People forget how Paul Von Hindenburg betrayed his constitution and his own oaths by eroding German democracy during the Weimar Republic, and capping it off by appointing Hitler to the Chancellory – which he promised he’d never do.
Hindenburg’s tragic legacy should be as well known as that of the blimp. Both went down in flames.
Not all speech is protected by the bill or rights, nor is all media. There is the same issue around pornography. Should all pornography be tolerated as “speech”, or are there necessary boundaries – as a society we have decided on necessary boundaries. For example, depictions of the rape and murder of children are illegal.
Calling for the “Overthrow of the Jews” or chanting “blood and soil” while carrying firearms, clubs, torches with live and open flame, while wearing Nazi helmets to me is in the same category. This is true not only because as a child in Michigan I could walk around the block and see a sign that said “No Jews, N–—– or dogs allowed” – and the owners closed it and turned it into a parking lot when a lawsuit was filed rather than let their children swim with folks like me.
Not only because many of my friend’s parents had concentration camp numbers on their arms – one survivor remarried to another survivor in the red-lined [Jews could only buy property in limited areas due to mortgage red lining] town where I lived, whose schools closed for Jewish holidays.
Not only because my only maternal uncle died in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade at the Battle of Sur Los Banos, helping protect a retreat and trying to prevent World War II.
Not only because my father, a member of the John Reed Society was arrested with friends when they occupied the German Consulate in Detroit in the early 1930s and chained themselves to furniture.
No – one stops the toxic rot and internal insurrection early or pays the price.
A body of case law will grow up as to what is “free speech” and what is “threat speech” or “insurrectionary hate speech” if there are those who challenge the steps towards what to me looks like insurrectionary speech [which is also not legal].
Charlottesville alt Right organizer declares senate bid in Florida as a Republican http://www.law.com/sites/almstaff/2017/08/15/can-your-lawyer-be-a-white-supremacist/?slreturn=20170717212840
I have long said that the only people I do not tolerate are those who do not tolerate. As for Hindenburg, it seems he avoided appointing Hitler as long as he could through two elections where Hitler had a good claim to the Chancellorship. After the 1933 election he thought naively it turns out that with Nazi political fortunes on the decline Hitler could be controlled, yet he was the leader of the largest single party in the parliament and that person in these systems usually does get the first crack at forming a government.