I was going to post that it’s not that “the debate is over”, it’s that there is no debate possible because there is no middle ground, no way that our society can accept “just a little” genocide and slavery.
Then I thought about that honestly, and I’m off to have a sad mope (outside where it’s sunny).
says flippyhambone.
Indeed. U.S. citizens in general do still accept more than just a little de facto genocide and slavery.
I’m not going to throw stones from north of the border.
The Toronto Star has been doing a good job of prodding the Ontario and federal governments over the problem of mercury contamination near Grassy Narrows Indigenous reserve. They’ve known about it for ages, they’ve also known that the paper company buried more leaking waste illegally, and mercury poisoning is one of the nastiest afflictions there is, especially in the young. I can’t imagine this indifference for any other community in the same situation.
Genocide by indifference is still genocide.
Free speech has limits- threatening- advocating crimes - conspiracy- all outside the bounds of free speech.
And Nazis are advocating things that are illegal- curtailing voting rights, treating classes of people as less than human under the law - thinly veiled threats of violence and overt threats and actual violence just recently.
They rather directly threaten everyone who isn’t a Nazi - and the right kind of Nazi.
Saying their speech is protected speech is like saying it’s just fine to yell fire in a crowded theater- just so long as you didn’t say there’s a fire right now.
Why oh why do you hate the poor ol’ First Amendment!
Sorry - no coffee this morning. I hate apple pie today too. And don’t get me started on puppies!
Yeah, I can all too easily imagine what goes on at your house!
I’m pretty sure that the only people who have said “burn her” in this country in recent times have been quoting Monty Python and the Holy Grail. They don’t even get that bad at Trump rallies.
And I prefer not the question of would fox, westboro et al be here if we weren’t - but would the Nazis still be here (be everywhere) - if we weren’t?
I doubt that anyone from the ACLU team at the time would agree with you on your inferences from the Skokie lawsuit. The Village was trying to bar demonstrations, but that is not the same thing as refusing to fund demonstrations. Even public universities can refuse to host pieces of filth like your friend Milo without that being construed as curtailing speech.
(FWIW, I was from the area, and while I no longer lived there I supported the ACLU case; apropos of nothing, one of the two chief ACLU lawyers from the time was my next-door neighbor growing up.)
That’s actually the hot take the ACLU decided to run with for a few minutes before Unite the Right - that public universities had to provide a platform to Milo. They took that position just weeks after a Milo fan shot and and severely wounded a Milo protestor dead in Seattle, and they stopped repeating it when Nazis killed another protestor in August.
The ACLU literally admitted they were wrong to universally take the barge without considering the potential violence within the past 7 months. Anyone trying to hold the ACLU up as the example for why this speech needs to be protected should realize that they had to rewrite their organization’s entire approach because they were wrong.
That’s without the other modern examples of the ACLU being blind to the violence of the groups they protected, or even the indirect violence caused by their actions globally. Free speech is incredibly important, but an absolute stance has been proven infeasible by anyone outside a comfortable socioeconomic life.
EDIT
I mistakenly thought the guy died in Seattle, he lives as per @the_borderer
The ACLU team at the time is not the team there now, and as an ACLU member I know there is disagreement on many issues. There are subtle questions about whether public universities are public spaces, and finding language that permits students freedom of speech on their campus and at the same time prevents hate groups from disrupting normal discourse (and possibly causing undue financial hardship for the institution) is not easy.
Those are all disgusting scenarios, milliefink, and I don’t know how funding works for those situations, but saying “not allowed to come here” creates a Streisand effect and signals weakness and insecurity. The truth is on our side. The haters are wrong and we can prove it. They love to be banned. Their outrage is for effect, and we keep giving them what they want.
Thankfully he survived, but that still doesn’t change that someone from the far right tried to kill an anti-fascist who was actually trying to stop fights from happening.
He did an interview a month later
Thanks! I thought he died, edited the correction!
