Written for EuroTrib originally, but a little relevant here as well.
Ironically, I’ve been reluctant to write this story for fear of the consequences: I don’t really want to open up a divisive debate again.
However, I am astonished at the lack of outrage around here at the jailing of David Irving for exercising his right to free speech, even if it was nasty, repulsive and untrue speech. Over the last few weeks there has been an out-pouring of rage about the words and acts of assorted Muslims in reaction to the exploitation of the cartoon controversy. Horror and anger and indignation filled diaries and the front page that people should threaten boycotts and violence and destroy property over the publishing of some offensive cartoons. Cartoons were republished in an act of support and solidarity. Those who didn’t wholeheartedly support the prevailing point of view were treated less than gently.
Last year the trial of Orhan Pamuk was given as evidence that Turkey was not fit to join the EU because it didn’t respect human rights. When it was argued that the law he was being tried under was similiar to laws in Austria and Germany it was suggested that since he was affirming a genocide we believe did happen rather than denying one we believe happened he should not be subject to sanction.
Today, a citizen the EU had actual violence carried out against him by another EU state for exercising the freedom of speech that newspapers were being praised for defending last week. He was deprived of his liberty – the application of force that we allow ourselves in civilised society – for speaking out. Where is the outrage at that? Where are the diaries? Why aren’t we reprinting his speeches in to demonstrate our solidarity? Why aren’t we denouncing Austria as a medieval state unfit for membership of the EU?
The only conclusion that I can draw is that we only really believe in free speech for people we agree with attacking people we don’t like much.
For a reminder of the horror that Irving was denying read this diary from Keone Michaels.
The more I read about this and the cartoon and such, the more this appears to be a uniquely European dillema. Not racism, but the way the Holocaust has framed your freedom of speech problems.
(I lost the first version of this to the company firewall timeout, so I’m trying to remember all I said.)
These laws were created just after WWII in what seems like a frenzy of guilt and self-recrimination. Though this was perhaps not misplaced at the time, guilt is not a good starting point for doing something constructive. Perhaps they are due for revision.
I have not checked which countries have these laws, but I’d be willing to bet they were pretty close to the action.
What’s become clear in recent years is that we Europeans don’t really mind genocide per se, as long as
a) white people don’t get killed
b) is far away, like Africa (which is of course geographically much closer than the US)
c) we don’t have to get our hands dirty.
So when European politicians say things like “we must remember” and “this must never happen again”, what this cynic hears is “let’s try not to kill Jews in Europe”. (For the purposes of this statement, Israel is probably considered “not really Europe.”)
That is truly bizzarre. Do they say why? I mean, Osama is not an uncommon name. Do they ban Adolf and Joseph and George too?
According to the link, and the link within a link, Verizon is disassociating itself, and Ms Callahan is trying to get it worked out, someone told her it sounded like a glitch, and Verizon will talk to yahoo, and presumably someone will get back to the lady, or maybe not.
Though what is interesting is that they permit so many other words that would be just as offensive if used to create an offensive screen name.
The link within a link gives some examples of screen names that actually exist, like jewskilledjesus999 ( evidently so popular that there are 998 others with it), rapeismyhobby1, killallmuslimsandarabs1, etc.
Conversely, just as someone might want ILOVEJESUS or JESUSSAVES as a screen name, and can have it, someone who wanted the name ILOVEALLAH or ALLAHKNOWSBEST could not, though none of those names would offend anybody except possibly someone who was rabidly anti-religion 😉
The notion that these companies can actually censor names (there’s always a cute way to get around the proscriptions in the age of IM speak) is ludicrous.
Some years ago I discovered that AOL would not allow any screen name with the Greek word “Arktos” in it. Only after following a google search did I get a clue as to why.
Kudos to the diarist for pointing out the hypocrisy here.
I’d love to see someone publicize the first amendmendment issues involved in erotic photographer Barbara Nitke & the NCSF’s fight against COPA, but who’s gonna champion a “pervert?”
Now, c’mon, don’t start persecuting the legal erotica. It just sits over off to the side, not bothering anyone.
…the best free speech money can buy.
Reno –> Ashcroft –> Gonzales
has been a unrelenting assault on “legal” porn . . .
(I think it’s called pandering to the Christian right — wrappped in the flag — as they “protect” the children
That 2257 resurgence came to mind this evening on the port deal issue. Somewhere I saw that a few of the normal requirements were waived for the DPW deal. One of the ones waived was the regulation that called for physical records to be kept in a US based office or something similar. I thought, hey, that’s less than what they’ve been using to force compliance on even the tamest, unquestionably legal, adult content.
We need freedom with responsible actions, protections and respect.
…shouldn’t be impossible.
contrasting priorities
flesh it out & write it up
it’d make a great diary
heh,..sounds like a good idea, thanks.
Contrasting priorities and obscured agendas with that one. I’m starting to think that the recent Google search request by the govt had little to do with justifying 2257 in court and more about where information was being found.
From the movie “The American President”.
This says it better than I could…. Thanks for your diary. I was not aware of this particular situation.
This is why America is different, still, for today at least. With the exception of within a mile of any official thuglican gatherings, and barring threats of bodily harm, we can still say whatever the fuck we want… any god damned idiot can speak his/her mind (or lack thereof).
The only conclusion that I can draw is that we only really believe in free speech for people we agree with attacking people we don’t like much.
Evidently, Irving’s selection wasn’t considered free speech. It’s suicide to try to speak out on that subject. That isn’t my decision. I’m just following the rules.
Ronald Dworkin said it more succinctly than I could. If it’s not offensive to someone, it doesn’t need protection. (The Israeli group who are holding a “best anti-Semitic cartoon” competition are actually practising this. I wonder what sort of laws they’ll come up against in their country.)
(Off topic, here’s Matthew Parris in the Times, Muriel Gray in the Sunday Herald and Christopher Hitchens in Slate pretty much stating my position on the cartoon conundrum.)
Basically what these laws say is “Truth is weak. Facts are weak. Reality needs to be supported by laws.”
Sad. We have a bit of work to do in the EU if it’s to become anything but a business club.
when you put it that way — “Basically what these laws say is ‘Truth is weak. Facts are weak.'” — I have to say, after five years of RoveReilly America, that the laws have a point.
But I shouldn’t quibble with you. You’re twice the person I am!
I think I see your point. I’d sometimes think I’d like to have laws about what can be presented as “science”. (Hint: it does not start with “Intelligent”.)
At the moment I’m still a “free speech”, “marketplace of ideas” extremist. Perhaps I’ll change my mind.
If I may ask, what sort of law might you theoretically like to see?
(I think you’d outrank me, being just one down from (the new) Number 2. “Who is number 1?”)
Well, when I said the laws have a point, I didn’t mean there was a point (a rationale) to the laws. I meant it in the way in which one says “You have a point” — if the laws “say” this about truth etc., what they say has some truth to it.
I oppose these kinds of restrictions myself. I do find my resolve against them beginning to weaken a little, though. (My wife, who’s from Germany, is often able to make a fairly good case for some of these laws that strike me initially as incredible, such as the power granted the standing government to declare parties ineligible if they are judged sufficiently anti-democratic. Her basic point is that Germans have had all-too-vivid experience of the ways in which democratic institutions contain the seeds of their own dissolution and need to have institutional protections against that. This way of thinking gives me the creeps, but I’m less and less able to reject it outright.)
I never thought the ranking extended beyond no. 2. After all, if it did, No. 6 would rank pretty high in authority (not just in the importance of the information he possesses), and that can’t be. (And if he does get the low number in virtue of the priority put on “cracking” him, it makes you wonder about Nos. 3, 4, and 5…)
I had a friend who’s German. From what he told me I’d suspect Germany is just about the last place people will ever be suckered like that again.
You may be right about ways to circumvent the intended structures – anyone remember “checks and balances?” “Three separate branches?”
(It’s probably less “hierarchy” and more “serial number” now that you mention it. Perhaps hierarchy in “value” terms – cf “a valued customer”?)
Well, it’s difficult to work up much enthusiasm in defense of David Irving, but I do disapprove of his being jailed for expressing his views, however distasteful or flat-out factually wrong they are. While I understand the reluctance that Europeans have to letting Nazis run around loose — they did bring the continent to utter ruin within living memory — I have always believed that as long as one’s actions are within the law, one’s speech should not be restricted in any way.
Personally, I’ve been reluctant to touch any free speech topic since the cartoon blowup. A major part of the reason I broke with the left during the Clinton years was that there were far too many left-wing ideologues in the US proposing restrictions on freedom of speech. Whether is was Catherine McKinnon and her feminist neopuritanism or one or another advocate of European-style hate speech laws, it seemed to me that the left had lost touch with the significance of freedom of expression.
The cartoon fight revealed to me that the anti-free speech elements of the left are alive and well, now advocating that the taboos of a specific religion be granted the force of law. Ironically, these are the same people who go nuts at any right-wing encroachment on the establishment clause.
Freedom of expression only matters when the expression in question is somehow objectionable. No state prohibits public speech that is not objectionable. All freedoms, ultimately, are only freedoms when they can be exercised in the face of public disapproval. The freedom of David Irving to deny the holocaust — at least in the US — is also the freedom of human rights activists to oppose genocidal regimes that have cozy relationships with the US government. You cannot pick and choose: that is what distinguishes freedom from mere permission.
So seeing such an outpouring of anti-freedom sentiment on a very leftist blog, and in the service of kissing the asses of religious fanatics who are opposed to still more freedoms, makes me wonder if I really belong with the left. To me, freedom of expression is the bedrock upon which all other freedoms are built, and it is non-negotiable. It is enough to make me wonder if I ought, at long last, to wash my hands of the United States altogether. But where would I go? Certainly not the EU, where publishing a book is evidently a felony.
My impression is that the further you get out on the left or right of the axis of economic ideas, the further you get towards authoritarianism (whether the authority is the State, the one true Religion or the Party).
You may have seen the Political Compass. This brings us into 2D, which is none too soon. (Independently of these ideas I used a sort of circular ribbon thing viewed edge on, where the political centre is right in front, and left and right extremes meet in the back.)
I wonder what the next dimension is?