Drapetomaniac

I’m met several people who aren’t too sure what water boarding is. Gnooze.com (The G is silent) is one of my daily news sources. It’s like a 2 minute Daily Show. Marta Costello has some brief visual aides for those still wondering what it is and if it’s torture.

I’ve always had mixed feelings about some of the censorship rules in Europe. Having Nazi propaganda outlawed in Germany seems basically contrary to values of democracy and freedom and apple pie. But, while people openly support the right of Klan marches to march in the US, nobody would suggest that Al Qaeda should set up their “violence free” version in the United States. Could you honestly imagine a group marching on Veteran’s Day with Al Qaeda signs and people saying, “I might detest their message but I’ll fight to the death for their right to express themselves?”

Wrong or right, it’s not likely to be tolerated or supported strongly. At least when they are silenced, the rally is likely to be slow and quiet. The hesitancy to speak up and the righteousness when you do is likely to do with your level of empathy for any given group.

The Ku Klux Klan is the first organizations recognized by the federal government as a terrorist organization (1869). And many fight for their right to express themselves out of principle. I do hear less rallying for the oppression of Nazi expression in Europe.

Do I support their right to expression? Yes. But I also expect consistency. “Peaceful” Al Qaeda or Hamas is not going to get a permit to march on Veterans day and I don’t expect anyone to rally behind them, partially because it would make them targets of our current legal spray gun.

Just because humans are human, I don’t expect that support to actually be there.

But, I become more suspect when folks rally behind bigots who are quite literally inciting hatred over the course of several years through the most basic series of known smears and stereotypes (check out the blog referenced) and then refer to the the outcry as banning something because it is distasteful. This is the Citizen Media Law Project. The original outcry was by a member of their board of directors, who referred to the objection as a matter of political correctness. The “politically incorrect” ideas he spreads are known lies like Muslims are compelled to killed non-Muslims (There are more than a billion Muslims, and plenty in the US- don’t you think we would notice if they were all trying to kill everyone else?) He protests the building of mosques and has cartoons of a stylized muslim pregnant woman image captioned “The other Islamic bomb” (with her pregnant belly as a bomb).

Usually, the desire for a 100% pure Christian nation and the end of breeding by others and the spreading of other additional lies, known to be used by extremists is recognized as old fashioned bigotry.

My objection isn’t that he should be arrested. I think bigots should be able to express themselves so they can be known and acknowledged.

What is objectionable is that reputable people look at long standing bigotry and refer to it as “politically incorrect.” This is David Duke and Hitler styled speech promoted against Muslims. I sincerely doubt this otherwise reputable organization would refer to David Duke’s speeches as “politically incorrect” or merely ” distasteful.” (Or maybe they would).

In trying to further their mission, the belittle very real hate speech based on old and traditional lies his own rhetoric for a pure England. They can argue against the law without belittling the fact that he is indeed spreading hate and incitement. In my comments to their post I said:

You don’t do your reputation a service by trivializing “incitement” laws as simply distasteful. A brief review of history of German, the United States and many other nations will show you the difference of “distasteful” and “inciting.” The question for proponents of all free speech is whether or not you believe someone has the free speech right to yell “fire” in a crowded theatre as a joke or “commentary” or “bomb” in an airport – which creates a public safety issue. If you do, then the end of the story. If not, then do you support someone yelling “Jews are setting fire” in the same way? There is a difference between incite, political correctness and distasteful.

As I said, I think it is a matter of empathy towards any given group. Or maybe antipathy.

I believe in free speech. I also believe in not trivializing the type of hateful dishonest speech equivelant to incitement.

People trivialize other positions in order to improve their own. But it weakens their own position when they do.