[Peace-discuss] A strange line of questioning

[C. G. Estabrook]

  Always amazing how quickly liberals become illiberal - often a question of 
whose oxymoron ("free speech") is gored.

The heckler's veto ("If you're allowed to say that publicly, then someone might 
do something bad") is occasionally resisted by the courts, as it should be.

"A heckler's veto occurs when an acting party's right to freedom of speech is 
curtailed or restricted by the government in order to prevent a reacting party's 
behavior. The common example is that of demonstrators (reacting party) causing a 
speech (given by the acting party) to be terminated in order to preserve the 
peace. The term was coined by University of Chicago professor of law Harry 
Kalven [in regard to the Nazis in Skokie, perhaps]. In the United States, case 
law regarding the heckler's veto is mixed. Most findings say that the acting 
party's actions cannot be pre-emptively stopped due to fear of heckling by the 
reacting party, but in the immediate face of violence, authorities can ask the 
acting party to cease their action in order to satisfy the hecklers."


On 10/12/10 5:05 PM, David Green wrote:
>
> Subsequent to a recent letter in the DI and threatening phone calls to my 
> place of work, I was told by a co-worker that I might have to accept 
> responsiblity of something should result from these threats--especially if 
> these actions are provoked by perceived insults, rather than--say--the truth. 
> But it's not clear to me that either Beck or me should be held to that 
> standard, and made responsible for the reactions of others. I tend to think 
> that in other case, violence or the threat of violence needs to be explained 
> in the larger context: the economy, the wars, the perceived powerlessness of 
> some individuals vis a vis the state and the corporations that constitute the 
> centers of power.
>
> At any rate, when Goodman plays a "progressive," she loses a lot of clarity 
> and credibility, in my opinion.
>
> DG
>
>     **
>
>     *http://www.democracynow.org/2010/10/12/progressive_hunter_gunman_cites_glenn_beck*
>
>     **
>
>     *AMY GOODMAN:* Can you really hold Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, responsible
>     for this man’s violent actions, who was violent way back?
>
>     *JOHN HAMILTON:* Right. Well, I think we have to ask ourselves that. And
>     again, I think we need to return to the—to two major points here. One,
>     many of the conspiracy theories and the conspiracism that you find on
>     Glenn Beck’s program is simply not true. It’s easily refuted. At Media
>     Matters, you have teams of researchers every day debunking many of the
>     things that Glenn Beck says. And, for example, the Petrobras conspiracy
>     theory, the idea that George Soros was profiting from the oil disaster in
>     the Gulf of Mexico simply wasn’t true. When you couple that with the
>     demonization of people like Soros, who when Glenn Beck talks about him, he
>     compares him to a gangster, he affects his accent, he’s even insulted the
>     man’s nose hair—I mean, he says that he’s trying to bring—sometimes he
>     says socialism, sometimes he says fascism, to the United States.
>
>         *GLENN BECK:* How about Tides? How about indoctrination? Forget God,
>         it’s “In George Soros, we trust.” Oh, he’s going to get his. He is
>         going to get his.
>
>     *JOHN HAMILTON:* So, when you couple the mistruths with the demonization,
>     I think it is time that we ask ourselves, do these media figures, do these
>     demagogues, bear some responsibility for the actions of their audience?
>
> *AMY GOODMAN:* John Hamilton is author of the piece "Progressive Hunter." It’s 
> at Media Matters <http://mediamatters.org/research/201010110002>, and we’ll 
> link to it here at /Democracy Now!/
>
>
>
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