As you’re well aware, there’s been a long simmering debate about Free Speech, particularly on campus. It is now exploding into a much wider debate, and the LA Times gives “Laura Weinrib, a professor of law at the University of Chicago Law School, and the author of “The Taming of Free Speech: America’s Civil Liberties Compromise“, a platform to call for rolling back Free Speech by government decree
The ACLU’s free speech stance should be about social justice, not longstanding precedent
The American Civil Liberties Union has been much scrutinized since its decision to represent white supremacists in their quest to march in Charlottesville, Va. Board members have resigned and allies have declared that the ACLU, at long last, has gone too far. In the aftermath, the ACLU of California issued an equivocal statement, endorsed by the national ACLU, clarifying that the 1st Amendment “does not protect people who incite or engage in violence†but reiterating the organization’s complete support for “freedom of speech and expression.â€
Commentators have rightly observed that the ACLU has defended far-right speech since its founding, despite fierce criticism. But there is a common and mistaken premise in this analysis. It assumes that the organization has always believed, as it does today, that “freedom of expression is an end in itself.†In reality, the early ACLU viewed free speech as a tool of social justice, suited to particular purposes under particular conditions.
She then goes through the history of how the ACLU defended the Nazis and fascsists here in America who marched in the 1930’s, because, get this, it supposedly made the labor movement stronger. Now, though
Almost a century later, is a dogged commitment to free speech still the best strategy for an organization that is avowedly pursuing the “advancement of civil rights and social justice� That question once again requires evaluation of conditions on the ground.
You can see she’s building up to something. The professor is upset that 1st Amendment protections are given to corporations (perhaps we should take them away from the corporation that publishes her book, and the school that employs her?), and
Today’s 1st Amendment has plenty of eager defenders. As the ACLU reassesses its agenda, it should consider a warning issued by a disaffected board member when, on the brink of World War II, the organization assumed its current neutral posture. “Speech and the other civil liberties are meaningful only to men who dare to use them,†he insisted—and “before ‘daring’ come bread and water, come roots in the community, comes respite from fear.â€
Can you see the “well, sure, everyone should have free speech, but…..” in there? These same people never seem to realize that what they consider fearful can be turned around on themselves. You know what? I want a respite from the fear caused by her book. I find it hateful and mean. It should be banned and not allowed to be published anymore. See how easy that it?
Now, The tEACH equates antifa with the Nazis that killed millions. Really? Have you never heard of The Holocaust, or do you Deny that too?
Why does the American right insist on minimizing the vile actions of Nazis (and the Klan and white supremacists)?
What is it that you have planned for America anyway? (That’s rhetorical… we know what you have planned.)
tRump has rape on his mind it seems.
Anyway, we know what you have in mind for the rest of us.
It’s hard but try to keep up.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=1XXbgKUKeRw
@Jeffery.
I do not think that the KKK, Neo-Nazi’s or the White Supremes have killed millions. While some of them might admire Hitler who did in fact kill millions that does not equate to those wannabes in the USA.
Now because you have brought up such a point, the Democrats are owned and operated by the communists of both China and Russia who themselves have killed many more millions then Hitler ever thought about killing. They have imprisoned millions more and have taken away freedoms and liberties from their citizens at alarming rates.
It is comments like yours that will continue to drag the democrats deeper into the abyss, because Gangs and mobs which have been protected by the left in America have killed far more people then any KKK, White Supremes or Neo-nazis every thought about killing in America.
Again you equate one with the other so Ill play your game. If the right supports Hitler then the left supports Mao and Stalin. Antifa only proves the lefts duplicity in the overthrow of the American government. Its their secret agenda. If I were you I would think about you blind following of a party that is in bed with communism. Those of you in America do not realize the beginnings of Progressive thought was what led to the communist revolution in Russia. You simply think it is enlightenment but it is not. It is to shackle the human spirit and bind it to an ideology that is oppressive in the least and destructive at most.
These liberal fascists really hate the First Amendment, don’t they?
Somehow, some way, the pearl-clutching left seem to think that if people they dislike have freedom of speech, that the left are, Horrors! somehow compelled to listen.