"Black neighbors to picket woman's Confederate flag"

[rubato]

This community is having an interesting conversation within itself about the meaning of symbols.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101015/ap_ ... _neighbors

SUMMERVILLE, S.C. – Annie Chambers Caddell, whose ancestors fought in the Civil War, insists the Confederate flag flying over her home is an important reminder of her heritage. But for her neigbors in this tree-shrouded, historically black neighborhood, it's an unpleasant reminder of a by-gone era they'd rather not see every time they pass by her house.

Caddell, who is white, moved into the Brownsville neighborhood in June and began flying the flag about a month later. Since then, more than 200 residents signed a protest petition, and now neighbors plan to march Saturday along the street in front of Caddell's house.

"My first reaction was they are going to do what they think they need to do," said Caddell, 50. "My second reaction was I'm not going to be here."

Caddell plans to be on nearby James Island on Saturday for the wedding of a friend who is black. She tearfully told the town council earlier this week that she is not racist.
... "

See link for remainder of story.
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Is she really entitled to say that the confederate flag means only what she says it does and nothing else? Or has the unchallenged use of that flag as a direct symbol of racist oppression given it a meaning which she cannot ignore? Is she deluding herself when she says she can celebrate her family's history of fighting to enslave blacks without supporting their evil cause too?

Modern Germans have made a much better job of dealing with a sorry history by repudiating Nazism, admitting it was wrong, and paying reparations to its victims. The American south has never been so honest about their own past and continue to suffer the consequences, including violence to the truth.


yrs,
rubato

[loCAtek]

She may not be racist, but that does sound selfish if she thinks her perspective on a symbol is the only one. It's also one thing to keep a confederate flag as a memento, and other to officially fly it as colors. That's not like putting up a garden flag, it's a proclamation of territory. She really should look up flag protocols.

[oldr_n_wsr]

Modern Germans have made a much better job of dealing with a sorry history by repudiating Nazism, admitting it was wrong, and paying reparations to its victims.

Don't they also forbid the owning of anything associated with the Nazi's, severely limit speaking favorably about Nazi's and block any kind of Nazi assciated website?

[rubato]

Modern Germans have made a much better job of dealing with a sorry history by repudiating Nazism, admitting it was wrong, and paying reparations to its victims.

Don't they also forbid the owning of anything associated with the Nazi's, severely limit speaking favorably about Nazi's and block any kind of Nazi assciated website?

As do the French government. With understandable justification.

But both have a burden of guilt in supporting the worst atrocities of anti-semitism; as do nearly all Roman Catholic countries in Europe. The only countries which resisted were protestant (Norway and Denmark) or Eastern Orthodox (Bulgaria). All others joined in the holocaust with Catholic fervor.

yrs,
rubato

[Jarlaxle]

Actually, one country where Jews weren't persecuted (indeed, they were well-represented in the ruling party until the country was taken over by the Germans) was...Italy. Yes, fascist (and overwhelmingly Catholic) Italy.

[Gob]

Nazi iconography remains to this day heavily restricted in Germany. As German law forbids the production of Nazi devotionalia, such items come mostly (illegally) from the USA and northern European countries. Current Neo-Nazi websites mostly depend on hosting in the USA and Canada, and use other terms for Nazi ideas and symbols -- for example, the swastika may be referred to as a sun disc, sun wheel, hooked cross, wolf's cross, wolf's hook, black sun, or dark star.

http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Neo-Nazi

[oldr_n_wsr]

I always thought it's better to let them have their views right out in the open rather than "banning" those views. Better to know who, what where than to wonder.

[Scooter]

As a general rule, you're probably right. But it was in the very politically and intellectually free environment of Germany in the 1920s and early 1930s that Nazism managed to take root. Germany saw first hand how a demogogue could exploit popular fear and prejudice to gain power, and was determined that it wouldn't happen again. They have crafted these very narrow restrictions on political and civil rights and have otherwise remained a very free society where neo-nazis have been relegated to the lunatic fringe, so, in their particular context, I can't find fault with their approach.

[Jarlaxle]

I can. I find fault with all police states that criminalize speech.

[Scooter]

All states criminalize speech, the only differences are how much and why, and whether it creates a slippery slope towards more repression. You don't like the fact that Germany does not want to regress to Nazism, that is fine. Other countries were laughing at the U.S. during every attempt to criminalize flag burning and every time someone was arrested for wearing a t-shirt with messaging critical of George W. Bush.

[Jarlaxle]

As I said, I find fault with all police states that criminalize speech.

[Scooter]

Actually, one country where Jews weren't persecuted (indeed, they were well-represented in the ruling party until the country was taken over by the Germans) was...Italy. Yes, fascist (and overwhelmingly Catholic) Italy.

The Italian Racial Laws, depriving Jews of citizenship, barring them from certain professions, prohibiting mixec marriages with them, prohibiting them from employing "Aryans", and allowing the confiscation of their property, were passed in 1938. There were a few Jews in the Fascist government, "well represented" is probably a stretch. Mussolini's position, at first, was that there were so few Jews in Italy that it wasn't worth the fuss to bother with them, but as the desire to imitate Germany became fashionable, eventually he conceded. Jews did not begin to be deported to the camps until after the German occupation in 1943, however.

[rubato]

All states criminalize speech, the only differences are how much and why, and whether it creates a slippery slope towards more repression. You don't like the fact that Germany does not want to regress to Nazism, that is fine. Other countries were laughing at the U.S. during every attempt to criminalize flag burning and every time someone was arrested for wearing a t-shirt with messaging critical of George W. Bush.

Well thats a good point.

My knee-jerk reaction is to prefer a more absolute standard for freedom of speech. But what if it is true that such a standard will lead to fascism? I have to admit that it is more an article of faith that it will not do so necessarily than it is empirically justifiable. Look at how quickly hatred has been mustered for illegal immigrants and how many people don't mind killing people to enforce immigration laws. Several hundred per year, every year, at the moment, and the common chorous of teabaggers and others is to make enforcement even more severe.

yrs,
rubato

[Sue U]

My knee-jerk reaction is to prefer a more absolute standard for freedom of speech. But what if it is true that such a standard will lead to fascism? I have to admit that it is more an article of faith that it will not do so necessarily than it is empirically justifiable. Look at how quickly hatred has been mustered for illegal immigrants and how many people don't mind killing people to enforce immigration laws. Several hundred per year, every year, at the moment, and the common chorous of teabaggers and others is to make enforcement even more severe.

In the marketplace of ideas, snake oil continues to be a big seller. There's always been a reliable political appetite for hatred and scapegoating. With the wealth of historical precedents available as examples, it's frankly disappointing that so many people still willingly swallow poison.

[Sue U]

As I said, I find fault with all police states that criminalize speech.

Really? So it's wrong to criminalize making terroristic threats? Conspiracy to commit murder? Extortion? What about civil liability for libel?

Scooter's point is spot on.

[Big RR]

Come on sue, conspiracy requires an act in furtherance of the conspiracy not just speech. And while we in the US have, IMHO, gone way overboard in classifying speech as terroristic threats, there still has to be a threat of harm that is immediate and credible--someone blowing off steam is not making a terroristic threat (or should not be, but who knows what the speech police have tried to do). As for civil liability, I see no problem with libel and slander as they currently are defined--but again, as I'm sure you know, civil liability is not criminal liability.

I'm with jarl here (something I don't say all that often); let a government outlaw speech based on content alone, and you lose a lot--something you will never get back. The Germans can do what they want--it's their country--but I'm not going to play along and say the end justifies the means. indeed, restriction of free speech is a far more certain path to a totalitarians end than some jerks parading in clown suits and yelling idiotic slogans.

[Scooter]

It's easy to say, but the German example has proved your wrong. It took 15 years of what can be called the first real freedom of speech in Germany for it to descend into the horror of Nazism. In 65 years of imposing some very narrowly defined limits on speech, there is not nor has there ever been even a hint that Germany was ready to turn back the clock and embrace Nazism or any other form of totailitarianism.

All that is at issue here where to draw the line between what constitutes legitimate free speech and what constitutes a verbal act that may be prosecuted. Germany casts that net slightly wider than the U.S., perhaps, but EVERY country draws that line somewhere.

Is the German model appropriate for the U.S.? Of course not, because the two countries operate out of completely different historical contexts. But let's not pretend, please, that context is completely irrelevant or that there are any absolute principles at stake here.

[Big RR]

No Scooter, I won't pretend; i will state unequivocally that there is an absolute principle at stake here. You may be content to allow a government to disallow speech it considers politically dangerous, but I think it is far more dangerous to give a government that power over the citizenry. Any unpopular (with the leadership) ideas can, and will eventually be banned by such governments as "dangerous", and any authrotiarian regime will always be be able to sustain itself. Look at authoritarian regimes and tell me how many have any semblance of free speech.

And FWIW, I reject that the nazis were able to sieze power because of some liberalized freedom of speech; is it your contention that the nazis somehow were able to hypnotize an entire nation into bringing them into power by mere speech? If the authorities had cracked down on the many rampant acts of violence done by the nazis and the perversions of the courts and laws in many areas sympathetic to the nazis, they would not have been in any position to sieze power. If the former allies did not insist on crippling reparations and allowed the economy of germany to develop, rather than plunging it into unimaginable inflation, they would not have siezed power. But it's much easier to pretend they were somehow ubermen with a message that cannot be resisted and enslaves all who hear it; hell, no guilt there--it wasn't thir fault, Germans just couldn't help themesleves. And we need to keep that message hidden lest we be enslaved against our will again, right? You really believe that?

And, by th way, what do you mean by a "verbal act"?

[Sue U]

Big RR, I agree that any attempted restriction on speech should be viewed with the highest suspicion and rejected if not necessitated by the most compelling reasons, but the point is that there is always a line somewhere. Whether that is terroristic threats (however narrowly you wish to define that) or incitement to riot, or something called "obscenity," even our own free-speech culture has limits. Of course, our American sensibilirties dictate that those limits should be pushed at every opportunity to test their necessity and to constantly reexamine the principles of social order at issue; we believe that is what our society requires for its continued evolution. Other societies (UK and Aus, from what I read here) are much more restrictive in what kind of public speech is tolerated, but as far as I can tell they don't seem to be spiraling into totalitarian dictatorship. As much as I like our model -- which is an awful lot -- I'm not at all sure it's necessarily the only viable means to maintain an open and democratic society.

[Scooter]

If there were an absolute principle involved there would be absolutely no exceptions. I could say I was coming to your house tonight at precisely 8:03 pm to rape your wife and daughters and would have committed no crime. I could phone a school and say that I planted a bomb that will go off in 15 minutes time and would have committed no crime. I could be a Mafia Don who orders one of his henchmen to murder an enemy and I would have committed no crime. Yet all of those are crimes, and I think that you believe they should be also.

Nothing whatsoever that I said suggest that Germans could not control themselves. Nevertheless millions upon millions of Germans listened to what Hitler had to say - his vitriol against Jews, the incredibly violent language he directed at anyone he considered to be an "enemy" of the German state, and so on - and were sufficiently convinced by what he said to vote for him, such that the Nazi Party became the largest party in the Reichstag. Nazis didn't terrorize millions upon millions of Germans, and yet millions upon millions of Germans voted for them anyway. And there were other countries whose economies were in as bad a shape as Germany's that didn't succumb to Nazism (at least not until German troops came swarming over the border).

Hitler offered the Germans someone to hate as a scapegoat for all of the problems, and a large minority (probably eventually a majority) took him up on it. That doesn't absolve them of anything, it makes them guilty for everything he subsequently did.

Verbal act i.e. an action performed using words e.g. uttering a threat to do someone violence, ordering or inciting someone to commit a crime, slander and libel, etc.