University College Cork invites Nick Griffin

Which tends to go hand in hand with asking for university bans. Do you oppose universities banning Nick Griffin from speaking at debates?

I didn't say whatever it is you are talking about here. I said that, in most Western countries, far-right groups currently have far greater restrictions placed on their activities than far-left groups. That goes for universities and society generally.

Someone's clearly not been following the discussion.

And the university should be the judge of what is 'nice' and what isn't? If a socialist debating society wanted to invite a Sharia-supporting Islamist 'anti-imperialist' opponent of the Afghan war, he should also be banned under the criteria you want universities to adopt.

It depends on the university and what their stated goal is.

Fascists do not offer a debate.
They do not offer an learned opinion.
They do not promote discussion, or discourse.
They do not help in education.

So if the goal of a university is to promote education, discussion, and rational discourse, then yes, they should ban a fascist from speaking.

Yes and that's a load of crap.

There are right-wing militias actively patrolling the US-Mexico border. There are racist bigots in the US government openly advocating racism and bigotry. The police force, the army, all the repressive tools of the state are right-wing in their ideology.

There is no "left-wing groups" which have any stability or presence in the US. Just look at OWS. It took all of two months for almost every single encampment to be destroyed and thousands jailed, many without proper procedure. And OWS wasn't even leftist.

Not if he was debating and/or discussing the topic instead of spouting reactionary, racist, sexist, bigoted bullshit out of his ass. See my point?

Fascists don't want to discuss or debate. Fascists want to promote fascism. Therefore they don't get a platform.

- August

Such naivety regarding the role of the institutions of bourgeois society is, to be polite, worrying. The belief that such institutions should be allowed to assume the role of arbiter of political debate, policing which politics can and cannot be allowed in society, should have alarm bells ringing in the head of any so-called revolutionary.

I'm specifically referring to far-right groups. In Britain, for example, such groups aren't allowed to decide the makeup of their own memberships, and open, undisguised racist propaganda can land them in jail for inciting racial hatred.

The point i was initially making was that if we support such laws which interfere in the affairs of polical parties, they will be used against us next.

I'm sure many members of the establishment, who you have said you trust to uphold progress in society and police political life, feel the same way about revolutionary socialists.

These institutions already are the arbiter of political debate, policing which politics can and cannot be allowed in society. What's naive is to think that they aren't - that somewhere there's some mystical judge who controls who gets to say what and if we just let this judge decide, it'll all be ok.

I'm just saying we shouldn't give fascists any platform within this society.

Good. In the US there are very few such laws.

So by extension you are saying that people should be allowed to put up racist propaganda wherever they choose.

Please don't put words in my mouth.

- August

Yes, and the job of socialists, from Marx onwards, has been to oppose bourgeois-state censorship, not to shrug their shoulders and say 'never mind, let's have more where that came from'.

I don't think we should support state policing of political propaganda.

I think it was a fair inference, based on your support for state censorship, which implies that the bourgeoisie's regulation of political life can be a force for good.

No one is arguing state censorship, working-class/community supresion of dangerous for our safety organizing and propaganda might in this case field the same result, it is still something completely different.

AugustWest is, for one.

From the stickies:
http://www.revleft.com/vb/before-ope...023/index.html

Thank you thank you.

Arguing with VG1917 is like trying to explain why the sky is blue to a pile of rusty car parts.

- August

None of that is quite relevant to the discussion i've been having with AugustWest, which concerns my opposition to bourgeois state censorship and his wholehearted support for it.