NP "Mein Kampf" à Bucarest

[Paul Mackin]

Yes, even in the U.S. the restricting of speech to incite unlawful
action has sometimes been held constitutional. There was the infamous
Smith Act (Alien Registration Act) forbidding  advocation or urging of
the overthrow of the government that prosecutors attempted to use
against the American Communist Party in the post-war period, rather
unsuccessfully as I recall because the courts ended up restricting the
meaning of urging overthrow to mean only where the result was to incite
real unlawful action.  Capturing the Post Office and that sort of thing.
Theoretical advocacy of the sort Communists did was OK. Not sure I've
said this exactly correctly but think I'm more or less right.

Also there's  the famous old "nobody is free to shout fire in a crowded
theater" business.

                P.

Dave Monroe:

> Not that "Freedom of Speech," those much (and rightly)
> vaunted First Amendment rights, and, while we're at
> it, democracy, is upheld so well in practice as in
> theory here in These United States, but, on this side
> of the Atlantic, this all sounds downright
> UNdemocratric.  Just wanted to note that, is all ...
>
>
> -- Michel Ryckx <michel.ryckx at freebel.net> wrote:
> >
> > The concept 'négationnisme' denotes the movement
> > that is likely to try to minimize or even deny a
> > systematic genocide.  It is forbidden by law in
> > France, here in Belgium, in Holland and in other
> > countries.  Originally it referred to the Holocaust,
> > but is now also used in the context of the
> > Ruanda genocide some years ago.
> >
> > At the basis of its forbidding lies the conviction
> > that there is, sometimes,  a limit to free
> > speech.  Denying or minimizing the Holocaust is
> > tresspassing a boundary which a democracy cannot
> > allow.
> >
> > There are similar laws that forbid people to doubt
> > the 'Human Rights Declaration' for that
> > Declaration is more and more considered to be the
> > ultimate basis for a democratic organisation of
> > society.
>
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