How do you guys feel about the ACLU abandoning its defense of free speech?

I think the problem is more pragmatic tbh. It's hard to take a principled stance on which viewpoints shouldn't be allowed, at least from the perspective of government.
freespeechdebate.com/discuss/nineteen-arguments-for-hate-speech-bans-and-against-them/

But that's exactly the point from the legal aspect

It is impossible to have freedom of speech under capitalism due to the existence of power imbalances, making it so every discussion is at least partially political. That said, under socialism, I'd absolutely be prepared to allow people to say "I don't like black people".

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what do you mean

Well, that it's hard to set the laws exactly in this matter

you can't ever not have a power imblance

What about "hate speech" directed towards non-citizens? From a republican (small-r) standpoint, the government acts as a body of its citizens; to be sectarian is thus to be counter-republican, and therefore the republic has an interest in stopping you. However, the republic has no existential interest in the rights of non-citizens.

so they should be done away with, in my view. America has it right.

Because when you boil it down, advocating for oppressing blacks is merely advocating for a political stance. The stance itself is irrelevant. The moment you allow the government to pick and choose what policies you're allowed to advocate, this stops being a free country.

You can have material egalitarianism though. Under capitalism only the most well funded and bourgeois ideas are given attention by the bourgeois media and considered by the bourgeois government. Under socialism that is no longer the case and thus actual free speech could exist. However any reactionary ideas (promotion of feudalism/capitalism, female domesticity, etc) would of course be banned.

nice contradiction

ha ha ha ha

this also becomes clear when you think about the fringe element of BLM explicitly calling for violence against white people

Under capitalism, some people have power over the means of production others have need to use to survive. Thus, when those powerful people have arbitrary aesthetic preferences, those arbitrary aesthetic preferences can translate into great material loss to the powerless. As such, it's dramatically important under capitalism that those aesthetic preferences are buried as far deep as possible to preserve even a modicum of egalitarianism. It's bad if you're homeless, but it's even worse if you're homeless for being X.

However, under socialism, that power would immediately cease. Thus, we could and should be able to allow those aesthetic preferences, which never stopped existing, to be unearthed, so as to allow a free and honest discourse where people can actually get what they want, as long as it's within reason. (There's nothing wrong whatsoever with a town with only white folks, as long as they aren't in plenty while there are black folks in poverty.)

How is that a contradiction? Systems protect themselves from destructive speech all the time.

Well I meant non violent speech but SCOTUS has already ruled that calls for violence are protected speech as long as the threat isn't immediate.

But fundamentally there's no difference between the KKKs speech, BLM or any mainstream speech. Any policy proposal by definition will harm one group of people while benefitting another. Arbitrarily drawing the line at the alt right simply because their policies happen to target a group based on race is nonsense.

I don't expect a communist to defend a liberal value. Smash the system and what have you.

Seems to me that's an argument for democracy, and we do have at least a little bit of democracy. But yes capitalism is ultimately incompatible with absolute democracy - but I'm also sceptical that absolute democracy can exist at all. If you think of it in terms of an absence of "power imbalances" then it's a fantasy, since power is immanent in everything we do.

If IDEAS are banned it simply isn't free speech. America has free speech precisely BECAUSE it can't ban anything simply because of the nature of the idea.

Not surprised.

Here's my take on it.

Fascist demonstrations need to be confronted wherever they go. However, I oppose any form of government censorship. We can't let the power that be dictate which speech is acceptable and which isn't. The moment they do, they will use it against us.

What if you're a Commie and like a big boy acknowledge the USSR was a failure in many regards, especially its policies with the Baltics and Ukrainians ?

Holomodor is a """natural famine""" (a century almost after the Industrial Revolution - but that's another story) made worse directly by Stalin's paranoia. He believed Kulaks and Nationalists were hoarding grain, and acted with that in mind.

This action caused the famine to do much more harm than it would have done otherwise.

Wasn't even a matter of convenience. They simply caved to the faggots bitching at them on twitter. The magapedes are no worse than any other group the ACLU has defended in the past.

They were literally wandering around the town while brandishing their guns at counter protesters. They were extremely close to becoming a right wing death squad. The ACLU, like most America liberal organizations, doesn't want to have to deal with that sort of thing at home.

The guns are a red herring. They didn't cause any problems at Charlottesville.

Classical republicanism died in the 18th century and for a good reason. Get that shit outta here.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

please for the love of christ stop shilling this meme. the so-called "paradox of tolerance" is by no means undisputed and Popper is a neoliberal

Even if we take that theory as true, the intolerants are currently 1% of the population. We are at no risk of being overtaken by Nazis or whatever boogieman you prefer. We can abandon tolerance if they ever get to say 10% of the population or some threshold where they become an existential threat. But right now they are merely an annoyance and not a threat to tolerance.

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take your medication user

That can be used against communists, since communists want to expropriate MoP from capitalists, which I think could be argued to be violence. And that is leaving aside the history of socialism as definitely committing violence against the ruling class and their guards.

I think the state should still absolutely observe total neutrality on speech. BUT, if it is good praxis to attack nazis in the street (which it seems proven to be good praxis right now, given all the liberals that took to the meme and the fact the fascists cancelled a bunch of rallies after Boston), then I don't see an argument why they shouldn't be attacked in the streets except on some vague, fundamentalist grounds about a total social "right to free speech". There should be an open acknowledgment on the left that the state cannot be allowed to have the authority to choose who gets to speak, because that WILL be used against the left. It already has been in the past.

I see no problem.

Maybe ACLU is finally moving beyond its liberalism.

Though, I can see many in this thread still cling to liberalism.

What he said is objectively true. Shut the fuck up lifestylist.

However, it's also acceptable to rant on the internet about exterminating leftists.

Hmm

Nice strawman appealing to liberal morality you've got there.

Freedom and state are incompatible. The idea of a "free country" means freedom for the bourgs to rule and submit the populace to their whims. As long as a state apparatus exists to enforce the whims of the ruling class, your freedom is limited by the force you can exert in contrast to the states' force. They will not grant you freedoms, rather, invisible restrictions. If you want to be free you will have to act without consequence. Read Stirner.

The police are going to try to stop it, and that is fine, but I'm saying I don't see why people shouldn't attack nazis as they see fit, as long as it is working. The attacks on nazis were good propaganda for the left, that is just a fact. I've seen liberals who were disparaging antifa a couple of months ago suddenly supporting them and calling the democrats spineless. The effect was to feel as though the leftists were putting themselves on the line to support and protect people. "Look, they defended these peaceful clergy from the fascists! Look, they had their bones broken by a car standing up to the fascists!" Where were the pundits and party leaders, besides standing on the sidelines aimlessly imploring for peace as white nationalists needlessly assaulted some people chanting with tiki torches?

You see how that galvanizes average people to feel like you are a real popular movement, and not an exploitative political machine that is disconnected from people's struggles?

But if some guy bombs a rally that isn't doing anything, I'd say that level of violence could be harmful. But just coming out to meet the fascists in counter protest and dogging their steps at every turn doesn't seem like it has been a bad thing.

Either you're being a clickbaiter faggot or your reading comprehension is shit.

Defending Communists during that time was legitimately dangerous. I would say they were cowards, not liars.

Threats aren't opinions. Agitating for something is ultimately you just publicly expressing an opinion. It is not the same as you actually fulfilling it or implying you will. If you want to make that illegal, there's precisely zero reason why that wouldn't be able to apply to Leftists, who advocate a literal class war.

Of course the tankie is an authoritarian hypocrite.

Fuck sake nothing has happened so far.

Political violence directed against the public is always horrible praxis in the US, it doesn't matter who it is. On the other hand, everyone loves political violence against the state and the elite.
It's not vague, fundamentalist grounds. The right exist precisely because shitty things happens when it doesn't. Whether that be people attacking each other because they got their feels hurt, or whether it's the truth being violently suppressed because it's a radical minority opinion. You're an absolute retard if you want mobs deciding what speech is acceptable or not when its mobs that lynched niggers and burned witches.

Enlightenment, i.e. Liberal values are good and Socialism is the only way to achieve them. Liberalism is not having Liberal values, it's simply having feeling based moralistic values that effectively protect the status quo.

Who the fuck determines who's a Nazi?
You're absolutely delusional. Antifa has got nothing except shit for their attacks. The only reason they look better momentarily now is because a Nazi killed someone, and that makes the Right look very bad which makes the Left look better in comparison. Antifa and their retarded antics have improved nothing, precisely because they rarely defend anyone and are usually starting the violence.

Top kek

Anyone using this is automagically wrong.

Mixed feelings. However,

Is correct. The ACLU's actual policy change here is to not defend the rights of recognized hate groups to rally with guns. It's pretty specific really.

While I feel bad about this, because it leaves more susceptibility for people to be blocked by the government, I also can see how this was a lose-lose for the ACLU.

When the ACLU defends something like this and it resorts in violence and death and unruliness on the part of those they defended, the public and liberals scrutinize them. And not only that, but your perpetually unaccountable reactionary/alt-right fags can try to deflect blame for the disasters they cause on the "ACLJEW" (I made that up just now, but it's so retarded that you know someone has probably said it) or something.

So the ACLU fights for the freedom and representation of people who want to deny others freedom and representation, those people then end up killing someone, and then the ACLU is obviously stuck between people who hate Nazis and Nazis who probably aren't actually that fond of the ACLU most of the time.

It's a real fucking bitch.

*results

We don't live in socialism, so there's no value in clinging to liberal delusions.