Barrel Strength

US Federal Judge Bernard M. Decker:

“It is better to allow those who preach racial hatred to expend their venom in rhetoric rather than to be panicked into embarking on the dangerous course of permitting the government to decide what its citizens may say and hear …. The ability of American society to tolerate the advocacy of even hateful doctrines … is perhaps the best protection we have against the establishment of any Nazi-type regime in this country.”

By June 24 1978, US Nazi leader Frank Collin had assembled his forces and was ready to parade his might before an astonished world. Apart from his drive to make a fool of himself, Collin himself was a character of minimal charisma and absolutely no consequence, while his Brownshirts were an ill-favoured bunch of mixed physical types, mostly unremarkable. In press conferences, Chicago reporters enjoyed asking Collin whether he was of Jewish descent so they could watch his face turn red. For months, the ACLU had been fighting for Collin’s right to lead his dozen confused young adolescent males on a march through Skokie, a mostly Jewish suburb of Chicago. For some reason, the US federal government was forced to host a Nazi demonstration and chose Federal Plaza in downtown Chicago as the venue. The Chicago police were drafted in to make this all happen. Their solution was to bring the Nazis in through the back of the federal building and on to the plaza. The wags on the force had decided to place the press inside a double line of saw-horses between the Nazis and the mob. (Jim Belushi was there with the world’s phoniest press pass, to gather material for Second City skits. The cops didn’t care. You want to be part of a human coil-spring between angry and stupid? Fill your boots.)

It was a beautiful day and everyone got there early for the warm-up. College kids came in for miles around to confront the demonstrators. It could have been a festival, with street vendors and music, except people were carrying signs mounted on two by fours and lengths of steel pipe. The police did their best to confiscate those, along with the rocks and bottles, but it was a big crowd.

The demonstration itself was quite brief, and Collin’s bull-horn was totally inadequate to the storm of noise and debris that instantly broke over him. While he exercised his right to free speech, the Chicago cops exercised their baton arms on the unfortunates who were jammed up against the barriers. The press got a story with lots of exciting ‘vis’, and the students got a lively outing. Everybody got something. This is how a free people conducts its business, in the open air, in full view of all. Hateful people have a right to say at least some hateful things, and government has at least some obligation to protect them. Whenever I look at the wasteful, inept and ultimately useless human rights cases in Canada, I think of the US government making sure Frank Collin had freedom of expression. He is long gone now, but the lesson remains. Give a free people free expression and free access to ideas - they know what to do.