Click
here for the video by Ron Bowman (5:20)
“He had this guy down on the
ground, and the guy was all ‘I’m not a
Nazi!’ and he just kept punching him in the head anyway… it was
sweet!”
I actually heard a girl say essentially
that at the Neo-Nazi/Anti-Nazi rally/protest. I
just have to say, WHAT is wrong with people!!??!?
True, people must protest when
a bunch of genocide supporters Heil Hitler on the steps of
Lansing’s
Capitol. But when the protesters’ chants go
from
“No Nazis, no KKK, no fascist USA,” to, “Cops and Klan go hand
in hand,” we’ve got some problems.
First, let me just say that I personally
do not support or condone Nazi activities or beliefs. But
when there’s a minority group trying to make
a statement (however misled they may be), they exercise the same freedom of
speech that all Americans share. Therefore, police protection is necessary.
I have to say, too, that in my opinion
the cops handled things well yesterday. So many people wired
on chant-infused anger are a hard thing to control. By no
means did everything go perfectly and peacefully (ironically):
There were at least one or two attacks (protesters lashing
out) that I witnessed.
It was just so scary… the mob scene–people
running after Nazis, yelling things like “I saw the bastard!
This way!”
It was as if no one had a singular consciousness. The anger was incendiary.
I wanted to cry.
The saddest thing is that the protesters
were willing to commit hate crimes (in the form of direct
physical violence) against the people whose hatred they were
protesting. The fundamental self-contradiction here is blatant.
One chant that seemed to never die went, “Nazi
scum has got to go, hey hey, ho ho,” which, in and
of itself, is all right. In between verses though, people
would scream the loudest, most profane things they could
think of. The point here is that people are just being ignorant.
They hate the Nazis for what they were half a century ago,
and that’s all there is
to it. Hate, hate, hate. The truth is that the Nazi group was
small, made up of a few badly misled individuals, broadcasting
a hate message. They were harmless, albeit deranged.
Which brings me to my final point. Nazis
don’t make sense in today’s
world. They are tragically and unreasonably prejudiced, but there
are so few that they have to resort to methods like these
to bring out the hate in everyday Americans. So, in my opinion,
despite the huge show of protest, the Nazis won the day:
They brought out people’s darkest side. They
probably walked out of sight and high-fived.
Hating hate doesn’t make it go
away. Don’t hate the Nazis - be skeptical
of them. Show that you just don’t understand their cruel,
racist absurdity by ignoring them out of existence. Tell all
your friends to do the same. Let’s be honest, they’re
all like ninety anyway. Let ‘em
go slowly into the dark as they age, eh?
