NP "Mein Kampf" � Bucarest

[Dave Monroe]

It has been duly pointed out to me offlist that the
European contexts mentioned so far do have significant
differences from that of the United States, not the
least of which being the actual historical experience
of fascism, Nazism, et al.  Off the top of my head ...

These Benighted States have largely have indeed had
the luxury of "Freedom of Speech" et al. in that, as a
large and largely decentralized nation with a large
and increasingly nonhomogeneous population, we perhaps
run less the risk of susceptibility to extremist
demagoguery and so forth.  Something like that ...

Sure, we had, in particular, McCarthyism, general
anticommunist paranoia, but do note that the
irrational extremities of that soon became apparent. 
And recourse to such notions as "Freedom of Speech" I
would think serve as strong preventative medicine
here.  Do see, however, Sinclair Lewis' It Can't
Happen Here, not to mention Jack London's The Iron
Heel, for esp. lit'rary "alternate histories" to the
contrary ...

Now if I could just reconcile my delicate
deconstructionist sensibilities with my left liberal
to socialist sympathies for such notions as "Universal
Human Rights" ...


--- Paul Mackin <paul.mackin at verizon.net> wrote:
> 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.

But, of course, to paraphrase Peter Parker, with great
freedom comes great responsibility ...



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