From: cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: misc.legal
Subject: Re: Skinhead speech protected, Supreme Court says (was: Re: Fuck You
Date: 15 Sep 92 16:47:20 GMT
Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA

In article <1992Sep12.021547.1223@Princeton.EDU>, egnilges@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) writes:
# What one writer has characterized as the promise of libertarian and
# free-market solutions, "freedom without power", produces Fascism by an
# almost chemical reaction.  Destroy East Germany and you don't get
# Arizona, you get skinhead punks beating up Turks.  Destroy the

With the apparent cooperation of former Stasi (East German secret
police) who are the bulk of current East German police.

# agriculture and mining industries of Idaho and you don't get silicon
# mountain, you get Ayran Nation.  Impose an American constitution on the

Aryan Nations isn't homegrown.  The moved up from California -- about
as far from laissez-faire as you get without state ownership of the
means of production.

# remains of the Hohenzollern monarchy of 1870-1918 and you don't get
# America, you get Adolf Hitler.

American constitution?  Can you provide some examples from the Weimar
Constitution?  The provisions I have seen quoted are quite different.
In any case, the U.S. didn't impose the Weimar Constitution -- that
was entirely a homegrown response.  I think you are confusing it with
the Bundesrepublik constitution after WW 2.

It was precisely the weak status of the German Laender relative to
the national government under the Weimar Republic that caused the
post-WW2 constitution to grant so much autonomy to the Laender
(though I understand that German tendencies towards centralization
have largely defeated this intent).  Even if a Hitler had been
elected in this country, the combination of:

1. armed population;

2. clear-cut limits to federal authority;

3. and well-established state loyalties;

would PROBABLY have defeated the extremes that Nazi Germany went to.

The advantages of a federal government for restraining the national
government aren't a recent theory, of course:

              Notwithstanding  the  military  establishments  in  the
              several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as
              the public  resources will  bear, the  governments  are
              afraid to  trust the  people with  arms.  And it is not
              certain that  with this  aid alone,  they would  not be
              able to  shake off their yokes.  But were the people to
              possess the  additional advantages of local governments
              chosen by  themselves, who  could collect  the national
              will, and  direct the  national force;  and of officers
              appointed out  of the militia, by these governments and
              attached both  to them  and to  the militia,  it may be
              affirmed with  the greatest  assurance, that the throne
              of  every  .i.tyranny;  in  Europe  would  be  speedily
              overturned, in  spite of  the  legions  which  surround
              it.[James Madison, Federalist 46]
-- 
Clayton E. Cramer {uunet,pyramid}!optilink!cramer  My opinions, all mine!
There can be no peace as long as AB 2601 lives.