Suddenly said:
The "fire in a crowded theatre" deal perhaps? That usually gets limited to statements intended solely to cause trouble, not expression of political beliefs. The Nazis seem to be pretty close to the line on that one. Perhaps beyond it in your estimation.
It really breaks down to a fascinating problem. We assume that political speech does no harm, but that is a bunch of crap in extreme cases. I wouldn't be suprised if it could be proven to some degree of medical certainty that the Nazi's marching in Skokie had a material negative effect on the health of the residents, especially the older holocost survivors.
The problem is where you draw the line as to what beliefs are too offensive. This is just to dangerous to me to mess with.
The ACLU's line (and my line, as it happens) is that you don't get rid of 'dangerous' speech (aside from ones that cause safety concerns as pgwenthold pointed out), you'd be better off to combat dangerous free speech with more free speech.
I read an interesting book by Nadine Strossen called, "In Defense of Pornography". Post-Wolf (Naomi, that is) and Faludi feminism dictated that pornography was bad, mmmkay, because it depicted women in demeaning positions*. Erm... That didn't sound right. It made them subservient, is what I meant.
Strossen said that this was only a certain reading of pornography (for example, it's odd that a woman perfoming fellatio on a man is seen as subservient, considering what she is capable of doing if she were in a bad mood), and even gave an interesting argument for the positives of a 'money shot'.
Strossen acknowledged that some pornography was in fact demeaning to women, but believed that the answer to this was not to ban or marginalise pornography, but to get it out in the open and discussed. But because pornography is still a big taboo in Western society, the issues don't get discussed in the mainstream as much as it should. It wouldn't even surprise me if a moderator were to come along and delete 'money shot' in this post.
But the upshot of this ramble is that bad free speech should be fought with more free speech.
* I think it was Wolf and Faludi, anyway. I seem to remember Naomi Wolf crapping on an awful lot about the fact that Linda Lovelace was beaten and raped on the set of "Deep Throat", as though this was somehow the benchmark of all porno shoots.
