Merged Discussions of Hate Speech and the First Amendment

[acbytesla]

After the confrontation in Charlottesville, tech companies are cracking down on hate sites, massive crowds show up to march against racism in Boston and the entire country, and much of the Western world are talking about the importance to stand up to bigotry.

This did not come about by letting the Nazis have their rally in peace. It came about by confronting them and allowing them to show what kind of despicable people they are.

I have no problem with that. What happened today was fantastic. But it was Boston, not Charlottesville. Sometimes it's good to just ignore. But it's not the only way.

What i like about Charlottesville is they went there to keep a statue of Robert E. LEE from being torn down and it failed big time resulting in a backlash. Not only did that statue get torn down, so did another at Duke as well as monuments in Baltimore.

 

[NoahFence]

Sorry about that rally in Boston if you're a scumbag white nationalist. Haha

 

[NoahFence]

How does one define a strategy as working in this scenario?

40,000 of my fellow Bostonians shut down a planned speech by a few hundred cowards.

How's that for effective?

 

[BobTheCoward]

40,000 of my fellow Bostonians shut down a planned speech by a few hundred cowards.

How's that for effective?

Since you have not defined the measures to analyze or the objective, I have no idea how effective it is.you might as well have said, "I scored five gazorpazorps in doodad. How good am I?"

 

[The Big Dog]

40,000 of my fellow Bostonians shut down a planned speech by a few hundred cowards.

How's that for effective?

Wait, you are bragging about that?

 

[BobTheCoward]

Wait, you are bragging about that?

I am proud of it. Was violence zero? No, but there was about as much people there as you can fit into Fenway park so I would settle for a comparable amount of unlawful activity. It sounds like the cops maintained order to accommodate the original rally. Discouraging speech by demonstrating with more people sounds reasonable.

 

[Brainster]

Richard Spencer spoke at Texas A&M.

Sorry to hear this. Checked it out online, and apparently he was invited by a single alumnus.

The town of College Station, Texas, had one of its residents, Aggie alum Preston Wiginton, to thank for extending Spencer an invitation to campus.

Seems kind of odd than any alum can do that. Some more explanation here:

Meanwhile, many on the A&M campus are left feeling helpless. Administrators have said they find Wiginton's and Spencer's views repulsive. But under the First Amendment, they say, they have to let the speech go on.

“There’s concern that the great name of Texas A&M is getting smeared through the mud because Preston Wiginton is renting a room on campus,” said Rabbi Matt Rosenberg, who oversees the Jewish student center near campus.

IIRC A&M is a state school, and so presumably has limits on what it can disallow, as it should. I suspect that most private universities would have no hesitation in giving Spencer the boot.

 

[Elagabalus]

How does one define a strategy as working in this scenario?

Being shut down on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter as well as OkCupid and Tinder? Ouch.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...lles-starring-fascist/?utm_term=.924770b400c4

Copy the url and go to private browsing.

OkCupid, remarkably, announced in a tweet that Cantwell did have an account, and had just been banned for life.

We were alerted that white supremacist Chris Cantwell was on OkCupid. Within 10 minutes we banned him for life.

— OkCupid (@okcupid) August 17, 2017

Tinder booted him too, Cantwell confirmed in a slur-filled blog post Thursday, explaining that “these [Jews] will stop at nothing.”

Likewise, his YouTube channel, Facebook page and Twitter account have all been deleted as tech companies rush to purge extremists of all kinds from their platforms since Charlottesville.

ETA: It appears Stormfront is having trouble finding a home ...

 

[NoahFence]

Wait, you are bragging about that?

*********** right I am. 40,000 chanting "shame" at Nazis?

Wait, you're ok with Nazis?

 

[The Big Dog]

*********** right I am. 40,000 chanting "shame" at Nazis?

Wait, you're ok with Nazis?

I and other advocates of free expression are ok with with"Nazis" exercising their first amendment rights, and recognize that the greatest threat to civil liberties comes, not from an a relatively insignificant group of "Nazis" but rather from the mob trying to shut them down.

 

[Stacko]

This might be the most Boston thing ever:



"I just wanted to make sure that idiot was safe."

 

[acbytesla]

I and other advocates of free expression are ok with with"Nazis" exercising their first amendment rights, and recognize that the greatest threat to civil liberties comes, not from an a relatively insignificant group of "Nazis" but rather from the mob trying to shut them down.

The counter protesters weren't a mob. They too were exercising their right to speech.

What if those weren't White Supremacists and instead were Muslims marching with ISIS flags demanding Sharia?

This is a particularly tough issue. But that's why it's good. How do you feel about flag burning? Would you support a Constitutional Amendment banning it?

 

[Cavemonster]

And yet, it's still narrow enough to make it very difficult to craft a law that doesn't run afoul of the 1st Amendment.

It depends on popular opinion of decency at any given time. Right now, that's pretty narrow, in the past it was wider. We've had quite a lot of obscenity law in the past.

That no one bothered to take such cases to the Supreme Court does not imply that blasphemy was once unprotected speech and now it's protected. The 1st Amendment makes it clear that such speech was always protected.

If they had bothered, for much of our history, they would have found that the Supreme court didn't apply the first amendment to State law. So they would have been wasting their time.

For at least the first hundred years of the US, that was the official position. Multiple SC rulings cemented it. Full SC rulings that state laws were subject to the 1st didn't come until the 1920s.

 

[acbytesla]

It depends on popular opinion of decency at any given time. Right now, that's pretty narrow, in the past it was wider. We've had quite a lot of obscenity law in the past.

If they had bothered, for much of our history, they would have found that the Supreme court didn't apply the first amendment to State law. So they would have been wasting their time. For at least the first hundred years of the US, that was the official position. Multiple SC rulings cemented it. Full SC rulings that state laws were subject to the 1st didn't come until the 1920s.

Do you have any citations. Specific cases that I could read?

 

[Stacko]

Dearest mother:

I fear our cause is lost but whatever may befall me, remember always that it was actually about ethics in games journalism.

 

[dudalb]

Sorry to hear this. Checked it out online, and apparently he was invited by a single alumnus.



Seems kind of odd than any alum can do that. Some more explanation here:



IIRC A&M is a state school, and so presumably has limits on what it can disallow, as it should. I suspect that most private universities would have no hesitation in giving Spencer the boot.

I remember a college group at my college inviting the head of the California State Nazi Party to speak. They did for the same reason a lot of student groups do the things they do...they got a kick out of being outrageous. College age students have always loved to shock people. I honestly think this is a major reason behind a lot of these invites to extremists.

 

[dudalb]

Dearest mother:

I fear our cause is lost but whatever may befall me, remember always that it was actually about ethics in games journalism.

As a Civil War Reenactor (Union) I can only say:

That is one incredibly crappy Confederate Uniform.......

 

[Cavemonster]

Do you have any citations. Specific cases that I could read?

You should look at incorporation doctrine.

Gitlow v New York would be the first time the SC ruled that the first amendment applied to State law. EDIT: And that was in 1925

Before that, it looks like United States v Cruikshank states it most plainly:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Cruikshank

The First Amendment to the Constitution, prohibiting Congress from abridging the right to assemble and petition, was not intended to limit the action of the State governments in respect to their own citizens, but to operate upon the National Government alone. It left the authority of the States unimpaired, added nothing to the already existing powers of the United States, and guaranteed the continuance of the right only against Congressional interference. The people, for their protection in the enjoyment of it, must therefore look to the States, where the power for that purpose was originally placed.

That decision also made a similar statement about the second amendment, and previous decisions had already established the precedent for other amendments.

 

[Meadmaker]

Dearest mother:

I fear our cause is lost but whatever may befall me, remember always that it was actually about ethics in games journalism.

Awesome. Thanks for posting that.

 

[acbytesla]

You should look at incorporation doctrine.

Gitlow v New York would be the first time the SC ruled that the first amendment applied to State law. EDIT: And that was in 1925

Before that, it looks like United States v Cruikshank states it most plainly:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Cruikshank

That decision also made a similar statement about the second amendment, and previous decisions had already established the precedent for other amendments.

Thank you. And oh, what a horrible ruling. The ruling is very interesting for a number of reasons including it plainly says that the 2nd Amendment doesn't guarantee the right of citizens to bear firearms. It shows that it was the Democratic party in those years that was promoting the racist policies. I also think it demonstrates the weakness of the Federal government. That they knew would have had a problem enforcing laws in the South. It seems as if they were abdicating their authority more than anything else.