I know that pain


Lawsuits, as I know from personal experience, cause great personal stress and financial difficulty. They are effective when appropriately applied against the bad guys.

A federal lawsuit against the organizers of the deadly 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, which has rattled hate groups and white supremacist leaders, goes to trial this month.

The suit already has helped to dismantle some of America’s most well-known white supremacist groups, and it has financially crippled one leader of the so-called “alt-right,” the white supremacist and nationalist movement that came to prominence under President Donald Trump.

“It’s very stressful, and very costly,” said Richard Spencer, one of the defendants in the lawsuit and the former de facto leader of the “alt-right,” in an interview. “This level of pressure is definitely scary.”

Good. He should be scared. When we were sued, we could at least console ourselves with the awareness that we had done nothing wrong (not always an adequate defense when dealing with the law), but these fascist neo-nazis have to know that they’re doing evil.

It does remind me of two things, though.

  • Damn Richard Carrier for making me feel a tiny glimmer of sympathy for the murderous Charlottesville rally organizers.
  • I have to periodically express my gratitude for our readers and donors who dug us out of that unpleasant hole. Thank you all very much!

I’d rather not think about the fact that a national mob of anti-Semitic criminal rioters probably has more supporters than a blog network that promotes something as benevolent as freethought.

Comments

  1. brucegee1962 says

    I still cannot figure out why some lawyer somewhere in the US hasn’t
    1) rounded up a bunch of relatives of right-wingers who listened to Fox, didn’t get vaccinated, and died, and
    2) sued Tucker Carlson and the network he rode in on out of existence.

  2. notaandomposter says

    yea – taking on FOX (Faux) News – is a tall ask for a lawyer/firm. They are likely to have many many recourses with which to defend themselves (not that it can’t be done- Dominion libel/defamation suits prove that) but that will need some ‘big guns’

    in another post by our host- we saw that OathKeepers membership lists have been obtained by hackers – I’m looking forward to that organization (and others like it)/its members getting drained of resources via lawsuits- it’d be fun if so much money is lost that grifters like the former president don’t have a target audience with enough spare dollars to throw at their latest scam/pet project aimed at destroying society

  3. specialffrog says

    @brucegee1962: Tucker Carlson recently won a defamation lawsuit against him after his lawyers successfully argued that no reasonable person would take what he says seriously.

  4. staylor says

    This is good. Lawsuits and government pressure can really disrupt groups of this sort.
    If the case of Tom Metzger, founder of White Aryan Resistance is indicative, huge fines and incarceration can spell the doom of psychos like these.

  5. robro says

    specialffrog @ #3 — If you’re referring to the decision by U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil to dismiss the defamation lawsuit brought against Carlson by former Playboy model Karen McDougal, then guess who put Judge Vyskocil on the bench. I’m surprised Ms. McDougal’s lawyers haven’t pursued the