The Limits of Free Speech

I do believe in free speech. But I believe that inherant in the concept of free speech is the responsponsibility to take responsibility for what you have said/done. This is a semi-public forum, but it's also a community. There are social responsibilities and unspoken rules which exist in any community.

If you walked around to a group of your friends and screamed "Twunt! I hate you!" at them every time you saw them, well, yes, you would be exercising your right to free speech. You would also find that, unless you have very tolerant friends, you would soon be shunned and eventually ostracised.

The unspoken rule of ILM, and indeed, most of the internet if not the common rules of debate, is that you may disagree with a person's opinions, but you may not disrespect the *person*.

"Protecting" people is a different issue. I don't feel the need to be protected from other assholes, but I do like it when my friends stick up for me. That's just my way. Everybody has a right to express their opinion, even if it's that they dislike me. This is not the first forum I've ever come under attack in.

If censorship is necessary to preserve a community, then I guess it's necessary censorship. Because, after all, this community is only a subset of society, if a person does not agree with the social rules of a community, they are free to leave it and find another, unlike societies or countries or things that we do not choose.

I think I should post this before it gets too long, and continue in another chunk.

x0x0

Who's responsible for that anti-robin carmody forum, BTW? That's pretty fucking manky isn't it? What a l@m3r...(sigh) xoxo

Yeah, we need a moderator but not in the traditional sense. Flames are minimal here and that's down to the intelligence of people posting. Also the collective sense of fair play is pretty strong here; nobody lets an insult pass without at least one supportive comment for the target.

I personally would rather know someone has been edited out than not, the latter faintly evokes aura of secret police.

If you have any profile outside a message board, you're fair game for a verbal kicking on it IMO. BUT remember - let him who is without GIRLY SUGAR POP cast the first stone.

Anyhow, I'll rehash what I said: I didn't agree with Kate's self- promotion, but that's why I didn't read the thread. How hard is it to avoid things you already know you aren't going to be pleased with? It strikes me funny that this is being treated like a nation instead of a bar, it's the bloody internet.

This isn't to say that I'm for deletion, because i'm not. But if the moderators, ie the owners of the bar, are, it's their right.

You said yourself that you thought better of doing it, because you knew it would rub certain people the wrong way. Me, personally - I don't give a shit what you post. Post about your band and that other godawful band you used to talk about so much on the mailing list all you want, I can personally ignore it quite well. I mean, I only read the Lollies thread because it was brought up here, to be honest. I don't personally like you using the mailing list or the message board as promotion for your band. Other people don't mind. I have no problem with you doing it, because I just don't read it.

The point is, I agree with Momus in that if you're going to open yourself up for it by posting incessantly about your band and effectively spamming the board - WHETHER I CARE PERSONALLY ABOUT IT OR NOT - then you can't get offended when you get flamed, and neither should anyone else.

However, as mark just said - this is a bar, he is the bouncer, if you don't like this bar, go, and in the end that is my opinion, and being as I find Momus to be the world's most offensive person, I'm glad I don't agree with him in the end result.

Kate, for someone who has been rather smug about how smart she is on several intelligence-related past threads and how stupid everyone else is, you don't really comprehend that well once you take something to be even the vaguest personal insult. And, yes, THAT is a personal insult, unlike the self-promotion comment.

We all talk about our jobs, our social lives, our friends- these things affect our worlds and our worldviews. If I talk about the Lollies a lot (and, as Sterling pointed out, I really don't think that I talk about them half as much as Momus talks about himself) is it because they ARE my job, my social life and my friends.

It *IS* hypocritical of you to have a go at me for my "self promotion", Ally, considering you are unable to post on a single thread without bringing your life, your job, your social life into it. So spare me the childish d**mp*tr*ol-esque rants. Please.

Like I JUST FUCKING SAID, for those of us who can't comprehend simple English, I have no problem with you talking about your little band. It's great, it's fantastic. I don't necessarily agree with someone using a message board as someplace to post their own tour dates, but THAT'S WHY I DIDN'T READ THE BLASTED THREAD. Simple, yes, no, maybe?

Momus talks about himself ten times more than anyone I can possibly think of ever encountering in my life and every single post of his starts off with some ridiculous tale about people in Japan mobbing him or some awful song of his, and is being completely hypocritical for slamming you, yes, but regardless the point still stands: if you're going to self-promote your music, then you're going to have to put up with childish people getting an attitude about it and flaming you.

Or, what, has it become against ILE/ILM rules to disagree with you, luv? Saying that I don't like you promoting your band and don't read those threads is hardly the same as "having a go at you" and quite frankly I'm tired of every fucking comment that you perceive as negative towards you being taken as "having a go at you". You want to start a PMS war (very mannish of you, btw), here goes: go take a goddamned Midol and call us in the morning.

And that is all I'm going to say on this thread, I'm not reading it anymore because quite frankly it's useless. I basically agree that the post against Kate should've been deleted on the grounds that this isn't a free speech institution but more like a club, and she goes off the handle? Fuck it, I can't be bothered - unlike some people, I know when to stop and just ignore the situation, so feel free to get in the last word, like you always have to (cf. doompatrol).

Mind you this can be a dodgy old boozer at times

Mike has won, and I'm off to get some coffee.

Who's coming?

Er, I'll get me coat...

Isn't Strange Fruit, the label, named after 'Stange Fruit', the song about lynching?

Isn't lynching the most extreme form of censorship known to man?

Don't the white-ass rednecks who lynch sit round in bars drinking Southern Comfort and relying on their faithful barstaff to remove any black people who have the temerity to even think about coming in and ordering a drink?

But that's okay, isn't it, because the owners of those bars call the shots, and there are always black bars where the black folks can go and drink with people who think like them, no?

No. They drink Bud Light or Miller Light.

Do I have to be the Token Black Guy again and point out that this particular line of logic is deeply insulting and trivializing to anyone who has actually had to endure racism?

This analogy strikes me as fatuous. Seems to trivialise race hate and segregation.

We've never had to lynch anyone at Strange Fruit. Not yet, anyway. And the Strange Fruit club, surprisingly, isn't named after the record label. We took the name from a northern soul compilation one of the original founders owned which featured lots of tracks which, although they didn't really fit together very well, sounded really good. Which is kind of what we're about. Other names, which we never used but nearly did, include 'Bitterscene' and 'Pull The Wires...'

But anyway... we're just an organisation who try to put on clubs and gigs and ensure that bands get a fair deal. Unless we don't like them. In which case we lynch them.

Dan, I reckon the redneck posse are on Coors.

As far as I know Billie Holliday was never knowingly bigging up the lynch party. I agree with Hanle y.

Very few people seem to have agreed. Apparently my mistake was in seeing ILM as being a mini-nation, with first amendment-style protection of free speech, when everyone else sees it as a bar. My point about lynching (and apologies if the sarcasm wasn't clearly signalled) was that the model of the bar as ideal civic space is not a very tempting one. Bars are feisty places policed by private security (invariably fascists). Being told that if you don't like it you can drink elsewhere is not a great comfort.

Yes, I am contradicting the point I made in my Freaky Trigger interview about how it would be pompous for Hispanics to 'represent' Chinese in their local radio stations in New York. But actually, the racial pluralism in the US often comes at a price, which is racial separatism. The Chinese and the Hispanics ignore each other completely. In Britain we at least try (less and less successfully, it seems) to get everyone in the same pub. If only on TV.

I still prefer the model of the nation to the model of the pub, because pubs only codify things like 'how to play darts' whereas nations try to codify things like freedom of speech. And I believe that harmony which exists only because you silence unharmonious elements is not worth having. As Milton said in 'Areopagitica', the virtue which is never tested by exposure to corruption is no virtue at all.

What seems to be bothering you is the idea that one person in particular is in a position to decide what constitutes Unacceptable Behaviour, which is a reasonable concern. But this being a fairly democratic place -- as evidenced by one post removal striking up such a lengthy debate -- I get the feeling that as soon as any moderator seems to be overstepping his jurisdiction, he'll be taken to task for it rather quickly. So in that sense, well done for bringing up the issue -- whether or not the removal was justified, I suppose it's useful to have someone playing devil's advocate in such situations.

Maybe kids today take spam for granted and don't hear alarm bells ringing when they see one moderator (Tom) protecting commercial activity while, not three inches downthread, another (Mark) fails to protect free speech.

I mean, really, was there really no-one else who got even the teensiest little bit worried by that particular scissors manoeuvre?

For a start, I object to the assumption that I posted what I originally posted for the sole reason of "using ILM as a place to sell tour tickets". Clearly, Nick, you never actually *read* the original post, chosing instead to simply use it as a springboard for your own agenda.

We keep a press agency for promotion, and we have actually spend a great deal of the past 2 days talking to regional press. If you'd read the post more carefully, you'd have actually realised the intentions were something else:

I quote I thought this might be a good excuse to have regional meet-ups for those posters who don't live in London or Oxford. Here is a list of venues and dates that we will be playing. If anyone can think of pubs or cafes near said venues, please feel free to post suggestions on this thread. How is this more offensive than, say, Ned's request for meet-ups, or Ally's open invite NYC bar crawls, or even the ILE free jazz picnic?

Second, my trepidation at posting said post on ILM was not based on any notion that I should not post "self promotion" but because I realised that to post such a sort of thing was basically akin to painting a target on my back and declaring open season as flamebait for people such as d**mp*tr*l along the lines of whatever I imagine the deleted message to have been.

Imagine my surprise at the fact that two of the people who have most voiciferously expressed their disdain at my audacity at such open self promotion and "spamming" are the two people most commonly guilty of it! Hypocrisy in action!

I stand by my actions. The censorship was not mine, nor was it asked for by me. Although the bar analogy may have its faults, I still maintain the idea of ILM/E as a community, and not a nation at large.

Actions within communities IRL have consequences. Had Denis or whatever his name is actually said something offensive to me in person, I'd have either ignored him or punched him, depending on my blood alcohol content. How Momus gets from a community defending itself against disruptive and personally offensive behaviour to the sweeping statements on censorship that he's made is definitely an Olympic Gold Medal World Record in jumping to conclusions.

In this instance, it evicted (and reprimanded) someone who was merely being bitchy in a way that wouldn't be out of place on the NME Angst page. I've now read a paraphrase of the offending post and it is completely tame. Only a paranoid dread of trolls could make it seem even remotely sinister.

Momus: Since you're arguing principles here, I have a question for you: Is there any sort of speech you see as worthy of restriction? Start with yelling "fire" in a crowded theater, work your way up through in-person verbal abuse, and let me know where your line is.

Second: in terms of a moderated discussion -- as it's been explicit from the get-go that this is a moderated discussion -- do you see any value in restricting certain forms of speech for the specific purpose of making the discussion as a whole more valuable to those who are interested in it? For example, in a "town hall"-style political forum, would you advocate giving an incoherent drunk unlimited time to make comments that don't seem to have any bearing on the proceedings? And if not, what differentiates that situation from this one? In both cases, the purpose of the moderation is to make the discussion more concise and accessible and pleasant toward those who are actually invested in it.

Again: just questions.

I was not worried because I trust the moderstors' judgement. If I didn't, I wouldn't post here.

I didn't mean to 'play the race card' with the Strange Fruit analogy, [...]

This statement worries me.

Of course you didn't, Momus, and that's what makes it so uncharacteristically idiotic that you did. You groped for a dramatic example to shore up your point and settled on that one only through a willful disregard for the actual dynamics of the situation.

But so long as you've created the analogy, how about this: would you argue that the Cotton Club was morally obligated to interrupt a Billie Holiday performance to give equal time to a Klansman who had something he wanted to share with the audience?

And by the way, you might be stretching by equating the post in question with an individual's "point of view." I haven't seen the post, but the impression I get was that it contained no identifiable argument or point of view other than deliberate antagonism.

The misplaced furour that this "censorship" has brewed is probably about 100 times worse than any flamewar that could possibly have errupted over my so-called "spamming".

I actually totally agree with (moderator) DG's position above. Remove pointless, long cut and pastes, commercial spam, whatever clogs the board up with boring irrelevancies. On the Momus website I have a guest book, and twice this week I've removed posts which were obviously spam, people posting long lists of records for sale, or links to computer warehouses, placed by spider programs. I think vigilance against anonymous, time-wasting profiteers is valid. I don't think it's valid to, as DG said, 'edit intellectual content', and I think that to argue that the poster has a personal link to Kate is not a good justification for doing so. It's precisely the impersonal attention of callous marketeers which threatens netlife, not the daily rivalries and alliances of community.

Start with yelling "fire" in a crowded theater, work your way up through in-person verbal abuse, and let me know where your line is.

Do you see any value in restricting certain forms of speech for the specific purpose of making the discussion as a whole more valuable to those who are interested in it?

The censored comment was on topic, entertaining in a rather vitriolic (I hesitate to say Ortonesque ;-) way, and even, I thought, rather affectionate to Kate. And I think the subsequent conversation has been rather exciting, don't you? It went from the Lollies to Milton.

Actually, I also think the subsequent discussion has been pretty good. Amazing, crappiness of the original "offending" post, veiled threat or no veiled threat... Hurrah for semi-censorship!!

Kind of a let-down after everything else that has gone on on this thread...

Having seen some version of the post's content, well: pulling it was probably not necessary. But I don't see Mark's judgment on that issue as particularly egregious or worthy of too much criticism beyond, "Hey, Mark, you probably didn't need to pull that."

Note: Why wasn't Momus this incensed by pulling the Japanese fecal porn thread? :)

Also, I find it totally hypocritical that Momus comes down so strongly against people trying to sell you things, when so much of what he posts around here seems to be determined to big up Momus and the Momus image, which I can only think helps sustain his fan base and thus bank account (or perhaps ego). Kate and Ally (huh huh) have criticized each other for 'self-promotion' but I think really they just both have strong online personalities and talk about themselves a lot. Momus seems to push that further by trying to propogate the cult of Momus much as a corporation is always, always, always pushing its brand image.

And finally, I know this is something of a hot-button issue for many people here, but I find it very disenheartening and personally rude when people immediately start talking about fascism just because we're talking about moderating a small internet forum. I don't like fascism either, but it would be nice if people remembered that it is just other people doing the moderation, attempting to negotiate a very problem-filled area - not a bunch of jackbooted Nazis. For christ's sake, people.

"Blimey! I've not had this much fun since that time I ordered a pizza to be delivered to the house opposite"

I'm thinking of collecting a lot of the 'censorship is good' slogans that have come up in these threads and sending them to Falung Gong or someone, to show them the sad truth that 90% of people in the west really don't care about their own or anyone else's free speech and can't be depended upon the help them.

I can only assume educators have stopped explaining the first amendment in American schools and colleges. At some point in the 80s or 90s people who called themselves liberals seem to have decided that allowing free speech is the same as allowing hate speech, or that, as Mark puts it, a free speech position is somehow a free market position.

Kate's big sigh of relief on hearing the content of the post, and her express wish that moderators not try to protect her feelings through misguided chivalry, hasn't made many people change their minds about the original decision to suppress a harmless post either, which is odd. It seems to me a perfect vindication of my arguments throughout.

Only DG spoke sanely about respecting intellectual content. Most others were positively cheering meaningless, random censorship, in a kind of scary 'Let's bomb Bagdhad!' way. Why? Can anyone explain this to me?

Random censorship would, perhaps, be quite cool - seeing as how the fact the message was cut has got everyone excited and wondering just what was in it, where as most people would probably have just skimmed over it had it been left in [OK, that's enough. The rest of this silly and abusive post has been deleted. Grow up 'jamesmichaelward']

Mark has turned his Superman costume inside out. He's now claiming to be the brave protector of shy newbies and herbivores, rather than of Kate, who can stand up to her own flamers, thank you very much.

Does this mean ILM is going to be the Disney Channel from now on? Are we going to have to stop the play every five minutes for announcements, Midsummer Night's Dream-style, that 'this lion, ladies, is just a man in a skin, fear not'?

Scrabbling around for weak minorities, children, newbies or grandmothers to justify suppression of dissent sucks. Come on, Mark, just admit that you were a little trigger happy and tell us it won't happen again and we can all be charmingly rude to each other again.

Jesus, Momus, I expect better of you! Surely you're aware that (a) it's not a "cliche" but an example drawn U.S. Supreme Court opinion, and more importantly that (b) it's obviousness and uniquity are precisely why I said "Start from 'yelling fire in a crowded theater' and work your way up."

Secondly, you consistently avoid defending precisely the part of your argument that everyone is disagreeing with, which is your apparent belief that this forum should operate based on the same ideals as entire national entities. Based on your previous point, you'd apparently have no problem with Falun Gong "practitioners" doing their excercises in your bedroom. I don't believe that's true, and it's only through sheer dogmatism that you continue to cling to this point without recourse to ever justifying it. I agree with your arguments -- I even agree with you that Mark was a little trigger-happy, even though I don't particularly blame him for it -- but I think you're being particularly stubborn by refusing to even acknowledge that there might be a difference between "free speech" in a public context and "free speech" within an organized "owned" space.

I say this not out of any sort of antagonism toward you, as I've always enjoyed your posts, threads, and music, and still get an odd thrill about the fact that you've performed a song about my previous employer. But your smarmy provocation and deliberate intellectual dishonesty in this discussion are beginning to resemble that of my country's president.

I don't like either of these discussions because it reminds me of my high school newspaper class. One spiteful and needless comment would be edited and the writer would become enraged. Then the rest of the hour would be spent discussing censorship the Big Evil and (even though we'd been over it many times) it could have been a mind- stimulating discussion. But no-one wanted to keep their emotions in check. Just like on the two I Loves. There is nothing I hate more than such needless ball-cutting drama. And I hate censorship!

Ouch! That really hurts. (By the way, who was the ex-employer I sang about?)

I think you're being particularly stubborn by refusing to even acknowledge that there might be a difference between "free speech" in a public context and "free speech" within an organized "owned" space.

I just don't buy into the idea that you can have 'free speech, but not in my back yard' (or bar, or internet forum). It's like saying 'I believe in justice, but not for everyone' or 'Charity is fine, but only at Christmas'.

Okay, perhaps the Bush thing was uncalled for.

(By the way, who was the ex-employer I sang about?)

Reckless Records. Although your focus on the Broadway store was unappreciated by those of us at the other locations. :)

I just don't buy into the idea that you can have 'free speech, but not in my back yard' (or bar, or internet forum).

I guess I don't really buy into the idea that you actually believe that! But if you honestly think that's true, then I trust you'd be perfectly amendable to my hacking your website and amending the front page with the most disagreeable material allowed by law.

And when you attempt to point out that the front page of your site does not constitute a "forum," I'll simply ask who you are to draw such distinctions between a public space and one that you "own," "control," or "moderate."

I wish the original impulse behind what a crusty old Spectator reader would call PC (which was really making sure you were able in speech to treat diverse people equally in principle) had not been obscured by neo-paternalistic Thought Police of every possible gender. Mark isn't one of these, and he's no censor. Real censors, after all, are so secure in their oppressive powers that they can ignore dissenters, or persecute them like the Falun Gong.

As for the crowded theatre, I'd say it's the job of the fire inspectors to make enough exits that people can escape whatever bloody nonsense people are shouting. That's what theatres are for, shouting nonsense.

Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me.

'Art is where you can crash the plane and walk away.' (Eno)

Ditto computers and simulations and representations of all kinds. As Kerry said, if someone means to do you physical harm, censoring the threats isn't going to help you much.

But soon even those people realised that they were policing language and limiting its greatest strength: the capacity for modelling other ways of being, for envisioning the world differently. So PC receded, and now we have the more healthy anti-global protests instead. Real political action, back in the realm of political action where it belongs. And language went back to being the free zone it wants and needs to be.

ILM started as the discussion board for my Freaky Trigger webzine. If FT has any guiding principle at all, it's the idea that the music listeners experiences as listener *and consumer* are as important as the music being discussed. In other words, you can't shove commerce sniffily off to one side. This isn't the internet of 1995 any more, and more to the point the internet of 1995 wasn't all that good. As I said just now on ILM, we have a category, called "Hype", for these kinds of posts.

I would broadly say that it is OK for regular posters to fill other regular posters in on what they are doing - the definition of 'regular' on ILM should be at the posters discretion. Kate's tour dates fall into the same bracket as DJ Martian's weblog, for me. If you want to post your tour dates, Momus, or Alasdair M or Dave Q or anyone else does, that's fine by me.

Jesus, Nick, I can't believe you're being quite so juvenile about this! If I didn't have some respect and admiration for your actions outside of this thread, I'd suspect you were only doing this for attention.

Look: what's bothering me here is that your level of dogmatism here is approaching that of a twelve year old's, and it's showing in your poor rhetorical choices -- responding to my intentional cliche with "but that's such a cliche" and spouting nonsense about theaters having enough exits to accommodate any level of stupidity. All I want you to admit is this: in private spaces, it is reasonable for the "owner" to set some limits on people's behaviour. This is what allows you to make records without having to let me write arrangements for them; this is what allows me to watch television without having to let you drop by and comment on everything; and this, I'm arguing, is what allows a person to organize a web-based forum in which there are certain ground rules concerning people's contributions.

I only ask that you admit this. You're free to argue that in this instance, censorship was unnecessary; you're free to argue that this forum as whole doesn't need moderation of any sort -- in both instanced, I might be tempted to agree with you. But your evasion and your refusal to admit this basic point -- which is already codified in international law -- is currently striking me as positively infantile.

I re-iterate what Milton said about freedom of the press, back when Cromwell was trying to get all books and plays approved by the government: vitue which is untested by exposure to malice, sedition and simply *other ways of thinking about the problem* is no virtue at all.

Serge Gainsbourg: 'Provoke, always provoke. But remember, stay human.'

I'm going to go listen to Ping Pong and remind myself why I generally like this person.

Yes, PC started in academia and the media and kept the denizens of those zones busy bickering while the politicians and corporations carried on business as usual with their same-old New World Order. And of course people were bound to realise mere lip service was being paid to the notion of equality. But I see the anti-globalism impulse as an evolution of these ideas, not a repudiation of same.

Anyway, this thread is rather Miltonesque: testing the virtues of a virtual Paradise could hardly be called anything else.

("Retarded" in the kindly American sense, of course...)

One of the fondest memories of my life in regulated group situations was in my co-op. We go by roberts rules and thus can "move the question" at which point a vote is taken on if we are to end the discussion and vote on the motion. Think fillibusters and how to beat them in Congress. Anyway, some hippie assholes decide this is "undemocratic" and bring up a motion against this procedure. We move the question. The next week, the same thing happens. My point, as it relates to this discussion? Fuck hippies.

Also, lynching was not about speech but organized and institutionalized racial terror and oppression for the purpose of maintaining a particular political economy with black ppl. on the bottom. Also, Momus should take a good look at who Falun Gong are before he starts praising them. Irony time: momus cries fascist at innocent moderation and the FG are racial purists. Who also encouraged a twelve year old girl to self immolate.

http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:2j5flSKw_GNYeM:http://images.newsfrombabylon.com/articles/09-2005/09-24-2005/104_0421.JPG

What a retarded thread. and what, why the revive?

You see where moderation transparency gets you?

It doesn't read like mark s's usual style of writing.

Interesting

sfgate seems like a good place for that news

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/dec/12/ban-pastor-jones-extremists-violence

"What about principle. The right to free speech." We have laws that protect our right to free speech. We also have laws that prevent incitement to racial and religious hatred. Occasionally, a difficult balance has to be struck.

the takeaway: "It's a no-brainer."

"let's have a heated debate"

And I wonder where this debate would be if it was a Muslim cleric planning to come to the UK and start burning Bibles.

actually this might be the hilarious takeaway. yes, what if there were preachers in britain inciting racial and religious hatred, what a crazy parallel world that would be.

Greenwald on the DOJ prosecuting unpopular speech:

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/09/04/speech/index.html

David Frum's "b-b-b-but Lincoln did it" response on twitter is pathetic.

Greenwald has the full weight of the US Constitution and unanimous Supreme Court rulings on his side. On the opposing side there is nothing but fear or subservience to power. Not hard to choose between these two, imo.

greenwald accusing lincoln of 'extremism and lawlessness' on twitter hardly less ridiculous, and hurts his argument. though this was one of the better greenwald posts in a while.

but it was lawless, Blanche.

That riposte was weak even for Frum.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2012/09/the_vile_anti_muslim_video_and_the_first_amendment_does_the_u_s_overvalue_free_speech_.2.html

Google itself approached the controversy in the spirit of prudence. The company declined to remove the video from YouTube because the video did not attack a group (Muslims) but only attacked a religion (Islam). Yet it also cut off access to the video in countries such as Libya and Egypt where it caused violence or violated domestic law.

don't be evil lol

I forget which thread in the last 10 days boasted an argument between a britishes and American concerning "hate speech."

http://www.voanews.com/content/Indonesia-blasphemy-protocol/1514420.html?utm_content=wall-post&utm_campaign=en&utm_source=voice-of-america&utm_medium=facebook

I heard somebody on NPR the other day saying their should be a UN convention on blasphemy. Not sure exactly what he meant, but apparently it is a thing:

http://www.iheu.org/belief-groups-unite-oppose-un-blasphemy-law

Maybe it was this guy: Jeremy Bowen, Middle East editor for the BBC and author of "The Arab Uprisings".

In the wake of the violence sparked by the now infamous video insulting Islam, Bowen thinks an international convention on blasphemy would be an excellent use of the United Nations. But, as he points out, the U.N. has struggled for years to come to an agreement on how to define "terrorism," so such an amorphous term as blasphemy would presumably pose an even greater struggle.

http://www.thetakeaway.org/2012/sep/24/united-nations-considers-middle-east-unrest

I forget which thread in the last 10 days boasted an argument between a britishes and American concerning "hate speech."

― taking tiger mountain (up the butt) (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, September 26, 2012 12:00 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

these are always great

outlawing blasphemy is absurd. every religion is blasphemous to another religion.

it was towards the end of this thread: 7 years of prison for pussy riot?

that was me and that was a month ago

i used a variation of "racial hatred all gone yet?" on a friend recently, so thanks

I saw this transition in yesterday's NYT story on Obama's UN speech:

The president worked to explain — before a sometimes skeptical audience that has never completely bought into the American idea that even hateful speech is protected — why the United States values its First Amendment so highly.

god your newspapers suck

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/some-police-unions-calling-on-officers-to-boycott-beyonce-concerts/

Thread

thought this would be a revive about metal polls

Did I miss some hi-q ilm action? cmon man you know I rely on youse to give me a nod on that shit.

your free speech ends where my penis enlarger begins

Hi contends btw

hallo, dags!

dagby?

in Beyonce's video there is non-violence even the word meme HANDS UP DONT SHOOT is non-violent yet here we have a state power structure suppressing it by falsely portraying Beyonce as an agent of violence essentially making some viral form of pro-status quo state propaganda. as individual the police unions can say whatever they want but as public service members, as people that walk around with guns and the power to lock you away from your family, they have a responsibility to not act like idiots and make things less safe by saying things like this. for me the limits of free speech is when you are making things dangerous for others.

Beyonce is not showing anything violent these days we have murders on afternoon daytime TV news bumpers. Beyonce is performing. these people are just idiots that don't get art. the problem is they can legally shoot someone and get away with it.

ho-leee fuc-king shit

https://theintercept.com/2016/03/23/university-of-california-adopts-policy-linking-anti-zionism-to-anti-semitism/

Thread

hmm, i wonder why pos morbz types would be upset about a non-binding, non-legal, resolution that condemns, among many other forms of prejudice, “anti-Semitic forms of anti-Zionism.” surely there's nothing to get up in arms about unless... no, but it couldn't be. i wonder if it's bc they're upset that ppl are catching on? holy shit you fucking cumrag you're just angry that ppl realized human garbage just swap out the word jewish for zionism so they can get away with it! xp

Oved said the policy was necessary to defend pro-Israel students who have been subjected to abusive language, like being called “Zionist pigs,” or told that “Zionists should be sent back to the gas chambers.”

nooooo they just meant zionists should go back to the gas chambers, not jews

ah "morbz types"... fuck off

No doubt, even the revised statement will outrage anti-Zionist activists on campus. They will argue that the statement of principles chills their own free speech and right to protest. But the statement is very clear that even all speech, including prejudiced speech, is to be protected. Mostly, one suspects that activist groups like SJP and JVP and their on-campus advocates will object because of the strong statement against actions on campus that violate by shutting down the free speech of others.

wahhh we can't keep speakers from speaking. stop restricting /my/ free speech!

This actually seems like the system working to me. Listing "anti-Zionism" as a form of intolerance doesn't work because anti-Zionism is a political position and there are lots of anti-Zionists who aren't motivated by anti-Semitism. People pointed this out to the regents, so they changed it to "anti-Semitic forms of anti-Zionism." Which seems as good as possible a way of endorsing the position that "There should be a binational state in which Jews don't have special privileges" is OK but search-and-replace stuff like "Zionist pigs back to the gas chamber" is not. Judith Butler is right that this leaves space for lots of arguments about which anti-Zionist expressions are materially anti-Semitic, but I don't think you're going to be able to make a statement of principles that precisely answers all questions.

That article seems so deliberately point-missing.

i honestly am not sure what the point of the UC policy is -- like, what effects do they think it will or should have?

i mean i'm not sure what the UC leadership felt like this was something they had to address as an official policy (which seems toothless, i.e. mostly symbolic)

and yes that intercept article seems to be /straining/ to miss the point. or at least one of the points. just another example of people talking past one another. like, there are plenty of jews (plenty of israelis!) who acknowledge that israel has done horrible things that people are legitimately angry about. but that doesn't excuse the anti-semitic tinge that colors some (not most! but some!) of the resulting criticism (indeed, some of that criticism seems to take the israel-palestine conflict as a pretext for expressing anti-semitic tropes that pre-date the foundation of israel).

that said, i still think that UC making an official policy about this is (1) pointless (2) more likely to make this worse than better.

i mean, this stuff isn't hard! or shouldn't be! if you apply it to almost any other place on earth, smart people seem to be disentangle political criticism from racist speech.

yes, it's sad that you need to make a disclaimer like "yes, not all anti-zionism is anti-semitic" before you can call out antisemitism. it's as if every time someone on the left wanted to call out racism they were forced to add "yes, not all critiques of the [?] community are racist." but when it comes to antisemitism you must make that distinction over and over or else ppl listening - even supposedly bright ppl who write for the intercept - will get hung up on "oh you're just using the anti-semitism card." when someone makes a "this is antisemitic" claim, we should be able to look at the specific situation and discuss whether it is or isn't but for some reason (some reason i just don't know what) you end up arguing about whether arabs are also semites and if jews use antisemitism as a way to protect israel and not the particular claim at all. if you read the comments on that intercept article you see right there in the open ppl explicitly trying to implicate jews as a group as a stand in for israel's crimes. in fact i'd suggest that's the very logic of the "you're using the claim of antisemitism to deflect from legitimate criticisms of israel" argument - to make jews complaining of bigotry complicit in whatever crimes of the israeli govt. it's not simply that UC jewish students want to walk down the hallway without having "zio-pig" yelled at them, it's that they want to whitewash israeli crimes and all of us in the diaspora are complicit. it's so perverse - another common argument i hear from these ppl (and is present under that article) is "well it can't be antisemitism because the good jews also criticize israel." putting aside the fact that the vast, vast majority of jews believe in the perpetuation of the jewish state - the term "good jews" is so laden w/ hate it makes me feel ill to read, and it totally ignores the idea of internalizing hate. can you imagine if someone said "well it can't be bigotry bc [member of discriminated against group] also agrees" and expected that to land as an argument anywhere outside the republican party?

it's not simply that UC jewish students want to walk down the hallway without having "zio-pig" yelled at them,

tbh i seriously doubt that this has happened more than once. there /are/ probably some jewish student prima donnas who are exaggerating the extent of the racist speech directed toward them for rhetorical purpose, just as some of the protestors at missouri seemed to want to exaggerate the number of racist incidents on that campus.

a major job of both university administrators and campus protestors (the former often responding to the latter) these days seems to be to react to every individual racist incident like the KKK or hitler youth just marched through campus.

the nastiest shouting match I ever saw on campus when I was in college was between a Lebanese student group & a Jewish fraternity in 2006

xpost i know, right? political correctness is ruining america!

seriously though that sounds pretty dumb and reactionary, amateurist

they should just channel that negative energy into a dance-off

xpost

i know, right? political correctness is ruining america!

if you want to paint me with that brush you'll have to try harder. i think "political correctness is ruining america" is a ridiculous trope, and even more exaggerated than some of the reactions to isolated campus incidents.

this is what i mean by people talking past each other.

also, fuck you! :)

i have to try harder? i'm not the one making shitty posts

sorry if it sounds "reactionary"

i guess i feel that people on ALL sides of these issues on campus have a tendency to make molehills into mountains and exaggerate their own victimhood; it's sort of the game everyone is playing. this is true of campus radicals, campus republicans, jews, blacks, whites, everybody.

"a major job of both university administrators and campus protestors (the former often responding to the latter) these days seems to be to react to every individual racist incident like the KKK or hitler youth just marched through campus"

i mean it speaks for itself

used to be 18 year olds charged the beaches at normandy, now they're crying for safe spaces etc etc

you sound like someone's ignorant grandpa

well, treat me like i'm six years old and explain "it" to me

i mean, this stuff isn't hard!

speaking as a professional educator, this is also armchair quarterbacky and lame. it is VERY hard, i don't wtf you're talking about.

that said, i still think that UC making an official policy about this is (1) pointless (2) more likely to make this worse than better.

wtf do you do for a living again?

used to be 18 year olds charged the beaches at normandy, now they're crying for safe spaces etc etc

you sound like someone's ignorant grandpa

― the late great, Friday, March 25, 2016 12:24 PM (38 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i didn't say either of those things -- you're projecting a worldview onto my posts based on what you associate it with

i don't think that political correctness is a major problem in america

i don't think that "kids these days" are coddled, or oversensitive, or anything like that

i just happen to think that a certain subset of students (of many different political persuasions) are in a weird sort of dance with administrators where the latter has to demonstrate their concern by raising the rhetorical stakes after every incident of real or perceived bias.

you seem kind of troll-y, frankly. i'm trying to explain my thoughts and you are just making little five-word posts that take potshots at me.

like:

that said, i still think that UC making an official policy about this is (1) pointless (2) more likely to make this worse than better.

wtf do you do for a living again?

― the late great, Friday, March 25, 2016 12:26 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

rather than asking a rhetorical question like this, why not explain why you think this UC policy is useful and necessary?

hey man i'm just suggesting you STFU and let the regents do their jobs

re what this is for, my friend zach says:

There is no attempt to police speech. Actions are what matter. “Actions that physically or otherwise interfere with the ability of an individual or group to assemble, speak, and share or hear the opinions of others (within time place and manner restrictions adopted by the University) impair the mission and intellectual life of the University and will not be tolerated.”

–“Harassment, threats, assaults, vandalism, and destruction of property, as defined by University policy, will not be tolerated within the University community. Where investigation establishes that such unlawful conduct was targeted at an individual or individuals based on discrimination prohibited by University policy, University administrators should consider discipline that includes enhanced sanctions.”

this is presumably their concern. that they will not be able to "protest" speakers w/ impunity. i imagine they can still protest kissinger or netanyahu all they want but they won't be able to protest, say, an israeli who has nothing to do with israeli policy, or someone speaking on a totally unrelated topic to israel but who happened to be invited by a local hillel.

hey man i'm just suggesting you STFU and let the regents do their jobs

― the late great, Friday, March 25, 2016 12:29 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"sorry, we would be instituting this policy but for some guy on the internet suggesting it won't have much effect. everyone please go home."

xpost

i see. so this is in response (in part) to protestors not allowing events with speakers to proceed?

i actually am not OK with "enhanced sanctions" -- just as i'm not OK with "hate crime" legislation. seems like you are taking something that's already disallowed and appending a "thought crime" element to it.

wow you really are a reactionary idiot

it is VERY hard, i don't wtf you're talking about.

it is NOT terribly hard to disentangle "israeli government policy" from "the jews". even if people on various sides of the issue seek to conflate those two things for differing purposes.

that's all i meant.

ok troll away now, i have to get back to work :)

one last thing: there's a lot of debate about 'hate crime' legislation on the left, esp. from free-speech advocates. see e.g. http://www.thenation.com/article/hate-crime-laws-dont-prevent-violence-against-lgbt-people/

i don't know why i'm arguing with a troll, i shouldn't let this stuff get to me. oh well.

I really think the energy being spent by some people attacking the ACLU is better focused on opposing and confronting the alt-right.

Or we could just let Sessions decide what kind of speech to ban.

Great thread

Reposting this from the alt-right thread:

https://www.buzzfeed.com/blakemontgomery/heres-what-really-happened-in-charlottesville?utm_term=.xtQzxYqZ#.knkZrGOE

The right-wingers were more prepared for violence. Most white supremacist and Nazi groups arrived armed like a paramilitary force — carrying shields, protective gear, rods, and yes, lots of guns, utilizing Virginia’s loose firearm laws. They used militarized defensive maneuvers, shouting commands at one another to “move forward” or “retreat,” and would form a line of shields or a phalanx — it’s like they watched 300 a few times — to gain ground or shepherd someone through projectiles. It seemed that they had practiced for this. Virginia’s governor said that the right’s weaponry was better than that of the state police.

If this is the case, it's worth it to consider whether ACLU really did due diligence. Yeah, free speech rights, but if their clients are planning for violence, and they don't check for it, that's their fault, imo. This isn't a mistake, this wasn't unforeseeable, this is a violent ideology that is being planned and funded somewhere. It's bullshit when Greenwald is writing about Milo Literally nothing has helped Yiannopoulos become a national cult figure more than the well-intentioned (but failed) efforts to deny him a platform while actual journalists are digging into the large funding he is clearly receiving from somewhere, probably the Mercers.

― Frederik B, 14. august 2017 14:12 (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/8/16/16153248/free-speech-nazi-first-amendment-democracy-hate-speech

I came in preparing to dislike this, but it's good.

just got an email from DailyKos imploring Boston's mayor to cancel the dipshit rally this weekend.

so, DK doesn't understand the Constitution. I am unsurprised.

(There will be no weapons, or even flagpoles, permitted.)

Go and confront.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/08/16/odd-statement-from-the-aclu-of-california-white-supremacist-violence-is-not-free-speech/?utm_term=.5bdeadc99229

Maybe Trump will end up breaking the ACLU, too.

i am a bit conflicted on these sort of issues but it does seem to me that the paradox of liberal democracy - that it basically only functions if the majority agree to certain foundations, but it is unable to force adherence to these without becoming illiberal - is going to be progressively debilitating, and, especially in an armed to the teeth country like the U.S., the fundamentalist view of free speech will allow for a lot of harm to the open society

I understand why ACLU feels like they need to release something like this esp since they got so much blowback from charlottesville but it really isn't their mission and it undermines what their mission is

Wow: We make decisions on whom we’ll represent and in what context on a case-by-case basis. The horrible events in Charlottesville last weekend will certainly inform those decisions going forward.

Wait, what part of it isn't their mission, Mordy? Representing white supremacists, or saying that white supremacists are violent. Honest question, I can see an argument for both sides.

saying that white supremacists are violent

ok.

So in Germany, Nazi symbols and regalia are outright illegal and banned. Other than that - and I ask naively, because I don't know - what can we do or say in America that they cannot do or say in Germany? How is our free speech in practicality better than or stronger than Germany's - or England's, or France's or whomever's? Because if the only real difference is that we can fly Nazi flags and they can't ... I mean, the whole idea of the 1st (and 2nd) amendments are as bulwarks against tyranny. And yet ... both are in many ways currently leaving us worse off than the tyranny we escaped (England) and the tyranny we fought (Germany).

uk has some of the strictest defamation laws in the world, you need a very high level of proof for any claim you might make or you are liable to be taken to court and fined all to hell

also many laws have been in place which have curtailed freedom of speech in a manner that would be unconstitutional in the US, e.g. this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988–94_British_broadcasting_voice_restrictions

UK has laws against inciting religious and racial hatred (replacement for blasphemy laws) & people have been successfully prosecuted for 'threatening and abusive words' for (peacefully) protesting a military homecoming parade

Germany has banned certain political parties, has broad hate speech laws, retains defamation as a criminal offence, etc. You can be jailed in the U.K. for social media posts considered supportive of proscribed terrorist groups, almost any speech can be considered a public order offence if deemed intended to shock and alarm.

These are, for the most part, fairly good things but it's not just a question of flying flags.

scotland has a law that means you can be arrested and charged if you say something "a reaonsable person would find offensive" (paraphrasing but the actual wording is similar) at a soccer game

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offensive_Behaviour_at_Football_and_Threatening_Communications_(Scotland)_Act_2012

i am a bit conflicted on these sort of issues but it does seem to me that the paradox of liberal democracy - that it basically only functions if the majority agree to certain foundations, but it is unable to force adherence to these without becoming illiberal - is going to be progressively debilitating, and, especially in an armed to the teeth country like the U.S., the fundamentalist view of free speech will allow for a lot of harm to the open society

― -_- (jim in vancouver), Thursday, August 17, 2017 8:54 PM (forty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You basically just described Karl Popper's paradox of tolerance: "The paradox states that if a society is tolerant without limit, their ability to be tolerant will eventually be seized or destroyed by the intolerant. Popper came to the seemingly paradoxical conclusion that in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance."

xpost Thanks for these. So do any of you have a specific example of some egregious miscarriage of justice that would not have transpired in the US thanks to the 1st amendment freedoms?

@Josh, to add another perspective: in Holland you can get arrested and prosecuted for sieg heiling and chants that seem intended to incite violence ("Hamas, hamas, jews on gas" a 'popular' one among the extreme right)

what can we do or say in America that they cannot do or say in Germany

On the 'do'-part: carrying guns. I know you know this, but for nearly every country in the world this is absolutely surreal and insane. All the more because it's directly tied in with the notion that carrying a gun protects citizen's right of free speech.

scotland has a law that means you can be arrested and charged if you say something "a reaonsable person would find offensive" (paraphrasing but the actual wording is similar) at a soccer game

So 10% of the population is arrested every Saturday.

Haha

(downside to Dutch defamation laws: writing "Away with the monarchy, it's 2017" on a piece of cardboard will also get you in trouble :( )

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-aclu-tensions-20170817-story.html

1934: “We do not choose our clients. Lawless authorities denying their rights choose them for us."
2017: “We review each request for help on a case-by-case basis, but take the clear position that the First Amendment does not protect people who incite or engage in violence.”

This is the explanation:
Ahilan Arulanantham, the legal director of the ACLU of Southern California, said it was not the organization’s perspective on civil liberties that had changed, but the nature of the far-right groups themselves — a willingness to come to events ready for violence.

“The factual context here is shifting, given the extent to which the particular marches we’re seeing in this historical moment are armed,” said Arulanantham.

Good. Armed marches should be illegal.

Like, open carry? Do your thing. But limiting groups of people with guns should be like convenience stores limiting the number of middle school kids allowed in at a time.

The guns thing OTM, LBI. I watched that Vice doco and was staggered by all the AKs and pistols and knives this guy proudly weilded/pulled from his pants/boots. I mean fucking hell. And he said he had every intent to kill, if that was neccesary! How is that not threatening speech inciting violence???

If a bunch if ISIS supporters had marched thru campus waving ISIS flags and carrying torches and guns, how many milliseconds would it have taken before the troops were shooting/teargassing them to kingdom come? Why are nazis ok?

speaking of being allowed to kick kids out of your 7-11

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/08/silicon-valleys-anti-nazi-purge-kicks-into-overdrive

I hope they keep this up.

The alternative view:

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/08/can-silicon-valley-disrupt-its-neo-nazi-problem

Whatever. These are private businesses. They are being intolerant of intolerance. That is not the same as refusing service to people because of their ethnicity or their religion.

(or sexual orientation or etc.)

yep I keep seeing the Paradox of Tolerance come up, which is a good thing

"speech inciting violence" has to meet very stringent requirements to be prosecuted - it has to be direct and imminent. afaik you can even say "all the jews must be killed" and that is protected speech in the US

yes - we covered that some last night on Free Speech and Creepy Liberalism

xpost And my half argument on the other thread was, how does that freedom benefit society? More to the point, in societies that do not have that freedom, how are they hurt?

Though god knows in our POS country, if they outlawed armed nazi marches then there would be a push to outlaw BLM, and so on. Which goes back to that (new to me, but fascinating) paradox of tolerance. I'm worried we've gone too far down that "all opinions are valid" road to turn back. As we are seeing, there can be no victory if the default inevitably boils down to "both sides do it." It's no wonder we live in a divided country, since no one is allowed or able to be dismissed as wrong anymore.

that doesn't seem to be the case at present.

You mean this current anti-Nazi (as if that needed to be a thing) push? Yeah, dickhead in chief is still getting a sizable minority (no ironic pun intended) of support, there are still "two sides" debates on TV, even if they are getting theatrically shut down. I'm glad to see people coming out anti-Nazi, which along with "anti-rape" shouldn't even have to be a position, but I am not hopeful. I think it's all part and parcel with our stubborn anti-intellectualism as a nation. We're getting dumber and more dangerous. We don't know our history. We don't know the world. We don't know logic, we devalue education and authority. And by "we" I am generalizing, but clearly "we" includes enough voters to destabilize nearly 250 years of democracy.

I do like seeing this:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DHehmfOXsAA2uyD.jpg

Sorry, but I must now fisk your hyperbole

We're getting dumber and more dangerous.

demonstrably false, ahistorical statement

We don't know our history.

speak for yourself apparently

We don't know the world.

we are more worldly and well-travelled than any other Americans have ever been

We don't know logic, we devalue education and authority.

we are the most well-educated and scientifically savvy Americans that have ever existed

And by "we" I am generalizing, but clearly "we" includes enough voters to destabilize nearly 250 years of democracy.

only because of a stupid technicality invented 250 years ago by much nastier and more ignorant Americans than the ones we have today.

I realize it is completely gauche and unfashionable to be optimistic in 2017, and I'm not trying to be, I'm just pointing out that those statements are incorrect

that type of "we're the worst!" rhetoric is actually David Brooks' schtick

I appreciate you optimism, and am wary of arguing with anyone fighting that particular good fight. Let's just say I agree with you, but only in the grand historical sense of progress. I think we're the worst because despite all the progress we have made there are still too many pulling us backwards *for no good reason*.

Anyway, David Brooks is really the worst, we can agree on that.

JiC burnin' for that constitutional convention to repeal #1

No, I get that it serves an important purpose. But clearly it already has limits, or is not unlimited, the question is where we as a society want to set those limits. Which, yeah, slippery slope, but again, we already have *some* set limits on expression. So just as gun ownership in and of itself may not seem such a bad thing but carrying around an assault weapon does, free speech that does not allow Nazi flags (not to mention Nazi flags plus assault weapons) ... I don't know, what seems lost by allowing it seems worse than what would be lost by banning it, though I get how in the academic sense it opens us up to further erosion of liberties. To which I'd counter (mostly to myself), what is the value of liberty if armed mobs of intimidating hate groups are allowed to roam at will? That slippery slope slides both ways.

Plus, Morbs, you of all people know that that our rights are rippling illusions.

And man, if it was as simple as what I wanted or was "burnin' for," almost any limit on free speech would be way down the list of a million things that would supersede any such debate in the first place. Nazis marching in the fucking street, fuck that and fuck them.

I am firmly against the freedom of Nazis to express themselves.

On ACLU changing it's policy: https://www.wsj.com/articles/aclu-changes-policy-on-defending-hate-groups-protesting-with-firearms-1503010167

But clearly it already has limits, or is not unlimited, the question is where we as a society want to set those limits.

Given that Citizens United and a host of other corporation friendly rulings are decided on Free Speech grounds these days, I don't know if "we as a society" even have a say in what's considered Constitutional.

I think mark s was right to delete that post btw.

lol

On ACLU changing it's policy: https://www.wsj.com/articles/aclu-changes-policy-on-defending-hate-groups-protesting-with-firearms-1503010167

― Frederik B, Friday, August 18, 2017 2:05 PM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm not clear what this means in practice, would the ACLU refuse to offer practical support in getting permission for events going ahead if attendees are likely to be armed? or would they support events taking place, but rhetorically condemn them if attendees are armed, in which case is that a significant change from their current practice?

There's an interesting paragraph in this vox-explainer on the ACLU: https://www.vox.com/2017/8/20/16167870/aclu-hate-speech-nazis-charlottesville

But the ACLU has built its reputation, for decades, on the idea that there is no ideology so dangerous it doesn’t deserve vigorous First Amendment protections. “Going back to the organization’s founding in 1920,” says Strossen, “it was defending freedom of speech for anti-civil-libertarians, everybody from fascists to communists.” (This is something of a whitewash of the ACLU’s institutional history — like a lot of other establishment liberal organizations in the 1950s, it was too afraid of McCarthyism to defend Communists and even required members to abjure Communism in an oath — but it’s a decent account of its impact on the current state of free-speech law.)

Worth remembering when people say we need to defend principle even when they're benefiting nazis, so that they'll defend us when the tables are turned. When the table was turned, they were too cowardly to defend leftists.

all those ppl are dead i think

who else wants to water down the USA's free speech to Europe's level, besides Frederik and JiC?

Free speech but with irl sban system

that they'll defend us when the tables are turned. When the table was turned, they were too cowardly to defend leftists.

who is "they" -- the ACLU?

'establishment liberal organizations'

Hey there ACLU

So Fred, you believe that the ACLU et al. can only be trusted to defend right-wing causes, because they were complicit during the Second Red Scare, so to hell with everything?

no

To address the thread's OP: as a principle, I am against prior restraint of political speech, unless there is a clear prior demonstration of an intent to commit or incite civil violence.

In the case of groups like the KKK or neo-Nazis, they have sufficiently demonstrated such intent through almost all their prior actions and statements. When the very core of your political views embraces violence against minorities, subjection of minorities, exclusion of minorities and social rejection of minorities, then there's no reason to believe such speech is protected by the First Amendment. These groups should never be granted permits to hold rallies in support of these violent and abusive political positions.

Fight for the ACLU to stay on your side, specifically to adjust to a post DC vs Heller reality. Don't sit back and think 'principles' without power will save anyone.

have you read the original ACLU statement? it brought up some very interesting points. their main point was that in supporting the freedom to march, it supports the bad and the good, that it is as much a nod of support towards the good guys as the bad guys, that it also protects the left's ability to counter protest by making these statements. another really good point they made was that a potential legal solution of giving the gov't the ability to declare what protests are violent in nature could really backfire when used in the wrong hands. look at who is currently in charge, do you really want to give Trump that power? anti-hate laws could be (and would be) abused to completely silence opposition.