# The Klu Klux Klan - Wrong or the right to free speech? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 31, 2006, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-klu-klux-klan-wrong-or-the-right-to-free-speech/378637 "2006-10-31T20:32:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2006, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-klu-klux-klan-wrong-or-the-right-to-free-speech/378637/41 "2006-11-04T03:07:43Z")
[QUOTE=Sarahfeena] Usually the line drawn is when the speech incites violence against someone else. [/QUOTE] Yes but the incitement has to be one that provokes a clear and present danger. I think it is permissible to write or say, “I think xxxx’s should be taken out and shot.” It is not permissible to say to a crowd when xxxx is at hand, “There’s the son-of-bitch, get him.” ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2006, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-klu-klux-klan-wrong-or-the-right-to-free-speech/378637/42 "2006-11-04T07:35:57Z")
[QUOTE=David Simmons] Yes but the incitement has to be one that provokes a clear and present danger. I think it is permissible to write or say, “I think xxxx’s should be taken out and shot.” It is not permissible to say to a crowd when xxxx is at hand, “There’s the son-of-bitch, get him.” [/QUOTE] “Clear and present danger” isn’t a term you want to use here, since it’s a reference to an older standard that no longer applies. But you’re right that if there’s no threat the violence will happen, it’s not incitement. ---
**Author:** ![iano](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@iano](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iano)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2006, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-klu-klux-klan-wrong-or-the-right-to-free-speech/378637/43 "2006-11-04T07:43:43Z")
[QUOTE=Marley23] “Clear and present danger” isn’t a term you want to use here, since it’s a reference to an older standard that no longer applies. But you’re right that if there’s no threat the violence will happen, it’s not incitement. [/QUOTE] What’s the line on "I think _someone_ [wink wink, nod nod] should shoot that guy’? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2006, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-klu-klux-klan-wrong-or-the-right-to-free-speech/378637/44 "2006-11-04T08:02:42Z")
[QUOTE=iano] What’s the line on "I think _someone_ [wink wink, nod nod] should shoot that guy’? [/QUOTE] Like I said (and so did others), it’s about the chance that “imminent lawless action” will result. I forgot about this myself, by the way, but _Brandenburg v. Ohio_ was actually a case involving a Klan leader. The Supreme Court said threw out his jail sentence and fine. [Here’s the decision.](http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=395&invol=444) > [@](#): > > Appellant, a Ku Klux Klan leader, was convicted under the Ohio Criminal Syndicalism statute for “advocat[ing] . . . the duty, necessity, or propriety of crime, sabotage, violence, or unlawful methods of terrorism as a means of accomplishing industrial or political reform” and for “voluntarily assembl[ing] with any society, group or assemblage of persons formed to teach or advocate the doctrines of criminal syndicalism.” Neither the indictment nor the trial judge’s instructions refined the statute’s definition of the crime in terms of mere advocacy not distinguished from incitement to imminent lawless action. Held: Since the statute, by its words and as applied, purports to punish mere advocacy and to forbid, on pain of criminal punishment, assembly with others merely to advocate the described type of action, it falls within the condemnation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Freedoms of speech and press do not permit a State to forbid advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action. Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 , overruled. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2006, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-klu-klux-klan-wrong-or-the-right-to-free-speech/378637/45 "2006-11-04T15:17:18Z")
[QUOTE=Aquila Be] I thought I made it clear that my comments involving restrictions on free speech were directed exclusively towards the type of speech that concerns advocating, recommending or urging the commission of harm or violence, including death, on others for any reason, including reasons based on some form of belief system. [/QUOTE] Um . . . [QUOTE=Aquila Be] Killing, injuring, insulting, ostracizing or declaring “unclean” people who do not belong to the favoured group (i.e. ethnic/national/racial and or cultic/religious, or any combination of these). [/QUOTE] “Ostracizing” is a very different thing than violence. By this standard, parents would go to jail for teaching children not to marry outside their own faith. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2006, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-klu-klux-klan-wrong-or-the-right-to-free-speech/378637/46 "2006-11-04T21:07:47Z")
[QUOTE=Aquila Be] I thought I made it clear that my comments involving restrictions on free speech were directed exclusively towards the type of speech that concerns advocating, recommending or urging the commission of harm or violence, including death, on others for any reason, including reasons based on some form of belief system. [/quote] No, you also included “insulting, ostracizing, or declaring ‘unclean.’” Killing and injuring are already against the law. If that’s all you were talking about, it’s unclear how you want the law to be changed, because it’s already doing exactly what you want it to do. > [@](#): > > For a government to deliberately ignore such threats on freedom of speech grounds would have the effect of curtailing the freedoms, including freedom of speech, of a targeted group. No, it does not. I can rattle off a long list of organizations that would want me dead because of a variety of aspects of who I am and how I live. This has not stopped me from expressing myself in the least. The KKK can talk about how much it hates blacks all day, it hasn’t stopped the NAACP, or Jesse Jackson, or Barack Obama, or Al Sharpton, from expressing themselves. > [@](#): > > No targeted group would feel safe in an environment where one group preaches hatred and death towards outsiders. The freedom of speech of the targeted group would be effectively stifled if the government allowed such intimidation to continue unchecked What’s more important to you? Feeling safe, or feeling free? I’d prefer the latter, thank you. > [@](#): > > A government would not be acting for the common good if it waited for the hate group to actually practice what it preached and commit an act of violence to members of a targeted group. Yes, it would, because freedom of speech is to the common good. The cornerstone of a free society is the open exchange of ideas. It’s easy to say, “These ideas over here don’t count. People aren’t allowed to express those ideas,” but how do you guarantee that only the ideas you disagree with get included in that group? Freedom of speech exists to protect the minority, not the mainstream. If everyone is okay with an idea, nobody is going to seek to squelch it. It’s those of us out on the fringes, who are saying things the mainstream doesn’t want to hear, who most need our freedom to speak protected, and if the protections of the first ammendment are relaxed, we will be the first ones to suffer from it. > [@](#): > > A society that permits any group to wish or injury death on people outside the confines of the group, for whatever reason, is not a free society. It is a society where thugs call the shots, in a manner of speaking. You seem to have a grave misunderstanding about what it means to live in a free society. ---
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2006, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-klu-klux-klan-wrong-or-the-right-to-free-speech/378637/47 "2006-11-04T21:34:47Z")
[QUOTE=Aquila Be] A society that permits any group to wish or injury death on people outside the confines of the group, for whatever reason, is not a free society. It is a society where thugs call the shots, in a manner of speaking. [/QUOTE] I really don’t think you could possibly be more wrong about this. It is exactly the opposite which is true…the more different ideas that are allowed to be expressed…whether they are good, bad, or indifferent, the more free a society is. A society where the government silences people based on what the government thinks is right, or what the government thinks your actions might be based on your expressed thoughts, is a fascist government. Not exactly what most of us think of as “freedom.” ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2006, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-klu-klux-klan-wrong-or-the-right-to-free-speech/378637/48 "2006-11-06T22:41:50Z")
> [@](#): > > There are still standing warehouses in England where slaves were processed before being sold in other areas of the world. England certainly got their hands very dirty with their involvement in the slave trade. Yeah, but processed slave loaf is pretty bad, what with all the fillers they use. I prefer all natural, meat-on-the-bone slave. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![shizaru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@shizaru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shizaru)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2006, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-klu-klux-klan-wrong-or-the-right-to-free-speech/378637/49 "2006-11-08T08:29:47Z")
[QUOTE=Quartz] Yes indeed. But also blacks in America need to get over it. Slavery was endemic across the world. It wasn’t just blacks being enslaved in Africa and taken to America; whites were taken from England and taken to North Africa and Arabia; the Romans enslaved everyone. China had slaves; Japan had _eta_, etc. Actually, pretty much every conquering group enslaved the survivors of the conquered. The rest of the world has got over it, so black America should do so too. [/QUOTE] Not. Worth. Commenting. On. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-klu-klux-klan-wrong-or-the-right-to-free-speech/378637.md?page=2)