Some people have sometimes wondered about why our Supreme Court allows one group or another to march in a parade, even though it’s the most provocative thing in the world, and they carry signs that are an insult to one group or another. And the reason is, that’s freedom. Freedom of speech. In America, you have the right to be stupid. If you want to be. …Now, I think that’s a virtue. That’s something worth fighting for.Secretary of State John Kerry • Speaking to a group of German students, on the first overseas trip of his tenure as head of the State Department. Kerry’s allusion to Supreme Court precedent defending the right to offensive parades is no doubt a reference to cases like NSPA v. Skokie, which in 1977 upheld the right of Nazis to hold a march in Skokie, Illinois, where 1 in 6 residents were holocaust survivors. That right, Kerry argued, is virtuous and quintessentially American, despite the terrible emotional toll that may result from such offensive expressions — “the right to be stupid.” source
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