This guy was a socialist who literally killed Nazis. Please, spare a couple of minutes, and read what he had to say, and note that this was originally written in 1945.
See how you setup the perfect straw-man here - "If you aren't on the side of our perfect, morality infused, turbo-boosted censorship, you must sympathize with Nazis!".
The only time free speech matters is when the nature of speech is controversial! "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." is a more accurate summation of the U.S. govt., and the history behind the first amendment.
Also worth noting that an actual incitement of violence is expressly illegal under U.S. law, and the ChristChurch shooter's manifesto et.al. is probably already illegal, without requiring a new speech police
Incitement of violence is actually mostly legal under U.S law except when it calls for imminent action that is likely to happen, which is a surprisingly high bar to meet. See Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969) [0]. Take note that this ruling was in defense of the KKK, but that it was later cited to protect the speech of the former NAACP Leader, Charles Evers [1].
>The conditions that must be met to impose criminal liability for speech that incites others to illegal actions are imminent harm, a likelihood that the incited illegal action will occur, and an intent by the speaker to cause imminent illegal actions. This precedent remains the principal standard in this area of First Amendment law, since the Supreme Court has not revisited it.
Also worth noting that an actual incitement of violence is expressly illegal under U.S. law, and the ChristChurch shooter's manifesto et.al. is probably already illegal, without requiring a new speech police
Your understanding of the law is wrong. Incitement is assessed (in federal law) by the standard set in Brandenburg v. Ohio which requires both the intention to produce imminent lawless action and the likelihood that it will be produced.
Let us consider a document whose entire text is "Reader, please commit a crime as soon as humanly possible." It is targeted (to the reader), specifically encourages lawless behavior, and has a sense of immediacy.
But does it produce imminent lawlessness? If I say those words to you in person, the time between my utterance and your hearing of it is negligible. If you find me sufficiently inspiring or intimidating you may be moved to act upon my exhortation. But when you read a document, it might have been written 5 minutes ago or 5000 years ago. It may have been produced near to you or on the other side of the world. You may know and care who the writer is, or have no clue. Conversely, as the writer of a document my ability to predict when and where it will be read, and by whom, is similarly limited. Thus, a document by itself lacks temporal, spatial, or social proximity compared to an interpersonal interaction - making imminence virtually impossible to prove.
Likelihood of producing action is very subjective (and thereby also hard to prove). In this case I have offered no incentives or specificity to my exhortations, so you probably feel little motivation to select and carry out a crime and put yourself in legal jeopardy. If you were to cite this document as an exculpatory factor few people would take you seriously. Even if I offered an elaborate rationale and specific directions for committing a crime, when they're in documentary form I don't really know who will read it and have even less knowledge of how readers will react to it; it's very hard to say how anyone could assert a definite probability of 0.5 or greater that the crime will be carried out within any given period.
tl;dr it's almost impossible to prove the US standard of incitement outside of a very narrow range of circumstances, so making the 'incitement is already illegal' argument is the legal equivalent of sweeping dirt underneath a rug and then forgetting about it.
> When the discussion comes to any other topic such as police brutality, racism, discrimination etc. these voices are conspicuously absent.
Patently untrue, and a baseless accusation. If anything, the recent spate in enforcing compulsory body-cams for cops, and livestreams of actual police brutality have faced ZERO calls for censorship, especially from free speech advocates.
> things are illegal but let's not make any laws or have any clear legal mechanisms to effectively enforcing this
What does this even mean? If something is illegal, those with standing can obviously enforce the law.
Digging up the profoundly dirty history and reality of the US is unfortunately not taken very seriously, and actions by the police towards minorities etc are excused as justified by the same people that would argue against government tyranny.
It's easier to claim that the US is an absolute bastion of free speech when you can conveniently hand wave all of the instances where it is not. Especially when it never actually affects you. It came to absolutely no surprise when i saw almost zero reaction from the 'free speech' crowd when a woman was prosecuted for laughing at Sessions.
The case you cite [1] should only strengthen the argument for free speech.
The first amendment is likely what saved the lady from a frivolous lawsuit/censorship from those who abuse the power to regulate other's speech.
What you want is that power to reside with a cabal that aligns with your politics, you want a thought-police you approve of, all while citing a case where someone was literally sued for a thought-crime. I hope you see the irony, and that power often shifts with wild swings. Someday, you might find yourself at the wrong end of a thought-policing policy you shilled for, because those in power aren't aligned. Hence the case for constitutional free speech protections.
No, I think the US administration, Trump in particular, sympathise with actual nazis - we saw this in Trump's reaction to the nazis marching in Charlottesville - "very fine people" he said
