Althouse: "I’ve been struck by the similarity between recent calls for suppressing white supremacist speech and past calls for suppressing Communist speech."

August 17, 2017

"I’ve been struck by the similarity between recent calls for suppressing white supremacist speech and past calls for suppressing Communist speech."

"Of course, there are differences as well — there always are for any analogy — but I thought I’d note some likenesses...."

Writes Eugene Volokh, offering a chart showing 9 points of correspondence.

87 comments:

gspencer said...: Well, there is one difference. The ACLU will trip over themselves defending Communist speakers. For white supremacist speakers any defense will be ever so reluctantly, and half-heartedly, given.; 8/17/17, 9:09 AM
tim maguire said...: Most claims of principle are just positions. Change around the facts and most will be just as principled in their opposite view.; 8/17/17, 9:10 AM
Now I Know! said...: This is intellectually dishonest. The vast majority of people are engaging in countering extreme right wing hate speech. Why do you define that as trying to suppress it?; 8/17/17, 9:10 AM
tim maguire said...: Spencer, the ACLU's most famous case was a defense of Nazis in Skokie, Illinois.; 8/17/17, 9:11 AM
Kevin said...: Constitution? But, but...RAAAAAACISTS!

Here's a clue: the Constitution protects the ability of a person to think racist thoughts. It does not protect the mob trying to beat those thoughts out of him.

That is the anchor which will sink the Democratic Party. In their zeal to stamp out racism, they'll trample the Constitution - and when pressed on it they'll argue they're right to do so.

And at some point the country realizes they've long since rounded the bend.

Trump is the perfect vehicle to hasten their progress.; 8/17/17, 9:12 AM
Now I Know! said...: The ACLU--an organization from the left--led the legal charge to make sure these extreme rightwingers got to march in Charlottesville.

This idea presented in this blog post is so intellectually dishonest.; 8/17/17, 9:14 AM
traditionalguy said...: The Northern white communities need to march South again and capture all the Confederate Army monuments and take them back North for defacing in regular Hatred Rallies broadcast live on CNN. But then a Southern Crazy group will try to steal them back one dark night.
This reminds me so much of the College Fraternity rivals painting the SAE's Lion statue.; 8/17/17, 9:16 AM
Ann Althouse said...: The most important case in First Amendment law is Brandenburg v. Ohio. ACLU represented Clarence Brandenburg, a KKK leader.

http://www.acluohio.org/archives/cases/brandenburg-v-ohio; 8/17/17, 9:16 AM
Kevin said...: The vast majority of people are engaging in countering extreme right wing hate speech.

There is no lawful way to "counter (extreme right wing hate) speech". There is speaking your own mind and leaving it to the people to decide what to do. When you step up to "counter" someone's speech you inhibit their civil rights and become violent.

Getting in someone's face is an inherently violent act. The left has drunk the cool-aid that "extreme", "racist", "hate" and other adjectives give them the right to get in someone's face.

They do not.; 8/17/17, 9:17 AM
Kevin said...: That we have to remind people the ACLU defended the rights of the KKK and Nazi Party is an indictment of our educational system.

There is more activism being taught in today's schools than understanding of the US Constitution.; 8/17/17, 9:19 AM
Now I Know! said...: The ACLU is staffed, funded, and sustained by liberals. The ACLU provided the legal aid that won these hateful thugs the right to march through Charlottesville chanting anti-Semitic and racist slogans. Why does this blog post not acknowledge this well know fact?; 8/17/17, 9:19 AM
pdug said...: That's fine but don't make a chart comparing George Washington and Robert E Lee.; 8/17/17, 9:20 AM
Now I Know! said...: I see that Ann Althouse has acknowledged the ACLU's work. I am sure that was hard given that doing so undermines the original point of her post.; 8/17/17, 9:23 AM
Now I Know! said...: Is there a conservative equivalent of the ACLU? I am proud that it is the left that funds this great organization that defends everyone's right to free speech. The ACLU is almost one hundred years old.; 8/17/17, 9:26 AM
DKWalser said...: The ACLU is staffed, funded, and sustained by liberals. The ACLU provided the legal aid that won these hateful thugs the right to march through Charlottesville chanting anti-Semitic and racist slogans. Why does this blog post not acknowledge this well know fact?

Why should Althouse acknowledge the role of the ACLU? All she did was link to an article she found interesting. She didn't endorse it nor did she choose to expand on or rebut the points raised in the article.; 8/17/17, 9:27 AM
I Have Misplaced My Pants said...: Eugene Volokh is my hero.

Also, this is so true:

That we have to remind people the ACLU defended the rights of the KKK and Nazi Party is an indictment of our educational system.

It's been sobering to see how many Facebook free speech experts have no understanding of the topic at all. I had someone tell me "Hate speech is not protected or legal. Contact the ACLU and ask them. They'll tell you." Um, what, is this backward planet?; 8/17/17, 9:27 AM
Matt Sablan said...: There's a lot of similarities between the Communist witch hunts of the past and the modern day Nazi internet witch hunts.; 8/17/17, 9:29 AM
Matt Sablan said...: The only difference is that we haven't had a Senator yet call on people to make an example of potential Nazis. They're letting celebrities and the Internet do that now.; 8/17/17, 9:29 AM
Drago said...: Now I Know!: "This is intellectually dishonest. The vast majority of people are engaging in countering extreme right wing hate speech. Why do you define that as trying to suppress it?"

What the left is doing here, and has done every other place in the world where they achieve power, is to criminalize all opposing political and social thought.

That is the goal of the leftists. They start with opposing "hate speech", pretend that they and they alone can define what hate speech is, and then they move on to define any views they oppose as "hate speech".

Every single time.

There are already too many examples to list showing this on campus and in public regarding abortion, immigration, "transgenderism" and biological fact, etc. The left has already succeeded in training multiple generations that free speech can be limited for some based on lefty rules and that socialism is cool.

The left never stops and always ends up at the extreme with mass graves or the guillotine. It has to, since leftism/marxism/Social Justice BS defies human nature and common sense.

Todays left fully intends to end up with a Maduro/Castro model in the US. And any claims to the contrary are just convenient lies at this moment.; 8/17/17, 9:30 AM
BarrySanders20 said...: "The most important case in First Amendment law is Brandenburg v. Ohio. ACLU represented Clarence Brandenburg, a KKK leader. "

More late 60's nostalgia.; 8/17/17, 9:34 AM
Roger Sweeny said...: Now I Know!, Neither Volokh nor Althouse are complaining about people using argument to "counter[ing] extreme right wing hate speech." In fact, they like it. They are complaining about the people who are trying to shut up those with whom they disagree, on the grounds that their ideas are so awful that they have no right to be said.; 8/17/17, 9:35 AM
mockturtle said...: "Communists, neo-Nazis, neo-Confederates — I can’t stand them. They are supporters of ideologies of slavery and murder. They are losers, who lost for very good reason. But their speech should be protected, I think; and the cases for stripping protection from such speech have always been very similar."

This says it well and for many of us, I think.; 8/17/17, 9:35 AM
Drago said...: Already the lefties are starting their call to bring down Washington and Jefferson, probably to make way for the "Cesar Chavez Memorial" or perhaps "Che Guevara DC".

The left will never stop in their quest to overturn our constitution and create "another" lefty Workers Paradise On Earth, because this time, THIS time, with them in charge, it will be different.; 8/17/17, 9:35 AM
sparrow said...: The ACLU is a strawman here: it's the antifa that are violently suppressing free speech.; 8/17/17, 9:36 AM
DKWalser said...: Is there a conservative equivalent of the ACLU? I am proud that it is the left that funds this great organization that defends everyone's right to free speech. ...

There are conservative civil rights organizations. They support the free speech rights of bakers to not use their artistic talents in support of something they disagree with. (Compelled speech is the opposite of free speech.) Generally, the ACLU was on the side of those trying to force the speech of bakers and florists. Similarly, conservative civil rights organizations have weighed in on the side of those who object to the funding of abortions, which is another 1st Amendment issue. The ACLU, again, was generally on the other side.

You may not agree with these conservative civil rights groups anymore than conservatives agree with everything the ACLU does. Both do good work; both are, at times, wrong headed.; 8/17/17, 9:36 AM
Bill, Republic of Texas said...: FIRE
Judicial Watch
NRA

Three conservative groups that defend constitutional rights. That's just off the top of my head.

Now You Know!; 8/17/17, 9:37 AM
Unknown said...: "There is no lawful way to "counter (extreme right wing hate) speech". There is speaking your own mind and leaving it to the people to decide what to do. When you step up to "counter" someone's speech you inhibit their civil rights and become violent."

Untrue. When speech is "countered" it's not the same as prohibiting the speech. Speech is countered by more speech. The Left was countering the hatefilled white supremacists speech with more speech and one was killed for it.; 8/17/17, 9:37 AM
Roger Sweeny said...: Now I Know!, Thanks for bringing up that "The ACLU provided the legal aid that won these hateful thugs the right to march through Charlottesville chanting anti-Semitic and racist slogans." Both the right and the left need to know that.; 8/17/17, 9:39 AM
Lyle Smith said...: Volokh is right, but to be fair to neo-Confederates they don't actually support slavery. They really should be called Confederte heritagists instead. Most, if not all of them, usually denounce slavery. This is why a lot of them believe slavery wasn't the cause of the Civil War. They're ashamed of the idea of being connected through their ancestors to slavery, because they know slavery was wrong.; 8/17/17, 9:39 AM
mockturtle said...: Drago reminds us: That is the goal of the leftists. They start with opposing "hate speech", pretend that they and they alone can define what hate speech is, and then they move on to define any views they oppose as "hate speech".

Precisely what ISIS and similar groups do. The UK has completely submitted to Muslim directives. And Canada, with their recently-passed law making 'Islamophobia' a crime, follows in their wake.; 8/17/17, 9:44 AM
Bill, Republic of Texas said...: I see Unknown is busy rewriting history. I guess AntiFa and BLM were (mostly!) peacefully countering speech they don't like with charging attacks witj baseball bats and bike locks.; 8/17/17, 9:44 AM
Levi Starks said...: Imagine if "anyhategroupUSA" decided to hold a rally in "anyplaceUSA" and nobody else showed up.
The reason they apply for permits to peacefully gather in some random location is not because they couldn't gather anywhere otherwise, rather it's because they need to give notice to insure the opposition shows up. Otherwise they're just beating at the wind. And the opposition is more than happy to oblige them. They gather energy only from resistance. The same is true for the resistance, with nothing to oppose its need to exist ceases.
In my perfect scenario "hategroup" announces it's going to hold a huge rally in the exact center of nowhere, to shout evil mean things that would surely offend every possible protected group. Anti hategroup immediately begins a search to determine exactly where the center of nowhere is so they can hold a counter rally and shout down hategroup with anti hate messages. (Which might just possibly sound like hate to The Hategroup.
This cannot be fixed with laws, it can only be fixed by understanding the human heart, the human heart however cannot be understood within the context of the evolutionary model. There is a model for understanding the human heart found in the Bible, but it's been long since discarded, and even when in use, it was wielded so haphazardly that as often as not it failed to achieve the results designed by its creator.; 8/17/17, 9:45 AM
DKWalser said...: In my examples of the work done by conservative civil rights groups, I should have mentioned their work trying to preserve the free speech and due process rights of college students. FIRE has been doing good work in the area of campus speech codes -- that punish students for saying politically incorrect things or restrict free speech to free speech zones. The ACLU has too often been on the other side of that argument. Other conservative civil rights groups have fought to require due process for students accused of rape. Too often, the ACLU has been silent or actively supporting those who would deny such students due process.; 8/17/17, 9:46 AM
Comanche Voter said...: "Shut up!" they said.; 8/17/17, 9:47 AM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: sparrow said...
The ACLU is a strawman here

Yes, bringing up the ACLU in a discussion of free speech is much like bringing up Thomas Jefferson in a discussion of the Declaration of Independence.; 8/17/17, 9:47 AM
Drago said...: Unknown: "Untrue. When speech is "countered" it's not the same as prohibiting the speech."

BS.

The left has been "countering" by attacking, shouting down, disrupting, rioting, etc. The lefties create mayhem to preclude free speech by others and the lefties political allies in government make sure the police give the lefty rioters and disruptors ample freedom to get away with the physical disruptions.

That anyone on the left can view instance after instance of just that happening, over and over again everywhere in the country, and then listen to the antifa marxists claim credit for it, simply means that no lie no matter how obvious will not be trotted out.

Unknown is like a modern era Duranty claiming there are no show trials and no mass starvation in the Ukraine.; 8/17/17, 9:47 AM
Drago said...: ARM: "Yes, bringing up the ACLU in a discussion of free speech is much like bringing up Thomas Jefferson in a discussion of the Declaration of Independence."

The left is already clamoring to bring down Jefferson and Washington. Those are the next ones along with all the other founders.

All the more important to the left so the left can be freer to reconstruct our constitution and our nation along leftist philosophical lines.; 8/17/17, 9:48 AM
Matt Sablan said...: "The Left was countering the hatefilled white supremacists speech with more speech and one was killed for it."

-- This is a radically incorrect view of what happened. Some protesters were there and peaceful, however, even the State of Virginia feared the counter protesters would be violent, hence their attempt to cancel the protest. The State of Virginia's fears turned out to be true, as counter protestors and protestors formed skirmish lines and openly fought.

After the State dispersed the protestors, but allowed the counter protestors to march in victory, an asshole ran his car into a group of counter protestors and one died from her injuries.

The violence at the rally was predicted, predictable and came from both sides. The murder that happened after the street fighting was a separate issue entirely, and that guy is going to court because we acknowledge that murder is bad.; 8/17/17, 9:50 AM
mockturtle said...: Levi Starks writes: There is a model for understanding the human heart found in the Bible, but it's been long since discarded, and even when in use, it was wielded so haphazardly that as often as not it failed to achieve the results designed by its creator.

The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Jeremiah 17:9>; 8/17/17, 9:51 AM
rhhardin said...: That's a trivial observation by Volokh.

It has nothing to do with what the speech is. Something somebody wants to say, is all.; 8/17/17, 9:51 AM
Drago said...: Nancy Pelosi is already labeling a conservative group with non-white leaders and speakers a "white supremacist group" and requested the Park Service deny a permit for that group to meet.

Again, a group with leaders and speakers who are hispanic, black, etc.

This is the real purpose of all this. In a very Soviet fashion, to prep the public to view some views as beyond the pale and to be banned.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/08/15/pelosi-challenges-park-service-on-permit-for-white-supremacist-rally-in-san-francisco.html; 8/17/17, 9:52 AM
DKWalser said...: ...The Left was countering the hatefilled white supremacists speech with more speech....

Uh, no. The Left was countering the hate filled white supremacists' speech by beating them up. That doesn't excuse the murder. Neither does Milo's attempt at speaking at Berkley excuse the setting of fires and the throwing of rocks. Claiming that the Left was simply engaged in "more speech" ignores the violence that has generally been the main part of their counter protests. They've repeatedly used violence or the threat of violence to prevent those they disagree with from speaking.; 8/17/17, 9:52 AM
Laslo Spatula said...: Once the Founding Fathers are sufficiently demonized and discarded the Constitution they wrote will be discarded, too -- by actions, if not literally.

Who will rid us of this meddlesome paper?

I am Laslo.; 8/17/17, 9:53 AM
Matt Sablan said...: "Again, a group with leaders and speakers who are hispanic, black, etc."

-- Milo, a gay man, was also considered a Nazi by the left. Because we know that Nazis and homosexuals were simpatico or something.; 8/17/17, 9:54 AM
Drago said...: The left defines speech they disagree with as actual violence, thus providing the left with self-fulfilling justification to engage in actual physical violence.

Just look at Maduro to see what our lefties are really after.

After all, once the lefties called Dershowitz a racist, there is no where else for the left to go.; 8/17/17, 9:55 AM
Matt Sablan said...: [Other thing I hate about Antifa: Being forced to have to actually acknowledge Coulter and Milo, who, despite being on the right, are way more extreme in rhetoric than I am or would like to be.]; 8/17/17, 9:55 AM
Drago said...: Mathew Sablan: "-- Milo, a gay man, was also considered a Nazi by the left. Because we know that Nazis and homosexuals were simpatico or something"

Indeed.

Or perhaps the lefties were simply channeling the thoughts of their newest and bestest philosophical pals in the destruction of western civilization: the islamist supremacists.; 8/17/17, 9:56 AM
mockturtle said...: The left has always loved to mock Joe McCarthy for his communist labeling and witch-hunt tactics but it would seem they are following the same strategy. Everyone will be required to PROVE they are not a Nazi.; 8/17/17, 9:57 AM
Unknown said...: What the Antifa were doing in Charlottesville.

Some examples of what the Antifa and other Anti Neo Nazi people were doing to counter hate speech.; 8/17/17, 9:57 AM
BarrySanders20 said...: Blogger sparrow said...
The ACLU is a strawman here: it's the antifa that are violently suppressing free speech.

Analysis: True!

The ACLU is great at defending rights against government suppression. They defended Brandenburg in court after he was criminally convicted for his speech. It was all very genteel there in the courtroom with judges pondering about rights and armed bailiffs with badges keeping order.

Antifa dont need no steenking badges.

The ACLU is impotent to counter street violence intent on suppressing speech. That's why Brandenburg is 60's nostalgia given the recent events.; 8/17/17, 9:58 AM
Rick said...: Now I Know! said...
Is there a conservative equivalent of the ACLU? I am proud that it is the left that funds this great organization that defends everyone's right to free speech. The ACLU is almost one hundred years old.

FIRE does the work the ACLU no longer will. The ACLU will support the KKK or white supremacists because they are not a viable threat and highlighting them helps the left politically. But does the ACLU press universities to protect speakers from fascists?

And why not? Because those acts would hurt the left politically. Does the the ACLU defend those wrongly accused in campus kangaroo courts? Of course not - same reason. Doing so would reveal the true nature of liberals on campus and would hurt the left politically.; 8/17/17, 9:59 AM
Drago said...: Read up on Vaclev Havel's descriptions of the lies the leftist state forces you to utter and internalize as a means of control in The Green Grocers Tale.

Spot. On.

http://www.economist.com/node/21542169

snip: "The greengrocer's tale

The practical result of the cross-border meeting was a joint collection of essays. One was Mr Havel's: “The Power of the Powerless”, a reflection on the mind of a greengrocer who obediently puts a poster “among the onions and carrots” urging “Workers of the World—Unite!” In gentle, ironic but scathing prose, Mr Havel exposed the lies and cowardice that made possible the communist grip on power. The greengrocer puts up the poster partly out of habit, partly because everyone else does it, and partly out of fear of the consequences if he does not. Just as the “Good Soldier Svejk” encapsulated the cowardly absurdity of life in the Austro-Hungarian army, Mr Havel's greengrocer epitomised the petty humiliations of “normalised” Czechoslovakia."

So, no ARM. Antifa and your other pals are not modern day Normandy Beach stormers or Boston Tea Party patriots.

They are marxists with every intention of creating a marxist state here.; 8/17/17, 10:00 AM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: Now I Know! said...

Is there a conservative equivalent of the ACLU?

There's the NRA.; 8/17/17, 10:01 AM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: There are countless groups on the right fighting for the right to free exercise, and for our rights under the 10th amendment.; 8/17/17, 10:02 AM
Drago said...: Besides, the vast majority of those who stormed the beach at Normandy became those "typical white people" who "bitterly cling to their religion and guns" and are really quite "deplorable" since they are not "woke" to their "whiteness" and really need to "die off" in a "white genocide" as called for by leftist professors in order to establish the new Paradise.; 8/17/17, 10:02 AM
Drago said...: "There's the NRA."

Had Hillary been elected the Second Amendment would have been killed off in about 4 years.; 8/17/17, 10:03 AM
Drago said...: "There are countless groups on the right fighting for the right to free exercise, and for our rights under the 10th amendment."

But those are Rights the left very much wants to do away with, so those Rights and those that fight for them don't count to the lefties.; 8/17/17, 10:04 AM
exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...: I posted this in another thread but it also fits here:

"Here's a tidbit about those brave freedom fighters who popped up at the rally:

"Another far-left group at Charlottesville last weekend: the Workers World Party, a group of Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries who have declared their support for Kim Jong Un's murderous dictatorship in North Korea. Workers World's publication has consistently published propaganda-like screeds supporting Venezuela's murderous regime.
The communist group "sent many of its members to Charlottesville, Va., to beat back the Nazis and Klan who marched there," according to a post recapping the group's participation in the weekend's violence."

Note that this pack of hyenas isn't even bothering with the claptrap you normally hear from leftists: Yes, the USSR and NK and Venezuela didn't turn out very well, but that wasn't "true" communism/socialism. The next time, with the right people in charge, it will all work out beautifully and lollipops will rain from the heavens.

Nope, these thugs say "Kim and Maduro got it right. We really do want to enslave and impoverish people and murder and torture our enemies. That is indeed the REAL Communism. And we want it here."

Give 'em points for honesty, I guess. Or for realizing that they can now openly assert their love of gulags and secret police - and "good" liberals will still make excuses for them and admire them for fighting "fascism) ie people who don't vote the way liberals want them too.; 8/17/17, 10:14 AM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: Drago said...
They are marxists with every intention of creating a marxist state here.

Actually I think they would be perfectly happy with a socialist state, much like that national socialist organization the Republican Party.; 8/17/17, 10:17 AM
Renee said...: Virginia's ACLU needs to take some responsibility for their client. I was under the impression that they legitimately wanted to protest/rally the statute vs cause a street brawl. Yes, Antifa fueled the flames and they need to be dealt with separately. I hope the DOJ can sort this out.; 8/17/17, 10:18 AM
Nonapod said...: When it comes to the extreme fringes, it seems to me the Left fringe are currently far more numerous, far more defended, and generally more supported than Right. Nobody is gonna vocally defend the views of or financially support neo-nazi thugs. Nobody wants to be endorsed by them. Nobody wants anything to do with them. The only thing anyone will defend is their right to speak their idiot viewpoints.

Conversely the fringe left is financially supported and defended very well. Most people on the left are more willing to, if not excuse, at least overlook the bad behavior coming from groups like Antifa and BLM activists (as in "well, the went too far here, but their hearts in the right place"). And worse, there's the disturbing accusations that Democrat mayors and other officials are ordering or encouraging the police to look the other way and not interfere when violence perpetrated by these groups breaks out.

The creates a dangerous situation. As long as the more favored group is allowed to behave badly without serious consequences, it practically guarantees that there will be much more violence and probably more death. It will increase the cultural disunity in the country. If people can't see this, I don't know what else to say. To me it seems pretty clear cut, even if one side has some viewpoints you may agree with, you can't excuse horrible behavior.; 8/17/17, 10:22 AM
Rick said...: AReasonableMan said...
Actually I think they would be perfectly happy with a socialist state, much like that national socialist organization the Republican Party.

Remember when ARM calls himself a moderate it's a definition of moderate under which the Republicans are Nazis.; 8/17/17, 10:25 AM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: Unknown linked...

What the Antifa were doing in Charlottesville.

Yes, read that. Aside from the obvious one-sided-ness, they clearly describe the Antifa chasing away the alt-right marchers with stick. Without even a claim of provocation.

Thank you, Unknown, for exactly proving our point.; 8/17/17, 10:26 AM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: Rick said...
Remember when ARM calls himself a moderate it's a definition of moderate under which the Republicans are Nazis.

Did not call the Republicans NAZI's, simply pointed out that they are a national organization that supports a wide range of socialist programs, much like the Democrats.; 8/17/17, 10:30 AM
Matt Sablan said...: He didn't call them National Socialists; he just called them National Socialists.; 8/17/17, 10:32 AM
Steve said...: Matthew Sablan----There is a U.S. Senator who is out to get one side of this mess, but I think he goes further than McCarthy. Marco Rubio's Twitter included this as part of a series of comments on 8/15/17: "When entire movement built on anger & hatred towards people different than you, it justifies & ultimately leads to violence against them." Rubio seems to say mob violence is justified, against certain victims! Is mob violence one of those portions of the Constitution that experts such as Rubio know, but is hidden from the plebs?; 8/17/17, 10:41 AM
Rick said...: Matthew Sablan said...
He didn't call them National Socialists; he just called them National Socialists.

Apparently such efforts pass for wit among self-described moderates who pretend they aren't here just to be dicks to everyone.; 8/17/17, 10:48 AM
hombre said...: Right, Eugene. Remember all the anti-Communist riots, the news media labeling Stevenson supporters as Communists to justify their fellow citizens attacking them with 2x4s.

Me neither.; 8/17/17, 10:56 AM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: Matthew Sablan said...
He didn't call them National Socialists; he just called them National Socialists.

A false and malicious libel. I called them national socialists.; 8/17/17, 11:13 AM
Hagar said...: "Yes, bringing up the ACLU in a discussion of free speech is much like bringing up Thomas Jefferson in a discussion of the Declaration of Independence."

Old Marblehead has got something there. The man who wrote the Declaration of Independence was also the man who held his wife and children in bondage.; 8/17/17, 11:27 AM
HoodlumDoodlum said...: AReasonableMan said...The Left was countering the hatefilled white supremacists speech with more speech

"It's more speech!" the Left shouts as they smash a bike lock down on some heads.
"This is what more speech sounds like!" they bellow as they slam a baton into the face of an old man in the street.
"Don't you love the sound of more speech?!" the Left cries as it sucker punches people with red hats, throws water and urine in the faces of people lined up for a Trump event, and knocks elderly people walking out of campaign events to the ground.

Hey, it's just more speech, right?; 8/17/17, 11:30 AM
exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...: "When entire movement built on anger & hatred towards people different than you, it justifies & ultimately leads to violence against them."

Fidel Castro couldn't have said it any better, Marco.; 8/17/17, 11:31 AM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: HoodlumDoodlum said...
AReasonableMan said...The Left was countering the hatefilled white supremacists speech with more speech

A false and malicious libel.

I should put that phrase on autofill.; 8/17/17, 11:31 AM
exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...: ARM thinks hitting someone with a baseball bat constitutes "speech."; 8/17/17, 11:35 AM
exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...: ARM wrote: "I should put that phrase on autofill."

You've put your entire mind on autofill.

Someone repeats back to you what you have said and you call them liars.; 8/17/17, 11:37 AM
exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...: Drago wrote:

"Besides, the vast majority of those who stormed the beach at Normandy became those "typical white people" who "bitterly cling to their religion and guns" and are really quite "deplorable" since they are not "woke" to their "whiteness" and really need to "die off" in a "white genocide" as called for by leftist professors in order to establish the new Paradise."

Most of those who stormed the beach at Normandy are now dead. If they were alive and younger, they might object to being compared to the Antifa.

BTW, when the neo-Nazis marched though Skokie in the '70's, the WWII vets - the people who actually fought the original Nazis and not with signs and chants and baseball bats and knew from firsthand experience what the Nazis were like - were in their 50's and there were a lot more of them around. However, they did not rise up as one and descend upon Skokie. Maybe because their reaction was like my dad's. He muttered, "what a bunch of assholes - but it's a free country."

Those dumb vets, who saw their buddies die and liberated Buchenwald, were not as "woke" as ARM and Brookzene and their antifa friends. They didn't realize the true threat of Nazism.; 8/17/17, 11:49 AM
Bay Area Guy said...: In the late 30s, the the Nazis and the Communists were equally evil. Both groups thrived on suppressing ideas, and murdering their opponents. The Nazis sent folks to the concentration camps, the Soviets sent them to the Gulag.

Indeed, in 1939, Russia and Germany signed the Non-aggression pact, which gave Germany the green light to invade Poland on September 1, 1939. People forget that 2 weeks later Russia invaded Poland from the East, and then Finland, and then the Baltics and several other countries.

In 1939, the Nazis and Communists were mortal allies in the destruction of Europe. And, the Communist puppets in the USA -- Communist Party of America -- regularly called FDR a warmonger and insisted that the US stay out of the war.

This is undeniable historical fact -- you can look it up.

Of course, the alliance of these two genocidal regimes broke down, when Germany invaded Russia in June of 1941.

Suddenly, of course, the Communists needed us to bail them out with money and war material, which we did. And, then a buncha naive leftists in the USA declared that the Soviets were now our friends. Our new partner. Stalin was now "Uncle Joe." i say, No way, Jose. It was merely a temporary marriage of convenience with one purpose -- to fight Nazis.

What does this have to do with Eugene Volokh 75 years later, one might ask?

Well, we can differentiate between speech and actions. Speech -- even by Nazi dregs 75 years after the war -- is entitled to 1st Amendment protection, even if we dislike it. Just as liberals and even socialists back during the War, should not have been lumped together with actual communists. That was a fair criticsm of McCarthy

One must make important principled distinctions. Volokh does -- the modern day left does not.; 8/17/17, 12:35 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: I have long enjoyed EV, from the time I first met him at a Cyberlaw conference in Austin two decades ago. And his Volokh Conspiracy was the first blog I followed (discovering it from his .sig after he gently chided me about incivility on an IP/cyber law listserve that we both frequented). He is consistently one of the best In the country in regards to both the 1st and 2nd amdts. I still follow his VC blog, but not as closely as I did before when it was independent and not partly behind the WaPo pay Wall. The problem, anymore, is that his audience has shrunk and become inbred enough, thanks to that pay Wall, that I can often predict fairly accurately pretty much what most of the commenters are going to say just from their names. Kinda like what you get from the leftist regulars here like Ritmo, ARM, Inga, etc. Ann, maybe because her blog is still free, now pulls in a more ch more diverse, eclectic crowd.; 8/17/17, 1:13 PM
Gahrie said...: Is there a conservative equivalent of the ACLU?

The closest I can think of is F.I.R.E.; 8/17/17, 1:14 PM
Marc in Eugene said...: Thanks, Drago, for the link to Havel's "The Power of the Powerless". "Ideology is a specious way of relating to the world. It offers human beings the illusion of an identity, of dignity, and of morality while making it easier for them to part with them." No truer words et cetera.; 8/17/17, 1:48 PM
HoodlumDoodlum said...: I apologize, AReasonableMan; the line I quoted was from Unknown, not from you. My mistake was unintentional, not malicious, but the fault is mine and I am sorry.

If you wish I will delete my comment or if you prefer that it be left up I will do so.; 8/17/17, 2:24 PM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: HoodlumDoodlum said...
If you wish I will delete my comment

Not at all, my response was meant lightheartedly, even if so clumsily phrased that this was not obvious.; 8/17/17, 2:59 PM
HoodlumDoodlum said...: Either way, I am sorry about that--I know it's annoying to be misquoted!

I like agreeing with good people, so in that spirit I propose we agree that Nazis are scum and anyone who wants to normalize violence for political ends (as both actual Nazi-types and many Antifa "punch a Nazi types" do) is scum and a danger to the American way of life.; 8/17/17, 3:02 PM
Paul Snively said...: There are a number of domestic terrorist organizations. Some of them have names, such as the KKK, the American Nazi Party, Black Lives Matter, and Antifa. Whether they're considered "of the right" or "of the left" is irrelevant. The common element is the advocacy and use of violence against unaffiliated people in pursuit of political objectives.; 8/17/17, 3:47 PM
n.n said...: The murder that happened after the street fighting was a separate issue entirely, and that guy is going to court because we acknowledge that murder is bad.

He will have his day in court, and if proven beyond a reasonable doubt that he committed elective abortion, then he will be sent to Planned Parenthood for processing... No, his life will be aborted but with a relatively humane method and manner.; 8/17/17, 3:55 PM
n.n said...: The common element is the advocacy and use of violence against unaffiliated people in pursuit of political objectives.

Exactly. Principles matter.; 8/17/17, 3:56 PM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: HoodlumDoodlum said...
I like agreeing with good people, so in that spirit I propose we agree that Nazis are scum and anyone who wants to normalize violence for political ends (as both actual Nazi-types and many Antifa "punch a Nazi types" do) is scum and a danger to the American way of life.

I have always considered the antifa types to be a bit nuts because they are so easily provoked, for no good purpose. I do not think the Charlottesville residents who came out to protest the fascists are nuts, I think their response, especially after the illegal Friday night march, was both principled and brave, given how heavily armed the fascists were. I would hope that I would do the same in my town. It is beyond me that many people here are OK with the idea that fascists can just descend on some random middle class neighborhood and terrorize it with a torchlight march and say no one should respond to that provocation. It is beyond me that the authorities allowed the Saturday march to continue after that provocation, because self-evidently at that point the primary purpose of the march was intimidation and provocation rather than free speech. The law failed at that point. I doubt that people making excuses here for the Saturday march would genuinely feel that way if it was happening in their own neighborhood.; 8/17/17, 4:56 PM