This, apparently, is what passes for a reasoned argument at the New York Times: [url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/17/opinion/aclu-first-amendment-trump-charlottesville.html?ref=opinion[/url]Note that her "arguments" about "rethinking" free speech (which amount to "free speech should really be about speech that advances certain goals) are all special pleading or non sequiters. For example:
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A black kid who gets thrown in jail for possessing a small amount of marijuana will face consequences that will directly affect his ability to have a voice in public life. How does the A.C.L.U.’s conception of free speech address that?
Answer: It doesn't, because that is not what free speech means. Free speech is the right to say what you want to say, not your ability to obtain an audience for it. Criminal centencing for minor crimes is an issue (although not in the simplistic way her example implies), but it is not the issue the ACLU exists to address. Other organizations exist to address that. This is like arguing that your mechanic did a bad job fixing your car because your lawn mower still doesn't work. They're different problems.
Or this one:
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Most obviously, the power of speech remains proportional to wealth in this country, despite the growth of social media. When the Supreme Court did consider the impact of money on speech in Citizens United, it enabled corporations to translate wealth into direct political power. The A.C.L.U. wrongly supported this devastating ruling on First Amendment grounds.
This is also a non sequiter. Regardless of your views on Citizens United, the fact is that money does
not translate directly to political power. It has an effect, but only a limited one, and in point of fact [url]http://fas-polisci.rutgers.edu/lau/articles/LauEtAl_EffectsOfNegativePoliticalCampaigns.pdf[/url] there's not really research supporting the idea that it does. A more immediate example is the most recent election - Jeb Bush had the largest war chest of any Republican and got annihilated. Hillary Clinton significantly outspent Donald Trump and lost in what were considered pretty safe Blue Wall states. Money does not, in fact, translate directly to political power.
Then, of course, there's the other issue - the poor black kid in jail can't get his message out, but the corporation can. Even if the poor black kid gets out of jail, he still has less ability to get his message out, because money. But, if the poor black kid makes a lot of money somehow and now can, we won't see any complaints. Similarly, we don't see any complaints about celebrities spending money to give themselves a stage to spout their views from - the objection to money is really an objection to the message it's being spent on.
As the other side ponts out, however,
there is no Nazi exception in the First Amendment.:
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It is, in other words, a principle — a principle that cannot be obviated by cynical word games or by thinly disguised special pleading. “I believe in free speech, but” or “I just don’t think this is a free speech issue” — both popular lines at the moment — simply will not cut it as arguments. On the contrary. In reality, all that the “but” and the “I just don’t think” mean is that the speaker hopes to exempt certain people because he doesn’t like them. But one can no more get away from one’s inconsistencies by saying “it’s not a speech issue to me” than one can get away from the charge that one is unreliable on due process insisting in certain cases, “well, that’s not a due process issue to me.” This is a free speech issue. Those who wish it weren’t just trying to have it both ways — to argue bluntly for censorship, and then to pretend that they aren’t.
Finally, as to the "moral equivalency" nonsense - fighting Nazis does not mean you are better than the Nazis (although it's hard to actually be worse). The Soviets fought the Nazis in WWII, but their behavior was really just as atrocious. You can ask the Poles, and the Finns - the latter, especially, an enlightened and tolerant country that was forced into an alliance with Hitler to defend itself against Soviet aggression*. The fact that we had to ally with them is really an embarrassment to the Western allies. The Soviets had all sorts of enlightened-sounding propaganda too, but like the modern anti-Nazi counter-protestors, it was nonsense.
Disregarding the despicable stances of Antifa and the like to begin with, showing up at a protest to counter-protest with clubs and other weapons makes you as bad or worse than what you're protesting. Antifa has done this repeatedly. If there's a violent protest and you object to it, you **** let the police handle it. If they do badly, you object in the courts, or to your political representatives.
Period.
If you think it is ok to show up with the intention of fighting someone else's protest, you are already a Nazi or a Soviet, period. It doesn't matter what their beliefs are, it doesn't matter what your beliefs are. If you want to counter protest with a bunch of signs and chants, ok fine. You may be stupid, but that's your right. You don't have a right to street violence, whether or not your opponents think they do. If they do, let the National Guard settle their hash. Park your *** back in front of your computer and go back to playing internet tough guy, because if you show up with a club, "**** Nazis" applies to you, no matter how loudly you scream the Nazi is the other guy.
*if you wonder why so many people are showing up to a white supremacist rally, think about the behavior of the Finns in the face of Soviet aggression. White people aren't under assault by minorities, but they certainly are being led to believe that they are by the media and the civil rights industry that fears solving the problems it claims to care about. Poor, undereducated people of all groups are being lured into thinking other people hate them so that "civil rights" people and news media can still make a lot of money doing things other than actual work.
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