So I guess 2016 claimed its biggest victim yet - America

Trump is an absolute disgrace. American voters put what is almost literally a Klansman (like his old man) into the White House. And yeah, I know it was a minority of voters, despite what the disgrace likes to claim.

Thank you for posting that; good to know that at least one branch of government is doing its job.

And now for them to whine, bellyache, and delay for 1-10 years, fighting any attempt at correction as long as possible.

At least, that’s what the fuckers here in NC are trying to pull…

The ruling is about two districts, but they are in heavily gerrymandered areas where changes will have impacts on adjoining districts. The GOP will appeal to the supreme court and the waiting game will go on. We’ll see if anything changes prior to 2018.

I’d have to point out Nazi germany as a counter example. Their actions did not take root as part of an armed uprising.

The way I described it is pretty concrete, right? It’s not based on an opinion.
The fact that Nazis advocate stripping rights away from minorities isn’t some kind of subjective matter. It’s not a secret. Such a rule wouldn’t allow the government to arbitrarily remove freedom of speech from anyone who disagreed with the government.

Is speaking in favor of limiting immigration something that would be hate speech under your law? Many consider that mere act racism.

Why don’t you look at actual hate speech laws? The UK has them, and it just had an entire referendum based on limiting immigration, often on, at best, racially inflammatory terms. Miraculously, Nigel Farage is still walking free.

No, because limiting immigration would not be a restriction on anyone’s constitutional rights.

I think every right-minded person is probably asking themselves questions about the balance of civil liberties - the right to free speech, in this case - versus the other values we have. Even us liberal types, which probably leaves us uncomfortable with ourselves.

It’s also always much harder to defend the liberties of people who are going to use that liberty in ways we fundamentally disagree with. We are not the first people who have had this discussion (we are certainly not even the first people to have this discussion about Nazi marches in particular!).

I’m not American, nor a US citizen, so this isn’t something I have to directly confront in my real-life political thinking - Britain has hate-speech laws that seem to serve the roughly desired function. But American seems to have always held onto the enlightenment optimism that even something as abhorrent as Nazism can be defeated by reason, democracy and social values, rather than the machinery of state. I would be surprised, and perhaps a bit saddened, to see that optimism fade. But I can understand the reasoning now more than ever.

I don’t think it’s likely to happen. The ‘free speech’ thing is pretty well established by this point, and I am doubtful many people would be comfortable with that being messed with, even to try to stamp out Nazism. I would be hopeful, though, that existing laws are quite capable of doing the job: this wasn’t just a march, this involved violent assault and murder. As existing laws stand, the state has a duty to not interfere with free speech, but it also has a duty to protect its citizens from physical violence (let alone the argument it has a duty to protect its citizens from fear of such).

If America had a president that wasn’t a the stupidest man alive, she might have made a speech that addressed the above issues. She might have provided some leadership in a difficult time, condemned the hate, offered assurances to those threatened and scared, and brought the full force of the law down on those who attacked American citizens. I think maybe the reason you - a pretty Liberterian type, by your description - are even going down this path is because of the vacuum of leadership and moral moral decrepitude in the White House.

Chancellor Trump’s strategy council just disbanded, as did another member of his manufacturing advisory board.

The funny thing is, if you Google “Strategy Council Disbanded”, the first results are a Twilight Imperium thread. Ha ha!

Perhaps relevant to the discussion. Posted without approval or disapproval.

One thing ti clarify on this specific thing:
I do not seek to restrict liberties based on someone “misusing them”. Some certainly do, but not I.

The only thing I’m potentially interested in restricting, is liberties which are specifically being used to restrict the liberties of others. I think that this is a narrow enough case that it may be restricted safely without harming our liberties overall.

What bothers me is less people spouting hate speech than people spouting hate speech while wielding military-looking rifles (I won’t call them ‘assault rifles’ because that’s a loaded term and my gun-fu is feeble, but that’s the word that springs to mind when I see them) and wearing helmets and body armor.

I mean, we’re basically talking about Freikorps at that point.

or the right of the people peaceably to assemble

That ‘peaceably’ is kind of a key word, no?

Now both his advisory councils have been disbanded. Is this why Trump’s companies declared banktrupcy 4 times? And he has lawsuits, disputes and people saying he didn’t pay them?

He’s the worst organizational leader and manager I’ve ever seen. It’s down right embarrassing to watch.

He’s not a leader in any way, shape or form. A manager, maybe, but not a leader.

And he is only a manager because he was born into business. He did not work his way up to anything.

Forget impeachment. Forget Robert Mueller’s investigation. Forget Russia. Well, don’t forget them, but put them to the side for a moment. Investigations and impeachments and Senate trials take time, and we don’t have time any more. The president has to go now, and it’s up to his fellow Republicans to get him to leave.

On Tuesday, the president of the United States said there were good people marching alongside the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and white supremacists.

We can’t have a president who says good people march with Nazis. We just can’t. We have so much work to do on race in this country, so many people who need to understand the depth of systemic racism that pervades every aspect of society. We need dialog and understanding, but right now we’re in an emergency, and this guy has to go.

It can’t just be up to liberals and leftists to make this call anymore. It’s not enough for Republicans like Speaker Paul Ryan to issue generic statements denouncing racism. We have a racist president. Every elected official needs to denounce him by name.

But even that doesn’t go far enough. It’s time, after nearly 30 weeks with him in office stomping on the Constitution and basic human decency, to demand his resignation. Every time we thought there were no more lines for him to cross, he finds a bright red one and leaps over it.

No argument from me. I don’t hold that against him, but seems pretty clear he’d accomplish exactly nothing without that.

Sure I get that. i just never understood the argument that he would run it like a business, that he’s a business man. We’re the USA. We have a ton of people who built business from nothing. Who started with nothing and built empires… but this group that wants a businessman to run the country like a business, whatever the hall that actually means, winds up picking someone who just sort of had it given to me. It made no sense to begin with, before he revealed himself as a raging misogynist, racist ass.

And to be clear, failing, in and of itself, doesn’t mean someone is inept. There are many cases of people who rose to greatness after repeated failures (Walt Disney comes to mind). People like that amaze me, because they have to pick themselves up out of the gutter after they fail and find the courage to dare to dream again. Just as you said, they built business/empires from nothing.

Of course, Trump never had to do anything like that. I don’t know that he’s ever built anything in his life (metaphorically speaking). All he does is tear things down, be they people or dreams or what have you.