From: cmort@NCoast.ORG (Christopher Morton)
Subject: Re: Hate Speech Okay, says the Supreme Court
Reply-To: cmort@ncoast.org (Christopher Morton)
Organization: North Coast Public Access *NIX, Cleveland, OH
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 18:29:49 GMT
Followup-To: talk.politics.misc

As quoted from <1992Jul17.141629.6243@Princeton.EDU> by egnilges@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges):

> In article <1992Jul16.185958.26528@decvax.dec.com> walsh@starbd.enet.dec.com (Thomas Walsh) writes:
> >
> >In article <1992Jul15.164024.24944@Princeton.EDU>, egnilges@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) writes:
> >>Lemme turn UPPER CASE ON SO YOU UNDERSTAND IT.  I WILL ALSO TRY TO USE
> >>WORDS OF ONE SYLLABLE (SYLL-ABLE).  ROBERT A. VIKTORA, THE JERKFACED
> >>HIGH SCHOOL DROPOUT WHOSE CRIME INSPIRED THIS BAD DECISION, BURNED A
> >>CROSS ON A BLACK FAMILY'S LAWN, FORCING THEM TO MOVE TO CHICAGO.  THERE
> >>SEEMS TO BE A CONCERTED EFFORT TO CONCEAL THIS FACT AND TO PRETEND THAT
> >>THE DECISION IS ABOUT SOMEONE WHO BURNED A CROSS ON ** HIS ** LAWN.
> >>
> >>THE ATTEMPT TO MOVE THE FACTS OF THE CASE TO ONE'S "OWN" LAWN IS A LIE,
> >>PURE AND SIMPLE.
> >>
> >
> >Didn't the Supreme Court decision give as an example that  this law was 
> >unconstitutional because it would make it illegal to burn a cross on your 
> >own law.
> 
> I do not recall whether the SC used the possibility of a bias-crimes law
> making it impossible to burn a cross on one's own "law" [sic] and I do
> not much care.  First of all, it is false that bias laws have this
> effect; they refer to public behavior (save, of course, for public
> behavior which uses private property as a base of operations.)
> Secondly, this false counter example has been used deliberately and
> dishonestly to obscure the facts of Viktora's case.  Thirdly, not all of
> us HAVE goddamn lawns and as such this appeal has less charm for us
> apartment dwellers than it does for those who need burning crosses on
> their lawns in order to illuminate their collection of 1966
> GTOs-on-blocks (en bloc, as the French would say.)  

Of course you don't care.  Fairness and consistency in the application of the
law is not part of your agenda.  Suppression of dissent by legal fiat IS.  You
can lie about the import of this law all you want, that still won't change the
facts.  The law in fact WOULD have banned burning a cross on your own property,
but that doesn't matter to you anyway.  Your intent is to control expression,
NOT criminal behavior, and by legal fiat.

As for your juvenile complaint about some people not having lawns, not everyone
has dynamite.  That hardly invalidates laws which prohibit the use of same to
kill people and destroy property.  You should know by now that nobody except
Ed Nilges would fall for something like that anyway.

>   You're the one who is lying as you paint the picture of this 
> >decision encouraging assaults on your neighbors and their property and 
> >making such actions completely legal.
> 
> It certainly encourages assaults on my black neighbors, my gay
> neighbors, my feminist neighbors, etc., for it removes a much-needed
> legal protection.

There is no need for a legal "protection" against unpopular speech... unless
one wishes to replace it with OTHER unpopular speech such as yours.  My, I DO
seem to be on to something here, don't I?

> >And if you burn a flag on your lawn and you patriotic neighbors see it and 
> >become fearful of battery, they have a cause of action for assault.  
> 
> False, for a cross burning has a historical origin as a promise of an
> eventual battery (or worse.)  Cross burnings started in the
> Reconstruction period as a way for white southerners to intimidate newly
> empowered blacks and they were MEANT, as classic forms of assault, to
> cause apprehension and fear.  Whereas a flag burning is not a prelude to
> an assault (unless it's an assault by hypercharged patriots on the flag
> burners themselves.)  This means cross burning is an assault whereas
> flag burning is not (however, flag burning is stupid, masochistic,
> saying "please assault me", and profoundly offensive to veterans who
> generally had no choice but to follow the flag and whose feelings are
> therefore strikingly ambivalent mixtures of rage against the government
> and rage against those who'd burn the flag.)

No, it's absolutely true.  Flag burning has been the sine qua non of violent
groups around the world, who attack Americans and American interests.  By your
"logic", it's a threat of kidnapping, hostage holding and murder.  To a 
RATIONAL person, one who understands a RATIONAL, LEGAL concept of government 
and jurisprudence, NEITHER is an "assault".  It is such in the same extent that
a collection of Red Front Fighters was a "mob" in the eyes of a gang of 
opposing SA men.

> 
> >Or if your Republican neighbors hear you criticizing Bush and become 
> >fearful of battery, they have a cause of action for assault.  And if your 
> >fundmentalist christian neighbors see what you do in your bedroom and 
> >become fearful of battery, they have a cause of action for assault.  Is
> >that the dream world your looking for??
> 
> 
> If we are ignorant of history, we can make up countless "possible
> worlds."  If we know history, we know that burning crosses is a
> historical promise of racial assault.  

Well, we all know which category YOU fall into.  Get out the old brown shirt
Ed....


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