The NH Attorney General’s Office is beginning an investigation into a protest in Concord on June 18th at the Teatotaller Coffee shop during a Drag Story Hour.
Free speech is never free if the government can strip it from you.
Nazis vs. Groomers
NSC-131, a white supremacist group with chapters throughout New England, conducted the protest. You’re probably wondering. If the government investigates their protest, they must have done something illegal.
Well, you would be wrong. Despite their horrible beliefs, they did nothing illegal.
NSC-131 certainly has some ignorant and disturbing views about race, but they have every right to think that way. They also have every right to be able to say those horrible things because it is an unalienable right to do so.
The First Amendment from “The Bill of Rights.”
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
This isn’t the first time.
This isn’t the NH AG’s first time going after this group for the wrong reasons, either. In January of this year, charges were filed against NSC-131 for a July 2023 incident where the group hanged a sign from the Portsmouth Route 1 overpass.
“So hanging that banner without permission was a trespass,” said New Hampshire Attorney General John M. Formella. “What was written on the banner makes it pretty clear that that trespass was motivated by race. And so that was a violation of our Civil Rights Act.”
Related: If NH AG Pushes Civil Rights “Case” Against White Nationalists, He’s Going to Lose
Leftist Think Tank Propaganda
In April, an anti-fascist, anti-nazi organization called Task Force Butler tried adding fuel to the fire, egging on the NH Attorney General’s Office by giving them a 300 hundred page report on NSC-131’s activities.
Task Force Butler, founder Kris Goldsmith, had this to say,
“We hope that with 300 pages of evidence of violent hate crimes across four different states, that attorneys general, districts attorneys across various states and counties and cities will work together and treat NSC-131 like what it is — a violent gang — and get creative,” he said. “Use things like racketeering laws to dismantle them, charge them with hate crimes.”
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Well, the thing is, they aren’t the mafia, and you can’t just go after a group of people that haven’t committed a crime just because you don’t like them.
They also don’t like Trump supporters. I found this on their site, where they equate the January 6th protestors to Nazis.
“Task Force Butler is also named after Marine Corps General Smedley Butler. Enshrined in Marine Corps history as one of two Marines to receive the Medal of Honor twice, General Butler’s legacy and impact on American history after leaving the Corps is less known, but arguably more important than anything he did while in uniform. In the early 20th century, then-retired General Butler was approached by a corrupt group of extremely wealthy and influential American businessmen who asked him to help them overthrow the United States government by leading a mob of homeless veterans camped in Washington, D.C. General Butler went along with the plot long enough to gather as much information as possible about who was behind it before turning over all the evidence to Congress. It was, in no uncertain terms, the closest historical parallel to what occurred on Jan. 6, 2021.”
The Bill of Rights Wins Again
Attorney General Formella learned this the hard way on June 6th, when in a 21-page opinion, Rockingham County Superior Court Judge David Ruoff dismissed the petitions, ruling that the state’s interpretation of the trespass ordinance, as well as the Civil Rights Statute, was overly broad as it applied to the banner. The defendants filed a motion to dismiss the case, arguing their actions were protected on free speech grounds and that they removed the banner as soon as they were notified by law enforcement that they were potentially violating a Portsmouth ordinance.
The Honorable David Ruoff has this to say.
“The conduct alleged in the complaints, while reprehensible by most civilized standards, does not fit any definition of ‘trespass’ other than the one the Court has concluded is unconstitutional.”
The Attorney General did not like that response, and so on June 16th, they appealed the decision, arguing,”
“There is a general right to access public roads, parks, and sidewalks,” the attorney general’s office said. “They are traditional public fora. Yet, there is no unfettered right to affix and display signs on a highway overpass because it is a nonpublic forum and the conduct is prohibited by statute.”
In Conclusion
Do I like Nazis? No, I probably dislike them more than my Grandfather, that fought them in WW2; however, you can’t just prosecute people because you don’t like them. Every man, woman, and, yes, even Nazis have the right to free speech. It is a God-given right and one that is unalienable.
Even sadder is that one of their leaders and defendants in the recent case, Leo Cullinan, passed away before he could change his ways. I hope that God has mercy on his soul. If you wanted to convince men and women that their ideas are wrong or immoral, allow them to be debated on the front stage instead of making them sit in the back of the bus like these Nazis would have liked Rosa Parks to do.
Editors Note: Republished upon request and lightly edited and reformatted. Footnotes removed (live links are adequate on this platform).