This is incorrect. Hate speech does not exist in the US on a federal level.
If I key your car and write “go back to [place] you dirty [racial slur]” I will get charged with vandalizing your car and an increased penalty because it’s a hate crime.
But if I’m not committing a crime I can go around saying all sorts of hateful things and the 1st amendment protects me. That same sentence from above can be freely said with no legal penalties.
They do have the First Amendment right to march and wave their flags around. Now, if all major political parties quickly denounced them and the police treated them as the potential threats that they are, then their “peaceful marches” would be ridiculed and they would be driven back into the shadows.
The bigger problem isn’t that they have a First Amendment right to march. It’s that one of the two major political parties watches them match and says “these guys have some good ideas.” Instead of being driven into the shadows of society, they are being given positons of power. And we’ve seen what happens when Nazis are given power.
Not how it works. The first amendment explicitly allows you to disagree with the founding philosophy of the country. In fact it’s sort of the whole point.
Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re really in favor of free speech, then you’re in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favor of free speech. - Chomsky
My opinion? It’s better to have these guys out in the open where you can see them. If you try and suppress them by shutting down their protests or arresting them you have
A) opened the door for the government to do that with any radically perceived movement in the future. Any leftist protest movement could easily be shut down under similar pretense
B) you turn the guys into martyrs for the cause. Just like Trump’s indictments improved his polling numbers, these Nazis would likewise see a surge in popularity.
C) suppressing ideas doesn’t make them suddenly go away. You just push it underground where it becomes even more radical without the moderating influence from the mainstream.
Why are people becoming open Nazis? Consider the source of the problem. The worse the economic situation is historically, the more radical people become. Florida has the highest inflation in the country, relatively low wages and relatively high cost of living.
It’s not a coincidence that the Nazis came to power right after the Great Depression. We need to fix the economic situation and fast.
You might not like him or disagree with him but if he was a nobody you wouldn’t have an opinion on him.
I dont think you know who you’re dealing with
The government should not be the arbiter of truth. Do you trust the FBI? Do you trust the CIA? You think they are the good guys? The dozens of coups all across the world? The endless spying and surveillance?
You’re advocating that these people should have even more power over you.
Do you also let cockroaches and rats run wild out in the open in your home?
To avoid cockroaches, you stop leaving food and water in the open. Turning the lights off and scurrying them away won’t help the issue.
We need to solve the economic issues to get rid of Nazis. Anything else is just turning the lights off. As long as people are struggling to pay bills and have a sense of instability and fear for the future… we’re going to have fascists. It doesn’t matter if you make it so they can’t speak in public. They will just speak in private and continue to grow.
We need broad ranging economic reforms.
You just described everything that happened by letting them have free speech
Give me specific examples. I don’t follow what you mean.
Nazis believe in the genocide of a racial group. Genocide is not normalized in the USA. It was not normalized by the Telecommunications Act.
Can we stop saying crazy things that didn’t happen?
Christianity has nothing to do with fascism. It can be used by fascists, sure. But if you look at Nazi Germany for example Hitler hated the church and there’s speculation he had plans to totally destroy it. Fascists don’t like groups of power that aren’t controlled by them. So for example the Catholic Church had to go. He tried to create a Protestant church called the “Reich Church” that was sort of a state religion but once that failed he gave up and suppressed the religious movements.
Have you ever actually dealt with cockroaches? They survive nuclear blasts. You need to remove the source of food and water otherwise all the traps in the world don’t make a difference. You leave one or two alive and they will just repopulate.
Plus consider the implications of what you’re saying. Let’s say we arrest and imprison every single Nazi. What’s going to happen? The ones that remain are going to stay real quiet, aren’t they? What then? Is the government going to be actively spying on every single communications in the country to try and find them?
That’s what it’ll take. And maybe it’ll even be possible. But consider what you have created. A massive surveillance state with broad ranging legal powers to detain and imprison “enemies of the state”. What happens when a far-right party gets elected? Remember, we are a democracy. What happens when the next Trump gets elected and says BLM are fascists?
Actually, we don’t need to imagine. If you look at his recent interview with Tucker Carlson that’s exactly what he said. He said the fascists are out to get him.
You don’t see any potential issues with this? None at all?
Honestly, we’re screwed. Unfortunately I think your wish will ultimately become reality and we will live in a brutal authoritarian surveillance state. I’m just glad I got to grow up before it became that way.
And you’re actually using Tucker Carlson as your example?..do you not understand that calling everyone else who obviously isnt fascist is a classic fascist tactic?
Yes. That is exactly what I’m trying to say. Let’s say a fascist comes to power. They call everyone else fascists.
Now they use the rules you just created to shut down speech that isn’t fascist.
You keep ignoring this or failing to understand. Prompting me to believe you are likely a bot.
I don’t think you really know anything about Chomsky’s corpus of work. I believe this because you didn’t mention any of his critiques of US imperialism or the propaganda model he outlined in his most famous book - Manufacturing Consent.
You speak confidently about things you don’t really understand. I’m going to stop engaging unless you start addressing the things I’m saying. I’m starting to think you might be a ChatGPT bot. Or maybe just a teenager, I don’t know.
Are threats protected by the first amendment? I think there’s a legitimate argument to be made that flying a nazi flag is inherently threatening. It says to me that that person wants to hurt me, that they will hurt me if I give them the chance. It is threatening enough to cause me fear, to cause me to change my behavior for my safety. Why should public declaration of their desire to hurt me br protected speech?
Tbh I’m not surprised at all. I’m well aware that, as a trans woman, I have no right to safety in America. Police, landlords, and employers have all made it clear to me that the rights of bigots to hurl slurs and threats at me supercedes my right to safety or freedom from harassment. When I worked at Walmart, multiple witnesses reported another employee specifically and directly threatening to cut me with a knife, a knife of a sort that was against company policy to carry on site to begin with. Because no member of management heard the threat and they couldn’t quite see the knife on camera, they did nothing. Wait, I take that back, they reduced my hours so I would be in the building with him less. So yeah, I’m not surprised at all that threatening minorities is protected in America. I’ve been threatened and seen those people protected…
It’s going to keep happening until someone gets fed up and sticks some of them in the ground.
OTOH - First amendment. Unless they behave violently, nothing that can really be done.
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Hate speech absolutely is protected by the first amendment.
This is incorrect. Hate speech does not exist in the US on a federal level.
If I key your car and write “go back to [place] you dirty [racial slur]” I will get charged with vandalizing your car and an increased penalty because it’s a hate crime.
But if I’m not committing a crime I can go around saying all sorts of hateful things and the 1st amendment protects me. That same sentence from above can be freely said with no legal penalties.
deleted by creator
They do have the First Amendment right to march and wave their flags around. Now, if all major political parties quickly denounced them and the police treated them as the potential threats that they are, then their “peaceful marches” would be ridiculed and they would be driven back into the shadows.
The bigger problem isn’t that they have a First Amendment right to march. It’s that one of the two major political parties watches them match and says “these guys have some good ideas.” Instead of being driven into the shadows of society, they are being given positons of power. And we’ve seen what happens when Nazis are given power.
You know nothing about US law.
They probably passed the Lemmy Bar exam.
deleted by creator
It also sounds like something a whole lot of lawyers would say.
Not how it works. The first amendment explicitly allows you to disagree with the founding philosophy of the country. In fact it’s sort of the whole point.
My opinion? It’s better to have these guys out in the open where you can see them. If you try and suppress them by shutting down their protests or arresting them you have
A) opened the door for the government to do that with any radically perceived movement in the future. Any leftist protest movement could easily be shut down under similar pretense
B) you turn the guys into martyrs for the cause. Just like Trump’s indictments improved his polling numbers, these Nazis would likewise see a surge in popularity.
C) suppressing ideas doesn’t make them suddenly go away. You just push it underground where it becomes even more radical without the moderating influence from the mainstream.
Why are people becoming open Nazis? Consider the source of the problem. The worse the economic situation is historically, the more radical people become. Florida has the highest inflation in the country, relatively low wages and relatively high cost of living.
It’s not a coincidence that the Nazis came to power right after the Great Depression. We need to fix the economic situation and fast.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
You might not like him or disagree with him but if he was a nobody you wouldn’t have an opinion on him.
The government should not be the arbiter of truth. Do you trust the FBI? Do you trust the CIA? You think they are the good guys? The dozens of coups all across the world? The endless spying and surveillance?
You’re advocating that these people should have even more power over you.
To avoid cockroaches, you stop leaving food and water in the open. Turning the lights off and scurrying them away won’t help the issue.
We need to solve the economic issues to get rid of Nazis. Anything else is just turning the lights off. As long as people are struggling to pay bills and have a sense of instability and fear for the future… we’re going to have fascists. It doesn’t matter if you make it so they can’t speak in public. They will just speak in private and continue to grow.
We need broad ranging economic reforms.
Give me specific examples. I don’t follow what you mean.
deleted by creator
Nazis believe in the genocide of a racial group. Genocide is not normalized in the USA. It was not normalized by the Telecommunications Act.
Can we stop saying crazy things that didn’t happen?
Christianity has nothing to do with fascism. It can be used by fascists, sure. But if you look at Nazi Germany for example Hitler hated the church and there’s speculation he had plans to totally destroy it. Fascists don’t like groups of power that aren’t controlled by them. So for example the Catholic Church had to go. He tried to create a Protestant church called the “Reich Church” that was sort of a state religion but once that failed he gave up and suppressed the religious movements.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
Have you ever actually dealt with cockroaches? They survive nuclear blasts. You need to remove the source of food and water otherwise all the traps in the world don’t make a difference. You leave one or two alive and they will just repopulate.
Plus consider the implications of what you’re saying. Let’s say we arrest and imprison every single Nazi. What’s going to happen? The ones that remain are going to stay real quiet, aren’t they? What then? Is the government going to be actively spying on every single communications in the country to try and find them?
That’s what it’ll take. And maybe it’ll even be possible. But consider what you have created. A massive surveillance state with broad ranging legal powers to detain and imprison “enemies of the state”. What happens when a far-right party gets elected? Remember, we are a democracy. What happens when the next Trump gets elected and says BLM are fascists?
Actually, we don’t need to imagine. If you look at his recent interview with Tucker Carlson that’s exactly what he said. He said the fascists are out to get him.
You don’t see any potential issues with this? None at all?
Honestly, we’re screwed. Unfortunately I think your wish will ultimately become reality and we will live in a brutal authoritarian surveillance state. I’m just glad I got to grow up before it became that way.
deleted by creator
Yes. That is exactly what I’m trying to say. Let’s say a fascist comes to power. They call everyone else fascists.
Now they use the rules you just created to shut down speech that isn’t fascist.
You keep ignoring this or failing to understand. Prompting me to believe you are likely a bot.
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deleted by creator
I don’t think you really know anything about Chomsky’s corpus of work. I believe this because you didn’t mention any of his critiques of US imperialism or the propaganda model he outlined in his most famous book - Manufacturing Consent.
You speak confidently about things you don’t really understand. I’m going to stop engaging unless you start addressing the things I’m saying. I’m starting to think you might be a ChatGPT bot. Or maybe just a teenager, I don’t know.
deleted by creator
This isn’t a debate. I guess you aren’t a bot and are just a teenager after all.
Something I learned about the Rwandan genocides in 1994 is that comparing humans to insects is one of the first steps of genocidal ideology.
deleted by creator
Why do you think I’m arguing with you?
deleted by creator
Yeah, I wasn’t taking issue. I was providing information.
deleted by creator
I would just like to quickly point out you said it was built on the idea that all are created equal
The Constitution was written in 1787, put in effect in 1789
The Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves was signed in 1807, and the 13th Amendment in 1865
Women gained the right to vote nationally in 1920
Just because they said all people are equal, does not mean they actually thought all people are equal.
deleted by creator
Not true at all. There’s nothing in your comment indicating even the most basic knowledge of the law.
deleted by creator
Right. There’s nothing difficult about your idea and I definitely get it.
My point is only that it has no basis whatsoever in the reality of US jurisprudence.
It’s nice that you have these ideas, just know that they are completely irrelevant in a legal context.
Are threats protected by the first amendment? I think there’s a legitimate argument to be made that flying a nazi flag is inherently threatening. It says to me that that person wants to hurt me, that they will hurt me if I give them the chance. It is threatening enough to cause me fear, to cause me to change my behavior for my safety. Why should public declaration of their desire to hurt me br protected speech?
You would be shocked at what’s covered under the 1st amendment. The language has to fall under a “True Threat” definition in order to not be covered.
https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1025/true-threats
More:
https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/core-first-amendment-rights-are-implicated-in-this-supreme-court-case-about-true-threats
Tbh I’m not surprised at all. I’m well aware that, as a trans woman, I have no right to safety in America. Police, landlords, and employers have all made it clear to me that the rights of bigots to hurl slurs and threats at me supercedes my right to safety or freedom from harassment. When I worked at Walmart, multiple witnesses reported another employee specifically and directly threatening to cut me with a knife, a knife of a sort that was against company policy to carry on site to begin with. Because no member of management heard the threat and they couldn’t quite see the knife on camera, they did nothing. Wait, I take that back, they reduced my hours so I would be in the building with him less. So yeah, I’m not surprised at all that threatening minorities is protected in America. I’ve been threatened and seen those people protected…
These are hate groups - they would love it if you killed one of them since it would justify their hate even further.