Antifa and Free Speech

[Fopeos]

Under current conditions the bourgeois state allows freedom of speech and assembly to any ideology. I support those freedoms within the confines of bourgeois democracy but only to safeguard OUR ability to organize. If the state takes those freedoms from the far right, they'll also take them from the left. The best way to combat rightists is to organize counter-demonstrations. Overwhelm them, drown them out. They'll be more and more demoralized while the left will gain confidence. This scenario plays out everytime the klan comes to town.
Of course, this relationship of forces won't be relevent in a revolutionary situation. We won't have to debate what to do with fascists. We'll be too busy defending ourselves from them.

[Luc]

One way we could justify it is based on how rights a secured:

"Political rights do not exist because they have been legally set down on a piece of paper, but only when they have become the ingrown habit of a people, and when any attempt to impair them will meet with the violent resistance of the populace."
-Rudolf Rocker

If the people don't care that the fascists are loosing their free speech, right to assembly, etc. Then it would be okay because freedoms and rights are protected, not by a constitution or state but by the people.
Since we won't have a state but a Commune instead, it will be largely the people themselves taking thoose rights and freedoms rather than a tyrannical state.

Besides, freedom of speech is the ability to speek freely without out censorship. However, "Freedom of speech" is censored right now i.e. slander, incitement, obscenities, etc. So technically they never had freedom of speech in the first place.

Therefore, we are not taking away their freedom of speech because that would imply that they had it.

Just one way you could look at it.

[RedSquare]

I might not agree with what they say, but I'd defend to the death their right to say it. However, when they become involved in any form of organised violence then it's morally acceptable to retaliate.

[thefinalmarch]

Y'all should take a good look at this post I bookmarked in my lurking days:

Fascists and NAZIs don't make public speeches for the sake of the exchange of ideas or idle discussion and debate. Typically they make speeches and have rallies in order to "put people in their place" and intimidate the working class. Recently in Los Angeles, neo-nazis from Detroit were allowed to make a speech advocating the forced re-location of Latino immigrants. Why would Detroit NAZIs want to come to LA for this speech? Were they hoping to attract people Los Angelenos to their cause? Would it be worth it to get a devotee who lived clear across the country? No, they went to LA because there is a large Latino population.

In the 80s and 90s neo-Nazis also famously tried to have marches through a Jewish enclave in the US.

It is not simply a case of "bad ideas" with NAZIs and fascists, they want to intimidate workers and that is why they should be opposed and shouted-down whenever they show up.

Also, there is no such thing as real free-speech in the abstract. No one would be able to make a speech advocating the rape of a child without being shouted down... yet people always seem to want to allow fascists to be able to freely advocate genocide or forced relocation of minorities or the elimination of all our rights? A child being raped, while awful, is objectively not as horrible as what the fascists advocate.

[Renno]

No government fights fascism to destroy it. When the bourgeoisie sees that power is slipping out of its hands, it brings up fascism to hold onto their privileges.

There are only two roads, victory for the working class, freedom, or victory for the fascists which means tyranny. Both combatants know what's in store for the loser.

Durruti

[Fietsketting]

I might not agree with what they say, but I'd defend to the death their right to say it. However, when they become involved in any form of organised violence then it's morally acceptable to retaliate.

Time for a new avatar then?

[griffjam]

Free Speech FAQ

Stopping fascists from speaking makes you just as bad as them.

You could just as easily say that not stopping fascists from speaking—giving them the opportunity to organize to impose their agenda on the rest of us—makes you as bad as them. If you care about freedom, don’t stand idly by while people mobilize to take it away.

Shouldn’t we just ignore them? They want attention, and if we give it to them we’re letting them win.

Actually, fascists usually don’t want to draw attention to their organizing; they do most of it in secret for fear that an outraged public will shut them down. They only organize public events to show potential recruits that they have power, and to try to legitimize their views as part of the political spectrum. By publicly opposing fascists, we make it clear to them—and more importantly, to anyone else interested in joining them—that they will not be able to consolidate power over us without a fight. Ignoring fascists only allows them to organize unhindered, and history shows that this can be very dangerous. Better we shut them down once and for all.

The best way to defeat fascism is to let them express their views so that everyone can see how ignorant they are. We can refute them more effectively with ideas than force.

People don’t become fascists because they find their ideas persuasive; they become fascists for the same reason others become police officers or politicians: to wield power over other people. It’s up to us to show that fascist organizing will not enable them to obtain this power, but will only result in public humiliation. That is the only way to cut off their source of potential recruits. History has shown over and over that fascism is not defeated by ideas alone, but by popular self-defense. We’re told that if all ideas are debated openly, the best one will win out, but this fails to account for the reality of unequal power. Fascists can be very useful to those with power and privilege, who often supply them with copious resources; if they can secure more airtime and visibility for their ideas than we can, we would be fools to limit ourselves to that playing field. We can debate their ideas all day long, but if we don’t prevent them from building the capacity to make them reality, it won’t matter.

Neo-Nazis are irrelevant; institutionalized racism poses the real threat today, not the extremists at the fringe.

The bulk of racism takes place in subtle, everyday forms. But fascist visibility enables other right-wing groups to frame themselves as moderates, helping to legitimize the racist and xenophobic assumptions underlying their positions and the systems of power and privilege they defend. Taking a stand against fascists is an essential step toward discrediting the structures and values at the root of institutionalized racism. Here and worldwide, fascists still terrorize and murder people because of racial, religious, and sexual difference. It’s both naïve and disrespectful to their victims to gloss over the past and present realities of fascist violence. Because fascists believe in acting directly to carry out their agenda rather than limiting themselves to the apparatus of representative democracy, they can be more dangerous proportionate to their numbers than other bigots. This makes it an especially high priority to deal with them swiftly.

Free speech means protecting everyone’s right to speak, including people you don’t agree with. How would you like it if you had an unpopular opinion and other people were trying to silence you?

We oppose fascists because of what they do, not what they say. We’re not opposed to free speech; we’re opposed to the fact that they advance an agenda of hate and terror. We have no power to censor them; thanks to the “neutrality” of the capitalist market, they continue to publish hate literature in print and the internet. But we will not let them come into our communities to build the power they need to enact their hatred. The government and the police have never protected everyone’s free speech equally, and never will. It is in their self-interest to repress views and actions that challenge existing power inequalities. They will spend hundreds of thousands of taxpayers’ dollars on riot police, helicopters, and sharpshooters to defend a KKK rally, but if there’s an anarchist rally the same police will be there to stop it, not to protect it. Anarchists don’t like being silenced by the state—but we don’t want the state to define and manage our freedom, either. Unlike the ACLU, whose supposed defense of “freedom” leads them to support the KKK and others like them, we support self-defense and selfdetermination above all. What’s the purpose of free speech, if not to foster a world free from oppression? Fascists oppose this vision;thus we oppose fascism by any means necessary.

If fascists don’t have a platform to express their views peacefully, it will drive them to increasingly violent means of expression.

Fascists are only attempting to express their views “peacefully” in order to lay the groundwork for violent activity. Because fascists require a veneer of social legitimacy to be able to carry out their program, giving them a platform to speak opens the door to their being able to do physical harm to people. Public speech promoting ideologies of hate, whether or not you consider it violent on its own, always complements and correlates with violent actions. By affiliating themselves with movements and ideologies based on oppression and genocide, fascists show their intention to carry on these legacies of violence—but only if they can develop a base of support.

Trying to suppress their voices will backfire by generating interest in them.

Resistance to fascism doesn’t increase interest in fascist views. If anything, liberals mobilizing to defend fascists on free speech grounds increases interest in their views by conferring legitimacy on them. This plays directly into their organizing goals, allowing them to drive a wedge between their opponents using free speech as a smokescreen. By tolerating racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, and xenophobia, so-called free speech advocates are complicit in the acts of terror fascist organizing makes possible.

They have rights like everybody else.

No one has the right to threaten our community with violence. Likewise, we reject the “right” of the government and police—who have more in common with fascists than they do with us—to decide for us when fascists have crossed the line from merely expressing themselves into posing an immediate threat. We will not abdicate our freedom to judge when and how to defend ourselves.

[El Rojo]

regarding an individual fash, Trotsky's line was try to convince them that they are wrong, and if that fails, equate thier heads with the pavement.

[DarkPast]

In my opinion, banning fascist gatherings will not convince fascists to change their ways. They'll merely find other ways to push their agenda. Best to let them speak their minds. Then prove how utterly wrong they are - and this is not hard, since their theories are irrational and simply cannot hold up to counter-arguments. Make it obvious those being thus humiliates are fascists, make it clear to the people who these fascists really are - and the idea will eventually die out.

If they turn violent, of course we must of course respond in kind. But bear in mind that violence alone will not destroy fascism; the Third Reich was a smoking ruin at the end of World War 2, but fascism still survived. Proper education, however, might succeed where violence failed (which is not to say that violence will not be required at some point).

[Nox]

Because what Fascists preach is dangerous to humanity.

[Anarchist Skinhead]

DarkPast- we are not really trying to change their views, if you think you can, they you are wasting your time. We are trying to show them that any kind of organising in the communities they want to do will be met with militant resistance. Thatys the whole point, to deny them any ground and make them too scared to preach their hate.

[tachosomoza]

Reactionaries never change. To expect them to do otherwise is foolhardy. The only way to deal with them is to stoop to their violent level.

[noble brown]

W /in the current state of affairs rights are granted by the state. A communist society would, if anything, revoke ones rights and b done so on a local or communal level. The right to speech oughta b mandatory. Period. Everything else is a slippery slope. U either have freedom of speech or not. No clause or exceptions. Now if u think its more important to make an exception then that's ur perogative but lets call a duck a duck here its no longer freedom.
Ur looking at the problem all wrong. U don't solve shit by stopping ppl from hearing a message. Its not that they hear something that we should b worried about but that u believe what u hear. U won't ever get rid of the wackos (they play their own part in this) conflict will always ensue when u restrict ppl as a group.
Lets instead educate ppl so they won't b enraptured by fascism or racism or any other dumb shit
U give ppl education and u won't have to take ppls rights away. Our rights are inalienable but lets get it right this time... no exceptions.
Be that as it may, we can't educate everyone right now. Society is still enslaved, we have no say in things like how ppl are educated so the next best solution is to shut a muthafkkas mouth. The masses are easily swayed by b.s. the revolution will only b successful w/ the masses.so until we can educate them I think its morally imperitive that we protect them from harm (fascists) as a policy. Its distasteful but circumstances are such. Them fkkas are dangerous, socially speaking.

[Sasha]

Free Speech FAQ
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stolen and stickied

[Game Girl]

I'm all for free speech. But those fascist thugs use it as a weapon! Anyone who spews unjustified hatred does not deserve such rights!

Free Speech =/= Hate Speech

[Anarchist Skinhead]

quoting again from the great FAQ above: What’s the purpose of free speech, if not to foster a world free from oppression? Fascists oppose this vision;thus we oppose fascism by any means necessary.

'nuff said.

[Thirsty Crow]

If they turn violent, of course we must of course respond in kind. But bear in mind that violence alone will not destroy fascism; the Third Reich was a smoking ruin at the end of World War 2, but fascism still survived. Proper education, however, might succeed where violence failed (which is not to say that violence will not be required at some point).

Fascist organization persist not because the military defeat of the regimes in question was not strong enough of a factor, but rather because the social conditions in which such groups, movements and organizations take form were far from gone.

[DarkPast]

Reactionaries never change. To expect them to do otherwise is foolhardy. The only way to deal with them is to stoop to their violent level.

Absolutely untrue. There are ex-fascists on this very forum.

Fascist organization persist not because the military defeat of the regimes in question was not strong enough of a factor, but rather because the social conditions in which such groups, movements and organizations take form were far from gone.

But that's my point: the correct way to stop fascism is to remove those conditions. Simply banning fascist symbols and hate speech obviously doesn't work; in Germany those things are outright illegal and punishable by up to several years in prison, but it still doesn't stop the fascists.

[Thirsty Crow]

But that's my point: the correct way to stop fascism is to remove those conditions. Simply banning fascist symbols and hate speech obviously doesn't work; in Germany those things are outright illegal and punishable by up to several years in prison, but it still doesn't stop the fascists.

That would be because German society is based on capitalist relations of production, and consequently because social conditions pertaining to exploitation and political domination, extending to the global scale, still remain intact, however modified by certain intrventions into the relations of production.

But that does not tell us anything about concrete measures in a revolutionary society to be undertaken for self-defense with respect to Fascists. I'd argue in fact that your approach of outarguing the fascists, based in logical argument put foward in media of public discourse, is not relevant here because such groups are not interested in argumentative debate, open to different perspectives. I think it would be logical to assume that fascist activity will not take the form of a political organization out in the open, producing arguments and forwarding political positions, but rather that clandestine terror groups, in one way or another connected to countries in proximity which resist social revolution.

If it is to be shown that such forms of resistance to workers' power arise, then the question of self-defense shifts from your proposed terrain of rational debate to terrains of specific ways of repression and coercion. It is precisely this context that enables us to debate whether it would be necessary to lock up a random guy who is vocal about his dislike for X ethnic minority, for LGBTQ people, or workers' taking over production and running it in their interests, but does not seem to be a pat of an organized network of reaction.

Of course, this branches out into a discussion on specific institutions of self-defense aiming at uncovering the before mentioned clandestine fascist groups.

[DarkPast]

I see what you mean - I was thinking of public gatherings and an individual's rights to express an opinion. I agree that, in a worker-controlled society, pro-fascist and pro-capitalist gatherings should be closely monitored for outside (reactionary) influence. However, I also consider suppressing an individual for his expressing his/her own opinions to be entirely unacceptable.

It goes without saying that violence against the worker's society should be met with violence and any organizations that participate in it should be banned, no exceptions.

In other words, what I believe is this: A man should be allowed to write a song with a pro-nazi slant and submit it to a radio station. But a real socialist state - one where there's democratic control over the radio stations - would never play that song. If it would, then something is obviously wrong with the state's socialist character.