Ok, so the state would also be able to plausibly criminalize any number of unpopular religions as well, which is not a power I think the state should have. (I don’t think it’s controversial to recognize that there would be communities all over the country outlawing Islamic speech using such a rationale, stupid as that would be)
No, which is why I hope they are driven from our society while also preserving our ideals. This is the stumbling block that pops up quite a bit in this discussion, I think: the argument for preserving our civil liberties and not criminalizing categories of speech like this isn’t based on some notion that Nazi speech is good or defensible in any way. Of course it isn’t. But unless the speech of the unpopular and unpleasant is protected, the good stuff isn’t either.
Not just “unpopular” religions, but religions (or sects thereof) that actively promote eliminationist rhetoric against currently existing groups. At that point they’re as much terrorist recruiting outfits as they are religions, and are being shut down for being the former rather than the latter.
Then you acknowledge that all Nazi speech (as opposed to all speech by an individual who happens to be a Nazi) is predicated on eliminationist threats. Uttered threats are not protected speech, and if Nazi speech is made illegal in the U.S. it will likely be on that basis.
At a certain point (e.g. when those who openly make excuses or support Nazis actually get elected to public office) it’s not enough to just hope they go away. Popper’s Paradox of Tolerance is not just a vague hope, it’s a prescription about the limits of tolerance for the intolerant, not only for individuals committed to tolerance but also for societies committed to it.
Nazi speech isn’t merely “unpopular or unpleasant”; it’s a call to extreme violence and the extermination of “undesirable” human beings.
Freedom has its’ limitations, and no one is ‘free’ to commit genocide or to encourage it.
Bottom line; if someone defends Nazis or any hate group that endangers people en mass out of some misguided, high-minded ideal, that person is notanyone’s ally… except for the Nazi’s they choose to defend; they are a passive part of the problem.
We might just fundamentally disagree about whether it’s a good idea to give the state of Mississippi the power to outlaw Islam on those grounds or the a town in Texas the ability to outlaw pro-immigration groups.
Please don’t get me wrong here, I’m not making the argument that Islam or pro-immigration groups are equivalent to Nazis. They aren’t. But you can’t hand the state the power to use against Nazis without giving it the power to act against groups like this as well. And again, this isn’t hypothetical down-the-road stuff–they would do it NOW if they could. These people are in power.
That’s not really how it works. First of all, the “threat” has to be significantly more direct for it to be unprotected speech, unless you’re talking about radically expanding the exceptions to First Amendment protection.
I couldn’t agree more, which is why I am firmly against the notion of whistling past the graveyard and hoping we snap back to normal. I want these fuckers wiped out, and I want to do so while preserving our civil liberties in the process.
This always seems like a disconnect in the minds of people arguing against trying to suppress Nazis. If that Charlottesville rally had been waving ISIS flags and chanting ISIS slogans the result would have been very different.
That’s not the argument being made. If you would support an ISIS rally in Times Square then you are being consistent. But @wanderfound is being consistent too. Limits to free speech like the ones that exist in many free western countries don’t jeopardize freedom or cause descent into tyranny. You don’t want ISIS followers to have their free speech restricted. Many of us don’t want an exception carved out for white supremacy, where behaviour that would not be accepted from anyone other than a white supremacist is accepted.
Every time Germany or France or the UK arrests someone under a hate speech law someone says, “I’m sure glad I live in America”. Yeah, America which imprisons 8-10 times as many of its citizens than any of those countries. Home of the free.
I think it makes more sense to believe that free speech absolutism helped America get to where it is. When David Duke put on a suit and took the message of the KKK to the public it did not wither in the sunlight, it grew and grew and headed right into the White House.
That is exactly the issue. In America, hateful speech seems more protected than non-hateful speech.
An argument that that the Quran is fundamentally a call for genocide or that pro-immigration groups are calling for the deaths of white people would be laughed out of courts, even in those states but definitely in higher courts.
Any good lawyer opposing such a measure would argue that the question comes down to: “is this speech inherently a threat against an existing group or individual?” The judiciary hasn’t yet been compromised to the point where the arguments about banning Islam or outlawing pro-immigration groups wouldn’t slam into that wall in a way that an argument about banning Nazi speech might not.
Gaining power. Which goes to my point above: it’s past the time to hope they just go away, or that you’ll be privileged enough to survive the autocracy.
You asked for a limiting measure. I gave you a specific and relatively clear-cut one. Mein Kampf meets the measure, the Communist Manifesto or the Quran or the Bible or the manifesto of a pro-immigration group don’t.
That is true. And as my other posts point out, that label also applies to any number of other ideologies, and there isn’t any way to give the state the power to criminalize Nazi speech with that justification that doesn’t give it the power to go far beyond.
It bears repeating: this isn’t a hypothetical about some bad actor that might some day come to power and use this power in unforeseen ways. Everything should be viewed in terms of whether we are willing to give the Trump administration this power. I am not.
At the risk of being obvious, I don’t think that is the issue at hand. No one disputes that in any way.
Well let’s clarify what we’re actually talking about here by “defending.” Because under a pretty reasonable reading of your statement, you believe the ACLU to be a “part of the problem.”
I’m not sure what you mean by “support.” I don’t want an ISIS rally any more than I want a Nazi rally or a Westboro rally. I want all these ideologies put on the dustbin of history and their adherents to die off.
More often than not, certainly. But lest we forget, Roy Moore was a justice on the Alabama Supreme Court, and we are a heartbeat away from having a Supreme Court with three justices picked by Donald Trump.
I think we may be reaching the point of diminishing returns here now that we’ve both made our points, but I’m not entirely sure you took my point above that I am most definitely not advocating “hope” as a strategy, and I think that’s not entirely intellectually honest to frame it that way.
But I understand and appreciate your thoughtful replies.
We’re all aware. It’s not a co-incidence that we started seeing this happen to this degree at the same time Nazi speech was being excused and normalised by a significant portion of the American public.
You chose the word “hope”, not I. Given that we’re now two or three steps from the point where I’ll have to active my contingency bug-out measures, I’m well into the planning stage.
That’s a very good point, which is why I think it should never be excused, and never be normalized. Did you really interpret anything I’ve been saying thus far as advocating for either? Because if so, we have a fundamental disconnect.
I didn’t. What I am saying is that taking a free speech absolutist position can indirectly and unintentionally (or, in the case of some conservatives and Libertarians, misguidedly) support those who do want to support and normalise Nazism. Again, this goes back to Popper’s Paradox of Tolerance.
But, that’s not what I’m doing either. There are clear exceptions to First Amendment protection. I’m not arguing for those exceptions to go away or any other absolutist position.
As a clear example, I’m pretty sure the judge’s order in this case is right, and the speech at issue wasn’t protected.
You’ve been trying to justify Nazi speech as absolutely protected, presenting highly unlikely scenarios where its going unprotected would result in bans on unpopular speech that doesn’t inherently contain eliminationist threats.
Perhaps I misread you. Perhaps you do think there is a scenario in the U.S. where Nazi speech might justifiably lose its protection due to a particular measure. But if so it wasn’t the measure I suggested.
No, that’s not really fair. “Nazi speech” is not absolutely protected any more than “Islamic speech” or “Christian speech” is absolutely protected. It’s all protected like every other form of religious and political speech. I’m arguing that such existing exceptions shouldn’t be changed, and if they were would erode all our free speech rights.
Again, the fact that I agree with this judge’s ruling demonstrates that I don’t believe in some absolutist position.
That’s incorrect. Islamic and Christian speech is granted an additional layer of protection in the Establishment Clause and Article VI, Clause 3. That still doesn’t mean that overt threats are protected. For example, if a right-wing rabbi starts calling for the death of all Muslims in America that’s not protected speech.
And my point is that one of the existing exceptions, utterance of threats, could plausibly be applied to any speech espousing Nazi ideology.
The judge’s ruling doesn’t address Nazi speech, just generic threats and harassment. We’re discussing limitations on the former, not the latter. But have a cookie anyhow.
Also, while I’ve seen some obnoxious and privilege-blind free-speech absolutists I have yet to see one who’d consider threats as being protected.
I think you may be skipping past my point. Those other forms of speech are protected. That protection of speech is NOT absolute. Nazi speech is protected. That protection is NOT absolute.
We can agree to disagree about whether or not the exception should be modified to include “Nazi speech” in general, but it isn’t really debatable whether that exception as is applies to a broad category like “Nazi speech.” It just doesn’t. The Brandenburg exception is pretty well-trod territory, and it doesn’t apply to speech like this without greatly expanding it.
Let’s not do that. I respect your opinion, and disagree.
I guess we may have a different understanding of some of the less savory sects that are out there.
I’m sure you can explain, in that event. “Nazi speech” is not absolutely protected. It is subject to the same exceptions other speech is subject to. I do not believe it is wise to enlarge those exceptions. This is not an absolutist position, rhetorical hyperbole notwithstanding.
My point is that, given the test I suggested above, it might plausibly lose its protection as a whole (as opposed to individual statements).
When I offered that test at your request, you argued “slippery slope”, citing two examples. I pointed out that those examples don’t meet the test at all. You came back with the suggestion that bad actors might pervert the test. I would point out that this is not an issue with the test itself but with the bad actors.
What gets confusing is that those bad actors can get into power because such tests aren’t put into place (this is the basis of the German law banning Nazi speech).
I wasn’t engaging in that debate at all. Neither were you, at least not with me. I was pointing out how the exception regarding utterance of threats could plausibly and safely be extended to cover the whole of speech advocating Nazi ideology and thereby deny it protection. That’s why I’m hoping these scumbags keep pressing their defense.
I think we are at the point where we have made our points as many times as needed, and fundamentally disagree about what is or is not wise policy going forward. I hope you understand that I while I vehemently disagree with a portion of your argument, I recognize that it does not come from a place of ignorance or animus, and there is likely much more we agree about than disagree.
Religion has been and can be used as powerful tool for controlling and oppressing people, that goes without saying. It is a fact that many atrocious and inhumane acts have been committed in the names of those beliefs, throughout history.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
That said, neither Islam nor Christianity has recently had adherents in the 20th century who rounded millions of people, stole their property, then imprisoned, tortured, and murdered them en mass, burying their bodies in huge unmarked trenches.
Only the Nazis did that, and that is why any ideology associated with them should never again be tolerated by any society that deigns to call itself “civil” - it’s an existential threat to ALL of humanity, even the most privileged lily-White people who seem to believe that they are the center of the universe.
Long story short; defend the enemies of humanity at your own peril.
I think there may be a few million Rwandans, Armenians, East Timorians (sp?), and Ukrainians who would probably vehemently disagree with that sentiment, were they not lying dead in the bottom of a mass grave somewhere.
But let’s be clear about what you’re saying here to avoid misunderstanding: are you arguing that “Nazi speech” should be criminalized?
I agree, which is why I don’t think our society should tolerate it. We should ostracize anyone who espouses such bile and they should suffer social consequences for it.
That’s pithy, but not terribly helpful. When we’re talking about civil liberties, if we don’t defend them for the bad guys, they don’t apply to anyone. It’s the same principle that means defending the assembly rights of the Westboro idiots protects protesters in other contexts, protecting the right of a scumbag like Larry Flynt to engage in parody has protected countless better people, and protecting the 4th Amendment rights of drug dealers strengthens both of our privacy rights.
It’s why the ACLU has defended the civil liberties of some pretty odious people over the years, all our liberties are better for it, and why I write them a check every year.
