re: #128 Belafon

I’m not 100% on this, but one of the things that was drifting about Charlottesville today was that the “marchers” largely ignored the safety instructions and the conditions set by their permit.

If this is true, then there is both a specific and general need to look at how there’s an unequal application of rigour (vetting) and force when dealing with crowds…and it should be shouted to the skies that these fucking assholes and their ilk were utterly contemptuous of the police, the law of the land, and the community they assembled in.

Lots of people want to believe that the “alt-right” fall inside the spectrum of normal behavior because it’s scary—and contrary to white America’s understanding of what America is. Like many scared, uncertain people, they’re cleaving to any data point that suggests everything is fine. (More generally, this explains the banality that allows the more sinister excuse making for “lone wolf” white supremacists, sovereign citizens, etc.)

Emphasizing that this is what fascists do is our best chance to illustrate the point. It’s machiavellian, but unfortunately most people don’t really have the strength of principles or the intellectual appreciation of the threat of fascism-as-ethos.

Law enforcement needs to stop being indulgent about armed white dudes engaged in posturing and threats. Local governments need to start saying “fuck off” when people like this want to assemble. Part of the danger is how unequally freedom of speech and freedom of assembly are applied, always in favor of this kind of reactionary impulse.