So why did someone expressing their freedom of speech become unpopular?

[Alex_P]

From a psychological standpoint, I would say that is why so many people are getting upset with the BNP being popular. They don't like the idea having a VERY conflicting ideology imposed on them should the BNP gain power and become able to implement their politics in their daily lives.

Or, y'know, the idea of fascists dragging their neighbors out of their homes. Some people have a problem with that.

-- Alex

 

[Seanchaidh]

Hitler stood on an agenda of "invade Europe and kill everyone". Should that have been allowed?

Barry Goldwater had a similar agenda with regard to the Soviet Union and Communism in Asia. Obviously the Republican Party shouldn't have been invited to the Presidential debate in 1964.

Speech is not the same thing as action. Stop seeming to pretend that it is.

Nope. No politician should be able to stand on a racist agenda. That is the antithesis of a democracy.

Actually, the outlawing of the advocacy and representation of certain viewpoints is the antithesis of a democracy. Democracy is about the form of the government far more than it is about the content of legislation or especially the particular agendas of members of parliament. Inherent in liberal democracy is the ability for all viewpoints to be expressed and, if supported by enough of the people, enacted into law. It is founded on argumentation and debate, the so-called market of ideas. Banning any idea or ideology from being expressed or represented is a striking departure from democracy. Democracy is importantly characterized by the absence of the crime of heresy: the advocacy of democracy itself plays by its own rules on a level playing field with other forms of government; the institution of democracy has often (and most effectively!) been enacted in the first place by votes requiring super-majority in elections within which advocacy of other forms of government was certainly not prohibited. Your advocacy of limits on free speech is neither an effective way to safeguard democratic principles (as I argued earlier) nor is it even consistent with democracy itself. But that's fine: your anti-democratic views will be tolerated by any democracy. Democracy needs no crime of lese majeste to protect it, nor would the apparent hypocrisy of such laws even help it.

 

[Alex_P]

Speech is not the same thing as action. Stop seeming to pretend that it is.

To quote David Neiwert,

The history of eliminationism in America, and elsewhere, shows that rhetoric plays a significant role in the travesties that follow. It creates permission for people to act out in ways they might not otherwise. It allows them to abrogate their own humanity by denying the humanity of people deemed undesirable or a cultural contaminant.

At every turn in American history -- from [Spanish theologian] Juan Gines de Sepulveda's characterization of the New World "barbarians" as "these pitiful men... in whom you will scarcely find any vestiges of humanness," to [Sand Creek Massacre commander] Colonel Chivington's admonition that "Nits make lice!," to the declarations that "white womanhood" stood imperiled by oversexed black rapists, to [California Senator] James Phelan's declaration that Japanese immigrants were like "rats in the granary" -- rhetoric has conditioned Americans to think of those different from themselves as less than human. Indeed, their elimination is not just acceptable, but devoutly to be wished and actively sought.

Which is why, when we hear eliminationist rhetoric today, we need to be on our guard. The ghosts of our history tell us as much.

-- Alex

 

[Seanchaidh]

Speech is not the same thing as action. Stop seeming to pretend that it is.

To quote David Neiwert,

The history of eliminationism in America, and elsewhere, shows that rhetoric plays a significant role in the travesties that follow. It creates permission for people to act out in ways they might not otherwise. It allows them to abrogate their own humanity by denying the humanity of people deemed undesirable or a cultural contaminant.

At every turn in American history -- from [Spanish theologian] Juan Gines de Sepulveda's characterization of the New World "barbarians" as "these pitiful men... in whom you will scarcely find any vestiges of humanness," to [Sand Creek Massacre commander] Colonel Chivington's admonition that "Nits make lice!," to the declarations that "white womanhood" stood imperiled by oversexed black rapists, to [California Senator] James Phelan's declaration that Japanese immigrants were like "rats in the granary" -- rhetoric has conditioned Americans to think of those different from themselves as less than human. Indeed, their elimination is not just acceptable, but devoutly to be wished and actively sought.

Which is why, when we hear eliminationist rhetoric today, we need to be on our guard. The ghosts of our history tell us as much.

-- Alex

Being on our guard doesn't mean banning speech, and playing a role in something isn't the same as being something. I'd much prefer a spirited propaganda war to government regulation of political speech; the former doesn't mistakenly assume banning something actually makes it go away.