A letter written to the Eugene Weekly in response to their report titled Setting Terms After Charlottesville

What does Naomi Strawser suggest we do with the “known neo-Nazis [living] comfortably within our boundaries”? Seize their property by eminent domain? Criminalize their thought and speech so we can lock them up? Hound them into fleeing? Form vigilante mobs to kill them outright?

Obviously, neo-Nazis are already detested by the vast majority of people living in Eugene. The counter march to the Hate is Not Welcome rally, if the EW is to be trusted, amounted to a single Trump supporter holding up a Trump/Pence campaign sign. By that measure, the White Supremacists are outnumbered in Eugene by about 1500 to 1. Whatever the actual ratio, it’s clear that white supremacists cannot feel reasonably comfortable in expressing their views here. They’re not quoted or referenced approvingly in any paper, ever. They never have a voice in any public decision. They are not welcome to espouse their views anywhere outside their own company. They are, in a word, marginalized.

So, I have to wonder what Strawser is suggesting. Does ‘living comfortably’ equal being allowed to live at all? Is the price of being reckoned an ally destroying the legacy of free speech and freedom of, and from, religion in this country? Do we have to drive out and eliminate the white supremacists, who are already marginalized and despised, just to prove that we’re not with them?

If that is the price, don’t you know that you can count me out.