At 11:55 PM +0200 9/25/00, Konrad Podloucky wrote:
You got an interesting point there. Being a "latter-day euro" (from a country which has been accused of having a fascist government by most of Europe, but that's another story) I don't really get it that if I were a Jew (homosexual, guy with a non-german name, ... pick your favorite) I'd have to tolerate a group of loonies who don't grant me the right to live. Sure I can't force you to like me or be nice to me, but I think there are certain very basic rules, each of us has to obey, which make living in a society possible. Let's face it: Society isn't self-regulating and as soon as an ideology, philosophy or whatever severely restricts the way of life of a group it's not worth being tolerated, IMNSHO. The very least I expect from a fellow human being is that (s)he acknowledges my right to exist. Personally I think, burning their literature is going a step too far, but being a European, I understand why they (esp. the French) are so afraid of Nazism. But the Anti-Nazi Hysteria is the wrong way to go.
First, a point of clarification in your language. Your phrase " I'd have to tolerate a group of loonies who don't grant me the right to live. " suggests
that in countries with free speech (nominally, the U.S.) that there is some acceptance of crimes of physical violence. Not so. Saying that Jews should be liquidated is generally legal. There are no laws in the U.S. banning books or articles saying this, nor laws banning Nazi literature, Nazi regalia, etc. (There are attempts by certain Zionist-funded groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center to bankrupt groups like Aryan Nation on trumped-up grounds of "incitement" and "complicity." Sadly, the liberal simp-wimp commies in America are leading our nation in the direction Germany and Austria have gone. Leading some of us to wonder just who really did win the Second World War.) On to the main issue, that of "free speech" and why it matters. There's much that can be said here...entire books on the issue of what "free speech" means, and why it is A Good Thing. Obviously, "free speech" means no laws abridging the expression of opinions, however unpopular or heinous. Free speech does NOT mean "free actions," importantly. In a society with free speech, it is perfectly permissable--in the sense of being legal--to advocate liquidation of the Jews, to propose enslavement of blacks, whatever. It is NOT generally permissable to _implement_ these ideas, naturally. And therein lies the difference. I cannot do justice to the arguments for why the free speech outlook is preferable to one in which Bad Thoughts are not legally expressable. One avenue of thought is that such basics, e.g., as embodied in the U.S. Bill of Rights, are "Schelling points" for stable societies. Sort of a "I'll agree to not interfere with your words and what you read and whom you associate with if you agree not to do the same with me; but you'd better not try to coerce me into your worldview or initiate force against me or I'll respond with massive force." (This is not the most elegant expression of this point of view, but perhaps you get the idea.) This "Schelling point" approach is what "open societies" have largely settle upon over the centuries. "Live and let live." Or, as I like to think of it, a kind of Neo-Calvinist approach: if my neighbor wants to goof off and watch porn all day and go to Klan and Nazi rallies every weekend, that is his choice and it is actually _immoral_ for me to interfere in his choices to fuck up his life." As for Germany, Austria, and all of the other countries which claim to be liberal democracies, open societies, but which have various laws banning Nazi literature, imprisoning people for expressing their view that the Holocaust was exaggerated, and so on, their policies are both _wrong_ and _counterproductive_. Nothing has made Nazism more interesting to young persons, mostly young men, than the hint of illegality. "If they don't want me to know about this, there must be something to it." Plus, the usual flaunting of disrespect for authority. Would such anti-Nazi laws have stopped Hitler's rise to power in the 1930s? Maybe. Maybe it just would have been called something else, to "game around" whatever the specific language of the laws might have been. And, of course, the German and Austrian governments of the time changed the laws as they saw fit. Of course, the crypto relevance of all of this is that strong crypto is already making it possible to distribute Nazi and neo-Nazi material in these countries without any possibility that the governments can halt the flow. This will make such laws moot, which is a good thing. --Tim May -- ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.