For the Right to March
Freedman, Monroe
FOR THE RIGHT TO MARCH MONROE FREEDMAN Professor Freedman is a member of the National Advisory Council of the American Jewish Committee's Institute for Human Relations and a member of the...
...If there is anything that will prevent that prediction from coming true, or mitigate its force, it is a vital Bill of Rights...
...If not absolute, the First Amendment is more nearly so than it has ever been in our history, and we should strive to make it still more so...
...What I predict has already happened—not in Libya or Uganda, but in the incubator of American ideals of liberty, Great Britain...
...they would use it as a launching pad for the destruction of Israel...
...Agree ? Disagree A principal tenet of the Moslem faith is the concept of the jihad, Holy War, against non-believers...
...We should choose not to let the Nazis impose their laws upon us...
...The ground was thus prepared for appropriate action when the United Nations declared that Zionism is racism...
...There is another kind of survival—survival from the denial of our own essential qualities...
...religious, racial, ethnic, national or regional affiliation," and that "promotes and incites hatred against persons by reason of their race, national origin, or religion____" Under that same standard, of course, the television showing of "Holocaust" would be banned...
...In Bolt's A Man for All Seasons, the following colloquy takes place: More...
...I am a civil libertarian...
...That being so, we have no choice but to defend the First Amendment rights even of the people we despise most...
...That is not speech, but a symbol...
...That, indeed, is the heart of the issue...
...The essence of our Bill of Rights is that it is designed to protect minorities by imposing restraints upon the majority's passions and the majority's win...
...Surely symbols are not entitled to the same protection as is speech...
...Can we ignore that, in modern times, Japanese-Americans were dispossessed of their homes and businesses and deported hundreds of miles to be interned in camps behind barbed wire...
...Where do we stand, that is, on the destruction of political freedom, and on the power of the state to deny rights to a "despised" minority...
...To maintain the contrary, and to seek to weaken or limit the salutary restraints imposed by the First Amendment, is contrary to the interests of Jews, of Judaism, and of Jewish survival...
...The Court has also upheld the right of a speaker at a school board meeting to condemn others at the meeting as "motherfuckers...
...we have no choice but to defend the First Amendment rights even of the people we despise most...
...In April of 1974, the NUS barred all "openly racist and fascist" organizations from British campuses, and decreed that representatives of such organizations were to be prevented from speaking "by whatever means necessary (including disruption of the meeting...
...Our faith does not proclaim, "Love thy enemy...
...Thus, the Arabs also have enormous control over the jobs of hundreds of thousands of Americans...
...The reasons for that action were set forth in a 43-count statement of condemnation, which included the charge that the Society had had the effrontery to sponsor Israeli speakers...
...Actually, I have cheated...
...The drive-in movie case, referred to above, was a "pornography" case...
...On the contrary, I hate the Nazis, and I hate everything they stand for...
...That is not a prediction, but a present fact...
...Arab countries have spent millions of dollars to...
...The intolerable threat to freedom, and to the survival of minority rights, comes when that kind of judgment is made not by individuals, but by the state—that is, when the government arrogates the power to put its imprimatur upon "truth" or upon speech that is "worthwhile," and to condemn speech of which the government disapproves...
...Of course there are...
...The South African racists, the Zionists and fascists share this belief in common...
...As Justice Jackson expressed it: "If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, or other matters of opinion----" Similarly, the Supreme Court has held: "Above all else, the First Amendment means that government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content...
...The case involved the effort by a village to forbid drive-in movie theaters to show pictures containing scenes of nudity which could be seen from public and private property nearby...
...But when I make that judgment, I make it as an individual...
...And when the last law was down and the devil turned round on you—where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat...
...The lesson that Judaism teaches us (is) that one must turn every experience into a life force...
...conversely, racism equals Zionism, and Zionism equals Jews...
...Therefore, any attack on the Bill of Rights, any effort to limit to any degree those restraints upon the majority, is an attack upon the Jewish community's most significant shield against the omnipresent threat of oppression...
...Are we really prepared to withdraw First Amendment protections from such symbols as the peace sign, the Israeli flag, and the Star of David...
...If there is anyone who doubts that if the swastika goes, the Mögen David goes next, let me make a prediction...
...Out of that fact there arises an ominous prediction: we will see in the United States some of the worst anti-Semitism that this country has ever known...
...The day is not far away when Israeli and Jewish speakers will be barred from university campuses because what they represent is too despicable to be tolerated by a civilized academic community...
...One must not let the enemy impose his laws...
...I am also a committed Jew...
...A Washington, D.C., newspaper has asked whether there are "no useful differences" between Vietnam protests (which, ironically, that paper once deplored), Anita Bryant's antihomosexual movement, and a Nazi demonstration in Skokie...
...Just as Black civil rights leaders in the south were protected by Supreme Court decisions in favor of the Ku Klux Klan and other racists, so, someday, those of us in the Jewish community will be relying for our protection upon the authority of Skokie v. National Socialist Party of America...
...But the swastika...
...If any separation of those roles is appropriate in the context of the present discussion, I am writing this article in the latter capacity, rather than the former— writing, that is, not as a stubborn and rebellious son of Judaism, but as a Jew who has recognized and assumed responsibilities as a member of A m Yisrael...
...It is argued, for example, that pornography is not protected...
...Similarly, the Passover Haggadah would be proscribed, because of its portrayal of a lack of virtue in the Egyptians...
...to seek to weaken or limit the salutory restraints imposed by the First Amendment is contrary to the interests of Jews, of Judaism, and of Jewish survival...
...An Arab student group sponsored a Palestinian Week, but a Jewish organization was prevented from following that with a Jewish Week (note well: the forbidden activity was not even designated an "Israeli" Week...
...Each professes to be the Chosen People...
...Elie Wiesel has written...
...person or group of persons by reason of...
...Yes, I'd give the devil benefit of law...
...The logic is ineluctable: Zionism is racism...
...Arab investments in this country total 50 billion dollars in cash, and are increasing daily...
...Words themselves are symbols...
...Agree ? Disagree If you agree with any of the preceding statements, you have just committed "group übel," in violation of the ordinances passed by the Village of Skokie to exclude the Nazis...
...What would you do...
...Roper: I'd cut down every law in England to do that...
...For my own safety's sake...
...I have been discussing tactics—the tactics of survival against oppression from without...
...Note, however, how limited even that exception is...
...For example, the Court has upheld the right to wear a jacket bearing the slogan "Fuck the Draft...
...buy the services of some of our most influential lobbyists, people like Clark Clifford, John Connally, and former Senator J. William Ful-bright...
...lack of virtue in...
...Further, the Jewish Society at one university was stricken from the NUS register...
...We should choose to live in a system of political freedom, a system in which the majority is restrained from denying the rights of any minority...
...In England, the National Union of Students (NUS) has enormous financial and political power over all important student activities...
...Let me say explicitly, therefore, that I am not speaking on behalf of the Nazis...
...Opinion Poll Indicate whether you agree or disagree with each of the following propositions: Under Hitler, the Germans proved to be genocidal maniacs...
...The problem, however, is that all communication is through symbols...
...For constitutional purposes, pornography means the explicit portrayal of intimate sexual relations in pictures (and, even then, the publication might not be subject to a censorship...
...In the United States, Israel has never been more vulnerable than she is today, and American Jews have never been more vulnerable than we are today...
...Agree ? Disagree The Palestinians cannot be trusted to set up a sovereign nation on the West Bank and Gaza...
...We should choose to live in a society with a Bill of Rights, which includes a First Amendment that is as close to being absolute as it can be...
...FOR THE RIGHT TO MARCH MONROE FREEDMAN Professor Freedman is a member of the National Advisory Council of the American Jewish Committee's Institute for Human Relations and a member of the National Board of Directors of the American Civil Liberties Union...
...D'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then...
...Where do we Jews stand on what the Nazis stand for...
...That is, you have expressed a view that "portray(s...
...emphasis added) Certainly, the First Amendment is not absolute...
...That apparently insignificant case produced, from the present Supreme Court, one of the most important and valuable pronouncements we have ever had on the meaning of the First Amendment: "A State or municipality may protect individual privacy by enacting reasonable time, place and manner regulations applicable to all speech irrespective of content...
...More: Oh...
...Agree ? Disagree Because of the Holocaust, I am reluctant to visit Germany or buy German goods...
...Further, "obscene" words, even of a "fighting word" sort, cannot be proscribed unless, perhaps, in a one-on-one, face-to-face context...
...But when the government, acting as censor, undertakes selectively to shield the public from some kinds of speech on the ground that they are more offensive than others, the First Amendment strictly limits its power...
...The Arab propaganda machine, particularly in the Midwest and West, is far more powerful and effective than the insignificant effort being made in support of Israel...
...If that could happen in Great Britain, is it not possible that it could happen here...
...Cut a great road through the law to get after the devil...
...indeed, it has already been protested by German-Americans (who are not Nazis) because of the embarrassment it causes to them and their children...
...Israeli speakers, including the Ambassador from Israel, were hooted off platforms at British universities and otherwise prevented from speaking...
...Another charge read: "The essence of racism is the mythological belief in race superiority...
...One further quotation is of particular significance, because it comes from a case in which the question might well have been raised whether civil libertarians should even have wasted their time on it...
...The Arabs control our nation's principal sources of energy, and thereby have substantial control over American industry and over each American's ability to heat a home or drive a car...
Vol. 3 • June 1978 • No. 7
