Comment by camillomiller
9 years ago
The right to your own ideas is not an absolute. It's a pact you have to respect and it involves respecting other people rights first. Neonazi and white supremacist are betraying this social pact by furthering the idea of a superior race and the extermination of the different, that's why they're walking a really thin line when it comes to their right to First Amendment protection.
You just resorted to what I call "the bad child argument". The bad rich child who already has everything wants an icecream. Mom, for once, says no. The child throws a fit and blames mom for it: if you gave me the ice cream I wouldn't have thrown a fit.
All political ideologues think their opposition wants to take away their freedoms. If you make the rule that people who want to remove freedoms don't get them, you create a tool for any party in power to silence their opponents.
There is no prerequisite like that in the first amendment. Go read the thing. Monarchism was a serious threat to the founders. Monarchists don't believe in many freedoms including freedom of speech. But the founders didn't specify it only applied to non-monarchs. Because they knew such a feature could be abused.
>You just resorted to what I call "the bad child argument". The bad rich child who already has everything wants an icecream. Mom, for once, says no. The child throws a fit and blames mom for it: if you gave me the ice cream I wouldn't have thrown a fit.
What on Earth are you talking about? Neonazis are spoiled rich kids that get everything they want? Freedom of speech is a luxury like icecream?
> Neonazis are spoiled rich kids that get everything they want
They aren't. They are what was once the middle class, which has been chipped away at for the past 40+ years.
There's systems of misdirection that have been set up to convince them they are coming up short not because of how the rules are constructed by those in power, but because of a dis-empowered scapegoat.
This redirection trick away from the powerful to the unfamiliar outsider is literally (and literarily) from antiquity. It's part of an ancient bagful of common political slight of hand tricks used to fool people.
It doesn't work on everyone, but those it does work on...well we've seen what that looks like yet again.
So just as we wouldn't allow people to go around and seriously promote say smoking in front of infants for the health of the baby, we should think twice about allowing dangerous political nonsense to be spread and entertained as if it's true - especially ideas with a history of inciting mass murder.
> All political ideologues think their opposition wants to take away their freedoms. If you make the rule that people who want to remove freedoms don't get them
Analogous would be "if you make the rule that people who you think want to remove freedoms but actually don't" -- instead you're switching goal posts mid-sentence.
Who gets to determine that? The abortion debate is essentially about both sides claiming the other is taking away a persons rights. On one side it's bodily autonomy on the other right to life (and maybe some religious freeeddom too).
The First Amendment was instituted by literal slave holders. When did this requirement to (intellectually) respect the rights of others appear?
It's bloody common sense. If you don't respect my rights, there will come a time, as history has shown time and again, when I will gather enough power to be able to not respect yours. And so, slavery was abolished.
So not respecting rights leads to the abolishment of slavery? That sounds pretty good.
LOL This statement really frightens me. But doesn't surprise me. Which frightens me even more.
Careful about assuming opinions I didn't actually express :)
> The right to your own ideas is not an absolute. It's a pact you have to respect and it involves respecting other people rights first.
You just defined a thoughtcrime.
Did you never read 1984?
What are you talking about? You shouldn't have the right to setup an organization to proactively further killing just because you're not actually killing all the time. HOW in the world is a white supremacist different from a radicalized muslim american citizen who never wore a suicide vest but is strongly convinced that all the infidels should die? Why isn't he allowed to express this thoughts freely? Do you see the double standard here?
This has nothing to do with 1984.
It's critical to draw the line at clear action. The FBI doesn't arrest people for declarating jihad, it arrests them for attempting to detonate fake bombs.
Similarly, it should be legal for these fascist assholes to spew their garbage, but they should be locked up as soon as they demonstrate clear intent to hurt someone.
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Er, he often is allowed to express his thoughts freely?