Dwain Northey (Gen X)

Admittedly we have gone overboard with celebrating pretty much everything in this country , National Donut Day, National Hot Dog Day, you name it you can probably find it on a calendar. Now a Neo-Nazi group is attempting to have a National Day of Hate and actually disturbing flyers and leaflet propaganda promoting it. It was supposed to be last Saturday February 25^th and of course an anti-Semitic group would want this egregiously offensive day to be a Saturday. Why you may ask… well in the Jewish faith Saturday is Sabbat a weekly 25-hour observance, from just before sundown each Friday through the completion of nightfall on Saturday, Shabbat is more than just a day off from labor. It is a day of physical and spiritual delights that is meant to illuminate certain key concepts in the traditional Jewish perception of the world. So of course this hate group wants to defame a day holy to Judaism with hate and ugliness.

I totally agree with the 1^st Amendment, “The First Amendment provides that Congress make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting its free exercise. It protects freedom of speech, the press, assembly, and the right to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” These hate groups only spout that they have the right to free speech and can say whatever they please. I disagree with that, it has been established that you can’t yell “FIRE” in a crowded theater and what these groups are doing is equivalent. Stoking hatred and rage toward a particular community only increases the amount of violent actions taken against said community and for no viable reason.

These same instigators of hate are the very first to cry that Black Lives Matter marches were unlawful and have actually had police forcefully break up peaceful marches and protest. Now when they are calling for a National Day of Hate all the groups they are targeting are told to avoid gathering in groups or not to go out into public. Why are the people that are being threatened the ones that should be inconvenienced, why aren’t those calling for hatred labeled as the offenders not just as citizens exercising their 1^st Amendment rights. BLM hasn’t been afforded that honor, BLM has been called a violent mob even when they are peacefully walking down the street holding hand and unarmed.

This unjust treatment harkens back to the Vietnam protest and the freedom riders of MLK’s day, I thought we had grown up has a society but obviously I was sadly mistaken. ☹