thand god for racial harmony.

I think you are severely underestimating the power of propoganda and streetlevel agitation.

They often are. The Supreme Court usually smacks them down. Then they complain about "judicial activism".

Of course......having said all that we are happy to say all manner of expletives and assorted obscenities in our media and nobody really gets upset. That whole farce over Janet Jackson ( was it her?) boob on tv was just amazing. *that* couldnt happen here......but yes you want to write a best selling book about why Niggers arent to be trusted and are being employed by the Jewish bankers of the world in a mad bid for domination of the aryan race you better believe you will raise the hackles of the law.

i think you overestimating the power of stupid words in a book. it takes the idiots willing to follow for bad things to happen.

i can sit here in my office and plot the end of civilization and nothing will happen. wait a second.

i just told my wife that i think iowans are responsible for the problems in the US. they hoard all of the corn because they are part of a secret cult with a plan to destroy the rest of us.

her response - "you're a moron" and she walked away.

stupid ideas are just that - ideas until groups of people decide to get together and do something about them.

The strength of the freedom of expression comes from its inherent defense of unpopular, minority opinions.

The irony of using Hitler and other dictatorial racists as a defense for censoring certain speech is that their populism fomented exactly because they outlawed certain kinds of speech.

Are we so confident that chipping away at the right to speak racists thoughts can never be abused?

Is it not better to make speech an unmolested right? Particularly political speech. Particularly minority opinions. Particularly that speech that is most repugnant to us.

The abuses of censorship are far more vile than the abuses of expression.

-sm

In order for your stupid idea to be anything other than a local phenomenon, reserved only for your wife and closest friends, you would need to disseminate the idea more widely.

i just did, how many cellarites are currently spreading the word that we are going to get those damn iowans? show of hands?

all i am saying is that you punish and work to prevent harmful actions, not thoughts. the "thought police" idea will generally backfire. that is why the horrible band Marilyn Manson is so big - nobody knew about him until people told the kids they couldn't listen to the evil spew.

Hitler's populism was fomented by the political zeitgeist. With massive economic and social problems, a sense of defeat and unfair punishment ( versailles, the total warguilt clause) the shambolic Weimar government looked devoid of answers. A running war began to be fought by two sides. Communism and fascism. That war was fought at street level with fists and boots and raucous humour and posters and books and music and violent confrontation......In the end though, capital which held its decision in abeyance for as long as it could then decided and swung it's support behind the fascists as being the less devastating force than the communists

The war that was fought on the streets of Germany and in the barracks of bavaria was one of intimidation and the spreading of an idea, any idea in a very dark time for a defeated and demoralised people. Hitler offered them a golden. jewel encrusted dream of the true destiny of their nation but before he ever got to offer that to them on a national level he first had to win various smaller victories. In order to place himself in such a place as to take advantage of the political situation he first had to manouvre his way through various military and political organisations and he used the tactics one might expect him to have used.

you are absolutely correct in all of that. but stifling the ability to say what a group wants is more likely to draw more people to their cause. it is human nature.
the more freedom of speech is restricted, the more people will sit around and wonder what is being kept from them. they will seek out the outlawed ideas and some will grasp onto them as truth merely because the powers that be, (which can't be trusted) are trying to suppress these ideas.

This had me thinking: Is it "fair" that hatespeech isn't punishable by law but taking action against that speech is? For instance, if someone called me the "N" word, and I felt compelled to bash that fucker right in his face, then *I* am the one who gets punished, while the other person is free to disrespect the next person with his hate speech.

Hm...

you would be welcome to 'hate speech' them right back. bashing someone in the face is illegal.

sticks and stones, folks. sticks and stones.

is it fair? absolutely not. and i sure as hell wouldn't be on a jury that convicted you of assault. but ignorant people do have the right to espouse ignorant ideas. the difficulty for me lies in where to draw the line of what is a hateful thought put into the public forum vs one that is directed at an individual.

1) "there are n's in the world and they are what is wrong in america"

ignorant, he should be tarred and feathered, but not sued.

2) "john you are a loathesome N and the reason for problems here"

that is specifically directed at someone and there is room for some sort of repercussion there. i am not a lawyer, so i don't know where libel or slander comes into play.

it is a hard one and i think we will debate it until we just screw until we are all the same color.

Generally in my experience the far right are happy to use both of those

in my experience the far left like to sit around crying while planning the next trial.

see it's easy to throw out ridiculous statements