Unlike Bill Lear, Brett Knowlton would not defend an endowed chair for Henry Kissinger. Brett is correct that the French state prosecuted Robert Faurisson. His university also fired him, and Noam Chomsky defended his right to teach. It was in that context that Chomsky likened his support of Faurisson to his support of U.S. war criminals (his words) to teach at U.S. universities, and condemned those who sought to evict them by militant protest.
Regarding prosecution for "ideas" or "speech":
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not the Communist Manifesto or the IWW Preamble, but it is probably the most progressive consensus vision yet achieved by the world's people, notwithstanding that its precepts are often honored in the breach by purported adherents. Certainly it is in every respect preferable to the U.S. Bill of Rights, which is why the U.S. bourgeoisie prefers the latter. The problem is to explain why leftists do too.
The Universal Declaration guarantees that people shall be free from racist incitement and from incitement to genocide, as well as clothed, housed, fed, and educated. Signatory countries have pledged to enforce these rights, and in many places people have mobilized to demand enforcement, as the mass movement did in France as part of its struggle against reborn Nazism. Except for liberals and some leftists in this country, few people of good will have difficulty understanding this, or worry that tortured interpretations of its plain meaning by lawyers and professors are grounds to nullify its enforcement.
In such situations, activists in struggle do not enjoy the indulgence of spinning ivory-tower alternatives for the mass movement. One must choose sides. Which side are you on? is the question. Noam Chomsky had the wrong answer.
The problem with Chuck Grimes is that he asks us to base our policies and demands on the assumption that bourgeois courts are permanent burdens, which in turn compels us to be concerned how they will interpret their precedents against us, and to forestall the worst by constructing defenses for our most dangerous enemies. That is even less worthy as a political line than reverence for the Bill of Rights. Anyone who expects some legal precedent to protect those who advocate the revolutionary overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the dismantling of its state hasn't sufficiently studied any period of history. That is not to say that we abstain from defending ourselves with every available weapon; we should and do put up legal defenses when necessary, despite our permanent disadvantage before the bar. But no socialist policy worthy of the name can be based on the permanence of the bourgeois state.
Ken Lawrence