Should Neo-Nazis be allowed to march?

It's the violence angle that is important. There was a cross burning case in the Carolinas where people were trying to retain the right to burn crosses on their own yards as free speech. They lost the case I believe because the other side was able to show cross burning as an act of intimidation and a historic precursor to violence.

 

absolutely. infact i'd be ok with a bunch of jews walking thru a muslim neighborhood with signs saying 'israel is great. arabs/muslims suck'.

 

is this a joke? do you have the maturity of a 5 year old? if a cardinal fan is in the stadium tomorrow i'd hope he'd be a real fan and he would scream astros suck. and in return we'd scream st louis sucks and 3-1 and hopefully we'd win and mock him on the way out. thats the fun of it all. screaming 'astros suck' isn't making anyone suffer. granted this analogy might be different in a real scenario but the same rules apply. anyone has a right to say anything against anyone granted it doesn't directly threaten em or incite violence. saying 'your views suck' or 'you suck' is different from screaming terrorist in a new york subway.

 

The fact is these Neo-Nazi's are not walking in front of their neighborhood every day. It was just a one time thing.

The slippery slope is on your argument. At what point can the government start cracking down on free speech, and then be viewed as a democracy that allows free speech?

I certainly don't want these people in my neighborhood, as I think they are a bunch of idiots. I also don't those rioters in my neighborhood either as they destroyed innocent people's property and business.

So who here caused the real damage?

 

I firmly believe that these neo-nazi protests probably are designed to incite some type of violent response. That's the only way they would get noticed, otherwise they're basically irrelevant.

That being said, banning these types of marches would set a terrible precedent. For example, MLK's civil rights marches set off violent responses from the local communities in which he and others marched in. I think we can all agree that those protests were fundamental in eliminating blatantly racist laws. Similarly, if a gay rights group marches in a predominantly conservative neighborhood, would you ban that also?

There's a grey area involved with this and cracking down would set a precedent that would justify muzzling groups on the basis of "public safety." That's why the supreme court allowed neo-nazis to march in a predominantly jewish neighborhood in indiana years ago.

 

Dark oppression? That's interesting that you say that since your POV is to ban free speech and free assembly. I would say that qualifies as for oppression. As far as taking away other peoples right to be peaceful and happy in their neighborhoods there are lots of things that disrupt people's peace. I find Mormom missionaries very disruptful to my peace and find their attempts to convert me very antagonistic as it is essentially denigrating my faith. I've noticed most of my neighbors feel the same way so perhaps Mormom's should be banned from my neighborhood.

You're making an argument for protecting the majority from being bothered by a small but vocal minority. You're buttressing your argument by saying that the majority's counter reaction is violent so therefore the speech and assembly of the radical minority should be banned. If the Constitution worked that way there never would've been a march on Selma.

The Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights, was built on protecting the rights of the minority from the majority even if it meant offending the sensibilities of the majority.

 

Fully concur, Sishir, this is exactly why I am willing to be 'offended' if such a thing was to take place in my neighborhood, although I definitely won't like it.

Similarily, just because Von Gogh wrote a book that was intended to offend a specific group doesn't mean he 'had it coming' or that he or others should be banned from 'inciting' others through their writings.

As I said, I tend to err on the side of 'free speech'.

 

your standard is somewhat arbitrary. Its impossible to determine whether a group is intentionally inciting action or not. During the civil rights movement, protesters were advocating the unthinkable, namely massive new civil rights guarantees that the majority simply didnt want to grant. Nonetheless these protests calling for radical change were vital to our nation.

However, banning nazi protests would set a crazy standard. These neo-nazis are calling for radical changes that a majority of us find and definitely should find unthinkable. As terrible as they are, sadly banning them would set a terrible precedent. The gay rights example above is a real world example that would be unthinkable under your worldview. That conservative neighborhood they might be marching in may take a call to gay rights as offensive and may even interpret that as inciting a violent response.

Its impossible to objectively decide what protests do and dont intentionally incite violence. I mean even the black panthers still march through neighborhoods with AK-47s and no one has complained about them yet and I think that may be a greater call to violence.

 

If people are willing to land themselves in jail because of hate speech, then PC has gone over the line.

Proliferation of hate sites have increased over the internet every year. You can't supress these bigoted ideas. Amending the 1st would make it worse.

 

If governments were granted the power that you want them to have now then george wallace wouldve shut down every civil rights protest on the spot legally. (He did it anyway but that was ruled illegal) Now that you look back on it sure you can say that what MLK did was fine and completely different from neo-nazis but people back then wouldve had a harder time making that distinction because to some the changes MLK wanted were as radical as the changes Neo-Nazis want.

To some gay rights is a call to violence. My old neighbor was a nut who thought that a good gay person was a dead one and its people like him who really might be incited to violence if a gay rights protest came near him. There are always nutheads out there who will interpret any protest to be a call to violence and its a good thing that we don't listen to those idiots or the right to assembly would go down the drain.

 

I think they should be allowed to march, but only in Compton, and they should not be allowed to bear arms, and the people in Compton around them should get a lot of arms, and the law should consider the march a provocation that allows any kind of violent self-defense. Let's see these "!§!%"&% march, then.

 

SJC, do you ever run into Neo-Nazi youths in Germany? Are they punks to everyone or just those they hate?

I once sat next to a man on a plane who was a Neo-Nazi leader, and he seemed like a decent person. From my conversation with him, I was shocked to hear of some alliances with various ethnic groups you would never think, would even talk to them in the first place. Kind of opened my eyes to the whole race relations thing they got going in Europe and now in America.

But I don't think anyone would be interested in hearing Neo-Nazi ideology here.

 

No, I don't. There are very few, and they are scared when alone. Only when they are in groups, they act like the rats they are.

Neo-Nazi and "decent person" are mutually exclusive.

 

I guess I'll skip Jazz and Yankees visits to save myself a fine.

 

Let them march. I just don't see why people go there and yell at them etc. They are just giving them the attention that they are looking for. It would be better if everyone just completely ignored their marches. Have them parading around for absolutely nobody.