On Friday, Mayor Freddie O’Connell announced four pieces of legislation he’s hoping the Metro Council will pass to help the city deal with our Nazi problem. (A problem that keeps coming up. Repeatedly.)
Councilmember Suara orders chamber gallery cleared after disruptions by a dozen loosely organized white supremacists
In my younger days, I was a free-speech absolutist. I think I still am. I’d like to believe I still am, at least. And these proposed ordinances do give me a little bit of the ick. The first one is “an ordinance to create buffer zones to maintain public safety around public buildings and parking lots.” We just named a plaza downtown after civil rights leader Diane Nash, who would have been violating such a buffer zone when she marched up to Mayor Ben West and confronted him about segregation.
The mask-wearing adjustment? Eh, y’all — they don’t wear masks so that you don’t know who they are, and therefore they don’t get in trouble for their actions. They wear masks so that you don’t know who they are, and therefore they could be anybody. It’s not because they’re afraid. It’s to make you afraid. And if there is some minority of Nazis who wear masks because they’re afraid, are we putting in place a filter that dissuades them from coming, but encourages more violent assholes to come here?
Republican lawmakers understand that not dealing with Nazis could lead to our ruin, but they’re not willing to take responsibility for making them feel welcome
As a person who drives through Bordeaux and North Nashville every day, I can immediately predict how the “no distracting signs” ordinance could be used against TSU eventually. And the distribution-of-handbills thing (designed to protect against antisemitic flyering, which has been happening quite a bit) seems like it’s already covered by our littering statutes.
So I think these probably encroach too much on our First Amendment rights for too little gain. But you know, fuck it. These garbage nightmare humans recently hurled racial slurs at children. They shoved pictures they claimed were acts of child sexual abuse in people’s faces at a Metro Council meeting. Let them spin their wheels and spend their money in court fighting these ordinances. Is it a “waste” of my tax dollars to defend these ordinances I think are wrong? Rest assured, Nashville, I don’t think I have an upper limit on how much of my tax dollars you can “waste” on annoying Nazis. I will consider that money well spent.
Let some judge decide whether Nazis flashing propaganda pamphlets with photos of infant circumcisions at councilmembers is protected by the First Amendment. I don’t think I need to give a shit about that at all. I mean, I already can’t show you that picture, and somehow I don’t feel stifled or censored.Â
Reps. Jones and Hardaway speak out against hate group who hurled racist insults at the young street performers
And, even if we think the Nazis are being treated unfairly by these ordinances, we can choose to do nothing about it! We don’t need to come to their aid. We don’t need to make arguments in their defense. If there are other people negatively affected by these ordinances, we can work on their behalf.
Principles are important. But when standing by your principles puts you on the side of people saying the most vile shit to children? Like, I’m sorry — perhaps it’s wrong for the government to stifle speech of Nazis, but I don’t care. I hope whatever lawsuits they might file are ultimately successful, but I hope it sucks really bad for them in the meantime.Â
