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Should Neo-Nazis Be Allowed Free Speech?
The Daily Beast ^ | 01-30-2014 | Thane Rosenbaun

Posted on 01/31/2014 5:53:39 AM PST by PaulCruz2016

New studies show that unbridled hateful speech can cause emotional harm. Is it time for the United States to follow other democracies and impose limits on what Neo-Nazis and other haters say?

Over the past several weeks, free speech has gotten costlier—at least in France and Israel.

In France, Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala, an anti-Semitic stand-up comic infamous for popularizing the quenelle, an inverted Nazi salute, was banned from performing in two cities. M’Bala M’Bala has been repeatedly fined for hate speech, and this was not the first time his act was perceived as a threat to public order.

Meanwhile, Israel’s parliament is soon to pass a bill outlawing the word Nazi for non-educational purposes. Indeed, any slur against another that invokes the Third Reich could land the speaker in jail for six months with a fine of $29,000. The Israelis are concerned about both the rise of anti-Semitism globally, and the trivialization of the Holocaust—even locally.

To Americans, these actions in France and Israel seem positively undemocratic. The First Amendment would never prohibit the quenelle, regardless of its symbolic meaning. And any lover of “Seinfeld” would regard banning the “Soup Nazi” episode as scandalously un-American. After all, in 1977 a federal court upheld the right of neo-Nazis to goose-step right through the town of Skokie, Illinois, which had a disproportionately large number of Holocaust survivors as residents. And more recently, the Supreme Court upheld the right of a church group opposed to gays serving in the military to picket the funeral of a dead marine with signs that read, “God Hates Fags.”

While what is happening in France and Israel is wholly foreign to Americans, perhaps it’s time to consider whether these and other countries may be right. Perhaps America’s fixation on free speech has gone too far.

(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Government
KEYWORDS: 1stamendment; firstamendment; freespeech; neonazi
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To: PaulCruz2016

Who but a National Socialist of some description could even ask that question?


41 posted on 01/31/2014 6:39:02 AM PST by headsonpikes (Mass murder and cannibalism are the twin sacraments of socialism - "Who-whom?"-Lenin)
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To: PaulCruz2016

I hope everyone here realizes that there are lunatics on the left who regard the Knights of Columbus as a “hate group” because they forthrightly defend the Latin Church’s understanding of Christian sexual morality, and regard FreeRepublic.com as a “hate site”, I suppose because the preponderance of opinion here also supports traditional Christian sexual morality and has a take on race issues consonant with Dr. King’s Christian humanism (judging people by the content of their character) and opposed to the new-issue version of “anti-racism” that’s based on applying a Nietzschean transvaluation of values to the old template of white racism.


42 posted on 01/31/2014 6:40:09 AM PST by The_Reader_David (And when they behead your own people in the wars which are to come, then you will know...)
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To: envisio
It works both ways. They can’t shut mine down, I can’t shut theirs down.

Exactly. But that is exactly what these guys are trying to do. "Oh XYZ is obviously just tooo hateful to allow..." I may not like nor agree with them...heck I may be repulsed by them. But I stand behind their right to march in jackboots and white sheets or designer shoes and boas. ;-)

43 posted on 01/31/2014 6:47:30 AM PST by ThunderSleeps (Stop obarma now! Stop the hussein - insane agenda!)
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To: PaulCruz2016
Perhaps America’s fixation on free speech has gone too far.

It is good we have a First amendment, and that people use it, Thane. Why you may ask? Because when the shtf, we will know who to shoot first.

5.56mm

44 posted on 01/31/2014 6:48:05 AM PST by M Kehoe
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To: PaulCruz2016
Remember when the ACLU defended the tattered remnants of the Mid-West Klan and their right to hold a rally in Skokie, Illinois?

Anyone tempted to agree with banning the Left's definition of "hate speech" hasn't thought it through.

Telling the truth is often "hurtful," especially when it is most necessary and needed.

It's the most slippery slope I can imagine, and one reason this silly idea is very specifically forbidden by the First Amendment.

45 posted on 01/31/2014 6:56:21 AM PST by Prospero (Si Deus trucido mihi, ego etiam fides Deus.)
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To: PaulCruz2016

The right of free speech exists solely for offensive speech. Popular speech doesn’t need protection.


46 posted on 01/31/2014 7:00:08 AM PST by ArcadeQuarters (RINOs: Not one dollar, not one vote.)
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To: envisio

How about the democratic convention?


47 posted on 01/31/2014 7:01:44 AM PST by Yorlik803 ( Church/Caboose in 2016)
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To: Yorlik803
How about the democrat ic convention?

Democrat Party, because there's nothing democratic about it.

48 posted on 01/31/2014 7:10:14 AM PST by JimRed (Excise the cancer before it kills us; feed & water the Tree of Liberty! TERM LIMITS NOW & FOREVER!)
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To: stremba
Doesn’t change my point,

No, it doesn't. But when we are fighting the 'intellectuals', we don't want to give them ammo for their ad hominem attacks.

49 posted on 01/31/2014 7:38:47 AM PST by PAR35
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To: PaulCruz2016

If a state restricts the rights of one group, it will soon restrict the rights of another group and another, repeat until the state restricts the rights of all groups.


50 posted on 01/31/2014 7:41:40 AM PST by taxcontrol
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To: PaulCruz2016

Everyone should have Free Speech. Especially, if LIBs/DIMs have Free Speech, everyone with any view should have Free Speech.


51 posted on 01/31/2014 7:43:54 AM PST by hal ogen (First Amendment or Reeducation Camp?)
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To: PaulCruz2016

As long as Neo-Communists (like our current POTUS) continue to have free speech, then the answer is Yes.


52 posted on 01/31/2014 7:44:19 AM PST by bassmaner (Hey commies: I am a white male, and I am guilty of NOTHING! Sell your 'white guilt' elsewhere.)
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To: PaulCruz2016

What is funny this professor is on the faculty of Fordham University. Fordham is a Jesuit University. If this guys ideas became law the Left, of which I am sure the prof is a part of, would use the “hurt feelings” restriction to shut up the Catholic Church on issue like abortion and homosexuals.


53 posted on 01/31/2014 7:46:11 AM PST by C19fan
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To: PaulCruz2016

Simple constitutional answer is YES unless you are giving away shipping times during war or yelling fire in a crowded theater


54 posted on 01/31/2014 7:46:32 AM PST by Nifster
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To: PaulCruz2016

The big problem is not hate but trivialization. Americans on the left and the right need to exercise self-restraint with the Nazi name-calling. They are offensive to those whose families were victimized. I see it on this site and elsewhere every day. Yes, that includes on Seinfeld. No laws necessary, just common decency.


55 posted on 01/31/2014 7:49:22 AM PST by Lisbon1940
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To: Lisbon1940

Do they even teach about the Nazis in school anymore...Seems to me the only thing they talk about regarding the war is our bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the internment of Japanese on the West Coast.

So now, basically a “Nazi” is someone who disagrees with a Liberal.


56 posted on 01/31/2014 7:51:21 AM PST by dfwgator
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To: PaulCruz2016

Would the hate-filled black and latino racists be included in this purposed free speech ban?


57 posted on 01/31/2014 7:55:25 AM PST by fella ("As it was before Noah so shall it be again,")
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To: PaulCruz2016
Unprotected "hateful speech" will be defined by whomever is in power.

The placing of Churban 'Europa' as the central event of Jewish history has got to stop. When is the last time anyone advocated a law against blasphemy (which is actually forbidden by both Torah and Noachide law)?

58 posted on 01/31/2014 7:58:52 AM PST by Zionist Conspirator (The Left: speaking power to truth since Shevirat HaKelim.)
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To: skeeter

The problem with saying “sure, ban neo-nazi speech” is that many liberals consider conservatives neo-nazi - radical haters who want minorities and women and LGBTA dead.

Hence the orchestrated attacks on conservative Facebook pages to get them removed as “hate speech”, IRS trying to shut down Tea Party groups, liberals who deny conservatives the right to speak at public forums because their mere existence of a contrary idea is not debate but hate.

The irony is that Democrats are the fascists they accuse Republicans of being.


59 posted on 01/31/2014 8:10:10 AM PST by tbw2
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To: tbw2

Look what just happened North of the Border to “Free Dominion.”


60 posted on 01/31/2014 8:11:43 AM PST by dfwgator
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