That's the way the First AMendment is interoreted -- a constitutional violation requires state action. In an extended sense private citizens can act as state agents, but cases like that haven't been common since the civil rights era (with equal protection).
and you counterpose
> this to "protests by citizen's groups about other
> speech", as for example in
> the case of Skokie, which does not presumably
> constitute such interference.
Correct.
> (BTW, I didn't consider the failure to stop the
> march would have led to a
> fascist dictatorship).
>
Good.
> I would say it all depends on whether the other side
> - in this case, the
> Nazis in Skokie - is allowed to freely speak and
> march or is heckled and
> drowned out and thwarted or even beaten into silence
> and submission, all of
> which I would consider as interference with the
> right of free expression.
That is a confusion. You might think it's a bad thing, but no one has a right to be heard,w hich is really what you are saying -- just the right of freedom of speech, which has historically and today has been interpreted as meaning, with some exceptions, the right to to without having to worry about being fined or jailed by the government.
> As you know, there are laws on the books which
> recognize such forms of
> protest as disruption.
Do tell. There are laws against disturbing the peace (a vague notion), assault -- puting people in fear of haerm -- is actionable; but I am not aware of any laws against hooting down a speaker you don't like. I never heard of "disruption" as an offense.
>
> Which is not to say it is a bad thing. If only the
> German left parties,
> which
> engaged in these actions at Nazi rallies and press
> distributions had
> succeeded in silencing and forcing them into
> retreat.
Quite.
A more recent example
> was when left-led students at Concordia University
> in Montreal drowned out a
> speech by the visiting Benjamin Netanyahu and forced
> him off the stage in
> protest against the Israeli occupation. That
> constituted interference with
> Netanyahu's right to free speech, IMO,
Why? What gives him a right to be heard by people, other than the government, who don't want to hear him?
and was
> widely regarded as such -
> even by the organizers.
Sorta been there. Yearsa go Jeanne Kirkpatrick was supposed to speak at a function organized by the polisci dept at Michigan,w here I was a grad student. AFter much debate my side prevailed and we decided on a silent protest (no hooting, just signs), and polite but pointed questions during the question period. This not because we thought she had a right to free speech -- but because we thought that disruptionw ould get us bad press. Well, she chickened out, failed to show or anyway to speak, and then had her neo-con pundit pals write us up as havinbg deprived her of her right to freedom of speech. Bullshit, not even if we had actually prevented her from being heard. We have a right to be hear too, you know.
Some of us remember doing
> the same during the
> Vietnam war when the administration sent its
> representatives to the
> campuses. I think such actions can be justified in
> the circumstances, and if
> you want - in order to legitimize them - to call
> them other than
> interference with the other side's freedom of
> expression, I won't quibble
> about it.
Good.
>
>
>
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