While Newt Gingrich is clearly wrong that Nazis could be legally precluded from putting up a sign or billboard near the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC, I think it’s a valid question whether that ought to be the case. If I were to argue in favor of the government’s right to ban Nazi signage (near the Holocaust museum, or anyplace else) I would do so on the grounds that Nazi messages and symbols are obscene, just like graphic sexual images or images of grisly violence. In general, I am First Amendment absolutist, and I begrudgingly support the right of people to say anti-Semitic or white supremacist shit. So, I wouldn’t ultimately argue such a case on the behalf of anti-Nazis, even though I hate Nazis as much as anyone. But I think an argument can be made. I know Europe has laws against promoting Nazi ideology, although I confess that I am not familiar with those laws in any detail. Whenever I have read about them I have been grateful that our courts haven’t gone down that slippery slope.
But it sure is a fine line when we’re talking about evoking Nazi history, ideology, or imagery. A Nazi flag is an obscene symbol to a lot of people. Would you feel more violated by seeing a billboard with an erect penis on your way to work or a billboard displaying a swastika in a positive manner?
makes me think of all those dead corpses in films made just after the cessation of hostilties in 1945.
While a penis can be used as a weapon of rape, just the photo of a nice-looking erect penis on a billboard wouldn’t bother me. Eventually, though, I wouldn’t know it was there unless someone told me it had been taken down.
Of course, all billboards are obscene blights upon the landscape. But to answer your question, a simple photo of a penis is not obscene. The other choice is the obscene one. As to those European laws, it’s different to have had Nazis march into one’s own country than observing things an ocean away. But I don’t know if I agree with them either.
I’m just going to end on the note that BooMan is just as drunk as I am lol. His argument makes zero sense.
Penis. Swastika. Penis. Swastika.
Hmmm, sounds like a Monty Python skit.
But seriously I think that there are some people who get erections when they see a swastika.
There are things on TV right now that were unthinkable and considered scandalous in the medium’s early years. Including African Americans in programs and advertisements, advertisements for viagra and cialis and female sanitary products, violence of all sorts, degrading sex scenes, etc.
I am pretty close to being a First Amendment absolutist but definitely feel that advocating violence, shouting the equivalent of fire in a theater and child pornography are forms of speech that need to be regulated or banned.
There are many people who have been victims of one sort or another. A Confederate flag is offensive to many people, just as the Nazi flag is. Certainly these flags shouldn’t be on official buildings, but if someone puts a replica on their bumper I’d be offended but not deny their right to do it.
Holy shit am I an ass; how did I even type my password? Ok, now that I’m sober…lol:
I am against these anti-Nazi laws. Preventing them from speaking or promoting their ideology only keeps it hidden from society where they will promote it in secret and build…how should we say…”white resentment”.
I am with you on this. I am a free-speech absolutist. The best remedy is sunshine, so I welcome these hateful bigots to bring their cause to the public. Welcome it! Now we don’t have to pick out the racists who hide under dog whistles. It’s much easier when they’re open. So have at it, bigots.
Great post, Booman.
I’ve never thought about it in those terms, but I guess I am a First Amendment absolutist. The First Amendment is not conditional. We don’t get to pick and choose whose speech we find acceptable or not, which forms of expression we allow or not.
Do Nazis have a right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust Museum? Yes. Full stop. Even though I find the idea repulsive.
Do neo-Nazis have a right to march through a Jewish neighborhood? Yes, though I think it vile and reprehensible.
Do you have a right to put a picture of a penis on a billboard? Yes. Ick, but yes.
Do Muslims have a right to build a community center near Ground Zero? Yes, and I hope they do. If it can become a bridge between America and moderate Islam, as Feisal Abdul Rauf hopes, that might be the best possible outcome of the tragedy on 9/11. And if the manufactured outrage of a noisy, well funded, extremist minority derails the project, that plays right into the hands of the tiny extremist minority whose perverted idea of Islam brought on that tragedy.
And, much as I hate to say it, Newt has the right to spew his filth as well. I don’t have to like it, but I have to recognize his right as equal to my own. There will always be a certain segment of the population that shares Newt’s bigotry and hate, just as there will always be enough fools around to keep the Bernie Madoffs of the world employed, but I think they are a noisy, shrinking minority. I believe that we as a nation are better than that.
Okay, but here’s the thing. You actually don’t have the right to buy a billboard and print a penis on it. In fact, the owner of the billboard doesn’t have the right to take your money and do that. It’s called obscenity and it trumps your 1st Amendment rights. Depictions of violence and cruelty can also be deemed illegal in public spaces. So, the question, legally, is whether Nazi symbolism and ideology should be or can be considered obscene. I think it can. But I also think it creates a slippery slope that we’d be better off not playing around with.
Now, you seem to object to obscenity exceptions to free speech. That’s another worthy debate to have. What defines it? Who gets to decide?
What defines it? Who gets to decide?
Exactly. If W had appointed John Ashcroft to the Supreme Court would we be talking now about all the obscene images at The Met? If Michele Bachmann and Louie Gomert had their way would the star and crescent be obscene?
Don’t get me wrong. I really don’t want to see porn on neighborhood billboards. Or on my TV for that matter. Yeah, there probably ought to be some standards. But how should they be defined and by whom? Is the Venus de Milo obscene? The kouroi? I don’t think so. Some would probably disagree. How about bathers on a nude beach? Again I don’t think so, but that’s just my opinion.
I don’t consider Nazi symbolism obscene. Their ideology, and their actions based on that ideology, is another matter entirely, but I don’t think they should be lumped together. I take it you disagree. Is the swastika obscene? If so what makes it obscene? The Holocaust? The swastika is an ancient symbol, found in many cultures around the world long before the Nazis adopted it. How about the Iron Cross? That too was around long before the Nazis. The Nazis did things that were obscene, but I don’t think that makes their symbols obscene. And if they are, shouldn’t the Crusaders’ Cross be considered obscene? I imagine a lot of Muslims would think so.
How about a software developer at a major conference who starts his presentation with a crotch shot of a woman in see-thru panties? And then goes on to draw a penis coming all over a face. Yeah, I would find that obscene, but apparently a lot of (apparently mostly male) attendees didn’t think so.
So whose opinion should prevail? Mine? Yours? Sarah Palins’? John Ashcroft’s? The male or the female hackers? I’d be with the women on that one, but again, do we redraw the boundaries of our most fundamental rights based on the passions of the moment? I think the First Amendment holds us to a higher standard than that. And it certainly should not be subject to the outrage du jour fabricated by this or that faction blowing their favorite dog whistle. That’s not a slippery slope. It’s a avalanche waiting to happen.
Yeah, Newt, I’m talking to you.
a landslidean avalanche… facepalm…For an image to be obscene means that it offends common decency, which is a shifting standard. But you can think of it as an image that evokes a strong negative response in most people. Anything related to the Nazis evokes a strong negative response in most people, but when it is an effort to portray Nazis in a positive light it is particularly offensive. I agree with you that ultimately we should keep the law the way it is, but I think you can make a valid argument the other way based on obscenity.
(Finishing a comment I started before lunch and got called away.)
Well, after all that I’m not sure I made my point very well. I’m not sure I can. It’s like picking apart a ball of yarn. It’s no accident that questions like these wind up before the Supreme Court, often decided by narrow margins split along ideological fault lines in the Court.
I think it’s important to distinguish between what is or is not legal, especially from a constitutional perspective, and what is or is not acceptable according to some subjective standard at some particular time and place.
I think there is a big difference between saying you can’t put a picture of a penis on this billboard where children might see it, and saying you can’t put a picture of a penis on a billboard ever anywhere.
I think there’s a big difference between saying you can’t put up a Nazi sign next to the Holocaust Museum, and saying Nazi symbols are obscene always and everywhere. And btw, I wonder if it’s true that you can’t put up a Nazi sign next to the Holocaust Museum, or is that another one of Newt’s fabrications? What if the sign vilified the Nazis? Would that make it OK?
And speaking of obscene images from the Nazi era, what about those iconic photos of piles of dead bodies at the death camps? Some of which are naked, btw. If any images qualify as obscene I’d say those do, but I’ve never heard anyone say they shouldn’t be published. Same goes for pictures of black lynching victims. We seem to have a pretty fluid view of what constitutes obscenity.
That is what troubles me. Not that there might be exceptions, like shouting fire in a crowded theater, but that too many of them seem to be no more than the silencing of speech or expression we’d rather not hear. To my mind that is precisely what the First Amendment is meant to protect. Like neo-Nazi posturing. I don’t like them, I don’t agree with them, but I don’t think that gives me (or anyone else) the right to silence them.