day as society ignores them... Our democracy is falling apart cause these people are getting into positions of power, stalling our progression and innovation. And you know how our country prefers bullets(in thier mind it worked before and we can do it again.) its only a matter of time before the "Easier and faster" method is used..
 

Innula Zenovka

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Or how Voltaire Evelyn Beatrice Hall put it " I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." You cannot exterminate Nazis by violence; instead you should battle the fertile soil which made it possible for them to grow upon. And you need to talk to them. Talk talk talk.

Look for example at the black piano player Daryl Davis and how he was able to convince Ku Klux Klan members to leave it.

What they deserve is any dispute and counter demonstration and stuff which is possible, also getting judged by the law when needed; and the disdain of society as well.
Fixed it for you.

Are you seriously telling me that you yourself would defend to the death the right of racists and homophobes and bigots to insult, humiliate and intimidate their targets, and that you think the laws we have in most European countries against incitement to hatred against minorities of different kinds should be repealed?

I can't believe that's really what you meant to say, and I am sure you might want to rephrase the somewhat counter-historical contention that "You cannot exterminate Nazis by violence" -- some people might say that, some 75 years ago, the Soviet and Allied armies exterminated rather a lot of them through less than pacific means.

Violence isn't the only solution but sometimes it is a necessary part of the toolbox, in order to enable people to "battle the fertile soil which made it possible for them to grow upon" as you put it (I am not sure "battling" soil is a particularly good metaphor -- in case of severe infection, you need, I think, to sterilise soil rather than battle it) and it's sometimes the only one available if the Nazi to whom you feel you need to talk doesn't have the time to listen because he's too busy invading Poland.
 

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Vigilantism is obnoxious and they’re much better at it than we are. But we’re seeing a coup by a minority government that is doing its best to rig the voting process, more or less in the open.

The fascists have bought their own propaganda stereotype of the weak willed liberal, so they don’t realize that in the U.S., their opponents are nearly as well armed as they are, if in smaller numbers. We’re sliding into a civil war the hard Right clearly means to put down by force along racial and religious lines, but mostly racial.

The decider will be whatever is left of moneyed elites, in both parties. When they finally realize they have built the pyre for a conflagration, they may finally try to wrest power from a faction that wants us to burn, but it may not work by then.

Then the pyre will be lit.

I know this kind of talk seems extreme, but the hard Right is showing so much lack of restraint, that the consensus we’re all programmed to think is unbreakable, is in the process of being overturned. We’ve always been essentially a consensus system, since the last civil war, rather than a parliamentarian one. The consensus is now a target.

The hard Right thinks it can avoid going too far. I think it’s about to slide right into the fire for which it’s been piling up fuel.
 
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Brenda Archer

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Jeff Flake was our canary in the coal mine of dying consensus.
 

Innula Zenovka

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Not sure if I'm a liberal. In US terms I am, but I think the US definition is so broad as to mean "anyone who isn't a conservative," which, since very few US conservatives seem interested in conserving anything very much other than their own wealth and power by whatever means necessary, and if possible increasing it, that doesn't really get me far.

However, I do very strongly believe in the (to my mind, traditionally Conservative) position that one of the necessary preconditions to enjoying the advantages of living in a society of any complexity is that the state has the monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, and has the sole authority to say when violence by non-state actors is legitimate (e.g. in self-defence or defence of another).

In this I don't just have Thomas Hobbes (and his Leviathan) behind me; I'm thinking also of Timothy Snyder's analysis in both Black Earth and Bloodlands of the way that the breakdown of the state and legitimate state authority, both inside Central and Eastern European counties and inside the concentration and extermination camps, was a necessary precondition for mass murder by the Nazis.

So the reason I don't like the idea of the police allowing Nazis and anti-Nazis to shoot it out between themselves isn't that I have anything against shooting Nazis when you have to, but that at present, even in the USA, I think that the state simply cannot allow rival groups to fight it out on the streets without making everything far, far worse.

If the situation changes, at least in the UK, then I might have to reconsider renewing my shotgun licence and taking up shooting again, but let's hope it doesn't come to that.
 
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Lady Darnk Juniorette

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The movie clearly states that Surf Nazis MUST die!!!

I love how hundreds of thousands of people died so we could just "try to reason" with them decades later.

Also "debate" just gives their bullshit air, they dont have to convince everyone or even "win", it doesn't matter how right you are or how dumb/factually incorrect you make their ideas seem.

It's not worthy of debate, stop giving their bullshit air.
 
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Bartholomew Gallacher

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Talking has only gotten us so far and theres not enough people out there talking ... the underlying problem hasn't been dealt with and more people are being radicalized every day as society ignores them... Our democracy is falling apart cause these people are getting into positions of power, stalling our progression and innovation. And you know how our country prefers bullets(in thier mind it worked before and we can do it again.) its only a matter of time before the "Easier and faster" method is used..
The problem is not that those people get in power, but have already been in power too long - and that corporate America in reality is running too much of your country.

And yes, since Trump America does remind me more and more like a country on the brink of at least nasty riots again in certain areas, if not even a civil war. But the thing is that this did not become a thing because of Trump being president - his supporters have been there all along for quite a long time. The thing is that since Trump being president this big divide has become openly visible, and it's looking quite scary and very nasty.

@Innula: what I am telling you is that if you do believe in human rights there's no turning them on or off like a dictator would do, no preconditions, you've got them from birth. You can contain them, regulate them to a certain degree as a country, but not deny them. Period. I never told that you should not fight against such tendencies.

In America there's the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which is a long standing NGO fighting for human rights. For decades this NGO has been fighting for human rights without making any judgements at all. This means that they paid lawyers for certain people who could not afford them, amongst others - Nazis, communists, KKK members, whatever it did'nt matter.

Now 2018 an internal memo has been leaked, in which the stance on free speech was now "Their vague references to the "serious harm" to "marginalized" people occasioned by speech can easily include the presumed psychological effects of racist or otherwise hateful speech, which is constitutionally protected but contrary to ACLU values. Faced with perceived conflicts between freedom of speech and "progress toward equality," the ACLU is likely to choose equality. "

And yes, this is worrying, when such a long standing NGO is rethinking and readjusting its core values.
 
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Sean Gorham

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Reasoning with fascists implies they want to reason. They don't. They want to control and exterminate. I can't imagine that fascists have ever argued in good faith, because it's part of their playbook to twist the values of the existing regime to their own ends while making you question the validity of those values.

Properly tolerant societies do not and should not ever put up with intolerance. That path leads to the intolerant taking over.

Do I want civilians shooting it out in the streets? Of course not! But it's going to happen eventually. It's the United States and a lot of people here are gun-happy. Hopefully that day is a long ways from now.

The question to ask is not "is anti-fascist violence a good thing?" The question is "when is anti-fascist violence warranted?"

tl;dr: You don't reason with Nazis. You punch their fucking lights out. They. Are. NAZIS.





Do we really need another World War to figure this out? :banghead:
 

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Fixed it for you.

Are you seriously telling me that you yourself would defend to the death the right of racists and homophobes and bigots to insult, humiliate and intimidate their targets, and that you think the laws we have in most European countries against incitement to hatred against minorities of different kinds should be repealed?

I can't believe that's really what you meant to say, and I am sure you might want to rephrase the somewhat counter-historical contention that "You cannot exterminate Nazis by violence" -- some people might say that, some 75 years ago, the Soviet and Allied armies exterminated rather a lot of them through less than pacific means.

Violence isn't the only solution but sometimes it is a necessary part of the toolbox, in order to enable people to "battle the fertile soil which made it possible for them to grow upon" as you put it (I am not sure "battling" soil is a particularly good metaphor -- in case of severe infection, you need, I think, to sterilise soil rather than battle it) and it's sometimes the only one available if the Nazi to whom you feel you need to talk doesn't have the time to listen because he's too busy invading Poland.
Well said. One cannot counter armed sociopaths spoiling for a fight with chants or singing kumbiya -at least not after a certain point.

Clutching pearls over someone wishing death on people who are actively mobilizing and taking to the streets with the purposes of violence -condemning someone for wishing death on the people that are actively working to achieve OUR deaths ...that's counter productive.

That's dumb.

Bartholomew, save your pearl clutching for those who deserve it -like, maybe, the folks who are actively engaging in armed intimidation.
 

Han Held

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The consitution makes no selection on religion, race, personal stance or whatever in order if you've got human rights, or not. Either you got them, or you don't. This includes the freedom of speech.
Freedom of speech does NOT include the right to intimidate others, particularly with violence or a display of arms.

This is a stupid, stupid, idiotic hill for you to die on.

Just sayin'
 

Innula Zenovka

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@Innula: what I am telling you is that if you do believe in human rights there's no turning them on or off like a dictator would do, no preconditions, you've got them from birth. You can contain them, regulate them to a certain degree as a country, but not deny them. Period. I never told that you should not fight against such tendencies.

In America there's the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which is a long standing NGO fighting for human rights. For decades this NGO has been fighting for human rights without making any judgements at all. This means that they paid lawyers for certain people who could not afford them, amongst others - Nazis, communists, KKK members, whatever it did'nt matter.

Now 2018 an internal memo has been leaked, in which the stance on free speech was now "Their vague references to the "serious harm" to "marginalized" people occasioned by speech can easily include the presumed psychological effects of racist or otherwise hateful speech, which is constitutionally protected but contrary to ACLU values. Faced with perceived conflicts between freedom of speech and "progress toward equality," the ACLU is likely to choose equality. "

And yes, this is worrying, when such a long standing NGO is rethinking and readjusting its core values.
Yes, and the human rights in which I most certainly believe, and which you and I (well, I certainly, and I assume you too) have both enjoyed since birth are enshrined in the European Convention of Human Rights. That document, not least because it was drafted in the 1940s rather than the 1770s, accepts that most Convention rights are capable of coming into conflict with each other and allows government, under the close supervision of the courts, to infringe on some convention rights, to the minimum extent necessary, in order to protect the convention rights of others and for other essential purposes.

That certainly applies to Articles 10 and 11 (Freedom of Expression and Freedom of Assembly), and laws prohibiting incitement to hatred of people on various protected grounds (ethnicity, religion, national origin, sexual orientation and so on) are perfectly compatible with the Convention. Indeed, it can credibly be argued that they are, in fact, frequently necessary to protect the Convention rights of others.

Furthermore, I fail to see how recognising that harm, including serious psychological harm, can be caused by speech other than direct threats of violence is in any way contentious. That's simply a recognition of the blindingly bloody obvious (to use a technical term) and is why, for example, this chap was imprisoned not so long ago (while painting "Friendship Is Magic" and some rainbows and sparkles on a garden wall would probably have simply landed him with a fine or community sentence).

The reality of psychological harm, moreover has long been recognised in both criminal and civil law. It's part of the sentencing guidelines (ours, anyway) when assessing harm caused to the victim by an unlawful assault and it's one reason why the penalties, at least in the UK, are considerably more severe for domestic burglary than burglary of commercial premises and way, way more severe for burglary of domestic premises while they are occupied, even if the occupier is unaware of the burglar's presence until after he's left.

This isn't anything to do with equality. It's to do with recognising that not all harm is physical, which is something else pretty bloody obvious, at least to my mind.

That's why we deal so harshly with any form of sexual assault as compared with non-sexual assault -- a man will generally, and quite rightly, receive an even more severe sentence for touching a woman sexually without her consent than he will for giving her a black eye, even though the physical harm is far greater in the latter case.

That's because of the psychological harm the sexual assault causes.
 

Bartholomew Gallacher

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Now generally speaking:

tl;dr: You don't reason with Nazis. You punch their fucking lights out. They. Are. NAZIS.
Nobody forces you to reason with them if you don't want to; but the above approach if really done by you would put you on the same low morale level the Nazis are standing on.

And yes, you cannot discuss with most of them; but then again most Democrats nowadays don't really understand what makes the Republicans tick either as well. If you stop to listen it also means that you stop understanding on how really to solve the problem.

And by punching faces those political extremists won't go away; you would just give them what they are desperate for, an enemy image. What only makes extremists in a society really go away is balancing out the social inequities at great scale and whichever the problems are that make them strong. Of course with Trump as corporate sycophant and right wing lover in the office this is nowadays a hard task to achieve.

What made the original Nazis strong? Hyperinflation in 1929, a big class of poor people, no big support for the democracy, many low income jobs, great unemployment rates, no hope for a change. Many of this can be easily applied to today's America as well; that's what those people are thriving on.

Then somebody showed up and gave them easy answers after he tried a putsch first and failed; he wrote even a book about what he intends to do if in power while in jail for his failed attempt, one of the most unread best sellers of all times. Too bad, because in this book he exactly laid down what he intended to do to the Jews, amonst other things, that nobody read or believed it.