I found this to be an interesting perspective on freedom of speech in France. I did not realize that anti-Semitic speech is illegal there where anti-Islamic speech is not:
Xiggi,
Answering the following questions will give you an answer you seek. However, it’s not guaranteed to accord with your own position:
- Does France have the same degree of free speech as the US?
- Is Free Speech applicable only to government actions in legal and practical practice or also third parties...including international terrorist groups who have no affiliation whatsoever with the government of the society concerned?
- If the latter, how does one explain cases of how this isn't applicable in practice even in the US context?
- Following on the theme of individual rights and the rule of law, do you believe in assuming an individual whose only link to a given terrorist or criminal* is solely on the basis of race, ethnicity, creed shares guilt and thus, should apologize for the latter's actions? Do you believe in collective guilt? Does it apply to everyone regardless of which of the outlined categories they individually fit by self-identification or by one's appearance to others?
- Assume he/she's actually demonstrated or openly avowed guilt.
I venture to guess xiggi is not looking for accord, moreso logic.
."Following on the theme of individual rights and the rule of law, do you believe in assuming an individual whose only link to a given terrorist or criminal* is solely on the basis of race, ethnicity, creed shares guilt and thus, should apologize for the latter’s actions? Do you believe in collective guilt? "
Funny you should say so - because you always seem to believe in collective guilt, or more accurately, ascribing beliefs or positions to people based on their demographic characteristics. You suggested a poster from Staten Island was racist because she was from an area where some other people are racist. You continually suggest that posters who are white, suburban, and /or upper middle class must therefore have certain views, when that may or may not be the case. You suggest that people in rural towns are racist against Asians because you got yelled at for speaking Chinese, once. You very rarely take people as individuals and at face value - you constantly classify them into groups, whether it’s preppies, rich kids, those in Greek life, suburbanites, snobs, whatever.
Cobrat, at the risk of repeating myself, I was not looking for a game of questions. I asked you to express your sentiments or positions in clearer terms. I am not sure why you thought I was looking for a list of open-ended questions. You are a smart and well-read man and, again, it should be a cinch to clarify your position without the superfluous dive in history and quotations.
I am not sure that this conclusion is entirely correct unless one defines illegal in loose terms. The differences are that the courts are reserving the right to weigh the cases on their own merits.
[quote]
A prize-winning French author on trial for calling Islam “the dumbest religion” has denied charges of inciting racial hatred. Michel Houellebecq told a Paris court that his words had been twisted.“I have never displayed the least contempt for Muslims,” he said, but added, “I have as much contempt as ever for Islam”.
The Koran has only one author and its overall style is mediocre said Michel Houellebecq
The controversial writer is being sued by four Islamic organisations over his comments about his book, Platform, in an interview last year with the literary magazine Lire.
This article on The New Yorker website is the best thing I’ve seen on this subject:
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/blame-for-charlie-hebdo-murders?intcid=mod-most-popular
Yes, Cobrat, as Ghandi pointed out, Western Civilization is aspirational, not perfectly achieved. So what? That aspiration is not towards submission: quite the reverse.
I agree with @NJSue: I strongly disagree with hate crime and hate speech legislation. I honestly find it appalling that Holocaust denial is a crime in some places: Holocaust denial is vile and stupid, but making it a crime is far more dangerous.
I find it somewhat ironic when I consider that thanks to these terrorists, millions of people will now take the trouble to find and view these cartoons. They normally have a circulation of 60,000-which is about to be multiplied into more than a million, and maybe even more than that. Rather than “avenging the prophet,” they have actually helped to spread the largely unseen visual messages all over the world.
While only sociopaths are cheering the Charlie Hebdo murders and the avowed terrorists who committed them, many also do not feel they should grant implicit endorsement of Charlie Hebdo and its content by jumping on it for many legitimate reasons ranging from disliking its coarse humor to feeling it obliviously at best, plays into and at worse, endorses the racism xenophobia espoused by French right-wing groups like Front National.
Considering the covers like the one portraying kidnapped raped Boko Haram victims crying “Don’t cut my welfare allocations!” the critics do have a reasonable point.
For instance, if the editor of Hustler, Maoist or a White supremacist publication is attacked by terrorists for publishing something deemed offensive, I’d condemn the murders without saying “Je Suis Hustler”, “Je Suis Maoist”, or “Je Suis [White supremacist group]” nor would I retweet their content on the interwebs.
There’s more valid positions in this than the “Je Suis Charlie” or else the implication you’re not for free speech or worse, endorsing the murders as I’ve already noticed some in the online news articles’ comments section are making. And also, they’re also exercising their right to free speech and they’re not silencing others by their critiques.
“For instance, if the editor of Hustler or a White supremacist group is attacked by terrorists for publishing something deemed offensive, I’d condemn the murders without saying “Je Suis Hustler” or “Je Suis [White supremacist group]” nor would I retweet their content on the interwebs.”
Well, of course. When I’m saying “Je Suis Charlie” (not that I am, but if I were to), I am not saying “and therefore Je Suis Any Group.” So why can’t I still say “Je Suis Charlie”? If you don’t like it, too bad.
“There’s more valid positions in this than the “Je Suis Charlie” or else the implication you’re not for free speech or worse, endorsing the murders as I’ve already noticed some in the online news articles’ comments section are making.”
No one has said that one HAS to say “Je Suis Charlie” or else you’re not for free speech or you endorse cold-blooded murders. You’re setting up a strawman. You’re ascribing something that hasn’t been said.
And even if someone WERE to say “If you don’t say ‘Je Suis Charlie’ you must not be for free speech” … so what? Let them say it.
“While only sociopaths are cheering the Charlie Hebdo murders and the avowed terrorists who committed them, many also do not feel they should grant implicit endorsement of Charlie Hebdo and its content”
So? Then they don’t have to grant any endorsement, implicit or explicit, of Charlie Hebdo’s content. The world will still keep turning.
PG,
I don’t care if others jump on the “Je Suis Charlie” bandwagon so long as they allow me the same free speech rights to not join in.
cobrat, there is no danger of that, for doG’s sake! That doesn’t mean that people have to AGREE with you!
Cobrat, that is one of the dumbest comments I’ve ever seem. Of course you have every right to not jump on the Je Suis Charlie bandwagon. You have every right to say that you believe the killings were justified because the cartoons were offensive, for that matter. No one is even remotely interfering with your free speech rights. Just because there is a bandwagon doesn’t mean you are obligated to jump on it.
I still don’t get why this is about free speech.
However, to be a devil’s advocate, why not charge the owners of Charlie Hebdo or their estate for the police chases and loss of economic benefit from closing the major thorofares and CDG airport?
Why do we complain about someone who goes mountain climbing and needs to be rescued, that it cost $100,000 to rescue them, when it likely cost millions of dollars, let alone lives, to catch the terrorists purely because someone did something really really reckless?
How are they different? How is recklessness in manifesting free speech (in a country that others have noted has free speech limits) different from manifesting the freedom to move about?
A boy from my state was pitching Little League, and he was hit by the batted ball in the chest. The parents sued Little League, sued the bat company, sued the baseball company, sued the sporting goods manufacturers and so on. They insisted that their son’s right to not be permanently and catastrophically injured during a recreational sports league was infringed upon by evil and all-knowing bat and ball manufacturers and sellers.
And they settled, hope you are sitting down for the amount:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/23/nyregion/lawsuit-over-metal-bats-in-little-league-is-settled.html
We have a duty to protect a child against an extremely extremely rare incident, and consider altering the game for everyone else. Because of that one incident.
Point is, we cannot predict completely random incidents. The parents and their lawyers said it was the bat’s and baseball’s faults. Not their son who threw the ball or the boy who batted it and hit him in the chest. And everyone points to the cartoons as a cause effect, like the pitcher throwing the ball resulted in the effect of it being batted and harming him in exactly the way he was harmed. But it is not like that, because everyone KNEW the publication’s employees and especially editors were at risk. And right after this happened, the number one news story was NOT about free speech and NOT about letting the terrorists win.
It was about what security measures were in place for a place that was clearly the target of terrorists, and why they failed. Why they failed Officer Ahmed and others like him.
Not about free speech. Only about risk and spreading the risk out to the community by the actions of individuals. And how the terrorists KNEW that there would be an editorial meeting at that exact time…
Simple: Because freedom of speech (in France as well as the US) includes the right to offend. Newspapers, books, journals et al should not be edited at the point of a gun.
And freedom to move about includes the right to climb a mountain and get in trouble and need a search party and hundreds of thousands of tax payer dollars spent.
And some people want the person who recklessly climbed in the first place to pay for the costs, and in the US, depending on the circumstances, you do:
http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1892621,00.html
Note that they mention that the law in NH used to be “reckless” and it was changed to “negligent,” the criteria for whether someone needs to pay for a rescue or not.
If I negligently exercise my right to move about freely in New Hampshire, I will have to foot the bill for my rescue.
Must free speech be considered always reasonable and always responsible, just because it is free speech?
What if the free speech is negligent, or even reckless? Should the taxpayer be forced to protect it, or should those people who choose to exercise a right recklessly pay for it?
“What if the free speech is negligent, or even reckless?”
Then you write a letter to the editor. BUT YOU DON’T SHOOT SOMEONE. ( FYI: shooting is bad )
" Should the taxpayer be forced to protect it" Yes, here as in France, the government is supposed to protect our civil rights. One of those rights being freedom of the press. Another one of those rights is the right to not be murdered (remember: shooting is bad)
Lets leave freedom of baseball or freedom of mountain climbing to another discussion.
Rhandco, much satire is “offensive.” Monty Python. Stewart / Colbert. Joan Rivers. The Onion. Going back in time, The Smothers Brothers. Richard Pryor. Etc. Are you suggesting they have the obligation to self censor because someone might not “like” what they have to say?