>>> Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 08/10/99 05:21PM >>> who is going to do the burying? the US government? is there any reason for the Left to trust that institution? or is it the left that will do the burying? with what shovel? ((((((((((( Charles: By this approach, we would not have had the Civil War or the Civil Rights Movement, in which the U.S. government buried slavery and then Jim Crow. Or we would not have had the U.S. governement fighting the acutal Nazis in Germany. For that matter, you are trusting the U.S. government to protect the Left's First Amendment rights. Why do you trust the U.S. government to do that , when it has such a treacherous history of protecting the KKK and busting the Communists ? You seem to trust the U.S. Supreme Court to be logically consistent: if Nazis have free speech, Communists must have it too. But that hasn't been the history of the U.S. Supreme Court. ((((((((((((( >>We shouldn't side with government repression of the Nazis (for being Nazis, as opposed to for blowing up buildings and/or killing people and the like) since the same laws that repress the Nazis will be applied to what's left of the left as soon as it starts growing again. The last thing we need to do is to strengthen the repressive apparatus of the state. << >I happen to have a paper on this. In fact and at law, the First Amendment in U.S. history has protected KKK and Nazis and has very rarely protected the Left. The first Supreme Court case (Schenck) on the First Amendment was not until WWI when, in the famous opinion in which Justice Holmes says the First Amendment does not protect crying "fire" falsely in crowded theatre, Holmes decided that the First Amendment did not protect the Socialist Charles Schenck from handing out leaflets opposing WWI as a capitalist war in which workers were doing all of the dying. Schenck, Eugene V. Debs and others went to prison unprotected by the First Amendment. Then came the Palmer Raids in the early twenties against the Communist Party, and a Communist Party member was jailed in _Whitney_ despite Justice Brandeis' opinon which was a paen to free speech. Great words. Bad results. Then in the late 40's the whole leadership of the Communist Party was not protected by the First Amendment against Smith Act convictions. Even when the Communists were released from jail the rationale was not such as to strike down the Smith Act as unconstitutional.< JIm D. Once again, this tells us not to trust "our" government. I didn't say that the government would hold back from repressing the left until they were given more repressive power. Rather, I said that allowing them to ban Nazi speech would encourage them to do the same to us (even more than they already have done). But we should protest any cases where the government lets the Nazis or Klan off the hook, especially when that same hook is used to impale Leftists. It's useful to point to contradictions between different government actions or between government rhetoric and actions. ((((((((((( Charles: I don't think demanding banning Nazi speech will encourage them to do the same to us such as to tip some balance that by which they were protecting the left some now. The two are independent, and factually and historically they have been independent. ((((((((((( >No fascistic racists have been convicted or unprotected by the First Amendment that I have found.< weren't Nazi sympathisers jailed during WW2, simply for being Nazis? ((((((((((((( Charles: Maybe. If they were spying. I don't know of any purely ideological jailings. (((((((((( Aren't you advocating that they should be convicted by law or unprotected by the First? ((((((((((( Charles: Yes, I am saying make an exception to First Amendment protection. The ant-fascistic racist law would be a non-constitutional criminal statute. France, Germany and Canada have these laws. Speech denying the Holocaust is a crime in France. So this type of law is not incompatible with a Western "democratic" system. The socialist countries had them. (((((((((((((9 Why do you trust the government to hold back from repressing the Left (more than it's done already) if given the ability to do it to the loony Right? after all, some Trotskyists were jailed during WW2 (under the Smith Act, I believe) as part of the war effort. (((((((((( Charles: I don't trust the government to hold back from repressing the Left, given the history I describe above. I just don't think that the Government's holding back from repressing the fascists is what is holding it back from repressing the Left. They aren't linked. Why do you trust the government to hold back from repressing the Left because it is "holding back" from repressing the Right ? Or why do you trust the government to hold back from repressing the Left PERIOD ? Seems to me you are trusting the government too, that somehow it will honor the First Amendment with respect to the Left. Isn't that trusting the government ? ((((((((((((((( Charles: My point is that the left has not been protected by the First Amendment, so the typical scenario that the Left will not be protected if the Right is not protected is poor reasoning. In the history above, the Fascists were protected throughout, but it did not result in the Left being protected. So, the current period of grace for the Left is not dependent upon the Fascists' protection.< Jim D. I didn't say it was. I think our "period of grace" is due to the fact that the Left is no threat to the established order. ((((((((((((((( Charles: Probably that's a factor. But when we become a threat to the established order, our only protection will be highly conscious masses of people. Very militant anti-fascistic racist activities and propaganda helps to build that mass consciousness. We must use the fascistic racists public presence to polemicize the public. ((((((((((( >>The only way to oppose Nazi demos is with counter-demos. << > This seems to contradict your first statement above.< No it doesn't. I was talking about the impossibility of having a counter-demo against people who hide away in labs in Idaho (or wherever) cooking up explosives or drive around in cars taking pot-shots at people of ethnic groups they hate. (((((((((( Charles: Yes, I misread your statement. Sorry. Counterdemonstrations is a necessary position , and you hold it, I see. Max's post seemed to imply treating small groups of fascistic racists as unimportant, ignoring them. Charles Brown
