Allowing for the printing of Hitler's book is a lot different than allowing people to wear Nazi gear, throw up Nazi salutes, and march with big Swastika flags. The latter will never happen again in Germany.
Certainly, there are still neo Nazis within Germany. There is no way to completely kill off extremism, no matter what you do. However, you can take steps to establish positive social norms and refuse to allow extremism to be normalized. Although the U.S. has not done this similarly in the "speech" area, we have done it in other related areas, most obviously, the right for people to freely associate. There was significant conflict over this concept during the Civil rights period where cetrain elements sought to maintain de jure segregation, and others fought and ultimately succeeded in getting the courts to recognize the Federal Government's power to ban racial segregation via the Commerce Clause of the U.S Constitution. This was a huge shift in American society that is analogous to placing similar restrictions on freedom of speech, and although there is still much debate about the use of that power, the results are undeniable. American society is significantly more integrated than it was in the pre-civil rights period. Yet, again, society has not fallen apart. And I can guarantee that people have made the exact same arguments about respecting the freedom of free association as they have made about freedom of speech.
Allowing for the printing of Hitler's book is a lot different than allowing people to wear Nazi gear, throw up Nazi salutes, and march with big Swastika flags. The latter will never happen again in Germany.
Certainly, there are still neo Nazis within Germany. There is no way to completely kill off extremism, no matter what you do. However, you can take steps to establish positive social norms and refuse to allow extremism to be normalized. Although the U.S. has not done this similarly in the "speech" area, we have done it in other related areas, most obviously, the right for people to freely associate. There was significant conflict over this concept during the Civil rights period where cetrain elements sought to maintain de jure segregation, and others fought and ultimately succeeded in getting the courts to recognize the Federal Government's power to ban racial segregation via the Commerce Clause of the U.S Constitution. This was a huge shift in American society that is analogous to placing similar restrictions on freedom of speech, and although there is still much debate about the use of that power, the results are undeniable. American society is significantly more integrated than it was in the pre-civil rights period. Yet, again, society has not fallen apart. And I can guarantee that people have made the exact same arguments about respecting the freedom of free association as they have made about freedom of speech.