gingerautie:

shanneibh:

gingerautie:

pervocracy:

I don’t 100% agree.  I think free speech is important, and c’mon, look at the government and law enforcement we’ve got right now: do you trust these people to decide which speech is okay?

I believe the right to free speech includes abhorrent speech.  However, the right to free speech does not include:

– Speaking unopposed.

– Being praised for your speech.

– Being respected for your speech.

– Speech on the platform of your choice. (This one is sort of complicated because “you’re free to say anything… alone in your basement” is really not free speech, but on the other hand I don’t think any specific person or organization is obligated to give you a platform.)

– Speech without people telling you to shut up.  Someone saying “you shouldn’t say that” or even “you shouldn’t be allowed to say that” is exercising their free speech, not curtailing yours, unless they’re willing and able to actually force your silence.

– Being exempted from other laws (i.e., harassment, terroristic threats, incitement to violence) because you happened to violate those laws via speech.

–

So yeah, I’m actually super big on free speech, but only in the literal, limited sense.

Anyway, they only called this Boston rally “Free Speech” for two reasons:

1. Neo-Nazis are making this big push to clean up their act, to show up in polos and khakis, and to not have swastikas out in the open.  Naming their rally “Free Speech” instead of “White Nationalism” is part of the respectability initiative.

2. They get to sneer “why are you against free speech?” at all the anti-racist and anti-fascist protesters.

Nazis are trying to hide behind free speech.

It doesn’t really hold that therefore any group advocating free speech are nazis.

I’m really confused by this, and I’ve been looking for evidence that this was in any way a white supremacist rally, and I can’t find any.

From googling it does look like that free speech rally organisers weren’t nazis at all, but they were far right people, so I think I know what kind of free speech they think is under attack. It does seem like people were worried the rally would attract nazis and white supremacists and the counter protest was in response to that fear. I’m unclear whether this fear materialised at all as I read people say they saw some nazis but there are no confirming pictures or sources I can find.

I also think it is true the alt right/nazis/white supremacists have hijacked “free speech ” as a code to say their right to be nazis must be protected, which unfortunately complicates things for true free speech supporters.

From what they’ve said on their FB, they’re explicitly a coalition across the political spectrum. Explicitly including progressives. Which is different to a group of people only from the far right. 

Free speech is an important political principle, and letting nazis hijack it so much that the knee-jerk reaction to free speech is “you’re a nazi” is really fucking dangerous.

It seems like the far right are trying to use “free speech” in very much the same way as bigots want to wrap discrimination and harassment up in the idea of “religious freedom”. (Or “traditional values”, or…) Very much the same type of calculated push.

Which really doesn’t make me more inclined to just let them hijack and twist those concepts out from under everybody else, no. That would be a huge mistake.