From: egnilges@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges)
Subject: Once more into the breach, dear friends (was: Re: Ted babbles again
Originator: news@nimaster
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1992 16:13:00 GMT

In article <1992Sep12.044712.22743@midway.uchicago.edu> thf2@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
>In article <1992Sep12.021547.1223@Princeton.EDU> egnilges@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) writes:
>>But according to the arguments of Ted "Tedster" Frank, Charles "Goofus"
>>Perez, Henry "Jackanapes" Schaffer, and Chris "Knucklehead" Morton, Adolf
>>is a noble citizen exercising his right of free speech, is he not?
>>Criticising poor Adolf creates a "chilling effect" on his freedom
>>of speech and as such should not be done.  Booting him off the net would
>>violate, would it not, Adolf's First Amendment rights.
>
>Sorry.  Don't agree with statements two or three in your paragraph.
>You'll just have to misattribute them to someone else, because I
>certainly never made any arguments of the kind.

Tedster, you cannot escape the logical consequences of your silly
beliefs.  If you support the hate speech decision, then you must let
"Adolf" post.

>
>>Powers That Be; Jesse Jackson in the past mounted a serious, credible
>>alternative to centrist politics, so credible that he was carefully
>>destroyed by (false) charges of anti-Semitism,
>
>If a Jewish candidate said "nigger" in reference to blacks, what
>would your reaction be, Ed?

Tedster, let's look at the focus of these media debates about who is the
anti-Semite.  Jews are still the focus of much discrimination in our
society, and the idiot economic policies of the past twelve years are
indirectly anti-Semitic in that they have created Ayran Nation-style
movements among displaced workers in preference to giving these people
meaningful lives and jobs.  This is what Jews have to fear...not
insulting words such as "Hymietown" in and of themselves.  I don't mind
being called a Kraut, UNLESS it's a preface to being beat up, or denied
a job.  Call me anything, just don't call me late fer dinner.

Yet, with the instinct for the trivial which is the hallmark of the
media, if a pol lets slip a perjorative word, he's ipso facto a racist
or an anti-Semite in the logic of the sound bite.  This is the idiot
nonthought of the lynch mob.

One of my Chicago business associates has the unfortunate habit of
telling funny, and sexist, stories.  When he saw a bumper sticker on my
car saying "another man against violence against women", the guy asked
if he could write under it "'cept on Saturday night."  Yet this man has
been described by mutual female acquaintances as one of the least sexist
men they know, and as far as I can determine this is the case.  The
"humor" is a legacy of this guy's years as a salesman (a salesman who's
read more than you, I'd hazard.)

The REAL racism, sexism and anti-Semitism in our society has nothing to
do with unfortunate phrases and funny stories, although of course if a
man or woman of a different race asks you to clean up your act, you do.
REAL racism is what's happening to the hyperactive black Cub Scout in
the troop with which I worked a few years ago...kid could do math at 100
miles per hour, but his parents beat him up in the homeless shelter
where he lived, and his school hadn't got around to arithmetic yet.  I
submit that it is nauseating hypocrisy, when you support economic
policies that structurally unemploy black men and cause white men 
to join Ayran Nation, to talk about anti-Semitism as being in full 
bloom in words and phrases like "Hymietown." 
>
>>I am not defending Adolf; he should be booted off the net.  And I have a
>>coherent set of reasons for denying him his "free speech" whereas the
>>closet racists who encourage the Adolfs and Robert A. Viktoras do not.
>
>Meanwhile, Ed, I'm waiting for you to define a hate-speech law that would
>ban Viktora and "Amos'n'Andy," but leave uncensored what you called the
>"high quality" work of the Marx Brothers and the "honesty" of Henry Miller.

You want law to be a sort of machine that operates of itself while you
go off and golf, or buy a BMW, or play with yourself.  Indeed, part of
the attraction of law 'n economix to you is the fact that it appears to
render decidable that which appears to you to be undecidable (eg., that
which takes thought.)  For you can replace the judge with a cash
register.

The original obscenity decision, dear Ted, made "redeeming social value"
a criteria.  Although (unsurprisingly, given their lack of intellect)
the sitting Supreme Court justices forgot to think about "redeeming
social value", it is obvious to the imaginative that the doctrine can be
generalized and applied to Viktora, whose acts had zero-or-negative
social value, as well as to Amos 'n Andy which is (quite apart from its
racism) garbage.

The law does not tell you this, and of course this implies that the
citizen (lawyer or not) has to decide and that the citizen has to have
access to levers that allow him to make his decision effective.  The
fact that lawyers often find the notion of citizen amusing (after all,
the citizen's time isn't billable) and the fact that elites are busy
dismantling levers of power that enable the citizen's voice to be heard
(including hate speech laws at the local level) does not mean that this
isn't right.