A Democrat asks: "Where does free speech end?"

A Democrat activist wrote:  "Where does free speech end?  Certainly at the grill of a Dodge Challenger.  KKK and confederate flags have always been around in my lifetime, protected as free speech, but nazi (sic) flags?  With a war in living memory that killed millions and a movement that killed millions more, I thought swastikas were a red line.  Are nazi (sic) flags free speech?  I know/hope that republicans (sic) don't support this but will they speak up, or are they entirely spineless?"

Purposefully running down somebody with an automobile isn't free speech.  It is murder.  Because it happened in Virginia, with its Republican Legislature (the GOP controls the Senate 21 to 19 and the House of Delegates 66 to 34), if convicted the perpetrator will get the death penalty and will be executed for his crime. 

This wouldn't happen in New Jersey, with its Democrat-controlled Legislature.  Here the perpetrator would be coddled at taxpayer expense and would, perhaps, sue the state because he wasn't receiving enough benefits.  It wasn't long ago that a convicted rapist sued the state so that he could have a sex-change operation and serve the remainder of his sentence as a "woman".  Of course, James Randall Smith, who was convicted of kidnapping and raping a 17-year-old girl, expected the state's taxpayers to pay for his sex-change operation.

As for Nazi flags, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has argued that a Nazi flag is as much an element of free speech as is burning the American flag.  On its website, the ACLU explains why it defended Nazis:

"In 1978, the ACLU took a controversial stand for free speech by defending a neo-Nazi group that wanted to march through the Chicago suburb of Skokie , where many Holocaust survivors lived. The notoriety of the case caused some ACLU members to resign, but to many others the case has come to represent the ACLU's unwavering commitment to principle. In fact, many of the laws the ACLU cited to defend the group's right to free speech and assembly were the same laws it had invoked during the Civil Rights era, when Southern cities tried to shut down civil rights marches with similar claims about the violence and disruption the protests would cause."

The ACLU makes its arguments for all to read, on its website, and we encourage everyone to visit the website (www.aclu.org):

"Freedom of speech, of the press, of association, of assembly and petition -- this set of guarantees, protected by the First Amendment, comprises what we refer to as freedom of expression. The Supreme Court has written that this freedom is 'the matrix, the indispensable condition of nearly every other form of freedom.'

Without it, other fundamental rights, like the right to vote, would wither and die. 

But in spite of its 'preferred position' in our constitutional hierarchy, the nation's commitment to freedom of expression has been tested over and over again. Especially during times of national stress, like war abroad or social upheaval at home, people exercising their First Amendment rights have been censored, fined, even jailed. Those with unpopular political ideas have always borne the brunt of government repression. It was during WWI -- hardly ancient history -- that a person could be jailed just for giving out anti-war leaflets. Out of those early cases, modern First Amendment law evolved. Many struggles and many cases later, ours is the most speech-protective country in the world.

The path to freedom was long and arduous. It took nearly 200 years to establish firm constitutional limits on the government's power to punish 'seditious'  and 'subversive' speech. Many people suffered along the way, such as labor leader Eugene V. Debs, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison under the Espionage Act just for telling a rally of peaceful workers to realize they were 'fit for something better than slavery and cannon fodder.'  Or Sidney Street, jailed in 1969 for burning an American flag on a Harlem street corner to protest the shooting of civil rights figure James Meredith...

Early Americans enjoyed great freedom compared to citizens of other nations. Nevertheless, once in power, even the Constitution's framers were guilty of overstepping the First Amendment they had so recently adopted. In 1798, during the French-Indian War, Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Act, which made it a crime for anyone to publish 'any false, scandalous and malicious writing' against the government. It was used by the then-dominant Federalist Party to prosecute prominent Republican newspaper editors during the late 18th century.

Throughout the 19th century, sedition, criminal anarchy and criminal conspiracy laws were used to suppress the speech of abolitionists, religious minorities, suffragists, labor organizers, and pacifists. In Virginia prior to the Civil War, for example, anyone who 'by speaking or writing maintains that owners have no right of property in slaves'  was subject to a one-year prison sentence.

The early 20th century was not much better. In 1912, feminist Margaret Sanger was arrested for giving a lecture on birth control. Trade union meetings were banned and courts routinely granted injunctions prohibiting strikes and other labor protests. Violators were sentenced to prison. Peaceful protesters opposing U. S. entry into World War I were jailed for expressing their opinions. In the early 1920s, many states outlawed the display of red or black flags, symbols of communism and anarchism. In 1923, author Upton Sinclair was arrested for trying to read the text of the First Amendment at a union rally. Many people were arrested merely for membership in groups regarded as 'radical' by the government. It was in response to the excesses of this period that the ACLU was founded in 1920.

...The ACLU has often been at the center of controversy for defending the free speech rights of groups that spew hate, such as the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazis. But if only popular ideas were protected, we wouldn't need a First Amendment. History teaches that the first target of government repression is never the last. If we do not come to the defense of the free speech rights of the most unpopular among us, even if their views are antithetical to the very freedom the First Amendment stands for, then no one's liberty will be secure. In that sense, all First Amendment rights are 'indivisible.'

Censoring so-called hate speech also runs counter to the long-term interests of the most frequent victims of hate: racial, ethnic, religious and sexual minorities. We should not give the government the power to decide which opinions are hateful, for history has taught us that government is more apt to use this power to prosecute minorities than to protect them. As one federal judge has put it, tolerating hateful speech is 'the best protection we have against any Nazi-type regime in this country.'"

Everyone should ask themselves the question, "Where does free speech end?"  And then follow that question with another:  "When do you want it to end?"

The Nazi camp and Andover Township

We recently had correspondence from a reader who drew our attention to the fact that it was a member of the local political establishment back in the 1930's, Newton lawyer William Dolan, who handled the land transaction that granted that American Nazi group control of the land that became Camp Nordland.  Now William Dolan was then the sitting State Senator of Sussex County, a Democrat, at a time when each county had one state senator. 

According to a scholar at the University of Michigan, " New Jersey Congressman J. Parnell Thomas, Republican of Sussex, noted that New Jersey State Senator William Dolan, a Democrat, had aided the Bund in buying Nordland and that the Democratic Township Committee of Andover had granted Nordland a liquor license." 

 

According to historian and author Warren Grover, Camp Nordland in Andover Township was incorporated in March 1937.  Fritz Kuhn, the American Fuehrer himself, was one of the eight trustees of Camp Nordland.  When the camp formally opened in July, State Senator Dolan was introduced by the American Nazi Bund's New Jersey Bundesleiter, and he greeted the "swastika waving" crowds. 

Dolan was a political enemy of Franklin's Alfred "Bike" Littell, who went on to take his place as State Senator and to serve as Senate President.  Littell, whose education at Princeton University had been interrupted for service in an artillery regiment in World War I, went to war against the American Nazis.   Alfred Littell was the father of Senator Bob Littell, father-in-law of NJ Republican Party Chairwoman Virginia Littell, and the grandfather of Assemblywoman Alison Littell McHose.

Strangely enough, many years after Camp Nordland closed there was another incidence in Andover Township that brought to mind the municipality's former connection.  It happened during the summer of 2012 and was extensively covered  in the New Jersey Herald and by other media.

Somehow a Tea Party meeting was turned into showplace for the ideology of Maggie Rodden.  The meeting was hosted at the Farmstead Golf & Country Club and was supposed to address Tea Party concerns about something called Agenda 21.  It was the choice of speaker that was remarkable.

Shortly after her speech at the Farmstead, Maggie Rodden was booted from the Internet-radio outlet that hosted her.  Here is what a Rodden fellow-traveler had to say about it:

"Speaking of censorship, Dr. Rebecca Carley and Maggie Rodden both were recently fired from These Changing Timez Radio (Dr. Carley) and the Orion Radio Network (Maggie) for their 'Anti-Semitic' viewpoints. Kyle Hunt and Mike Sledge, broadcasters formerly on Oracle Broadcasting Network, were recently fired as well for their unabashed criticisms of international Jewry. As more and more people wake up to the Jewish agenda, the radio stations, internet hosting companies, social media outlets, and other sources of information suppressing free speech and/or refusing to address the supremacist nature of Judaism – and the organized Jewish crime network ruining our world - will become more and more marginalized and discredited. As we move into 2013, any outlet suppressing criticism of the Jews must be boycotted."

Rodden was a real piece of work and you would be surprised at the pushback some media got by calling her out.  Among other things, she referred to some notorious Canadian Nazis as "freedom fighters" and her radio program was a home to some very whacky anti-Jewish conspiracy theorists and Holocaust deniers.  For her to give her swan song just yards away from the former Camp Nordland was kind of weird and creepy.

Tea Party leader calls Nazi beer hall "charming"

Douglas Amedeo, a New York attorney and leader in the Skylands Tea Party, recently posted the following on social media:

We respectfully disagree with attorney Amedeo.  No less than the top Nazi architect himself, Albert Speer, held that National Socialist (Nazi) architecture was reflective of its ideological attitudes.  We suggest attorney Amedeo read "Inside the Third Reich", written by Speer while serving a prison sentence for crimes against humanity. 

For our part, we can find nothing "charming" in National Socialist architecture, although we do understand that taste is a very subjective and often personal matter.

To the leaders of Andover Township we have a question and a suggestion.

The Question:  Why hasn't Andover Township placed a plaque on the property to honor the victims of the ideology that was practiced at the American National Socialist Bund's Camp Nordland (what attorney Amedeo refers to as the "Barn in Hillside Park")?

The Suggestion:  That Andover Township place a plaque at the site of the American National Socialist Bund's Camp Nordland, to honor the victims of the ideology practiced there; and that Andover Township donate all proceeds from events held at the former Nazi Beer Hall to organizations representing the victims of the Holocaust and their families.

As for Tea Party leader Amedeo's suggestion that Great Britain's constitutional monarchy was somehow equivalent to the dictatorship of Adolph Hitler... well, that is simply preposterous.  America owes its democratic roots to English Common Law and our representative system of government to "the mother of parliaments" -- British representative democracy.

Perhaps we could arrange a public debate on the Tea Party's assertion that the British monarch is an equivalent to the Nazi dictator.  Attorney Amedeo could argue for the proposition, and perhaps Professor Murray Sabrin, who lost family in the Holocaust, could argue against.

And far from being "an administrative seat of King George's colonial government," Independence Hall was constructed in 1753 as buildings to house the colonial Legislature of the Province of Pennsylvania.  The refining simplicity of its construction and its layout are the very essence of representative democracy. 

To compare Independence Hall to a Nazi beer hall is asinine.  We trust that the Tea Party and its leadership will further their reading on this.  We can recommend several good authors on the subject, although "Philadelphia, A 300-Year History" (edited by Russell F. Weigley, published in 1982) is a good place to start.  For more in-depth reading, we recommend beginning with "Watson's Annals of Philadelphia" (John F. Watson, 1884).

 

 

A scene from Camp Nordland, Andover Township, New Jersey.