White Supremacists beaten up by counter protesters

(image from the LA Times)

To get it out of the way, I believe that we can't pick and choose those whose rights get protected and those who don't. Nazi sympathizers have as much a right to assemble as leftists and conservatives do, either to protest or to counter-protest. But I also believe that your right to swing your arm ends at the tip of my nose.

In that light, this should disturb every freedom-loving American:

A white supremacist rally on the lawn of Los Angeles City Hall ended with a handful of arrests Saturday afternoon as counter-protesters showered police and white supremacists with rocks, bottles and other debris.

[Updated at 4:50 p.m.: All five people arrested were counter-protesters, police say.]

A rally by 40 members of a group calling itself the National Socialist Movement drew hundreds of counter-protesters from throughout the region. In the hours leading up to the rally, where members called for the removal of all nonwhites from America's southwest, counter-protesters scuffled with people perceived to be sympathizing with the white supremacists' message.

I don't like white supremacists. I think they're scum. But that doesn't give me the right to stop them from exercising their rights. This principle seems to elude the counter-protesters who not only endeavored to keep the 40 members or so of the National Socialist Movement to exercise their First Amendment rights, but also did it violently.

The police showed admirable restraint in this case:

Commander David Doan said the LAPD's goal was to ensure that everyone was allowed to exercise free speech while avoiding any use of force by officers. “There was a tremendous amount of restraint shown by our officers,” he said. “We allowed both sides to exercise their 1st Amendment rights.”

Doan said it was a frustrating situation for LAPD officers. “We took some rocks and bottles when they arrived and we took some again when the car had some trouble starting.”

Of course, the other story here should be the lack of a national media feeding frenzy. For months the mainstream media had been reporting about the racist, violence-prone Tea Party. Now that we have both racism and violence, we don't seem to hear much about it.

I guess it doesn't fit the narrative. Like every other underreported stories these days.