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Jack45 -> RE: German court fines British bishop for Holocaust denial (4/17/2010 1:17:37 PM)
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I read the 1st post then came to last, p5, I think you hit it on the head, Freedom of Speech is the issue.
The ACLU in this country has sure backed off defending unpopular causes, people. They used to be really good, because their client, they used to say, was the 1st Amendment, not the individual event or person.
Today, they don't take cases from far-right. Too many donors complained in the past after that big drag out all the way to the Supreme Court about Skokie.
First Amendment is first for a reason. I recall the left clamoring for free speech, now they run the show and don't want it, except for their viewpoint. An example:
quote:
...we've been saying that new hate crime laws would threaten free speech, and the Left keeps saying "No, it's only about crime." The ADL's Abraham Foxman has publically called for Tea Party demonstrators be prosecuted for politically incorrect speech, under hate crime laws, for "slurs":
"Our leaders should demand criminal prosecution for those who cross the line. Acts like throwing bricks through the windows of Congressional offices, spitting on African-American elected officials, slinging of same racial slurs en rout to the Capitol– the same that Rep John Lewis was subjected to in 1965 in Selma, Alabama—and mailing anti-Semitic threats are not constitutionally protected, and require a strong legal response. "[The Big Question: How Should Republicans Respond to Threats? By Abraham H. Foxman, March 25, 2010]
The part I've italicized in the middle is the dangerous one, dangerous to freedom of speech, that is, since it's the least dangerous on a list of not very dangerous acts.
And it's interesting that it goes in the middle between the other examples. Everyone agrees that bricks aren't speech, that spitting isn't speech, and that threats, which are speech, aren't First Amendment protected free speech, any more than a robber can plead the First Amendment when he says "Stick 'em up."
But calling government officials rude names is speech, it's the "speechiest" speech around. It's what the Founders meant to protect. And that's what Mr. Foxman wants to see prosecuted under the "hate crime" laws. And this in spite of the facts that
The spitting never happened--Representative Cleaver wasn't actually spat on, he's admitted that he just happened to be standing too close to a man who was spluttering with rage, what actors call "spraying the audience."
The slurring never happened either, a man named Andrew Breitbart offered a 10,000 dollar reward for video of anyone saying the N-word during the incident—no takers, in spite of the fact that everyone present was holding up their cell phones.
And remember, Mr. Foxman's article isn't addressed to Eric Holder's Justice Department—it's addressed to Republicans. Republicans who are, according to him, supposed to rein in their "nativists", and stop the "hate." This will probably appeal to John McCain and David Frum. It may even appeal to National Review.
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