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 Post Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2017 9:29 pm 
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The other thing is that activist groups (even Nazis) aren't stupid; they'll know when a city is trying to fudge their permits to wash out their protest. Then the headlines aren't going to be "Look, a music festival!", they're going to be "Xville city council tries to suppress freedom of speech".

But anyway, the Trump black hole has opened, sucking in all light. There's no way we can avoid giving Nazis the attention they crave when the president is calling some of them good people and blaming the "alt-left" for the violence.

On Saturday he gave a half-arsed statement that refused to condemn the neo-Nazis.
On Sunday he was criticized.
On Monday his aides dragged him before a teleprompter and forced him to read a statement condemning Nazis.
On Tuesday he gave an unscripted press conference that was supposed to be about infrastructure but then went completely off the rails when he openly defended the neo-Nazis. Trump is a Nazi sympathizer in the literal sense. He sympathized with the poor peaceful Nazis getting attacked by left-wing agitators who want to destroy history.

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 Post Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2017 12:31 pm 
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Yes, he went full racist.

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 Post Posted: Thu Aug 17, 2017 5:35 am 
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Kea wrote:
I meant the permit-wanking. If they can split up a bunch of white supremacists into 10 tiny park gatherings, then the Trump administration can lean on the government of DC to disperse something like the Women's March to 100 library parking lots in the DC exurbs.


Bureaucracies are interesting in that they are both a weapon, and a battlefield. If you know how a given bureaucracy works in detail, and/or have (or can make) enough friends in the right places, all manner of things that might be thought impossible can be made to happen. If you lack these things, or worse, the bureaucracy is largely hostile to you or your intentions, then it's likely that at best, nothing special happens, and you have to jump through the same hoops as everyone else, and at worst, your paperwork is denied, lost, or kept in limbo as it passes endlessly from desk to uncaring desk.

Last I checked, the US civil service and the bureaucracies of most major cities were not big fans of Trump. Sure, given members of any bureaucracy might be fans of Trump, but I doubt he has enough in the right places to actually get anything done.

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 Post Posted: Thu Aug 17, 2017 7:13 am 
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Do you really want the discretion of the bureaucracy to be your backstop? The civil service in major coastal cities might dislike Trump now, but what about the civil servants running city hall in Dallas, Texas? The Supreme Court has already ruled in the past that cities can't lawfully do this. They can't base their decisions on the beliefs of the groups that are applying for the permits, and they can't suppress speech because it is offensive. Unless the Roberts court decides to reverse all those decisions, the government would lose all the lawsuits.

I'm thinking instead of fight with the Nazis or try to bureaucracy-fu them into oblivion, counter-protesters ought to be smarter in their tactics. Embarrass the Nazis. Surround their protest with vehicles and Rickroll them at top volume. Drop glitter on them from drones. Set up the cordons to their protest zone in the shape of a giant penis. Hang giant anti-Nazi banners from all surrounding hills and tall buildings. Hire a skywriter to write "Say no to man-baby Nazis" in the sky above them. Mock them relentlessly, and when they overreact with rage, they will appear even more foolish.

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 Post Posted: Thu Aug 17, 2017 8:13 am 
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balthazar wrote:
Last I checked, the US civil service and the bureaucracies of most major cities were not big fans of Trump. Sure, given members of any bureaucracy might be fans of Trump, but I doubt he has enough in the right places to actually get anything done.


Yeah, but how exactly are you planning on preventing almost all the white supremacists from simply all joining the most popular protest and leaving the rest empty? (Alright, so maybe that'll involve a hundred people protesting when the permit only says ten, but somehow I don't think they're going to care).

In short, when the bureaucracy gets in the way, people have a habit of ignoring the bureaucracy. How will you prevent this?

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 Post Posted: Thu Aug 17, 2017 12:18 pm 
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kitoba wrote:
Yes, he went full racist.


And nothing ever changes. Public opinion of his shameful rant falls strictly along partisan lines. Again. It's the usual 80% of Democrats, 55% of Independents and 20% of Republicans disapprove.

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