The Debate
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For Freedom of Speech "Surely, the First Amendment was not designed to protect individuals and groups who would be met absolutely positively by the population and government. These groups will never be challenged. It is meant to protect the speech that will be challenged, the speech that does not meet accepting ears, and sometimes, the speech that downright offends. This is the speech that requires the defense provided by the First Amendment. Oliver Wendall Holmes stated, 'The First Amendment protects free thought, not free thought for those who agree with us, but freedom for the thought we hate.'"
"The decision to allow Frank Collin to march in Skokie seems unsympathetic at first glance. But in fact, it was the greatest affront to the ideals he espoused that anyone could have hoped for. Here was a minority of the smallest kind, not only allowed to express his ideas that enraged the majority, but allowed the pedestal to speak from. Just ask a Communist from Nazi Germany about that concept. This was a town built upon the Jewish tradition, true, but it was also one built upon American tradition, which was the beacon that brought the Holocaust survivors to towns like Skokie. To forget that tradition of freedom, and resort to oppression rather than an open marketplace of ideas, is much more dangerous than the possibilities of allowing a tiny group to speak their minds." -Daniel Ketchell For The Right to Live in Peace "The right to free speech and free assembly are basic human rights and in a simple society should always be upheld. But as any of the forefathers will tell you the society in which we live is not simple, it was not in 1776 and it still is not. They would also tell you that governing with the intention of protecting natural rights is not as easily done as it is said. By the very nature of rights and the diversity of man there are undoubtedly going to be cases in which people's rights come into conflict.
The question of Skokie is not whether the National Socialist Party of America or their leader, Frank Collin, has the right to express their views but rather to what extent this right can be guaranteed. The seven thousand Holocaust survivors who resided in Skokie Illinois at the time of the Nazi march also have rights, and in this case the right of speech and assembly of the Nazis come in direct conflict with the basic rights of the persons of the village of Skokie. One cannot possible value the rights of a few (Frank Collin's little band) over the rights of an entire village. By supporting the Nazi attempt to march through the suburb of Skokie you are ignoring the right of the forty thousand Jews who live in Skokie to live their life without fear. The right of these Holocaust survivors to live life without images of gas chambers and swastikas constantly being brought up is a right more fundamental to human dignity and more fundamental to democratic society than the right of a few Neo-Nazi to express their hateful message." -Jon Betran Harris |