It’s not that complicated.
Neo-Nazi racists joined together in their hate. Racism is not only morally repugnant, but incredibly stupid.
We should all ridicule any coworker, friend, or acquaintance who is foolish enough to expose this idiotic bigotry in our presence. Hopefully with logic and wit and a splash of biology we can change their minds.
The way to confront non-violent racists is fierce debate and social condemnation.
The way to confront violent racists and/or Nazis is with coordinated physical defense and imprisonment, ideally with the National Guard or Police force, but sometimes (1941) with the U.S military.
Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Assembly still apply to assholes. That becomes untrue when they turn into violent assholes acting on their horrible ideas. But when exactly is that?
When you try to ban speech or claim your ends justify your well intentioned means, you’re already wrong. You’ve now condoned those same means for nefarious ends. This is why Christopher Hitchens said in an interview once, that looking back on the Civil Rights movement of the 60’s, the non-violent Martin Luther King appears to be the truly radical one. Anti-fa should take note when confronting bigots.
No doubt, those Neo-Nazi White Supremacist marchers are fanatic bigots. They, or at least one among them, killed someone on Saturday. That is true.
What is also true is that I despise, though I understand, the decision to punch someone for saying something morally reprehensible, ahistorical or offensive. The so-called anti-facists thoroughly lack a sense of history and above all else, irony. Destroying property or banning “hate speech” and symbols is usually a wrong turn.
The moment you are physically threatened by someone with dangerous beliefs, you have a right to retaliate. However, that moment is almost certainly not whenever you happen to chance upon a racist or an anti-semite. You cannot preemptively strike someone for the intangible bigotry in their heads. The trouble is identifying the moment when their bigotry becomes tangible, or rather a true threat. Because you don’t have the right to defend yourself against an uncommitted future crime, but physical threats of violence should be taken seriously and investigated.
If I were in Virginia with my black friend and a fanatical bigot shouted in my face that he hated black people or jews, would I be right to punch him? Is the bigots presence enough? No, certainly not. How about when we multiply that bigot by a hundred. Now we have a hundred screaming racists claiming they hate my friend. They are waving swastikas and speaking bad German. Is this enough grounds to retaliate? I don’t think so. It is cause for alarm though. Now how about if the bigot from before looked me in the eyes and said he was going to kill my friend, would I be right to punch the fanatic now? Still no. But this is why we have Rule of Law and not a vigilante justice system. The moment a freely assembled group starts making credible physical threats, the assembly should be broken up and all who threatened violence should be put on watch lists. But you can see the danger in that precedent too, and the logistical nightmare.
Maybe this is complicated. But only when we collectively decide to think through the nuance, and I haven’t seen much of that going on within my political home on the left. Many of my friends seem to think simply being racist is a violent act and grounds to be beaten or arrested. Imagine if Oliver Wendell Holmes had said that simply threatening to shout fire in a crowded theatre was a violation of free speech. Again calling on the late Christopher Hitchens for help, “who among us can pick someone to decide for us what we can and cannot say?” (paraphrased).
The fringe of the Trump voting Right is fanatical and demonstrably physically dangerous. Anti-fa is fanatical and dangerous, though now clearly less so. Anti-fa is comprised of a bunch of vigilantes, angry at people for holding horrible beliefs. I hold equal disdain for those beliefs. The answer, however, is not justice driven violence or destruction.
George Orwell nailed it when he said, “it appears to me that one defeats the fanatic precisely by not being a fanatic oneself, but on the contrary by using one’s intelligence.”
I wish everyone, wherever on the Y, X or Z political axis, was using more of theirs.
polymathematics 
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