>>> jf noonan <jfn1 at msc.com> 10/28 11:47 AM >>>
On Wed, 28 Oct 1998, Charles Brown wrote:
> Charles: LePen's politics and status do not
> support your argument. You seem to be
> mixed up. Are you a LePen fan ?
Of course not, and that's a shitty thing to assert. The last dodge of the intellectually challenged is making an assertion like that. It reminds me of a Nazi questioning the ethnic heritage of his interlocutor.
I, however, defend your right to be as shitty as you want in your speech. ________ Charles: Of course, what I said is not shitty at all. You seemed to claim that my mention of LePen's arrest SUPPORTED your end of this argument. It doesn't.
Importantly, what is shitty is your arrogant claim and posture that arguing for freedom of fascist speech is the more progressive or freedom supporting position in this argument. Also, shitty is your posturing as indignant.
As far as whatever reminds you of a Nazis argument. that is just more of your confusion, because my argument is anti-Nazi through and through. My argument doesn't have anything in common with a Nazi argument regarding somebody's ethnic heritage, except in your mix up.
> What are you talking about ?
I'm talking about France's "progressive" policies against holocaust denial have not stemmed the growth of LePen's movement one iota. ________
Charles: You can't prove that. LePen' movement may have been more powerful if there had not been policies against holocaust denial. The Left is the government in France today. In the U.S. , the right is in. In general, France has been more left than the U.S. for years. This tends to support the opposite of what you say. Anti-fascists laws correlate with a stronger left and working class in France than in the U.S.
> France outlaws some forms of
> fascistic speech, such as denial of
> the Holocaust. This has not at all
> made France less free or with less
> freedom of speech than the United States.
> In fact, it has made France more free.
> As far as I can tell, France is a more
> progressive and free country than the U.S.
I don't consider it progressive or free when tenured professors are fired for political speech. __________
Charles: I don't consider it progressive that KKKers can organize and propgandize in the U.S. Your placing SPEECH as the most important freedom, in direct comparison with freedom from racism as impliedly some lesser freedom is typical of ACLUlike ideology in this argument. France is more progressive than the U.S. because it balances the freedoms of speech and from racism more materialistically.
What does the professor being tenured have to do with it ? Nontenured professors are likely to be less supportive of the establisment than tenured profs. Their speech needs more protection.
> Charles: This is easy to answer. There may
> have been MORE neo-Nazis today, if they
> had not been outlawed !!! and you can't
> prove otherwise. In the latest election in
> Germany, the neo-fascists got NO
> seats. Look like the method of outlawing
> them worked !
Nor can you prove it that it is so. Until someone can prove it either way, I'll believe my view. __________ Charles: You raised the example of number of neo-nazis in Germany. If that example is neutralized, it falls from your argument not mine. My argument did not depend on that. It depends on the fascistic racist acts and organizations which are evidently correlated with fascistic racist propaganda and organization. For over 100 years, KKK and other fascist crimes have been at an intolerable level for the victims of these groups. This has occurred in a legal circumstance where these groups had their speech protected and their ideas freely circulating in the marketplace of ideas did not result in them being rejected enough that thousands were lynched, etc. etc. That's enough evidence for me and most people, especially people who are the main targets of these groups. Freedom of speech for them has not caused "REASON" to persuade everyone that they are wrong and they continue to recruit enough people to be a serious menace to their target groups. This is the material reality and not the mythical debating society world you pretend exists. _________________
> The driving underground/expose to
> light argument is
> Justice Brandeis' from the 1920's.
Actually the argument goes back much further, to Locke, if I recall correctly.
In any event, you're not going to convince me, nor I you, so I'm done with this thread.
------------------- Charles: Evidently "reason" and open debate is not such a magic process guaranteeing persuasion of the truth or else one of us would be convinced by this open debate.
Charles Brown
Detroit