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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (42044)	6/27/1999 4:42:00 AM
From: nihil	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

For your information, pornography for adults is fully protected speech. It is obscenity (whatever that may be) that is often excepted. Commercial speech is also (currently) fully protected. The line between free permitted speech and incitement to violence has been shifted very sharply against the police since WWI. I believe you can call the police very nasty words if you don't mind you head being smashed in unconstitutionally. In my own judgment, even the most extreme political and religious speech is protected even hate speech in the opinion of this Supreme Court. Whatever may be said about Scalia, he is a free speech absolutist and that makes it a 5-4 at least on every first amendment speech question.

To: Neocon who wrote (42044)	6/27/1999 6:14:00 AM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

And speech that aims at immediate incitement to violence and/or illegal action. Political speech is protected, no matter how hateful, so long as it does not aim at immediate incitement. Therefore, if cross- burning is speech, it does not matter what the associations are, as long as it is not at the time being used to incite to violence. If flag-burning is speech, because of its symbolic nature, then cross- burning is speech. Therefore, if we ban one, we should ban the other, or we should protect the right to both The whole point of my previous post, which I apparently failed to make clear, is that cross-burning has traditionally been used precisely as an incitement to immediate violence and as a means of intimidation. Flag-burning has been used as a form of generic protest at Government activities. It is also important to note that cross-burning is almost inevitably directed at an individual, flag-burning at an institution. That is why one is banned and not the other. If groups of armed liberals were storming the lawns of conservatives at night, burning flags and chanting threatening slogans, things might be different. This has not generally been the case.

To: Neocon who wrote (42044)	6/27/1999 7:49:00 AM
From: jbe	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 108807

I see Steven has already said it, Neocon, but let me repeat it: the whole point is that, historically, cross-burnings have often involved incitement to violence. That is one of the key differences between cross-burnings and flag-burnings. When Michael first brought this question up, I personally was unfamiliar with how this issue has been handled in the courts. A little web-scouting soon revealed that where incitement to violence has not been directly involved, The Supreme Court has bent over backwards to uphold crossburners' rights to “free speech” -- as has the ACLU, I might add. So here neither Steven nor Michael are quite correct in saying that "cross burning is illegal." The Supreme Court -- and state courts too -- have overturned a number of anti-cross-burning statutes. (It is interesting that in Virginia, the Grand Wizard himself was defended by an ACLU attorney -- who, just happened to be black.) The best-known case, as you no doubt are aware, may be R.A.V. v. StPaul (1992). Robert Viktora, who with a companion had burnt a cross on a black neighbor's lawn, had been charged under a city disorderly conduct statute. The relevant passage read: “Whoever places on public or private property a symbol, object, appellation, characterization, or graffitti, including but not limited to a burning cross or Nazi swastika, which one knows or has reasonable grounds to know arouses anger, alarm, or resentment in others on the basis of race, color, creed, religion or gender, commits disorderly conduct and shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.” Viktora appealed on the grounds that the ordinance violated his First Amendment rights. The Court agreed unanimously agreed on the basic point at issue: that the law was unconstitutionally "overbroad," in that it penalized speech that merely aroused “anger, resentment, and alarm.” But the Court split on the question of whether it was unconstitutionally "content-based." Four of the justices argued that it was permissible to punish unprotected speech (threats, “fighting words”), on the basis of its content. As Justice Blackmun put it, "I see no First Amendment values that are compromised by a law that prohibits hoodlums from driving minorities out of their homes by burning crosses on their lawns...." The other five justices -- a slim majority -- argued that even though threats and “fighting words” constituted "unprotected" areas of speech, the law should treat all "unprotected speech" equally, not just that expressing hostility to a particular race, creed, or gender. So did Viktora get off scot free? Not really. He was eventually nailed for violating federal civil rights laws. One of the offenses he was charged with -- interfering with the housing rights of his black neighbors -- was a federal felony, and carried a much heavier penalty than the misdemeanor charge he faced in St. Paul. After all, you really can't just let people rant around in front of other people's homes, burning crosses, shouting insults, and scaring the recipients of their unwelcome attentions half to death! But do we really need local cross burning bans? The phenomenon is really not that widespread today. At this point, it seems to me that federal civil rights statutes may be all we need to discourage such activities, not to mention the cross burnings that do involve inciting others to violence. Because there are those, too. jbe

To: Neocon who wrote (42044)	6/27/1999 1:43:00 PM
From: greenspirit	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Hi Neocon, and welcome to the feelings thread! I'm not sure this thread can deal with another conservative posting though. :-) Isn't it amazing how a small question can arouse so much discussion? It seemed simple to answer on the surface, but when you really examined the question it was very difficult to answer. So difficult in fact, we had to throw out the assumption that that the question was valid to begin with. I love those kind of questions. Seeing some on the thread travel up "ladders of inference" was also interesting. It was nice to see in the end the thread maintained a civil discussion and arrived at a close consensus. Michael