Recently a new political group has gained ground with its neo-Nazi, white supremacist, spawn of Satan himself leader, Richard Spencer. The group refers to themselves as the “Alt-Right” or the “Alternative Right”. Hillary Clinton commented on the group, “Alt-Right is Alternative Right. The Wall Street Journal describes it as a loose but organized movement, mostly online, that ‘rejects mainstream conservatism, promotes nationalism and views on immigration and multiculturalism as threats to white identity'”. Basically, this group is composed of extreme, extreme, extreme extremists of the conservative party, with their goal to “Make America White Again” – as Richard Spencer expressed in an interview with Kelly McEvers.
“Hail Trump, Hail Our People, Hail Victory.”
The above quote is a direct quote from Spencer himself during his alt-right conference with established ground NPI or the National Policy Institute after the presidential election. During this conference, Spencer and his supporters state that they want Donald Trump’s first action in office to be to “build the wall”. At these conferences its common to see those imitating a Nazi solute and yelling out “Sieg Heil!”- a victory solute originally used by Nazi’s at political rallies. Supporters of the Alt-Right movement also include those following the youtube channel called Millenial Woes. The channel’s founder stated that Trump has fueled the Alt-Right movement and in one of his videos that women shouldn’t have the right to vote because they will “make our legal systems, culture, and protocol vulnerable“. WHAT?!
Just when you think things couldn’t get worse- Richard Spencer proves himself to be the scum of the earth once more. In an interview with the Atlantic, Spencer was asked if he’s ever experienced discrimination in America (which he also refers to as a “multicultural mess”). To which he answered yes and proceeded to tell the interviewer that he was discriminated in a Louisiana McDonald’s after he hadn’t received a coffee he ordered within 10 minutes while black and Hispanic customers that ordered coffees had. I repeat….WHAT?!
I, like most, would love to fly across a room and falcon punch this guy square in the jaw, push him down a flight of stairs into shark-infested waters, or inflict whatever other cruel and unusual punishments there are out there. However, given the opportunity I would not. Here’s why I think neo-Nazi, anti-Semitic, anti-feminist, anti-immigrant, white supremacist Richard Spencer should NOT have been punched in the face:
As someone in my HCOM 235 class said, “a punch in the face was too good for him”. Punching Richard Spencer in the face gave him publicity, which in turn gave his movement, his message, and his principles publicity. Spencer once stated that there was “no such thing as bad publicity”, and that might be the only thing he’s ever been right about. Punching Spencer gave the Alt-Right party the spotlight they needed to gain more ground and gain more scumbag supporters of their ideals. The opposing turned to physicality instead of open debate and good, thoughtful, earnest argument. With this, the opposition made themselves look like they couldn’t handle Spencer’s words, like they couldn’t fight back with more intelligent words, which is exactly what the Alt-Right wants and thinks.
Violence is not justifiedas a response to speech by the right some do not care for. To fight contemptible beliefs you march, struggle, vote, resist. Ethicists weigh in that it is in fact unethical to resort to physical violence to contradict an opposing view, no matter how vile and disgusting that view is. Unfortunately there are no laws against hate speech, and with the First Amendment, free speech is covered as far left and as far right. It’s a simple matter of “taking the high road”, except in this case the road is very very very high and really really really hard to get to…nevertheless, it should be taken, for the greater good and to resist giving the Alt-Right any type of satisfaction.
