Why Is The "White Supremacist" Movement So Strong?

Rights as ideals are one thing, but political power is another. People did not have political power irrespective of class.

It means people need to stop worshiping them.

I never claimed the ideals didn't have merit.

 

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I can point out quite a few wherein the state is not allowed to persecute people because of their words or political associations.

I can also recognize an evasive tactic and dishonest qualifier when I see one. Which is to say that I read your response as a concession of the point.

That is the exactly opposite of what he said. Although he'd have been perfectly accurate to describe you as such, and I note that you expend a great deal of energy arguing with me despite my having repeatedly characterized you in equivalent terms. Which is to say, again: you're just blustering. It's obvious that you come here for exactly that reason.

 

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Well, the course of the forces of the material world ended up extending the right to vote, and speak, and associate freely, to all classes, genders and races, regardless of what the Founders thought or intended about that. So your own reasoning there argues against your point. Good job.

 

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Let's recall that your entire complaint here is based on the fact that low-class people - such as the white supremacists in question - do indeed have the rights enshrined in the Constitution, in theory as well as fact, regardless of what the Founders might have intended.

In the specific sense of abolishing freedom of speech and association, you mean.

Yes you did.

 

They do now. No one ever said the Framers were perfect, or that their original ideas could not be improved upon.

Who worships them? Do you ever stay on-topic?

Sure you did. Just a few posts ago you said: "The Constitution was written by slave-owning aristocrats nearly 250 years ago. Why should we care?" You dismissed their ideals out of hand based on an overly-simplistic interpretation of their collective character (with no regard whatsoever to who they were as individuals, of course; if they were a people unto themselves you would be guilty of bigotry).

 

Please do so. I imagine the United States will not be among them, considering that it is illegal to be a communist in the United States, and I'll not have to remind you of Joseph McCarthy's wonderful legacy.

No, it's more like a recognition that political ideals rarely manifest themselves in the real world.

That's true, but it also means there are forces which oppose the emancipation of the masses. Hence, class struggle. We are not given our "rights", we take them by force.

It doesn't exist in the first place. And no, in the sense of suppressing racist and backwards organizations like white supremacist groups. For Pete's sake, at the very least, deal with the Aryan Brotherhood (confirmed criminal organization).

They can, but that doesn't mean all their ideas were good ideas.

I'm responding to your statement about the Constitution being "in the way" of my "ideas", as if we must continue to care about old colonial documents. My position is that there is no reason to care. That is all. That's all I said.

 

That's not true. Where do you get this nonsense?

McCarthy is considered a villain in the modern American public consciousness. To be compared to him or his tactics carries strongly negative connotations.

That's great. Meanwhile, back in topic-land, your complaint is exactly that the ideals of the right to free speech and association are, in fact, extended to various low-class types that you'd prefer to repress.

That's great and all, but back here in topic-land you're in the middle of arguing for the forceful removal of the First Amendment rights to free speech and association. Remember?

Then why are you complaining that white supremacists in the USA have the rights of free speech and association, demanding that such be stripped from them, and attacking the validity of the Constitution which prevents that? Do you even keep track of your own position, or do you just fire off whatever bit of self-congratulation and accusation springs to mind at any given moment?

The right to free speech and association is meaningless unless it applies to everyone, most emphatically people who you virulently disagree with.

What would you have us do? The state already investigates and prosecutes their criminal activities, all the time.

Specifically, you think that the freedoms of speech and association are bad ideas.

The Constitution is a living document, not some "colonial" relic. It has been amended and reinterpretted repeatedly. It is the central, underlying legal basis of the entire US state and system of governance. Your dismissal of it as some irrelevant relic is, frankly, bizarre.

 

Illegal to be a communist in the United States? That'll be news to the US Communist Party.

McCarthy said the US government had been infiltrated by communists. After the fall of the USSR we discovered that it had been infiltrated much more widely by communists than even McCarthy claimed.

His tactics were stupid, but he underestimated the size of the problem.

 

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Indeed, but the mistake usually comes from recalling a law that bars communists from working for the federal government.

In truth, that's the first time I've heard that claim. I wouldn't be surprised if it was true, but to what evidence are you referring?

 

Sounds good to me. If you don't support the US Constitution, you shouldn't be working for the US government.

A lot of documents were declassified and released at the end of the cold war. I couldn't point you to specifics off the top of my head, but there were a number of news stories in the years after the USSR collapsed when we gained access to KGB records and the Western intelligence agencies released some of what they had collected as secrecy was no longer considered important.

 

I took the trouble of tracking down the particular code. This is the basis of the suppression of communists during the Cold War.

50 U.S.C § 841

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/841

This is but one of several similar laws, and this doesn't include state laws.

The point is, free speech didn't and doesn't exist in the United States. And the other Western counties are even worse, because unlike the U.S., there is no formal declaration or "bill of rights" in the United Kingdom and Canada (not sure about Australia, but it is a part of the Commonwealth, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was similar). The U.K. has no formal "constitution", and it is technically legal for the governments of Canada or the United Kingdom to issue a notice restricting your free speech.

And what about Germany, Austria, and several other European countries? Holocaust denial and advocacy of Nazism or related ideologies is strictly forbidden.

Freedom of speech!

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This has nothing to do with class. It has to do with racist organizations. Several E.U. states ban neo-Nazi organizations, and they are just fine.

See above

Criminalize membership in the organization.

They aren't bad ideas. They are just ideas. They don't actually exist, as I've pointed out.

See above where I point out the code. Also, the CP USA is hardly a "communist" party. After World War II, they became a mild reformist party and even endorsed Barack Obama.

 

Really? The Rosenburgs, Alger Hiss, and hundreds of others were all Soviet agents as revealed by the Venona Intercepts.

 

way less spies than the West used on Soviet Union/Russia. And not just the ones that got caught like Gary Powers, but many CIA infiltrated Russians like Shevchenko and Ogorodnik. A dollar goes further than a heart.

 

And what is your source for that? As far as I know, the one area in which the Soviets kicked our ass was espionage.

 

what's my source on that? The Fall of Soviet Union is my source on that. The mastermind behind Pinochet's revolution in Chile, Milton Friedman's ideas had been carried unto the governing party members of Soviet Union mainly Mr. Gorbachev who just didn't have enough time to fully break the country apart, sadly to the West.

 

Maybe so, but it was still in effect at some point, which demonstrates that "free speech" doesn't really exist anywhere. And you don't know when I was born, so don't pretend like you do.

 

I never said they were.

That's not all you said. You implied that their ideas had no merit because of who they were...

 

There's NO maybe about it. Just a quick serach on the repeal of it got me MANY hits. Here's just one: http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/50C23.txt

As to your age, you've given away far more than you realize. You're no more than 25 and 18 is pretty likely.

 

Again, it doesn't diminish my point. I used the word "maybe" needlessly, I'll admit.

The only thing I've revealed is that I was born in the U.S.S.R but I am too young to have any meaningful memories, so I suppose you are right.You're close: I'm 24 =)