I heard an interesting take on the Geller/1st Amendment thing this morning ...

[Warren DeMontague]

57. Yeah, I take the 1st Amendment pretty fucking seriously. I've certainly never claimed otherwise.

I had family members die in concentration camps, and yet I understand why the ACLU defended the right of Nazis to march in Skokie in the 1970s. Hell, I support that position- not because I lurrrrv Nazis, but because I know that the freedom of the most noxious-ass or unpopular views to be spoken is absolutely diametrically opposed to the kind of totalitarianism Nazis represent. To censor the Nazis would have been to give Naziism a victory. Letting them speak, and be spoken to, they lose.

So I don't fuck around when it comes to the 1st Amendment. And it never fails to depress the crap out of me when so-called "progressives" on DU seemingly can't wait to ditch the damn thing with all sorts of half-baked rationales to censor speech, entertainment, or media that bugs them, usually with nothing more than the justification that "butbutbut you don't understand- it REALLY bugs me!".

If I can handle living on a planet where Nazis march in Skokie, people can handle sharing the planet with pictures of naked boobs on the internet or cartoons about Mohmammed. (One of the most popular, long-running shows on Broadway right now is a play making fun of the LDS church. By your logic, shouldn't Parker and Stone be in jail right now?)

Hell, they don't have to handle them, even. They can scream and yell and get mad. They can ignore them. They can change the channel. What they can't do is get violent--- or use the government to try to surpress that speech.