List,
(1) Following Chomsky's argument, if you believe in freedom of speech, you
believe in freedom of speech precisely for those views which you find
abhorrent and are oppose to. Freedom of speech would be a non-issue if we
all agreed.
(2) If you silence fascists publically, then they move below ground, put
on suits, employ crafty euphemisms. You do not silence fascism; you simply
make it harder to detect fascists. I want fascists screaming as loudly as
possible. I want to know right where they are, preferably at all times. I
want Nazis with their SS pins on, goosestepping and waving swastikas,
right down mainstreet, where I can get a good look at their faces. I want
to get to know them.
(3) How can you refute fascist ideas, if you don't engage the debate?
(4) The US government forbade communists to speak of their ideas.
Communists were imprisoned, not for any deed, but what for they thought
and wrote about. Mussolini imprisoned Antonio Gramsci because of Gramsci's
ideas. The judge that sentenced Gramsci said "We have to stop this mind
from working for 20 years." I regard these actions as deplorable and the
sign a society that is not free. Why would those opposed to capitalism and
fascism seek the same actions?
When an individual on this channel argued that freedom of speech was a
bourgeois right, that it did not extend to those whose views were outside
the limits of bourgeois thought, I contemplated how one might
differentiate a proletarian right if it produced the same effect as a
bourgeois one. I can't think of how this might be accomplished. I am open
to persuasion on this matter, however. Nobody is stopping you from
convincing me.
(5) Would somebody oppose fascist ideology if it were discussed by
anti-fascists? Or do we only repress fascists who speak on fascism? I have
written publically on the issue of fascism. Is this to be permitted?
Whatever happened to "know thine enemy"?
(6) Fascism is authoritarian capitalism. Trying to sanitize capitalism
does the struggle for freedom and democracy no good at all.
I recognize class struggle and class consciousness. I am deeply committed
to the goals of socialist society and I committed to socialist values. But
on matter of free speech, I am an anarchist. No question about it. Let
Nazis talk. If they do more than talk, pull the trigger. It's
self-defense.
Love,
Andy Austin