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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank

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To: one_less who wrote (68071)	11/25/2002 6:17:25 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (2) of 82486

Nice words. But, frankly, pretty meaningless. When what you view as decency and free speech coexist, there's unlikely to be an issue. The concept of free speech is unnecessary. I keep coming back to this, but it seems not to stick: free speech only becomes an issue when it offends somebody. Almost nobody minds decent speech. That's not sticking up for free speech. It's only when decency IS sacrified that free speech suddenly becomes imperiled, and that is when its defenders are obligated to rally to its defense. For precisely that reason, as we're seeing here, the defense of free speech in theory is easy, but in practice it is seldom warmly welcomed. The ACLU lost a bunch of members, who were supposedly all free speech advocates, when they defended the right of Nazis to march in Skokie. For Nazis to march in Skokie was the height of indecency. But that is precisely why it became a vital free speech issue. You have it precisely backward. The defense of free speech is only meaningful when the glove of decency is cast aside.

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