#TheEconomist as the new rupor of the Democratic Party. On free speech, fake news and comments and censure

More than 40 years ago, on June 14, 1977, the U.S. Supreme Court decided a case, The National Socialist Party of America v Village of Skokie.

In that case, which, as the 4 dissenting judges

• Rehnquist;
• Burgher;
• Stewart and
• White

pointed out, arrived at the door of the U.S. Supreme Court prematurely and without jurisdiction, the U.S. Supreme Court, by its majority of these justices:

• John P. Stevens; born in 1920, retired in 2010, 57 y. o. at the time of the decision and the only judge of the 5 judges in the majority who decided this case in favor of the Nazis;

• Thurgood Marshall (1908-1993), the only African American judge on the US Supreme Court at the time, and 69 years old at the time;

• Harry Blackmun (1908-1999) ; 69 years old at the time

• Lewis F. Powell, Jr. (1907-1998), 70 years old at the time, and

• William J. Brennan (1906-1997), 71 years old at the time of the decision

allowed a Nazi march to proceed through a village where every 6th resident was a Holocaust survivor.

It must be noted not only that the case arrived to their doors without jurisdiction, prematurely - as the dissenters pointed out, including the then-Chief Judge of the US Supreme Court Warren Burgher - but also that the case was picked by the court for a discretionary (by their wishes) review out of 8,000 petitions that were rejected that year.

So, the 4 white men and 1 black man of the majority considered it a priority to (1) accept the case for review, and to (2) decide the case against the Holocaust survivors and in favor of the Nazis who wanted to demonstrate their unity and force in front of the houses of those Holocaust survivors.

The injunction against the Nazi march - that these 5 men reversed - "prohibited [the Nazis] from performing any of the following actions within the village of Skokie, Ill.: '[m]arching, walking or parading in the uniform of the National Socialist Party of America; [m]arching, walking or parading or otherwise displaying the swastika on or off their person; [d]istributing pamphlets or displaying any materials which incite or promote hatred against persons of Jewish faith or ancestry or hatred against persons of any faith or ancestry, race or religion."

The National Socialist Party of America was represented in that case by - gasp! - The ACLU, so it is to ACLU and to these 5 men, one of them still alive, that we all owe that the white supremacist march in Virginia that resulted in violent clashes was - and had to be - allowed by a judge, based on the U.S. Supreme Court precedent.

That was not all.

In 1992, 25 years ago, the same U.S. Supreme Court, in its majority opinion by judges:

• Antonin Scalia - now deceased,

• Chief Judge William Rehnquist, - now deceased;

• Anthony Kennedy - the notorious prosti... oops, swing vote judge, who is alive and still on the court, though rumors of his impending retirement have reportedly reached a "fever pitch",

• David Souter - alive and retired from the court;

• Clarence Thomas - reportedly, Judge Scalia's shadow wagged by Judge Scalia while he was still alive, the only African American judge on the court at the time, alive and still "serving" on the U.S. Supreme Court

with the concurrence of judges

• Byron White - now deceased;

• Harry Blackmun - now deceased;

• Sandra Day O'Connor - retired and alive and

• John P. Stevens - retired and alive

chose to take for review a case of a white supremacist teenager convicted of a hate crime of burning a cross in front of a house of African Americans. 


This group of 1 white woman, 1 black man and 7 white men chose to take the case (while rejecting an overwhelming majority of other cases) and to decide it in a way protecting the burning of a cross on the lawn in front of residences of African Americans as not being prosecutable has a hate crimes.

Now, I have pointed a lot of times on this blog that decisions of U.S. Supreme Court are not the Supreme Law of the Land, as many people believe them to be - they are not even mentioned in the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Yet, when it is convenient for a certain cause, precedents of the U.S. Supreme Court are usually flaunted in people's faces, and I've seen a lot of comments on social media of people flaunting decisions of federal courts recently that defy codified statutes and former precedent in order to defy, for example, the new President's immigration policy.

So, if we are to treat federal court precedents as the Law of the Land, let's treat ALL of the U.S. Supreme Court precedents as such.

Including the two above majority opinions - legitimizing Nazi marches in front of Nazi victims and legitimizing a hate crime of cruel harassment against African Americans on 1st Amendment grounds.

So, we have the law, two precedents of the U.S. Supreme Court saying that such conduct is legit and constitutionally protected.

And, fast forward to Virginia where violence erupted at a court-allowed white supremacist rally, there are a lot of articles in the so-called "mainstream media" and a lot of comments on social media "inspired" by these "mainstream media" articles laying the blame squarely on the President for not condemning the court-allowed march of white supremacist for the violence that erupted when anti-white-supremacist groups came to the same place, and when one nut who was supposedly a white supremacist rammed into the anti-protesters in his car.

Now, the President did, in fact, condemn, violence from all sides - as he should have done.

Yet, that is not enough, and groups and mainstream media that tend to blame the President from everything, from his hair color and choice of wife to anything and everything he does and supposedly does not do in office - now blame the President for not condemning white supremacists for lawfully assembling.

And here is where, after I've thrown in my two cents as a comment on the law at the supposedly professional mainstream source, "The Economist", when I learnt how professional The Economist truly is.

Here is the article:

So, it is the President who has "flunked a moral test" - by not condemning what the U.S. Supreme Court clearly protected as constitutional.

Interesting view.

I offered this opinion:

A commentator whom I do not know, answered this way:

And then the "agenda" people came and started to take the discussion off the issue - that the President could not officially "condemn" what the U.S. Supreme Court clearly allowed.

The three "agenda" critics who did not want to look at what I said about the law while pushing there anti-Trump agenda anywhere no matter what, were:

• #EricVanbaelenberghe from Belgium;

who obviously pays more attention to online gaming than on content of statements he is commenting on:

• Yaniv Tomer - a resident of the State of Pennsylvania, and also not a US citizen, but an Israeli national; and

• Eric Kleveland, a disgruntled Hillary Clinton's supporter with no information about himself on his FB page.

So, these three individuals read (presumably) my comment - this one:



and voiced their opinions.

Here are the opinions.

• #EricVanbaelenberghe from Belgium:

That is in answer to:




The comment was completely off-topic, so that's exactly what I pointed out to #EricVanbaelenberghe.

I see this comment, you see this comment because I published it on my own blog - but Facebook readers do not see this comment because - guess what? - The Economist blocked it, you won't believe it - as spam.  Trying to get the discussion back to the original issue is spam in the view of The Economist.  Which raises a question whether the main purpose of the publication was to garner Trump-bashing comments rather than to have an honest discussion of all issues involved.

So, remember the commentator that believed that my comment about the law and that violence on all sides should be prosecuted was proof that there is still hope?  

Well, I tagged her and expressed my opinion about The Economist's censure of comments bringing the discussion back where it belonged.  The Economist immediately deleted that comment, too.

My bad.  The supposedly honest source of journalism does not like criticism and does not want other people to know that it is censuring comments, deleting those that do not serve its political agenda.

Well, I thought that I, as a citizen of the United States, have more to say about what is happening in my own country than a citizen of Belgium, and that I have a right to respond to comments to my statement, especially baiting comments that try to throw the discussion off course.

My bad, again, I did not know that, as a commentator, I am supposed to act as a paid troll of the Democratic Party, then no matter what foul language I would have produced, would be good.

As proof, here comes the next critic, #YanivTomer, citizen of Israel, resident of Pennsylvania.

Once again, this is my original post Yaniv Tomer was commenting on:

And here is his comment:

I pointed out that under the law all violence is equally accountable.

The President condemned violence on all sides.

Yaniv Tomer claims that it was inappropriate for the President to "dr[aw] a moral equivalence in his comments" between violence and violence, depending on who is wielding it.

President's bad, the law's bad and my bad.

And, Yaniv Tomer, while living in Pennsylvania and presumed to know the laws of the United States, does not seem to know about the two U.S. Supreme Court decisions that make Nazi rallies in front of Nazi victims and even the burning of the cross in front of African American (clearly, hate crimes to me) - not only protected, but also constitutional.

So, he blames on the President equating violence on one side with violence on the other, not the U.S. Supreme Court for making a Nazi and white supremacist rally lawful, and not judge Glen E. Conrad, the U.S. District Judge for the Western District of Virginia, who ordered the city of Charlottesville, VA, to issue a permit for such a rally.

By the way, the docket of this case appears to be hidden on Pacer.gov, this is the only docket with the same docket number (but from another district) that appears on Pacer, compare:

AND

It is very possible that the docket was hidden not to show identities of attorneys for the white supremacists and the contents of their arguments.  Even though concealing a docket of a public case is unconstitutional - but who cares when the coffers of ACLU may suffer from such exposure.  Right?

Actually, NBC News reported on ACLU hailing the white supremacists' "victory" as a constitutional victory.

And, the issue supposedly was not to have a white supremacist rally as such, but a rally against removal of a certain statue.  Which ACLU and The Rutherford Institute whole-heartedly supported on free speech grounds.

Yet, I wonder what the ACLU card-carrying members and supporters would say to that...  They will still thump Trump for "failing a moral test"?

And I wonder why The Economist did not condemn ACLU for "flunking[that same] moral test".

And why did The Economist did not condemn the men and women of the U.S. Supreme Court for, while rejecting the absolute majority of petitions, PICK, on their own, THESE TWO, of the Nazis and of the cross-burning teenagers, and decide them in their favor?

Why not cry out for impeachment of the justices who are still alive and on the bench?  

Why promote bashing only of an executive officer who just follows the law that was written (lawfully) by the U.S. Congress and (unlawfully) by the U.S. Supreme Court?

But, anyway, this is what I answered to Mr. Tomer, on my own comment thread, I must note - which The Economist considered "spam":

Note that The Economist allows a commentator to bash the President for not condemning a court-approved and ACLU-supported rally to not take down a statue, and for condemning violence on both sides (while the police and the FBI are still investigating who did what), but does not allow comments revealing that I am not even allowed to answer to that.

Note that the Economist allows this comment

in answer to this comment

That is supposedly NOT spam.

My point is...

I respected The Economist before this incident.

Now all I see is just another "news" source which shamelessly operates to incite bashing of an elected public official, operating as a tool of the well-funded party that lost elections.

And, now that I know that The Economist DOES censure and delete legitimate comments to its articles while preserving even inappropriate comments when they fall into a certain political agenda, I wonder, how many other comments does The Economist routinely delete while working as a propaganda machine while pretending to be an honest news and expert opinion source?

So, when you see in the thread of comments only a certain kind and not others, just know - others may have been censured out.

"Politically wrong" opinions, and trying to maintain an honest and appropriate discussion on the issues is spam nowadays.

Good job, #TheEconomist a.k.a. #TheDemocraticPartyPravda.