Discussion: Protesters Drown Out Richard Spencer At UF: 'Nazis Are Not Welcome Here'

I wish they’d just let the Nazis speak. They’re not going to say anything we aren’t hearing from them every single day anyway. The whole point of these events is to attract protesters to shut them down so they can play the victim. Meanwhile, the only people who will listen to them already agree, while everyone else will be offended if they hear his actual words.

The right thing to do is to stage an awesome counter-protest party nearby, so we can show that the Nazis aren’t unopposed, but that we aren’t scared of their hate speech. Mockery goes much further to cut these little punks down to their natural size than to pretend they’re a real threat. It’s all for naught anyway, since Spencer’s game only works when he’s the victim and there’s no road to dominance that way. So treating him seriously gives him far more credit than he deserves.

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Spencer:
My speech went over like Trumpp’s response to the PR hurricanes. 10 out of 10!

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Oh, heck, yes. But we should give him something unique — “Dick” makes me think of Cheney…

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Here I thought the speech was tomorrow.

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Letting them speak without confrontation is an enabling behavior.

Letting them not speak is unconstitutional.

Letting them go on stage to speak in front of a crowd of folks clearly exercising their own constitutional right to free speech is democracy. Fascists will whine that they are victims because the “snowflakes” wouldn’t let them have their way, but so what? given that the alternative to this kind of democracy is their kind of fascism…

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I disagree. The protesters just give them more oxygen. If they give a speech to an empty room, the emptiness becomes the story, rather than the protesters.

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This guy makes me appreciate W, who somehow seems like an ordinary guy who got in way over his head. But he wasn’t mean-spirited like this guy.

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Yeah well that’s just a fantasy. Somebody always comes up with this idea that if nobody shows up it will be the better protest except that depends on factors you can’t control. Somebody always shows up.

People protest in the manner they see fit. They don’t need your permission or anyone else’s ideas = they obviously are feeling it passionately.

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Letting them speak without a protest party could be enabling, except that the purpose of these speeches is to proclaim victimhood; so the issue is about evil liberals stifling free speech and not promoting bigotry. The #1 place for bigots to win converts is online, not college campuses. The entire purpose of these speeches is to get attention and be shut down by liberals. Why should we give them what they want? I’m sure Spencer would have loved to be suckerpunched again. Should we have given it to him?

Mockery is what will defeat these people, not shouting louder than them. We have nothing to fear from their public speeches. The problem is when people are tricked into thinking this is about free speech and visit Spencer’s website to learn more; which will be 1000% more vile than anything Spencer said in his speech. That’s Spencer’s game. A protest party mocking the Nazis would be infinitely more effective than playing into their hands by shouting them down. These people are jokes, not threats. We’re enabling them by treating them seriously.

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Or…god forbid…Dodge Chargers.

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I agree with zach that an empty room would be the ideal protest for Spencer and his ilk (they only do what they do because they want to be able to claim the role of “aggrieved white man”), but I realize that isn’t realistic since emotions run too high to simply give him the cold shoulder. In any case, this account suggests that the protest was effective and didn’t devolve into violence, so I think it went well.

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One guy outside dressed in a tee shirt covered with swastikas got punched. Then 3 protesters went to him and escorted him out of the crowd safely.

It seems we are human beings, even though we feel that punching Nazis is fair game.

Is there anyone among you who would not have punched Hitler in the face if given a chance? i sure as shit would have and I’d punch Dickie if I could. That’s the only thing Nazis and Nazi wannabes are good for.

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i cannot love this enough. Thank you for posting it. Watching Dickie get punched in the face repeatedly is one of the sweetest things ever.

Pretty good response by UF. Spencer is dangerous. We really need to get at why law enforcement seems so slow and unconcerned with racist groups that are out there bullying people. Pro Publica has a big piece on this now.

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yeah this has been happening every place they go. And they do some of it behind the scenes. They beat the shit out of some African Americans in Charlottesville. They’re trying to start a race war.

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It’ll probably be a LOT of tomorrows before this jerk is asked to speak at any university.

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If he hold his next little trumpenvolk jamboree at a school, I don’t think he can keep anybody out. Certainly not students.

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What I found from google just now is that UF is not sponsoring the event. The stage was rented, and the University cannot legally prevent a member of the public from renting that facility based on their political or religious views. So in theory, Flat Earthers claiming biblical literalism should be to do the same.

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