Political Quotes

“the limits of free speech, and civilized discourse, were sorely tested by the recent hate-filled address of Khalid Abdul Muhammad at Kean College in New Jersey. But the Framers of the Constitution had unpopular utterances in mind, when they drafted the first amendment to the Constitution. There is never a need to protect popular or majority opinion--but minority views that would otherwise be stifled by popular outcry. The speech in question is not protected, however, from well-deserved criticism of its loathsome premise and the blind hatred and ignorance that it substitutes for humanity and scholarship. Speeches designed to inflame audiences, evoke prejudice and denigrate minorities into scapegoats, have historically contributed to racial, religious, and ethnic violence not through the strength of argument, but by pandering to the most vulnerable elements of our society. I was only a child during the Second World War, but there are monuments to that dark period of our history in the graveyards and mass burial grounds in villages whose very names continue to fill us with horror at the crimes against humanity, that were committed there.”