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New More on Charlie and France...
Balloon-Juice:

29 Chris says:
January 15, 2015 at 1:04 pm
@Amir Khalid:

Not everyone is a free-speech absolutist.


And the French certainly aren’t, and neither is most of Europe.

That’s the thing. There are already more or less stringent laws in much of the continent against anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial, Nazi slogans et al – and people like the leaders of the FN have been successfully sued and fined under them. If I’m raised in that society as part of a marginalized group (e.g. French Muslims), I’d be more than a little inclined to wonder, if X, Y and Z are banned because they offend and demean Jews, why isn’t the same being done for things that offend and demean my group?

I, personally, very much prefer the American position on free speech – e.g, “if this offends you, if it’s sick and wrong and racist, you’re welcome to sulk, write a letter to the editor, start a boycott or write your own counter-cartoons, but we’re not shutting it or fining it just because it’s offensive.” But that’s not the way things work in France. In that light, there’s something disingenuous about the whole “we support free speech!” movement that’s sprung up around Charlie Hebdo.


Yup.

Cheers,
Scott.
New In a perfect world ...
You should be allowed to say whatever offensive, insensitive thing you want so long as:

* It doesn't incite people to commit a crime
* It doesn't violate someone's privacy
* It is true

There's probably some others, but these are enough to see that there's so much devil in so many details that we're never going to get close to a perfect world.

The third point is the one that I think we miss most egregiously. I believe in England truth is a defense against slander charges? I often wonder why the opposite isn't pursued.

Campaign commercials are routinely shown to be factually incorrect, but we (meaning Congress) have carved those out as explicitly allowed to be lies. Commercials for other products routinely torture the facts, but the only time you see that in court is when one company sues another.
--

Drew
New Interesting.
Under your (1), Charlie's drawing could be banned.
New Remember that "devil in the details" bit?
"Incitement" is not pissing someone off. It's naming people or groups who should have violence done to them. Or to a lesser degree suggesting to people that they vandalize something.
--

Drew
New The Continental way
Now that we're on the map too, I'd like to add some background as to where this festering boil originated.

France is more complicated due to its colonial history in northern Africa, but Belgium provides a nice baseline: before WW2, there was no muslim population to speak of. After the war, a large contingent of Turks was imported to work in the coal mines*. These folks worked hard, started families, and were mostly secular. But they were foreigners, so the cops kept a close eye on them, as in "papers please" at every street corner. Got to make sure they don't rape our wimmens and rob us blind.

Some time after that, a migration from northern Africa started up. Most ended up in menial jobs, but these folks were more pronounced religious than the Turks.

As the second generation grew up, most of the boys found work in the mines as well. They also worked hard and islam was limited to a few makeshift mosques. But they were still foreigners so the cops kept an eye on them, same way as they did with their parents. And here the resentment started to grow. These kids only connection to their "country of origin" was their parents. They grew up in Belgium so did not understand why they were singled out.

This continued on with the third generation and then the bottom dropped out: the mines closed overnight. For the first generation, this was not much of a problem as most were close to retirement age. The younger ones, however, suddenly found themselves in a hole they could not get out of. No one wanted to see them in the nice neighborhoods and unemployment went through the roof.

And with that, so did the resentment and the problems and the influx of hardline islam. Which the white side of course took as vindication that the darkies were indeed all criminals. The politicos tried to defuse the situation by finally switching to citizenship by birth and naturalized all volunteers of generation 2 & 3, but it didn't really help much at all.

The thing about the laws mentioned is that they ban speech, which is pretty obvious, but not actions. The burden of proof there is on the victims. One of the largest employment agencies got caught marking their files "white applicants only" and got off scot-free; no action was taken against the customers at all. Most native small employers act the same way. If they get denied housing or employment, nothing will happen because it is word against word. If they take a camera and/or a witness, it is an illegal sting operation and again nothing happens.

To date, newspapers are careful to report the perpetrators of crimes as "allochtoon" (of foreign origin, even if they are born Belgians) or not. Unemployment runs 2.5x that of the caucasian population. (Which segues into Peter's comment about a subsistence society, which they are pretty much living in.)

I'm actually quite surprised that the situation hasn't gotten out of hand any worse than it already is.

* Following a number of horrible accidents, the Italian government had had enough and recalled their contingent that had been sent as war reparations.
New Thanks for the confirmation of what I thought was the case.
Not that it was that different here in years of the past and continues in part today especially in non-urban areas.

The biggest positive here is that the Caucasians are more diverse in their origins and tend to forget their origins with successive generations. Also, there is some diversity in houses of worship, if any, that people attend. These factors reduce the we/they thinking.

Unfortunately, when it comes to race, it's a horse of another color. :)
Alex

"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."

-- Isaac Asimov
New Re: on the map...
It certainly sounds like something big was nipped in the bud today.

:-(

Thanks for the interesting history. Here's hoping our leaders find a way to solve this problem without even more innocents dying.

Cheers,
Scott.
     Islamists win again. - (mmoffitt) - (29)
         Holy Cow. The NY Post is more responsible than the NY Times? - (mmoffitt) - (14)
             Why? - (Another Scott) - (13)
                 Here's why. - (mmoffitt)
                 I actually agree with mmoffit on this one - (drook) - (10)
                     Understood, but I disagree. - (Another Scott) - (8)
                         Hmm ... this is interesting - (drook) - (2)
                             Yup. - (Another Scott) - (1)
                                 Re: It's not going to make ISIL or AQAP change their behavior. - (mmoffitt)
                         Re: Understood, but I disagree. - (pwhysall) - (4)
                             Yes, seems quite the ostrich position: both vulgar and vulnerable. -NT - (Ashton)
                             Yeahbut... - (Another Scott) - (2)
                                 You're reaching and you know it :) -NT - (pwhysall)
                                 Danish, not Dutch. -NT - (CRConrad)
                     A rare subject heading indeed. ;0) -NT - (mmoffitt)
                 The Charlie Hebdo paper is selling out like crazy. - (a6l6e6x)
         With fundamentalists, idiocy abounds! - (a6l6e6x) - (1)
             Tilt! -NT - (mmoffitt)
         So what did you think of the New Yorker cover in 2008? - (static) - (4)
             I understand that. And the article contains BS. - (mmoffitt) - (2)
                 so the first ammendment is tango uniform? -NT - (boxley) - (1)
                     You mean it isn't? Where's the Hebdo drawing on CNN/NY Times/etc. sic nauseum. -NT - (mmoffitt)
             Thanks.. principled and illuminating. - (Ashton)
         More on Charlie and France... - (Another Scott) - (6)
             In a perfect world ... - (drook) - (2)
                 Interesting. - (mmoffitt) - (1)
                     Remember that "devil in the details" bit? - (drook)
             The Continental way - (scoenye) - (2)
                 Thanks for the confirmation of what I thought was the case. - (a6l6e6x)
                 Re: on the map... - (Another Scott)

Get the ball in the pocket!
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