Maine Passes Ban On “Paramilitary Activity” After GOP State Rep Defends Right Of Local Nazis To Hold Rallies

April 7, 2024 Nazis, Republicans

The Portland Press-Herald reports:

A proposed ban on paramilitary activity that was inspired by a planned neo-Nazi training camp in a rural northern Maine narrowly won approval in the House of Representatives on Thursday. The bill that would ban paramilitary activity intended to create public disturbances or violence now heads to the Senate for final legislative approval. The Senate previously endorsed the proposal with a four-vote margin.

Republicans urged Democrats to reject the bill, saying it was an unconstitutional overreaction to media reports of neo-Nazi activity in the state last summer. Rep. Laurel Libby, R-Auburn, argued that those rights also extend to neo-Nazis. “It’s is our duty to protect the Nazis’ right to free speech and association, as long as it does not infringe on someone else’s rights – as long as they are not harming someone else,” Libby said.

AlterNet reports:

“Let’s talk about the Nazis,” Libby says in a clip posted by the Maine House Democratic Campaign Committee. “I would like to know what they did that was illegal. I would like to know what they did, in detail if folks would like to share, that was wrong, that infringed on another person’s right.”

“Holding a rally, and even holding a rally with guns, is not illegal,” Libby noted. The legislation comes after Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey realized last summer, when a reported neo-Nazi purchased land in Maine to set up a white supremacist training camp, there was no way to stop that activity.

“The bill, sponsored by Rep. Laurie Osher, D-Orono, is aimed at preventing any unauthorized paramilitary group from establishing a headquarters in Maine – something that Christopher Pohlhaus, a prominent neo-Nazi, said he was trying to do in the rural northern Maine town of Springfield last year.

In a followup report, Libby said she was not referring to the Nazis of World War 2, but only to the local Nazi group.

Rep. Libby’s defense of local Nazi rights earned her a glowing forum post on the Nazi site Stormfront, whose logo reads “White Pride World Wide.”

The Maine Nazi group Blood Tribe has appeared here several times in the last year for menacing LGBTQ events around the country.



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