NEWS: Neo-Nazi Demonstration Turns into Riot, page 11

Originally posted by Regenmacher
Again, your sweeping generalization is false and has nothing to do with my belief or your idea of truth. It's simple logic, so get a clue: see 1st amendent

I'm pretty sure I have a clue, and since you're so derned intellectual, please elaborate how and what my "generalization" swept. It's amusing to see you try sooo hard at your creative writing, but you should make sure your words actually apply to the discussion.

What part of "you can't say anything" do you not comprehend or you trying to prove my unintelligent analogy again by remaining in denial despite logic and facts?

Now we can't say anything?

I fully understand your point, but expressing ones twisted beliefs in public is not the same as yelling fire in a crowded theater. That incites panic, because people are afraid they will die. Are you suggesting like a few others here, that hundreds of gangbangers were in fear of their lives because twelve rednecks dressed like fools and shouted profanities? So afraid, they just had to destroy their neighborhood to escape the danger? Or should it just be assumed blacks act like animals and are unable to be angry without resorting to violence, like you, the police, and the neo-nazis have done?

“The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic.” - Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

So you are saying they were so afraid of twelve morons that they were in a state of violent panic. Very logical.

I have an idea, and you obviously have no clue, yet again.

So again, what was said by that moron that created panic amongst the blacks? After all the immature comments, did you leave out were he shouted their was a bomb planted where the blacks stood?

In this case it has nothing to do with subjectivity. It's based on a Supreme Court ruling and it's also been established the police knew there would be a riot. There have been a lot of organizations that have been denied permits, and here's a couple more clues:

It may have been assumed there would be a riot, but how could they know there would be one? Did they discuss it with the black folks first?

Perhaps it's riot squad practice for a larger events yet to come, like martial law declared due to bird flu quarantines. Considering the city of Toledo spend $100,000 to provide security for two dozen skinheads, it doesn't make sense and I'm still formulating ulterior motives.

Bird flu quarantines?

Bird flu is a joke, another sensational flu pandemic threat that will never 'pan' out. Get it?

Seriously though, every other week a new imminent declaration of martial law is foreseen. And again, there wasn't even two dozen. Perhaps you should refrain from telling others to get a clue, when you need one yourself.

I suggest you do your own personal study in seeing what you can get away with and start a thread of your free speech escapades. I already tested my limits.

And you're worried about the neo-nazis ideology? Maybe you should worry more about our current government than about silencing an inconsequential redneck gang.

Thousands upon thousands of convictions.

Examples and circumstances please.

There is no such thing as true freedom of speech in the US. There are free speech zones, hate crime laws, the patriot act, defamatory speech laws, content regulation laws, censorship laws, obscenity laws, sedition laws, disorderly conduct laws, breach of peace laws, sexual harassment laws, etc, etc, etc.

Most of those laws you speak of are unconstitutional, and again are very subjective. Take pornography for example, it can be argued it breaks almost every law you mentioned, do you believe it should be banned? Probably not, you've probably got some in another window right now.

In more recent decisions, the Court has held that fighting words must "reasonably incite the average person to retaliate" and risk "an immediate breach of the peace" or they could not be prohibited.
en.wikipedia.org...

What's average? Again, subjective. Some people retaliate violently if you look at them the wrong way, or if you're wearing a color they don't like. The "average" person in a crip neighborhood will retaliate if you're wearing a red shirt, so I guess it's your fault you wore that color, and so you're responsible for breaching the peace. I still think there are few, if any convictions.

Promoting racism is wrong in any form and the city's leaders should of taken responsibilty instead of passing the buck off on the masses. Any numbskull could see a riot coming, when you let aryan racists march into a depressed socio-economic neighborhood full of minorities that have harbored generations of anger and frustration.

It is wrong, but you or I have no right to tell somebody else what they can and cannot promote. If they aren't physically invading somebody's space, all we can do is either counter their statements equally, or simply ignore them. Once we attack somebody because of their words, we are in the wrong. And from your own source: Around 11 a.m. yesterday, about 15 Nazis had gathered next to the east side of Woodward High School, holding signs and chanting things like “white pride, not hate.” They carried homemade signs, such as, “White People Unite! Fight For Your Race.

One may ask if our Constitution's protection of civil liberties extend to protect a known terrorist organization whose history is replete with genocide, torture, and hate?

Many groups can fall under that definition, including Christians. You want our Constitution to be selective as to which organization whose history is replete with genocide, torture, and hate has the right to promote their agenda.

Who pays for all this stupidity? Every tax payer in Toledo. Next time make the Nazis pay for their own protection like when the Ku Klux Klan decided to march in Lima. Violence and is not acceptable, neither is sedition and hate speech that is intended to incite violence.

I thought according to you, there shouldn't be a next time because what they are saying is illegal. Shouldn't they just be arrested and convicted under one of the "fighting words" laws? Are you saying it's acceptable as long as they pay for security themselves? In that case we're in agreement, the taxpayers shouldn't pay to protect any special interest group.

Next week on this Insane Planet: Saddam says his free speech rights were violated because Bush bombed his country

What an utterly moronic remark.

while al-Quada demands to have the legal right to demonstrate peacefully and recruit new members in the streets of America.

As long as they are in this country legally and they demonstrate peacefully, in all fairness they should have that right. It would also make it a hell of a lot easier to track them, but since al Queda actually intends to do harm, they would never demonstrate and blow their cover by letting the government know who they are. Think the goverment doesn't track the neo-nazis?

I agree with John Stuart Mill's Harm Principle....

This is a very strong defense of free speech; Mill tells us that any doctrine should be allowed the light of day no matter how immoral it may seem to everyone else. And Mill does mean everyone:
If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. (1978, 16)
Such liberty should exist with every subject matter, such that we have “absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment on all subjects, practical or speculative, scientific, moral or theological” (1978, 11). Mill claims that we need the fullest liberty of expression to push our arguments to their logical limit, not to the limit of social embarrassment. Such liberty of expression is necessary, he suggests, for the dignity of persons.

2.3 Mill's Harm Principle and Hate Speech
Another difficult case is hate speech. Most European liberal democracies have limitations on hate speech, but it is debatable whether these can be justified by the harm principle as formulated by Mill. One would have to show that such speech violated rights, directly and in the first instance. A famous example of hate speech is the Nazi march through Skokie, Illinois. In fact, the intention was not to engage in political speech at all, but simply to march through a predominantly Jewish community dressed in storm trooper uniforms and wearing swastikas (although the Illinois Supreme Court interpreted the wearing of swastikas as “symbolic political speech”). It is clear that most people, especially those who lived in Skokie, were outraged and offended by the march, but were they harmed? There was no plan to cause physical injury and the marchers did not intend to damage property.

The main argument against allowing the march, based on the harm principle, was that it would cause harm by inciting opponents of the march to riot. The problem with this claim is that it is the harm that could potentially be done to the people speaking that becomes the focal point and not the harm done to those who are the subject of the hate. To ban speech for this reason, i.e., for the good of the speaker, tends to undermine the basic right to free speech in the first place. It is possible to suggest that persons on the wrong end of hate speech are psychologically harmed, but this is more difficult to demonstrate than harm to a person's legal rights. It seems, therefore, that if we are to base our defense of speech on the harm principle we are going to have very few sanctions imposed on the spoken and written word. It is only when we can show direct harm to rights, which will almost always mean when an attack is made against a specific individual or a small group of persons, that it is legitimate to impose a sanction. One response is to suggest that the harm principle can be defined in a less stringent manner than Mill's formulation. This is a complicated issue that I cannot delve into here. Suffice it to say that if we can, then more options might become available for prohibiting hate speech and violent pornography.

There are two basic responses to the harm principle as a means of limiting speech. One is that it is too narrow; the other is that it is too broad. This latter view is not often expressed because, as already noted, most people think that free speech should be limited if it does cause harm. George Kateb (1996), however, has made an interesting argument that runs as follows. If we want to limit speech because of harm then we will have to ban a lot of political speech. Most of it is useless, a lot of it is offensive, and some of it causes harm because it is deceitful, and because it is aimed at discrediting specific groups. It also undermines democratic citizenship and stirs up nationalism and jingoism, which results in harm to citizens of other countries. Even worse than political discourse, according to Kateb, is religious speech; he claims that a lot of religious speech is hateful, useless, dishonest, and ferments war, bigotry and fundamentalism. It also creates bad self-image and feelings of guilt that can haunt persons throughout their lives. Pornography or hate speech, he claims, causes nowhere near as much harm as political and religious speech. His conclusion is that the harm principle casts its net too far and we should allow almost unlimited speech.

This is a powerful argument, but there seem to be at least two problems with the analysis. The first is that the harm principle would actually allow religious and political speech for the same reasons that it allows pornography and hate speech, namely that it is not possible to demonstrate that such speech does cause direct harm to rights. I find it very doubtful that Mill would support using his arguments about harm to ban political and religious speech. The second problem for Kateb is that if we accept he is right that such speech does cause harm in the sense of violating rights, the correct response is surely to start limiting political and religious speech. If Kateb's argument is sound he has shown that harm is more extensive than we might have thought; he has not demonstrated that the harm principle is invalid.

plato.stanford.edu...

[edit on 19-10-2005 by 27jd]