ACLU of California Statement: White Supremacist Violence Is Not Free Speech

I don't know that it's fair to place Neo-Nazis in the same set as moderate Republicans (i.e. all "right wing" people in the US). I feel like there's a particular kind of person that joins extremist organizations and commits terrorist acts, and Muslim extremists have more in common with Neo-Nazi terrorists than they do with moderate Muslims. Likewise, I suspect (hope) moderate Republicans have more in common with moderate Muslims than they do with right wing extremists.

But, the way so many have jumped to defend Neo-Nazis or redirect blame for their violence has me pretty shook. I don't really know how to process someone looking at Charlottesville and saying, "it's the fault of the left". It doesn't even make sense, much less help the nation heal, and a lot of people with a lot of influence are doing it.

It's pretty much terrifying that we have a president that is among the ranks of Neo-Nazi apologists, and that a large percentage of GOP leadership has said nothing. Maybe I'm giving moderate Republicans too much credit. Neo-Nazi leaders certainly feel vindicated by what's been coming out of a lot of mainstream Republican talking heads lately.

You could believe this, but that doesn't make it the proper way.

To be honest, we don't know how to stop these ideas. The nazi party came into power with less than 40% approval and gained that power that nearly destroyed the world.

It's scary to say but there are theories floating around from hundreds of years ago that were made by different philosophers about the nature of these.

For example, the paradox of tolerance is one of these theories.

I'm not saying we should be violent, I'm just saying we have absolutely no idea how to deal with this.

Because everybody else did, including Timothy McVeigh.

Some quotes:

"McVeigh was reprimanded by the military for purchasing a "White Power" T-shirt at a Ku Klux Klan protest"

"he spoke daily to his co-worker Carl Lebron, Jr. about his loathing for government. Deciding that the Buffalo area was too liberal, he left his job and began driving around the country, seeking out his old friends from the Army."

A letter he wrote to a newspaper:

"Taxes are a joke. Regardless of what a political candidate "promises," they will increase. More taxes are always the answer to government mismanagement. They mess up. We suffer. Taxes are reaching cataclysmic levels, with no slowdown in sight. [...] Is a Civil War Imminent? Do we have to shed blood to reform the current system? I hope it doesn't come to that. But it might."

"McVeigh introduced his sister to anti-government literature"

"For the five months following the Waco siege, McVeigh worked at gun shows and handed out free cards printed up with Lon Horiuchi's name and address, "in the hope that somebody in the Patriot movement would assassinate the sharpshooter." (Note "Patriot movement" was the way right wing extremist groups were re-branded in the 90s, just as alt-right and some other names have been used since.)

He made his meager living selling copies of The Turner Diaries (a novel that fantasizes about an armed revolution against the US government, and genocide of blacks, Jews, and gays: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Turner_Diaries) among other right wing literature at gun shows.

I don't see how he can be considered anything but right wing, and pretty extreme right wing, at that.

Source for all of the above: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_McVeigh

Is driving over people violence?

"The nazi party came into power with less than 40% approval and gained that power that nearly destroyed the world."

The Nazis first attacked and destroyed the free press and other free-speech institutions. Robust legal protections for free speech, and a culture of vigorously defending it, will prevent tyrants from gaining and maintaining power.

There is no 'paradox of tolerance'. The intolerant are intolerant, no matter which side they are on. Peaceful racists should have their say. We are all free to disagree and shun them. This isn't ivory tower. This is part and parcel of a free and open society.