Thought for the Day

[broncofan]

I don't want to be pedantic so I'll try to keep this short. One of the most common misconceptions among activists in the U.S. is that hate speech is not protected by the first amendment. In order to argue this they will often bring up the "fighting words" doctrine, discussed in Chaplinsky, to support the proposition that racist speech is or can be prohibited.

While I sympathize with the argument, the fighting words doctrine is far narrower than hate speech prohibitions outlined in the law of some European countries. Fighting words refers to words that are "so profane or injurious that by their very utterance incite an immediate breach of the peace." Since Chaplinsky, the Supreme Court has limited its application to abusive words spoken in a face to face confrontation.

An additional problem with the argument is that just because something is unprotected speech does not automatically make it illegal. Unprotected means it can be made illegal by a duly passed law. For instance, obscene material that fails the Miller test is also unprotected. It's likely some pornography would fail the Miller test, but some pornography that would fail the Miller test is not illegal because there is no law making it so. Likewise, "fighting words" must be proscribed by the legislature to be illegal which is difficult for two reasons.

In order for a law to avoid violating the first amendment it must be content-neutral. The legislature is not supposed to be deciding the content of what people say, only regulating the time/place/manner of the speech. Therefore, the fighting words law would have to be fairly general to be content-neutral. But if it's general, it might be void for vagueness under due process, because a law must be specific enough to let the potential offender know what kinds of acts could subject him to punishment.

I'm sure some of you have spoken to Americans who say "hate speech is not protected by the first amendment." But the answer is that most is and that which isn't usually is not illegal. Hate speech and fighting words are not the same.

[broncofan]

If anyone is interested in giving a view by all means. In some European countries, someone posting on his computer "group x are subhuman" has violated a law. In the U.S. it would not violate a law and we cannot even pass a law that would proscribe it. The only things that can be made illegal are actions that in some way elicit an immediate violent response, without getting into the technical differences between true threat, incitement to violence, and fighting words.

Sorry to generalize European laws, it's that I've heard of prosecutions that could not happen here. But who is right?

If nobody wants to comment I understand...I didn't think it warranted an entire thread (sorry if I abused the purpose of Martin's thread though nobody has to respond), but this becomes more relevant when we see Nazis on the street, bc some countries legally discourage many of their activities. Is it easy enough to parse that which might be relevant discussion from that which is just hate-filled bile that increases the threat to minorities?

Eh I'm gonna copy and paste this to its own thread.

[broncofan]

https://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/america...americas-wars/

Today Valerie Plame, former CIA agent and leftist posted an article called America's Jews Are Driving America's Wars. In the article, it said Jews are an extremely wealthy group who run the media and entertainment industry. If the article made any argument about Israel I would feel obligated to at least make an argument but as it is it is an abomination.

Most people have rightly condemned the article but there have been some very stubborn leftists who have argued the article is really about Israel, or who have not argued that but just changed the subject to pretend Israel really is the topic. It is extraordinarily dismaying that people who claim support anti-racism movements can engage in such bald stereotyping of an ethno-religious group.

[blackchubby38]

https://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/america...americas-wars/

Today Valerie Plame, former CIA agent and leftist posted an article called America's Jews Are Driving America's Wars. In the article, it said Jews are an extremely wealthy group who run the media and entertainment industry. If the article made any argument about Israel I would feel obligated to at least make an argument but as it is it is an abomination.

Most people have rightly condemned the article but there have been some very stubborn leftists who have argued the article is really about Israel, or who have not argued that but just changed the subject to pretend Israel really is the topic. It is extraordinarily dismaying that people who claim support anti-racism movements can engage in such bald stereotyping of an ethno-religious group.

For all the tolerance, diversity, and asking people to have an open mind that the left talks about, they can also be as equally as close minded, intolerant, bigoted, and ignorant as they accuse some on the right as being.

[Stavros]

Today Valerie Plame, former CIA agent and leftist posted an article called America's Jews Are Driving America's Wars. In the article, it said Jews are an extremely wealthy group who run the media and entertainment industry. If the article made any argument about Israel I would feel obligated to at least make an argument but as it is it is an abomination.
Most people have rightly condemned the article but there have been some very stubborn leftists who have argued the article is really about Israel, or who have not argued that but just changed the subject to pretend Israel really is the topic. It is extraordinarily dismaying that people who claim support anti-racism movements can engage in such bald stereotyping of an ethno-religious group.

I have read Giraldi's article and I am puzzled that he would argue

Jewish groups and deep pocket individual donors not only control the politicians, they own and run the media and entertainment industries, meaning that no one will hear about or from the offending party ever again

It is particularly odd because one of the most -if not the most- influential media barons since the Reagan era has been Rupert Murdoch, who is not Jewish. There is some truth in the claim that Jews were instrumental in the creation of Hollywood -Mike Davis deals with this in outstanding book City of Quartz, Excavating the Future of Los Angeles (1990) but they became just a part as the industry grew -one of its most successful producers, Walt Disney was a notorious anti-Semite, so all that stuff about the Jews Hollywood and the Media is long past its sell-by date.

However, consider this
we all know it’s American Jews with all their money and power who are supporting every war in the Middle East for Netanyahu?

and ask yourself how many American critics there are of Benjamin Netanyahu given that his invites to speak at Congress have come mostly from 'Christian Zionists' who cling to the belief that Jesus is coming back and will return to his 'home' giving Jews an opportunity to admit they have been wrong for 2,000 years because he really was the Messiah, and so on. Religious drivel aside, why isn't Netanyahu recognised for the crook that he is, not just multiple allegations of bribery in Israel, but his utterly disgraceful rejection of the Oslo Peace Accords, and the rally he attended where Jewish extremists paraded cartoons of assassinated Yitzhak Rabin dressed in an SS Uniform? Nobody expected a villain like Ariel Sharon to support the peace process, but Netanyahu has done everything he can to smash it, while fanning the flames of hysterical claims of an impending apocalypse if Iran 'gets the bomb', carefully denying Israel has assassinated Iranian scientists, and Netanyahu himself has threatened to attack Iran since 1994, as if that was no motivation in itself for Iran to acquire the same deterrent Israel has, though as far as we know Iran has abided by the agreement not to develop nuclear weapons.

The blind spot many Americans have toward Israel, is no different from the Europeans on the left who always defended the USSR because of the Russian Revolution while rejecting Stalin and Stalinism, as utterly unable to defend the Central Planning system as Israel's friends are in defending Israel's occupation of the West Bank. The irony has always been that Israeli Jews have been the most savage critics of their own country, from Maxim Ghilan's How Israel Lost its Soul (1974) to Ahron Bregman's Cursed Victory (2014) which goes some way to illuminating the shameless bias the Clinton administration showed to Israel at the expense of the Palestinians. Again and again the history of Israel is simply swept away in denial by those for whom it is 'the only democracy in the Middle East' -because yes it is, in Israel, but in the Occupied Territories it is a brutal military dictatorship that just this summer, as it has done before, cut off the water supply to Arab homes.

Where is the recognition that Israel was founded as a socialist state? Where does Ben-Gurion and the Labour Party fit with the historic mission of the new state to be a beacon to humanity, and the present day when government policy is made by religious fanatics who have burned down Christian churches and mosques, attacked Jews -whom they don't consider Jews anyway- and have attitudes toward women that are little different from what was found in Daesh in Raqqa or Mosul?

What happened to the Israel of Judah Magnes and Martin Buber? Crucially, how can it be anti-semitic to condemn a worthless bigot like Naftali Bennet and his genocidal plea to 'Kill all Arabs' when Bennett is just one among others in government or the Knesset who would never have been elected in years gone by because of their odious views? Likud and its leaders, from Menachem Begin through Ariel Sharon to Netanyahu have taken Israel into places that no sane person would want to go. The environmental destruction they have caused on the West Bank makes a mockery of those thousands of pamphlets Zionists wrote from the First Aliyah to 1949 glorifying Israel as the restoration of the land itself, with the intention that Israel be a socialist and agricultural country based around the Moshav and the Kibbutz.

Is it not ironic that the left built Israel? But all that has gone, the left has deleted Israel from the list of revolutionary projects and substituted the Palestinian 'struggle' in its place, oblivious to the corruption at the heart of Palestinian politics.

At some point we need an honest debate about Israel, and whether it is a strategic ally or liability for the USA. As for the costs of the alliance, nobody really knows anymore but start at $10 billion a year and keep counting. As for Israel's strategic alliance with Saudi Arabia, is there no shame? They have been at it before, when the USA sent arms to Saudi Arabia through Israel when the Kingdom was fighting Egypt for control over the Yemen, just as the two of them are at it again but fighting - or so they claim- Iran's influence in the Yemen, another unwinnable war that is decimating human lives and destroying homes and businesses. If Israel does have any humanity left, why would it be keen to assist an unelected dictatorship it should be condemning?

There is a lot to admire about Israel, but nothing to admire in its politicians, and its illegal and hopeless occupation of Palestinian territory.

[Stavros]

I read this in The Guardian this morning:
Donald Trump launched a sensational attack on NFL players who have kneeled in protest of the national anthem during a speech in Alabama on Friday night, challenging the league’s owners to release anyone who engages in the movement started last year by former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick.

“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out! He’s fired. He’s fired!’”
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/20...nthem-protests

-Surely the solution is not to play the National Anthem before every football game, because it is just a football game. We don't do it in the UK, they don't do it on the continent, so why do it in the USA? If it is an international match fair enough, but not for every domestic game. As for free speech, who cares what people think about the anthem or a flag? Neither are of any importance. As for the President calling other Americans 'sons of bitches', that is pretty standard sewer crap from a man who seems to know a lot about both.

[broncofan]

Donald Trump's use of twitter is destructive. It's a conduit for him to make outrageous statements that impact foreign and domestic policy in ways that threaten real harm. It's fairly obvious that he has violated their terms of service and that the only reason they have not banned him from the service, something which would be consistent with their policies and a public good, is because it would cause a right wing backlash that would harm their business. It might seem that if they banned him he would find another outlet, but it would take a while to develop a network or outlet as influential as twitter where he can express himself so poorly & with such ease.

Trump does not realize that every time he opens his mouth about the protesting NFL players he reinforces the impression (in my view fact) that he's a racist. He did not have to agree with Kaepernick's protest, but by recommending punitive action against him he has justified widespread protests. His actions as President, not an ordinary citizen, are beyond creepy and threaten the first amendment without clearly violating it bc he is using the power of his office to put undue pressure on private organizations. His promotion of Nascar as an alternative to the NFL is bizarre, as people at nascar events wave the confederate flag, a much more significant insult to patriotism than a peaceful protest. I will let people fill in the blanks of why he objects to the actions of NFL players but is a first amendment absolutist when it comes to waving flags of treason.

Oh yeah, he also implicitly threatened an apocalyptic war with North Korea on twitter. I get the eerie and frightening sense that he wants to provoke a conflict with North Korea. There's no way I see that happening without catastrophic loss of human life.

[trish]

Even without Trump's meddling there are already punitive consequences. Kaepernick's protest is the likely the primary reason he wasn't picked up this season or the most recent off-season. But thanks to Trump, we're now seeing players, fans and even some owners joining Kaepernick in solidarity.

What's particularly puzzling is the interpretating of the bent knee as a sign of disrespect. One kneels before people and things that you recognize are higher than you. It is a demonstration of the ultimate respect. Kaepernick's action can only be recognized as a protest because his pose is unique; i.e. not standing like everyone else. It is neither snide, nor arrogant, nor flippant, nor haughty nor anything other than a respectful protest.

[Stavros]

I don't want to reference myself, but to me there is a clear issue here: why is the national anthem played before domestic games? It doesn't make sense, and I am waiting for someone to explain it to me. Stop playing it, and solve the knee problem!!

[sukumvit boy]

Stavros throws down the gauntlet .
OK sports fans , 'splain me too ,'cause I haven't the faintest idea.