Hate crimes

[Jim heartfield]

In message <s8089ec2.063 at mail.ci.detroit.mi.us>, Charles Brown
<CharlesB at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us> writes
>Well, Doug, you aren't trying to make Marx out as a liberal ,are you ?
>
>You are mistaken if you think I am opposed to freedom of speech. So, what is 
>your point ? I don't see any arguments in there for making freedom of speech an 
>absolute and dogmatic right, with no exceptions.   Marx is not one, even in 
>youth , for pronouncing absolute legal rights. All his generalizations are 
>historically and class concrete. After WWII and the fascists, I am sure he would 
>agree that there must be an exception to the general right of freedom of speech 
>for fascistic racists, just like the Marxists in the socialist countries thought 
>in applying Marx's dictatorship of the proletariat to that concrete historical 
>situation.
>
>It is not I who construes Marxism as a dogma.
>
>CB

No, and nor should you. But Marx's argument is pretty good. 

I am interested that the historical occasion you give for revising his
principle is the second world war and the fight against fascism.

You seem to be saying that it is fascism that is qualitatively new and
demands a different approach to freedom of speech.

But could I suggest another reason why ww2 would be seen as a turning
point? 

It was WW2 that first saw the third international unite with the allies
in the war against Germany. Embracing the allies war effort as 'the
people's war' led the comintern to a collaborationist policy with
British and American imperialism. The political independence of the
working class movement was sacrificed. Identifying with the state made
the principled defence of freedom of speech redundant. Instead the state
was looked upon (in defiance of all reason and experience) as the
guarantor of liberty, instead of for what it was, the greatest danger to
liberty.

It is doubly perverse to cite fascism as an instance in which bans on
free speech are justified. Fascism was characterised by the suppression
of free speech, book burning and the suppression of all political
opposition.

Furthermore, the SPD often made the mistake of demanding state action to
limit the fascists' freedom of speech. Mobilising working class support
for such bans the SPD gave the repressive laws a measure of
respectability that they did not deserve.

Time and again the German state used the laws against freedom of speech
to suppress the left, while refusing to use them against the right. Why?
Because the right was the state's ally.

And after the SPD put the laws into the statute book under which it was
liquidated, here we are again demanding that the ruling class protect us
from 'hate speech'.

How naive can you get? Turkeys for Thanksgiving? 
-- 
Jim heartfield