Unpopular speech needs to be protected. But the FBI’s arrest this month of four members of a California-based white supremacist group on federal charges of “rioting and conspiracy” before and during the deadly August 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., is good news for the free speech of peaceful protesters and those seeking to bring violent hate groups to justice.
According to the Oct. 2 criminal complaint, the four men — Benjamin Drake Daley, 25, Thomas Walter Gillen, 24, Michael Paul Miselis, 29, and Cole Evan White, 24 — all affiliated with the “alt-right” ultra-nationalist Rise Above Movement, traveled to Charlottesville “with the intent to encourage, promote, incite, participate in, and commit violent acts in furtherance of a riot.”
Thomas Cullen, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia, has described the four men as “serial rioters,” saying they’ve also been charged with committing acts of violence at rallies in their home state of California. But it was the men’s alleged acts of violence in Charlottesville, and the “incredible volume of digital evidence” gathered from eyewitnesses and social media, Cullen said, that forms the core of the government’s case.
“Daley, Miselis, Gillen and White,” said Cullen, “while on their way to the Unite the Right rally in Emancipation Park, and with their hands taped ready to do street battle, committed multiple acts of violence including punching, kicking, head-butting and pushing numerous people.” According to the criminal complaint, at least one of the defendants, White, also used his torch “as a weapon.” Their alleged victims in Charlottesville include a black man, at least two women and a minister “wearing a clerical collar.”
As FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Thomas Chadwick said on the day the men were arrested, “Their actions were not only reprehensible but in violation of federal law.” If the defendants are found guilty, each could be sentenced to up to 10 years in federal prison.
We’re grateful for our First Amendment rights. And understand that it is precisely when speech is most unpopular that it most needs protection. As hurtful as it is to most Americans, this includes the rights of racist, antisemitic, ultranationalist groups like the Rise Above Movement or Richard Spencer’s National Policy Institute to peacefully march through our streets chanting offensive slogans like “Blood and Soil!” and “Jews will not replace us!”
Yet today, we’re just as grateful for the federal agents and prosecutors who have identified those individuals who allegedly — with clear and malicious intent — aim to turn political protests into violent riots. Violence is not speech.
These four men are, of course, presumed innocent until proved guilty. And we should point out that their charges are unrelated to the murder of Heather Heyer, the 32-year-old Charlottesville paralegal and Unite the Right counterprotester allegedly run down by James Alex Fields Jr., the 21-year-old white supremacist awaiting trial on second-degree murder charges.
Sadly, what they appear to share is an ideology that, as the federal complaint says, espouses violence toward those who “hold opposite ideologies to their own.”
That’s not only illegal, it’s un-American.
