Essentially the "civil libertarian" "free speech" industry line is "We must allow the Nazis to freely propagandize for Nazism, lest all our liberty perish". In another common and empty slogan, "If they can silence the Nazis they can silence us, too." In that latter case the "us" was, quite often, the red fascists of Marxism on whose behalf I think a lot of this nonsense was developed.
But that's a game of chance most often played by straight, white, affluent, males in groups which aren't targeted by Nazis and their allies in anti-egalitarian, anti-democratic hate groups. It is a game of chance played by white, affluent, professionals in the law, the judiciary and the media with the lives of those who are targeted by them. They are, also, largely, males, as well. And their choice to enable hate speech has already been being paid off with the stakes they put up. As I read this morning, Rachel Maddow, who I would guess, as a media person probably support the "absolutist" line in such things, gave a long list of incidents in which people were murdered by American Nazis and their allies in past terror incidents. Allowing Nazis to propagate has already resulted in such people losing most of if not all of their rights. Mostly the targets are not rich, white, straight, males, though in this game of chance, they can get killed just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
And, since, with the imposition of Donald Trump on the country, Nazis and fascists are already in the government, at the highest levels. That paid off for the haters in the game described above, too.
They're winning And with that win the "lest all our liberty perish" is happening THROUGH THE FREE SPEECH ABSOLUTISM THAT CREATED DONALD TRUMP AND ALLOWED HIM TO PUT NAZIS IN THE WHITE HOUSE. He's put a white supremacist in charge of the Justice Department, he's choosing judges and Supreme Court "justices" right now. You don't have to wait for some imaginary future to see the result of allowing lies to put Nazis and fascists into power, from where they can errode all of those liberties the ACLU, Joel Gora act claimed to be protecting, BECAUSE THEY GOT THERE THROUGH THE MEDIA BEING ALLOWED TO LIE THEM INTO POWER, LAST YEAR.
That whole thing was given the test of time since 1964 when the Sullivan decision was issued, the history of American politics since then has been a steady move, through Nixon, Reagan, the two Bushes, through ever worse Supreme Court majorities which have destroyed equality and democracy, sustaining the worst of race-based denial of the vote - mostly for Black People, Latinos and other popular targets of American Nazism but that trend is continuing and can be expected to expand to other groups. That is a product of that absolutist interpretation of "free speech" and other item in the Bill of Rights.
The kind of thing we saw in Charlottesville over the weekend can become normalized, just as the series of American Nazi and fascist hate crime and murders enumerated by Rachel Maddow has become normalized, just as the incidents of mass gun violence - some of them inspired by Nazi and other malignant media consumed by the murderers - has become normalized in the United States under the interpretation of the Second Amendment by the same courts as have empowered Nazis and fascists and other opportunistic liars in the media. Don't kid yourself that the reaction to what happened in Charlottesville is a turn in the road that is guaranteed to lead away from the further empowerment of Nazis, because we're a country in which the media lied the attack on the kindergarten and early grade school children at Sandy Hook into a political and legal non-entity and a "conspiracy theory" and a "false flag" incident. If the media liars empowered by the ACLU, the "free speech, free press" industry can do that, don't put all your money on the claim that the outrageous display at Charlottesville - also under legal protection given it by the courts at the behest of the ACLU - is some kind of watershed for egalitarian democracy that will go in the right direction.
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