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Thanks for that thought. So what if we're back pre-WWII, and people were on the public streets giving speeches about joining the Nazi party? You'd support their

Thanks for that thought. So what if we're back pre-WWII, and people were on the public streets giving speeches about joining the Nazi party? You'd support their right to spread their message, knowing what would happen? And I'm really trying to get at the point that this speech is actually effective. Not sure why people are downvoting, because I don't think this has been discussed before.

ryanschneider 5y ago
Painfully, yes, being pro-Nazi in the run up to WW2 was entirely legal: https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2019/02/20/695941323/when-nazis-took-manhattan https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2019/02/20/695941323... As much as I deplore their views I don’t think they should be legally barred from expressing them. Of course MSG has every right to decline hosting the above event, but the government shouldn’t be the arbiter of who can say what when in public.
bobsmooth 5y ago
The same freedom that allowed the Nazi party to spread their message allowed LGB groups to spread theirs.
caslon 5y ago
Yeah, absolutely. Even nazis deserve free speech. If it's effective, it's effective. If the Panthers were given actual free speech during the 60s, the world would have been an infinitely better place. If labor activists were given free speech rather than being habitually and ritualistically slaughtered by local and federal governments leading up to the 1930s the United States would be a drastically better place and it's likely that Germany would not have turned out so poorly in the first place as a side result. It doesn't matter whether the speech is effective or not. The root of your problem is that what has happened traditionally is that governments will censor left-leaning views while leaving the right free. The problem, then, is not that the right is not being censored, but that the left is.

ryanschneider 5y ago

Painfully, yes, being pro-Nazi in the run up to WW2 was entirely legal: https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2019/02/20/695941323/when-nazis-took-manhattan https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2019/02/20/695941323... As much as I deplore their views I don’t think they should be legally barred from expressing them. Of course MSG has every right to decline hosting the above event, but the government shouldn’t be the arbiter of who can say what when in public.

bobsmooth 5y ago

The same freedom that allowed the Nazi party to spread their message allowed LGB groups to spread theirs.

caslon 5y ago

Yeah, absolutely. Even nazis deserve free speech. If it's effective, it's effective. If the Panthers were given actual free speech during the 60s, the world would have been an infinitely better place. If labor activists were given free speech rather than being habitually and ritualistically slaughtered by local and federal governments leading up to the 1930s the United States would be a drastically better place and it's likely that Germany would not have turned out so poorly in the first place as a side result. It doesn't matter whether the speech is effective or not. The root of your problem is that what has happened traditionally is that governments will censor left-leaning views while leaving the right free. The problem, then, is not that the right is not being censored, but that the left is.