If you’re unfamiliar with it The Turner Diaries is a fictional novel about a white suprematist take over of the US government. The book elaborately describes the tactics they use so real life white nationalist can use it as an instruction manual. Pages from the book were found in Timothy McVeigh‘s car.
How do you feel about the fact you can legally buy that book?
32 comments
Welcome back grapp.
Every time a European (invariably) asks this my answer is the same. If you don’t believe in freedom of speech for people you despise, you don’t really believe in freedom of speech. You believe in the freedom to say popular things, which never needs protection.
>How do you feel about the fact you can legally buy that book?
Fine. I’m not big into censorship.
It’s the Turner diaries not the Turned diaries. I had to read them for my terrorism classes. Calling it an instruction manual is pushing it, it has a lot of fanciful notions, but doesn’t explain how to carry out terrorist attacks. The anarchsists cookbook would be a far more in-depth guide, and that’s still allowed to be sold legally. Frankly, the Turner diaries are nothing more than white supremacy wish fulfillment and the author himself even admitted later on that his plans were unrealistic.
Not a fan of censorship. Even of things I do not like….like this book.
The best solution for hateful texts or speech is to let people see and hear them if they want, and counter it with your own. Censorship just pushes ideas underground where they can metastasize unseen. Plus, when it comes to white supremecy, one of the arguments they make is that they are oppressed. Proposing to counter them by silencing them just lends undeserved weight to their argument.
Having free speach also includes listening to people you don’t like talking about things you hate. Censorship is never the answer.
If you’re not free to be an asshole you’re not free.
I’ll never buy it but I certainly believe people have a right to publish it and given that there is no person or body on earth I’d trust with limiting that right I’m glad they do.
Completely support.
Americans, for the most part, believe in near absolute freedom of speech. If that includes the Turner Diaries or some other hateful shit, so be it.
Free speech (and Freedom of the Press) means nothing if it only protects speech that is favored by the government.
The Turner Diaries is vile racist dreck. And yet still it merits First Amendment protection.
That does not mean that there are no limits. Actions have consequences and those engaging in certain actions inspired by such filth can, and should, be held legally liable.
No problem with it. I do not approve of governments made up of officials elected by angry and panicked mobs deciding what speech is and isn’t acceptable.
The Turner Diaries have been around a long time and have always remained on the fringe, which is because anyone can read them and there is no air of mystery around them. The system is working as it should.
Free speech isn’t just for people we agree with
Turner Diaries, I think. [I really don’t have a better way to put it](https://i.imgflip.com/6d4by5.jpg).
It is very easy to choose virtues. Protecting speech is good. Shutting up racists is also good. But what do you do when two virtues come into conflict with each other? You choose what is most important to you and make a trade-off. Every country faces these problems, and they choose differently. In America, we choose that protecting everybody’s speech is what is most important to us.
The question I use to look at any law is, “how could my worst enemy corrupt this to use against me?” If you start making concessions on free speech, you’ll quickly see that it’s really just the honor code keeping it away from tyranny, and the law can be easily captured by fad or populism. American freedom of speech is just the admission that what might be popular might be wrong and what might be unpopular might be right. Tolerating this garbage is the price that must be paid.
Just fine. Free speech is important.
I’m not a fan of censorship. If you act on information in that book you’re likely a turd but I don’t want the government deciding what I can and cannot read.
It’s a dangerous thing when the government starts deciding who can and can’t publish things. Sure, I would prefer to live in a nation where The Turner Diaries was not widely read. However, other people in this country would prefer to live in a nation where, say, Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe (the most often contested library book of 2021) was not widely read. If the government can ban one, they can ban the other.
It is fine there is nothing wrong with any of it until they carry out some intent to act.
All speech should be protected even if I disagree w it
My question is that are there actually people who would not want that book to be published and available – for it to only exist in forums and back allies?
It’s ironic to ask that. If white nationalists gained control of the government there would be fears of free speech being taken away. Basically the question is asking to remove free speech to prevent free speech from being removed.
McVeigh used the skills he learned in the Army more than anything. Banning books because bad people were a fan of them is a slippery slope if I’ve ever seen one
So long as it isn’t something actively threatening another’s life, then so be it. Death threats? Not cool. Explaining how one might overthrow the government? Whatever, really. I love free speech and I hate censorship. I don’t always like what others have to say, and seeing people espouse Nazi, Communist, or racist propaganda pisses me off like no other, but I will fight to defend their right to say those things.
I’m ok with it. I fear the idiotic asshole who would buy that book less than giving the government the power to ban it.
I’m fine with it. Free speech has to be for everyone or else the boundary-setting gets abused. And, besides, you can’t control all communication, so even if that book wasn’t published people would get that information somehow, especially with the Internet so easily available.
It’s free speech for a reason.
The danger of allowing the government to violate the right to free speech is far greater than the danger of any book’s content.
I see no problem with its legality. I don’t agree with what is being said, but I will defend their right to say it.
Gross, but if they weren’t for sale, they’d just be free on the internet.
I see no problem with it being available. Thinking thoughts isn’t committing a crime.
I have no desire to buy it, but don’t have a problem with other people buying it. The best way to combat speech you don’t agree with is better more compelling speech.
Free speech is free speech
I can legally buy The Turner Diaries and Mein Kampf and The Communist Manifesto and Conscience of a Conservative and The Anarchist Cookbook and every other controversial book ever published — but why would I want to do that when I can just as easily borrow them from the library, and for so much less money?
You can’t legislate away ideas just because they’re unpalatable or dangerous. You can only defeat them with other ideas. You can only do this if you allow them to be expressed and studied and argued with. You can only do this if your government doesn’t censor your media.
I’m disgusted by the book and it’s contents.
I’m proud to be part of a country that actually has free speech.