extended weekend

[laszlo]

things are starting to pick up on the creative side. My friend, Aron, is a director and he's been making a documentary about himself for the last three years. The scenes in his movie are actual pieces from his life and although many are embarrasing, they are sincere and quite extraordinary. My role in the project is Editor on camera and Assistant

Comments

Re: relevancy

[anonymous]

Bof. Laszo, the entitlement to speak anonymously is not only a privilege, but a right grounded in constitutional law. Writing for the majority of the Court, Justice Stevens wrote that “[u]nder our Constitution, anonymous pamphleteering is not a pernicious, fraudulent practice, but an honorable tradition of advocacy and of dissent. Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation--and their ideas from suppression--at the hand of an intolerant society. McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Com'n, 514 U.S. 334, 357.
As the internet can potentially become a forum for free-wielding debate while absenting the constraints of political correctness, you wish to “chill” such efforts by imposing restrictions on our discussion. As you know, I cannot reveal my identity for fear of retaliatory reprisal by left-wing elements. To preserve the pluralistic nature of the information superhighway and improve upon the public policy-making process, the theories and opinions of fascists such as you and I must be included as they vie for legitimacy in the “marketplace of ideas”; the great Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes advanced the “marketplace” theory in his famous dissent in Abrams v. United States :

. . . Persecution for the expression of opinions seems to me perfectly logical. If you have no doubt of your premises or your power and want a certain result with all your heart you naturally express your wishes in law and sweep away all opposition. To allow opposition by speech seems to indicate that you think the speech impotent, as when a man says that he has squared the circle, or that you do not care whole heartedly for the result, or that you doubt either your power or your premises. But when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas -- that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out. That at any rate is the theory of our Constitution. It is an experiment, as all life is an experiment. Every year if not every day we have to wager our salvation upon some prophecy based upon imperfect knowledge. While that experiment is part of our system I think that we should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe and believe to be fraught with death, unless they so imminently threaten immediate interference with the lawful and pressing purposes of the law that an immediate check is required to save the country. . . . [250 U.S. at 626]

Laszlo, the idea of restricting speech, as you have sought to accomplish in your previous message post, is an objective as radically and politically charged as any that I know of. As you have ignited a political firestorm, I am hereby charged to react in kind. Why must you have the sole privelefe of asserting a monopoly on fascist ideas? Some of us want our piece of that delicious pie too.