Letters

...Wendy C. Wilson Brattleboro, Vermont Despite the historical evidence of human fallibility, we face a continuing threat from those willing to sacrifice civil liberties in their quest for the perfect society...

...We must show these groups how unwelcome and despised they are—not by gag rule or mob rule, but by deliberate nonassimilation into the society at large...

...If we make noise, we can lose our jobs and be evicted from our apartments...

...Approval of those ideas isn't mandated...

...Progressives can't fall into the trap of allowing their proper defense of First Amendment rights to be twisted into providing a cover for the most vicious activities some pretty vicious people can dream up...

...I attended the Washington, D.C., Ku Klux Klan rout Davis mentioned...

...He also errs in presuming to know history...

...This is the sine qua non of self-government...

...Racism will be defeated by a revolution of minds and emotions, when the American public is convinced that such violence shames the human community...

...Letting lawmakers shoulder our moral responsibilities allows them to decide what those responsibilities ought to be...

...Racism, of which the Klan and Nazis are but the vilest manifestation, can, should, and must be opposed...

...That notion of power, control, domination, subjugation of people and ideas he doesn't like, forms the core of his worldview...

...Constitutional free speech has nothing to do with a right of one person (or group) as against another...

...May Goldman Los Angeles, California Aminor event involving the Klan occurred last year in Brattleboro, Vermont...

...It is not a right to falsely shout "fire" in a crowded theater, or to asperse, threaten, slander, deceive, or otherwise injure a fellow citizen or group, or to conspire to do so...

...Rod Davis is ready, even eager, to dismiss "abstract," "bourgeois," "absurd," "racist" "fetishes" such as free speech as tricks of the "dominant class" to hinder seizure of control by "the proper power"—that is, his...

...The First Amendment certainly does not protect the right of police officers, judges, and other public officials to be active in organizations whose very purpose is to deny legal rights to non-white people, or even to murder them...

...Yet, contrary to Nat Hentoff s advice, definite action was taken...

...So is the philosophy of Nazis and other hate groups...

...I wonder whether HentofF, would be such a strong supporter of the Klan's rights if it committed violence in his neighborhood...

...What would have appealed more to Americans—scenes of a disgraced handful of bigots slinking out of the nation's capital, or scenes of people smashing windows and racing madly through the streets...

...Alexander Reyes Washington, D.C...

...Most of us who support the First Amendment understand this pain and frustration...

...You might imagine the shock, for the Klan had never been in Vermont before...

...I think it was a low blow for him to have done so...

...I must also prevent them from propagandizing when possible, and attempt to discredit them...

...The issue is how: Do we, with Nat Hentoff, pursue the path of justice now and argue, organize, demonstrate, suffer, lose, win in what we know will be a long struggle...

...Despite that, his remarks, as usual, were logical and also spoken from the heart...

...This sort of mentality has developed often enough among movements that consider themselves leftist that it ought to give Davis pause...

...We can and must root out the public practice of racism...

...Hentoff has some important points to make, however, when he can leave off the name-calling and sarcasm...

...HentofF has apparently never heard of revolutions...

...A circle was formed around the podium where the men and women in white sheets were seated...

...So kudos to The Progressive for presenting this debate, a bonus point to Hentoff for volunteering his opponent the last word, a minus point for his Himmler implication, and a zero to Davis for a sincere but vague and diffuse waste of space...

...Hentoffs practical defense of the First Amendment guards our hard-earned freedom...

...But once the rocks and tear gas started flying, defeat was snatched from the jaws of victory...

...However, my main criticism of Davis is for his apparent assumption that freedom of expression will take care of itself after the "proper power" is installed and society is "free for everyone...

...This is surely a slower process than we would like, but it may be the best way to have law reflect culture, not culture mimic law...

...Regardless of strong emotions and public pressures evoked by the KKK, by a heinous crime, or even by the most threatening terrorist activity, there are no good reasons for the abridgement of First Amendment protection...

...Unlike the actions Rod Davis would encourage, this event was not marked with violence...

...Nat Hentoff is right—if free speech is ever left undefended, if even the smallest minority promoting the most noxious creeds is allowed to fall because the rest of us ignored that group's free-speech rights, then we as a bastion of freedom are in for a long, slow death...

...On the appointed day, state police in uniform and plain clothes were dispersed throughout the town...

...I, for one, see only one logical and moral answer: On this, I will unhesitatingly stand with Nat Hentoff...

...The Klan's activity differs markedly from that of some drunken transistor engineer expounding his abstract theory of the inferiority of non-white people on a streetcor-ner somewhere...

...When physical force or violence become a means of forcing acceptance of or submission to an objectionable philosophy, that protection is forfeit...

...Nonetheless, its failures provide no excuse for its abandonment...

...Davis's suggested plan of action never was in fashion and has done nothing to elevate American society to a higher plane of social consciousness...

...The future free society will certainly need a First Amendment or its equivalent...

...A society does not demonstrate its antiracist nature by censoring the expression of racist opinions, any more than a society demonstrates its socialist character by suppressing antisocialist ideas...

...I do not believe Nat Hentoff adequately responds to Davis's point of view...

...Consequently, it raised hardly a stir in the national news media...

...Dick J. Reavis Austin, Texas Rod Davis sneeringly derides the First Amendment as largely ineffective and, as he puts it, "the hollow pillar of bourgeois liberalism...

...His reference is not to physical handicaps, but to restrictions on political agitation...

...Those pitifully few Klan members who showed up to march down Pennsylvania Avenue were vastly outnumbered by anti-Klan protesters...

...Fred A. Glienna South Pasadena, California The editors welcome correspondence from readers on all topics, but prefer to publish letters that comment directly on material previously published in The Progressive...

...But it cannot be overemphasized that the most dangerous precedents can be set by waiving civil rights in selected circumstances...

...Claiming the clash was an infringement of their right to free speech, Wilkinson demanded, and received, a permit to speak on the Brattleboro Common...

...For the most part, however, there is still no better life insurance for all groups of dissenting opinion—assuming we don't all long for enough violent expression to warrant the imposition of military rule...

...Their appetites were whetted by a minor clash with a group of so-called communists from another state...

...Calls to confront the Klan violently were heard from the anti-Klan organizing camp for weeks prior to the demonstration, so it was no surprise to see the rocks fly...

...Walter F. Hess Aptos, California Both Rod Davis and Nat Hentoff miss the point...

...After John Hinckley's attempt to assassinate Ronald Reagan, a huge protective shield was set up to guard the President...

...Overall, though, I must side with Davis...

...Davis's view of head-bashing and store-trashing as the "practice" of "real freedom" comes somewhat too soon: This is, after all, still only 1983...

...Those voices said it all as they sang "We Shall Overcome...

...In order to understand "free speech" it is necessary to understand what it is not...

...To defend them in any way is a mistake...

...Rod Davis underestimates the importance of the First Amendment in protecting those who would organize against those policies...

...Hentoff probably thought hard about opening his response with a quote from Heinrich Himmler...

...Manfred Hall Poughkeepsie, New York Rod Davis rejects the notion that government sanction should stand in the way of our resolve to fight such groups as the Klan by whatever means we have at our disposal...

...Davis should note the tendency, especially within groups of like-thinking individuals who reinforce each others' opinions, to overestimate the knowledge possessed by one's own group and to suppress "useless and dangerous ideas...

...First, the Klan members warmed up in rural Wilmington...

...Larry Erickson Long Branch, New Jersey There is no question that the First Amendment guarantees our right to free speech without fear, but does that right include the right to advocate hate and threats to harass and kill those whom we do not like...

...All colors and nationalities were represented in the circle—black and white, red and brown...

...Organizing against racism is extremely important, but we would be shooting ourselves in the foot to treat as a "bourgeois illusion" a set of rights we need to be talking about extending, not restricting...

...That fear runs so deep that it leads Davis to a serious misstatement of the issue at hand, presenting it as a choice between opposing racism and defending free speech...

...All letters may be edited for clarity and conciseness...

...It most certainly does not protect the right to engage in racist harassment, nor the right to set up armed camps for an American Final Solution...

...And I reject, too, the political paranoia that gives rise to such thinking: the investing of one's opponents with mystical, even supernatural powers of influence and persuasion, so much so that for Davis the mere presence of the Klan in public makes racism "rational" and acceptable to the general public, no matter how many (again, nonviolent) counter-demonstrations there may be...

...The Klan was nowhere to be seen...

...Our legislators began digging to see if they could legally prevent the Klan rally, but the group was allowed to come on constitutional grounds of free speech...

...Rather, the First Amendment deals with a political relationship, reserving to the LETTERS to the Editor citizenry the power to criticize and even remake their governmental system...

...Chrys Dougherty Austin, Texas As a European-born, lower-income person, I can't join Nat Hentoffs crusade to defend the Klan, Nazis, and other far-right groups...

...If you waver," he says, "you must consider the possibility of complicity" with the Klan...

...Why should the KKK have the privilege to incite its members to kill Jews, "Niggers," homosexuals...

...Or do we, with Rod Davis, turn to the gratifying macho mythology of justice through violence, in faith that "true freedom" will miraculously arrive when "the proper power" takes over...

...Wilkinson and his friends stormed off the stage and did not return...

...He writes that "if you can't speak and write, you can't change a damned thing...

...Blacks, Jews, and others feel they have the same right to protection from a group that openly advocates hate, violence, and death...

...But so long as they limit themselves to propaganda and peaceful demonstration, they are entitled to First Amendment protection...

...Ask anyone who has fled a totalitarian regime whether American freedom is only a bourgeois illusion...

...Racism in America will not be defeated by revolution in the streets—the Ku Klux Klan and its "white hosts" know how to meet violence...

...Louis W. Jones San Mateo, California The First Amendment can be terribly hollow when governmental interpretation is based on "national interest...

...LETTERS to the Editor Readers' Views on Free Speech for the Klan Congratulations to The Progressive for running the Rod Davis-Nat Hentoff debate on the Ku Klux Klan and the First Amendment (July issue...

...intellectual, in that it indicates such deep insecurity about the practical, logical, ethical, and moral strength of one's own position that it fears to allow other voices even to be heard...

...Davis either does not understand or prefers to ignore the fact that the First Amendment is intended, despite some past failures, to allow free expression of ideas...

...George Held New York, New York It's a shame that a writer of Nat HentofFs accomplishment takes political positions that he can defend only with personal slurs against his opponent, as in his rebuttal to Rod Davis...

...Such exhortations didn't go out of fashion in the 1960s, nor were they driven under by right-wing repression...

...What did surprise me was that the violence—the rocks, the clubs, the tear gas—was indiscriminate, attacking police and anti-Klan demonstrator alike...

...Mike McGuire New York, New York Rod Davis speaks and writes from the heart, moved by frustration and helplessness at the legal protections afforded those who wish to promote racism and hatred...

...Then, in the crowd, a few hands were joined, and then a few more...

...He is correct, also, in perceiving that any ideological struggle to silence free speech in the name of social good can lead directly to a totalitarian mind set that will always stand in the way of peace, freedom, and dignity...

...Claiming that "in a society that is free for everyone, there would be no more need for a First Amendment than for a Klan," he shows a noble mind, but one unprepared to deal with some of the bleaker aspects of human history and human nature...

...If we acknowledge that the First Amendment is an instrument that the Left can use for its own self-preservation, then this Amendment must be treated as inviolable...

...nothing in this world does...

...In fact, the First Amendment has served admirably when groups and individuals have used it to force the ruling elements of our society to follow their own laws...

...The challenge is to defeat the Klan and racism while winning over mainstream America...

...The Klan is committed to concrete actions, often violent and nearly always illegal, against large numbers of Americans (and some recent immigrants...

...Once we are allowed to make exceptions, who will be the Government's favorite exception...

...This is a reductionist assumption like the one that claims feminist issues will automatically take care of themselves "after the revolution...

...Granted, it doesn't accomplish its purpose 100 per cent of the time...

...Therefore, I am not safe until the Klan is gagged...

...John Dean Charlottesville, Virginia Nat Hentoff, the ACLU, and sixty years of court opinions are dead wrong...

...Can we risk martyring them, enhancing their sense of self-righteousness, feeding their delusions of manifest destiny, and swaying the undecided into their camps...

...There is no right under the Constitution, or anywhere else, to do wrong...

...The First Amendment protects speech, not acts of violence and not defiance of Federal, state, and local laws that guarantee people's civil rights...

...Davis's rejoinder has him starting to babble about "the hollow pillar of bourgeois liberalism," even dragging in Copernicus and poor old Ptolemy...

...A song started up, met with smiles and nods from those standing by...

...The Klan and their ideological allies have sworn to exterminate all non-Protestant, foreign-born people...

...Wilkinson spoke, trying to incite the crowd to gain the publicity the Klan sought...

...A society is antiracist if it moves to reduce or eliminate the conditions of hierarchy and economic competition that cause racism to regenerate whether it is publicly expressed or not...

...As for the myth of "free speech," poor people have no First Amendment rights...

...Racism was defeated in Washington last November, the Klansmen and women too afraid of public outrage to don their robes...

...Not only does that vision demonstrate remarkably shallow political analysis, it's laced through with physical and intellectual cowardice: physical, in that it prefers the anonymity (and presumed safety) of mob violence to the risks of personal accountability and responsibility...

...While I agree with Davis that the Klan is a parasite on an already blighted America, I have to disagree with his almost stereotypical Marxist-Leninist revolutionary banter...

...But Davis offers no mechanisms that could not later be turned against him in some minority cause in which he believes...

...Does Rod Davis think we can legislate the visceral allegiance out of these people...

...Janice J. Chiaretto Dalton, Massachusetts The issue between Rod Davis and Nat Hentoff is simple: the rule of man versus the rule of law...

...Davis apparently inhabits an intellectual (or, perhaps, anti-intellectual) world where power is purpose, might makes right, rock-throwing is progressive, and if-you're-not-with-me-you're-against-me...

...If I want to throw my own weight in the balance on the side of my own goals and beliefs, I will have to oppose the Klan in every way, including physical force when that becomes necessary...

...The Klan philosophy is as repugnant to me as Davis claims it is to him...

...As a free speech "absolutist" who has participated in nonviolent anti-Klan demonstrations, I flatly reject that notion as, in Davis's words, "absurd and insulting...

...Imperial Wizard Wilkinson announced the Klan would come to Vermont to recruit with a rally and cross-burning...

...When you deny intrinsically violent groups like the Klan or the neo-Nazis the right to peaceful demonstration (while continuing to extend that right to select groups), you drive them underground to rise again in a more virulent and brutal incarnation...

...Not the Ku Klux Klan...

...Furthermore, the Klan commits its violent, repugnant acts in poor neighborhoods, not in wealthy liberal suburbs...

...Davis's utopianism leads to tyranny...

...Stewart F. MacMillan Brewster, Massachusetts The greatest threat to poor and nonwhite people comes from government and corporate policies, not from marginal groups like the Ku Klux Klan...