Monday, February 20, 2006
Austrian justice, Austrian hypocrisy
The remedy for speech, especially offensive speech, is sunlight. Expose it to scrutiny and reveal its core idiocy. Mock it relentlessly, and stop inviting the speaker to the best cocktail parties. But please, please, let's not throw people in jail for writing what they will, or burn the embassies of countries that suffer offensive opinions to exist, or slaughter innocent people, or lodge diplomatic protests. It is high time to decriminalize speech everywhere in the world, no matter how asshattish it may be.
16 Comments:
By 
Lanky_Bastard, at
Mon Feb 20, 02:43:00 PM:
By Sissy Willis, at
Mon Feb 20, 03:02:00 PM:
Mockery is the best medicine. Wonderful post. :)
By 
, at
Mon Feb 20, 03:45:00 PM:
So what would your opinion be on Townhall's call to prosecute Al Gore for sedition?
By Cassandra, at
Mon Feb 20, 04:08:00 PM:
Equally asshattish (though personally I think the case can be make that AlGore is an Alien)
By Charlottesvillain, at
Mon Feb 20, 05:24:00 PM:
It is clear by his own actions that Al Gore has already been sentenced to his own private hell. He is cleary a tormented soul. I pity him and hope he finds peace (prefereably far away from a microphone).
By Mike, at
Mon Feb 20, 05:26:00 PM:
For more, see my analysis of European speech rights here:
The Agenda Gap
By TigerHawk, at
Mon Feb 20, 05:52:00 PM:
Sam -
Of course Al Gore shouldn't be prosecuted for sedition. He should be denounced and mocked for his disloyalty, but Americans have hated actual prosecutions for sedition since the Adams administration. There is no reason we should abandon that tradition now.
By David Blue, at
Mon Feb 20, 06:37:00 PM:
I agree it's disgraceful that David Irving should go to prison, and it's right to say so.
I believe Bernard Lewis is right in this very important piece (link) on where the new antisemitism comes from. It did not come from David Irving.
"Then came the Third Reich, with connections to the Arab world and, later, to other Muslim countries. Now that the German archives are open, we know that within weeks of Hitler’s coming to power in 1933, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem got in touch with the German consul general in Jerusalem, Doctor Heinrich Wolff, and offered his services. It is interesting that the common image of the Germans pursuing the Arabs is the reverse of what happened. The Arabs were pursuing the Germans, and the Germans were very reluctant to get involved. Dr. Wolff recommended, and his government agreed, that as long as there was any hope of making a deal with the British Empire and establishing a kind of Aryan-Nordic axis in the West, it would be pointless to antagonize the British by supporting the Arabs.
But then things gradually changed, particularly after the Munich Conference in 1938. That was the turning point, when the German government finally decided that there was no deal to be made with Britain, no Aryan axis. Then the Germans turned their attention more seriously to the Arabs, responding at last to their approaches, and from then on the relationship developed very swiftly."
"The Nazi propaganda impact was immense. We see it in Arabic memoirs of the period, and of course in the foundation of the Ba’ath party. We use the word "party" in speaking of the Ba’ath in the same sense in which one speaks of the Fascist, Nazi, or Communist parties—not a party in the Western sense, an organization for seeking votes and winning elections, but a party as part of the apparatus of government, particularly concerned with indoctrination and repression. And anti-Semitism, European-style, became a very important part of that indoctrination. The basis was there. A certain amount of translated literature was there. It became much more important after the events of 1948, when the humiliated Arabs drew comfort from the doctrine of the Jews as a source of cosmic evil. This continued and grew with subsequent Arab defeats, particularly after the ultimate humiliation of the 1967 war, which Israel won in less than a week."
That's why our enemies seem like Nazis. They pretty well are Islamo-Nazis, the new spawn of Hitler: less competent than the German National Socialists but vastly more numerous and with a superior fifth column from oil money and our disloyal leftists.
David Irving is despicable. But in this context he's also petty.
We should defend freedom of speech, including his.
By Cassandra, at
Mon Feb 20, 07:14:00 PM:
...I hope he finds peace (preferably far away from a microphone)...
... and then perhaps at least we can find peace :)
By , at
Mon Feb 20, 07:52:00 PM:
Tigerhawk:
Indeed. The only way for people to commit sedition in the United States of America is to advocate sedition laws. :P
By , at
Mon Feb 20, 08:52:00 PM:
Tigerhawk, I can sort of agree with you except Irving is not a minor player in the anti-semitics of the world. He was a very prolific author who specialized in historical revisions in favor of the Nazis and against the Jews. He is prominant enough to be listed in detail in Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Irving In many ways, he is a living example of the adage 'you play with fire, you're going to get burnt'.
By , at
Mon Feb 20, 09:27:00 PM:
Speech should never, ever, be considered "playing with fire." That defeats the purpose of free speech, essentially
By , at
Mon Feb 20, 09:52:00 PM:
I only meant that in the sense that he has been living dangerously with the legal system having lost a couple of libel suits and been fined once by Germany for remarks against the holocaust.
By Dawnfire82, at
Tue Feb 21, 01:43:00 AM:
Well folks, there already is a law on the books against "sedition" and most people have not broken it nor heard anyone seriously speak of or consider breaking it. It's pretty specific.
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/casecode/uscodes/18/parts/i/chapters/115/sections/section_2385.html
Speaking poorly about one's government is not sedition in the USA. Neither is lying while doing so, else that fatass Michael Moore (may he starve in hell for polluting my family name) would be in prison since long ago. Advocating or pursuing the violent overthrow of the US or state governments through non-Constitutional means is sedition.
By neo-neocon, at
Tue Feb 21, 08:23:00 PM:
I agree with your position and your conclusions: free speech requires that Irving not be jailed, abominable though he undoubtedly is.
But when I researched my post on the subject, I discovered the situation is more complex than I originally thought, and I came to at least understand the strength of some of the arguments in favor of criminalizing Holocaust denial.
That said, I believe that free speech is the only way to go.
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