Virginia man convicted of punching rally organizer fined $1 - Sensationalist Headlines

Mate, I'll give you a little hint, those neo-nazis are trying to achieve exactly the same thing the nazis did. Their aspirations are exactly the same.

Nazi ideology calls for the extermination of everyone they deem inferior. By that standard, they merit only extermination themselves. That they are allowed to live and continue to flaunt their stupidity in our society is only by the grace of our tolerance. All we need is one good excuse to crush them.

They already think that though. Violence/the real threat of violence pushes them out of the public

It's not really about the Nazis, it's about the shitty precedent this sets but making it seem as though it's okay to enforce your political views with violence. Can you assure everyone that this will stop with Nazis? These kinds of things never stop with the initial target.

Hate begets hate...therefore we should tolerate hate????

Peaceful protest is only successful if the alternative threat of violence is real

I personally disagree. Nazis are and always have been a special case. Their ideology is an affront to the species and a crime against humanity. They are considered vermin by everyone but themselves. The court set a precedent of handing down a lenient sentence for assaulting a man who planned a Nazi rally that ended with them murdering a young woman who stood against them. Nothing more.

And unless USA got a Article 48 that can abuse power. There is a higher change I will win in lottery twice. I guess you're all against the First Amendment, the bill of human rights and The Four Freedoms. Lowering yourself to their level and playground. It is kinda ironic that America passed "The Four Freedoms" doing WW2, that gives full freedom of speech. No matter your views (Unless you harm others like yelling "Fire!"). I guess Americans was less violent and prioritized free speech, than today.

The first amendment protects you from the government, not people. It also doesn't protect against that and hate speech. At least learn about what you speak

I would say that getting a fine of $1 for punching someone, is no punishment. Therefor they encourage it.

Stop trying to legitimize Nazism.

Learn how to read. I'm saying that punching them is bad and it goes against the morals placed by freedom of speech. Caveman. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate.

Stop trying to legitimize Nazism.

If the nazis are being violent that's something for the police to handle. Would you support this kind of vigilante justice against criminals? No I doubt you would.

Perhaps. I'm not saying the guy was in the right. I'm simply saying that considering all the circumstances, the lenient sentence was understandable. Dude still has to deal with a criminal record - he wouldn't have been fined if he wasn't convicted.

If you start making exceptions then it's very easy to create a slippery slope to other forms of politically motivated violence.

Perhaps. But I don't see how this particular exception could apply to other cases. If the Jury really handed down the sentence, they weren't bound by case law.

Have you noticed how literally nobody is agreeing with you and people from both sides of the political spectrum are calling you out on your arguments? Maybe it's time to sep back and consider that maybe the one who's missing something here is actually you and not everyone else.

"This kind of vigilante justice" The horrible vigilante justice of punching a dude. Once. A dude who organized a white supremacist hate rally in which one person was murdered and at least 38 were injured. Yeah, no, I'm extremely fine with him being punched once or twice and chased out of his PR event. Fuck him. If this is some sort of terrible vigilante justice sign me the fuck up.

The only thing I state is that violence begets violence and this can lead to worse things. I still think that is a fair opinion to hold. I think its better to pass a law that say those believes aren't welcome instead of mob-mentality. The only valid arguments I've gotten are; "Nazis are rotten to the code", did horrible things 70 years ago and that I'm trying to legitimize Nazis. I get that they're rotten and a scummy believe, but I'm certainly sure that vigilante justice isn't the answer. But would you rather want to skip the judge and the jury and let the mob handle it? Vigilante justice?

Violence can begets more violence but so can inaction. We know there are people and ideologies that don't politely wait for you to fight back before escalating their attacks. Nazism is one of those. When linch mobs in the past attacked minorities, was it retaliation because a minority punched a guy?

I can't deny that fear of violence hasn't possibly been an effective deterrent against neo-nazis But is the conclusion really that we accept politically motivated violence in democracy, as long as it's against people we don't like? Does that sound sustainable? If you hold that "sometimes it's okay to punch a nazi", surely there has to be rules a bout it. When is it okay, who qualifies, how much violence, etc

Accepting it leads to further abuse, there are a lot of people out there with a very broad definiton of nazi, stupid angry vigilantes typically end up just using this shit for justification regardless of truth. If we create a label that violence is justified against, innocents in public areas, events and in general discourse will get taken advantage of by violent people looking to take their tendancies out on others. And, when someone is assaulted even the vague hint that someone may be the label ends up with people being like "oh well maybe they deserved it" regardless of the situation, it decreases the chance that other people will help or defend those innocents. How many nazis can go around hurting people without scrutiny? Not many, how many vigilantees can go around hurting innocent people they claim are nazis? A lot more than the nazis i bet. I think it's better to let 10 nazis go unpunched than let 1 innocent take the heat from normalized violence, but go far enough in this general direction and we get many, hundreds for each real target. A lot of people went into threads about the comedian who made a joke youtube video about his pug heiling hitler and basically went down that route, trying to discredit someone who had honestly been abused by the justice system, simply because of association. Vague accusations are all it takes for some people to stop caring about your human rights, and they're way more numerous than nazis, generally i think stronger education is needed, a lot of them *know* history but seemingly did zero analysis on the themes, systems and cycles of it. Basically, get rid of date memorization

I get wanting there to be a peaceful solution to this situation. That should be everyone's priority. I get the concern in protecting speech and thought. My own family was very nearly exterminated for daring to think differently. There are currently less than 50 people on the planet that share my name as the result of political purges past. The issue people seem to be glancing over is that this situation represents a failure of the state. The law as structured currently has failed those targeted by Nazis and is being twisted to protect and prioritize the rights of Nazis. As far as I understand, the local officials in Charlottesville gave the Nazi organizers permits to organize/demonstrate despite their intent to cause violence. The police were either unable or unwilling to disarm and disband the Nazis when it was clear they had organized with the intent to cause violence. The FBI and DHS again failed to act against the Nazis that were organizing with the intent to cause public violence. The Nazis then took to the streets and beat people, killing one. Despite clear signs that the Nazis intended to harm others physically, the state refused to act and insisted on protecting the rights of the Nazis, and as a result the Nazis used this state protection to strip others of their rights, well being, and life. How do you rectify that situation? Clearly vigilante justice is an unsustainable situation open to abuse, but it is also clear that the state has failed to protect vulnerable people given that the Nazis were allowed to organize and commit violence in full public view. If the system is structured in such a way that Nazis are allowed to organize, threaten, and injure, and kill people and the state won't or can't act until the Nazis have acted, is it morally right to demand that those threatened work only within the means of the system that has placed them in danger? How many blows from Nazis must innocents endure before they are allowed to respond?

Once again, I can't believe how short-sighted people are in this thread. Supporting punching people you disagree with politically is fucking retarded. Do you not see the heaps of issues that arise from this? For example: Where do you draw the line on who's getting punched? Is punching only reserved for nazis, or is it anyone on the far right? Or is it anyone with facists ideals? Would this include facists on the left? Historically, people claiming to be communists have killed far more than the nazis, so is it okay for me to punch a communist? Who even defines who is and who isn't a nazi? Or is it only self proclaimed nazis? Is it only punching that is allowed? What if that punch results in the person dying, something which, I might add, is more likely than you think. Or results in that person receiving permanent brain damage. What is it you hope to achieve by punching another person? It can't be to try and convince the other person that his ideology is wrong, right? Or do you honestly think that he'll go home, and re-evaluate his whole political stance after being assaulted? "Wow, that punched sure showed me how wrong nazism is", I mean would you change your views because someone smashed your face in? Or would it, perhaps, have the opposite effect, and re-affirm his beliefs, and make it easier for him recruit more people to his cause. All you're doing is creating more hard-core nazis, while filling some sort of false sense of self-righteousness in yourself. In short, if you support this kind of shit, you're either an imbecile or a fascist. Or both.

my biggest problem with this is how quick everyone is to call each other a nazi specifically these days yeah, richard spencer and this guy are both bad actors, but it's just a matter of time til some tea party dude gets accused and punched, then a 2a activist, then the guy who says mcdonalds employees shouldn't make $15 an hour I just don't see kneejerk vigilantism as a good thing?? what happens when the pendulum swings and it's acceptable to punch someone with neon blue hair because they're probably a feminazi matriarchist trying to abolish men's rights (or any other fringe lunacy the right may invent) obviously actual nazi ideology is abhorrent and I realize they have no qualms with violence but then what about antifa, weather underground, etc? if all it takes to justify violence against someone on the left is a loose accusation that they're a member of a group like that, suddenly we're all beating the shit out of each other and feeling righteous for it

And that's all I need to see that you don't know what fascism means.

Yeah fascism is specifically right wing, but authoritarianism and substantively similar left wing analogues of fascism exist and contain systems that are just as dangerous if realized.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-wing_fascism We often associate the right with fascism, due to Berlusconi, but one of the earliest fascists movements, Boulangism, has both right and left-wing origins (though arguably mostly left-wing.) Even so, you could replace fascism with extreme authoritarianism in my post, if that's your preference, and my argument would remain the completely the same.

Don't simplify it to being "people you disagree with" because that's not what it is. These are nazis. This isn't assault, this is self defense