Quote:
Originally Posted by The_Heretic
Free speech doesn't extend to terrorist groups or anyone else propagating hate and violence. They should've been arrested on the spot and criminally charged.
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I'm sorry but that's wrong. The Klan has won their rights to march, rally, whatever. It has been in and out of court for the better part of 40 years.
The hallmark of the protection of free speech is to allow "free trade in ideas," even ideas that the overwhelming majority of people might find distasteful or discomforting. Furthermore, the constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a state to forbid or proscribe 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. And the First Amendment also permits a state to ban a "true threat."
Virgina v Black, US sup ct 2003
If the words are not "fighting words" the gov't cannot ban speech. Period.
"True threats" encompass those statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals. The speaker need not actually intend to carry out the threat. Rather, a prohibition on true threats protects individuals from the fear of violence and from the disruption that fear engenders, in addition to protecting people from the possibility that the threatened violence will occur. Intimidation in the constitutionally proscribable sense of the word is a type of true threat, where a speaker directs a threat to a person or group of persons with the intent of placing the victim in fear of bodily harm or death.
As long as the Klan does not tell people to go hang black people, there is little anyone can do about it. Remember these people are US citizens and have rights to due process and the same protections that you and I share. As much as we may not like it.