I assume that you have reading skills. If the translation is accurate, it is vague as hell and can cover a broad swath of human behavior. The problem is it seems to get into touchy-feely stuff that is wide open to interpretation.
David Irving arrested in Austria
I assume that you have reading skills. If the translation is accurate, it is vague as hell and can cover a broad swath of human behavior. The problem is it seems to get into touchy-feely stuff that is wide open to interpretation.
Okay; I thought it was part of the deniers' lunacy that 1) it never happened, while at teh same time, 2) it (what never happened) wasn't Hitler's fault ("Der Fuehrer luffed de Chews..."). In other words, I thought the "Hitler was innocent" mantra was a self-contradictory part and parcel of Holocaust denial.
No, just that Hitler was a nice guy, just kinda dim.
Sure it does (the latter). He was just an innocent dupe.
You're right. Musta had a brain fart in there somewhere...
I will make no such assumption on your part.
Let me explain it again in small words for you:
Any basic law as formulated in one or two sentences is bound to be vague and open to different interpretations, as well as large areas of practical differences, limitations and practibilities. Therefore, what is important is not only the initial basic formulation of the law, but also its case law in action, the large corpus of legal rulings that accompany it.
Your complaint that it is too vague is a bogus complaint; the basic initial formulation is accompanied by a large legal corpus specifiying things. Go look up the entire German law code on it if you're genuinely interested.
Your complaint that it is touchy-feely is simply pure and rather badly poverty-stricken rhetoric on your part.
Your complaint that it is open to interpretation is simply ignorance; any law is open to interpretation.
So, again, do you have any real point or argument to make?
What odd opinions.
Teachers are paid to do a job. If they teach science and they are on biology evolution is what is taught, not for some flakey reason, because it is considered to be the best framework to explain species. ID is not science any more than alchemy is chemistry. I think that many posters here are of the opinion that if ID is taught in a comparative religion class it would be fine.
Teachers (in public schools) are agents of the state and teaching of religion, per se, is a no-no. Is it censorship? Sure, given a broad and silly definition of the word.
Teachers are paid to do a job. If they teach science and they are on biology evolution is what is taught, not for some flakey reason, because it is considered to be the best framework to explain species. ID is not science any more than alchemy is chemistry. I think that many posters here are of the opinion that if ID is taught in a comparative religion class it would be fine.
Teachers (in public schools) are agents of the state and teaching of religion, per se, is a no-no. Is it censorship? Sure, given a broad and silly definition of the word.
Tsk, simply because they differ from yours?
Way to avoid the point.
Unfortunately, the ID'ers have been pushing exactly the opposite view -- that ID is science. See the problem yet? See the point yet? Do deal with it.
Also, do remember there is no such thing as objective opinion.
Bingo. The "silly" part of your sentence is purely your own opinion, BTW, and your opinion on the value is not terribly relevant. Stick to the logic of the matter, rather than confusing your own value judgments for reality.
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Hey, listen. When I slapped tar on the Europeans, I said “But not all of them.” My fave assertion about censorship was composed by a European, and good on whoever he was. I still say categorically that when I try it out on Americans, including Canadians, they agree without hesitation. Some of them may then turn around and foolishly try to shut somebody up, but I didn’t invent human nature. (BTW, I want somebody, American or otherwise, to name the guvmint agency in charge of censorship over here. I want to know what statutes they operate under, and whether their operation has survived a court challenge. Because I have 180 rounds all loaded into mags and ready to go.)
Anyway, here’s my little essay on the basis for free speech.
When we look at humanity, we see individuals; there is one inside every human skin. But that is all that we can confidently say. Nations, classes, peoples, castes – these are all abstractions, ideas that we use in hopes of simplifying our discussion of human affairs. But too often we reify these abstractions, that is, we come to regard them as real things. For example, we very often behave as if “the state” is a real thing, and that is dangerous.
Let me echo Samuel Adams in a famous defense: “Facts are stubborn things.” It is a fact that we are individuals and that other men are individuals. It is not a fact that the state exists. It is only a fact that the idea of the state exists; this idea exists inside the heads of individual humans, and literally nowhere else.
Men existed long before the idea of the state. When the ideas of state, or class, or country, or nationality fall away, individuals remain. The individual is our only safe starting point.
No two men are exactly equal, that is, exactly the same; this is a truism and hardly worth repeating. But despite the uniqueness of each individual, there is still a great sameness among men. If I drop a heavy stone on my foot, you will hear a song and see a dance expressive of pain and rage. If you drop a similar stone on your own foot (I hope you do not), we will hear and see similar reactions, expressive of what we may confidently suppose is a similar – no, an identical – experience. We can safely conclude that your experience and mine are subjectively the same, and from that we can go further: Much of our inner lives as individuals is for practical purposes almost identical. We inherit the same flesh; we inherit the same spirit.
This is also true of every individual’s conception of his rights. Try to imagine a man who actually says in his heart, “No, I do not deserve to express my thoughts; I am not good enough. No, I have no right to associate with whoever I choose; that is not given to me. No, I am to have no voice in my fate. Better men than me have rights; I do not.”
I conjure up this absurd -- and very implausible -- individual to make a point: Every man values his own rights; every man has a pretty good idea of what he is entitled to say and to do; and every man thinks this way because that is his nature. It is my nature to think so; it is your nature; it is human nature as found in every individual throughout the earth.
Our natural assumption of human rights can be distorted, of course. Lies, threats, anger, or self-interest can lead men to try to curtail others’ rights, and they too often do so. This is surely the best definition of injustice. But no man voluntarily curtails his own idea of his own rights. To suppose otherwise is to insult humanity.
I do not believe that a man can be cowed into sincerely relinquishing his natural rights – rather, he can be cowed into saying that he does so. Fear and the timidity it breeds can force us to behave like unfree men. But a tyrant’s bayonets are only persuasive in the crudest, most superficial way.
The opposing argument seems to come down to this: Somewhere in Austria (!) there is a man so much better than I am that he can tell me to be silent. I want to meet this extraordinary Austrian. I want to meet him alone and bare-handed in some quiet place. It can be on Austrian soil if he wishes – that makes no difference at all. Soon after we meet, it will be seen whether he can make me be silent. If he succeeds, it will only be through superior force and violence, and it will be a victory for nothing better than that. If it proves that he cannot silence me, that will be a victory for something more: it will be a victory for what is right. And everyone here knows that.
Anyway, here’s my little essay on the basis for free speech.
When we look at humanity, we see individuals; there is one inside every human skin. But that is all that we can confidently say. Nations, classes, peoples, castes – these are all abstractions, ideas that we use in hopes of simplifying our discussion of human affairs. But too often we reify these abstractions, that is, we come to regard them as real things. For example, we very often behave as if “the state” is a real thing, and that is dangerous.
Let me echo Samuel Adams in a famous defense: “Facts are stubborn things.” It is a fact that we are individuals and that other men are individuals. It is not a fact that the state exists. It is only a fact that the idea of the state exists; this idea exists inside the heads of individual humans, and literally nowhere else.
Men existed long before the idea of the state. When the ideas of state, or class, or country, or nationality fall away, individuals remain. The individual is our only safe starting point.
No two men are exactly equal, that is, exactly the same; this is a truism and hardly worth repeating. But despite the uniqueness of each individual, there is still a great sameness among men. If I drop a heavy stone on my foot, you will hear a song and see a dance expressive of pain and rage. If you drop a similar stone on your own foot (I hope you do not), we will hear and see similar reactions, expressive of what we may confidently suppose is a similar – no, an identical – experience. We can safely conclude that your experience and mine are subjectively the same, and from that we can go further: Much of our inner lives as individuals is for practical purposes almost identical. We inherit the same flesh; we inherit the same spirit.
This is also true of every individual’s conception of his rights. Try to imagine a man who actually says in his heart, “No, I do not deserve to express my thoughts; I am not good enough. No, I have no right to associate with whoever I choose; that is not given to me. No, I am to have no voice in my fate. Better men than me have rights; I do not.”
I conjure up this absurd -- and very implausible -- individual to make a point: Every man values his own rights; every man has a pretty good idea of what he is entitled to say and to do; and every man thinks this way because that is his nature. It is my nature to think so; it is your nature; it is human nature as found in every individual throughout the earth.
Our natural assumption of human rights can be distorted, of course. Lies, threats, anger, or self-interest can lead men to try to curtail others’ rights, and they too often do so. This is surely the best definition of injustice. But no man voluntarily curtails his own idea of his own rights. To suppose otherwise is to insult humanity.
I do not believe that a man can be cowed into sincerely relinquishing his natural rights – rather, he can be cowed into saying that he does so. Fear and the timidity it breeds can force us to behave like unfree men. But a tyrant’s bayonets are only persuasive in the crudest, most superficial way.
The opposing argument seems to come down to this: Somewhere in Austria (!) there is a man so much better than I am that he can tell me to be silent. I want to meet this extraordinary Austrian. I want to meet him alone and bare-handed in some quiet place. It can be on Austrian soil if he wishes – that makes no difference at all. Soon after we meet, it will be seen whether he can make me be silent. If he succeeds, it will only be through superior force and violence, and it will be a victory for nothing better than that. If it proves that he cannot silence me, that will be a victory for something more: it will be a victory for what is right. And everyone here knows that.
NoZed Avenger
Penultimate Amazing
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- Apr 19, 2002
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Either my point was unclear or you've missed it. I was not arguing that there is not a significant differeence between the two -- you seem to be asserting that when you claim that, because "discussion" is allowed, stopping advocacy is no big deal.
I stated that allowing "discussion" without advocacy still amounted to censorship -- i.e., trying to distinguish away the censorship part by saying "discussion" was allowed was simply an attempt to minimize the large difference between the two. IOW, you're arguing against someone's point, but making mine.
And I can repeat the difference between advocating what will be taught and the reasons for it again -- or I can go back further and repeat the part about the discussion not being about whether censorship exists or is good or bad in general, but whether this particular rule is a good one to adopt, but I see little point in rehashing it (or re-rehashing it).
Again, not at all my point.
Chaos
Penultimate Amazing
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Indeed. Awfully often, especially in the first 19 articles (the German "Bill of Rights"), you´ll find the term "The specifics are determined by federal law" or "can be limited by law or as a consequence a law".
There´s a tenet in German law that "special law" supersedes "general law", so for example Article 8 (right of peaceful assembly) is superseded by the Assembly Law. However, while there are special laws to practically everything, these cannot violate the spirit of the articles they supersede.
Article 1 and 2, in particular, are considered "fallback articles" that are employed if none of the later articles apply - they are, de facto, the general law to Article 3 through 19´s special laws.
Hey, listen. When you slapped tar, you simply made a very stupid and ignorant set of emotional comments, followed by a second set in your next post. No worries, it doesn't bother me, I simply don't take your opinions seriously after that. Sorry, sorry! I don't mean to hurt you.
Oh dear.
Well, let's look at it then......Cutting through all that rhetorical bluster, your only point is that somewhere else (and in fact almost anywhere) other people can tell you what not to do; that there are laws in other places you must follow or take the consequences.
Well, d'oh! ! Cry me a river. Get out into life more.
Go to California, they've got one as Governator now.
You know, you're simply blathering. This kind of grandstanding may impress you, but it's not going to impress anyone who actually tries dealing with real-life complexities and problems.
I will sum up for you: your opinion is simply a set of emotional preaching-type assertions that say nothing about the actual issues at hand. You don't like the laws in Austria? You don't like the fact that in a democratic society there will be laws made that you must abide by or take the consequences? Fine, stick in some lawless place like Somalia or somewhere.
Do you have any real point?
Sorry, sorry, if asking you for a real point upsets you.
But you see, I am not impressed by empty grandstanding.Weird, but let's go with preliminary conclusion:
1) there is censorship. So what? It's been made clear throughout this thread that in practice censorship exists in practice everywhere. The argument was never whether censorship exists, the argument is about where it should be applied and why.
2) the reasons for the laws as they are in Austria and elsewhere has been made clear already
3) The fact that you might not like the laws as they stand is noted, but neither here nor there. They do not constitute any massive breach of human rights, nor are they unduly onerous.
4) Which means if you want to make a good case against such laws, you are going to have to examine very carefully just why people there like them fine. IOW, you must learn why they are so widely accepted.
NoZed Avenger
Penultimate Amazing
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Many things are widely accepted. Mill called that the Tyranny of the Majority -- more dangerous by far than the tyranny by one leader or a select few. On this board, we have regularly called such a point an appeal to popularity -- and it is considered a fallacy.
I said from the beginning that people are going to draw the lines here in different places; it was my belief that reasonable people could disagree on such a topic. That is still my belief, though I do not offer it as a claim, as I have no evidence for the assertion.
Although there is a million of different things to address in this thread only one word. Why there is no way for USA to experience a genocide even if the members of an extreme organization( KKK and others) were thousands? Because there isn't ONE prevailing religion in USA.
The Holocaust was a deed of the Catholic Church primarily. Genocides are the spiritual childrens of religion, we have to face this truth. In USA if you exclude Bush's glorius days, religion is an obsolete thing in comparison to Europe and it has nothing in common with the plague of the Catholicism that has played a specific and leading role in the formation of the european identity.
The Holocaust was a deed of the Catholic Church primarily. Genocides are the spiritual childrens of religion, we have to face this truth. In USA if you exclude Bush's glorius days, religion is an obsolete thing in comparison to Europe and it has nothing in common with the plague of the Catholicism that has played a specific and leading role in the formation of the european identity.
Cleon
King of the Pod People
Yeah, tell that to the Native Americans.
luchog
Neo-Post-Retro-Revivalist
"The trouble about fighting for human freedom is that you have to spend so much of your life defending sons of bitches; for oppressive laws are always aimed at them originally, and oppression must be stopped in the beginning if it is to be stopped at all." - H.L. Menken
Native Americans were "foreigners". Jews were living in Europe since the Roman Era. People that they're eating their own flesh is a European patent.
luchog
Neo-Post-Retro-Revivalist
They are, with the exception of discrimination if their business is larger than 50 employees. Cross burning is permitted on private land with the appropriate open fire permits. And they are free to espouse whatever they like, and run for public office on any platform they choose, so long as they do not take any actions that violate criminal law.
And yet the membership mationwide is roughly 3000 in a nation of close to 300 million people.
Try again.
Another case of Wikipedia's questionable accuracy.
The figures quoted were based largely on the claims of the various KKK groups, which were known to inflate membership count rather significantly.
Actual, active membership is likely to have been less than half that.
Well, that's what happens when you try to prohibit non-violent consensual activities, like alcohol or drug use, or free speech. People will not readily comply, and you'll have to use hired thugs to beat them into aquiescence.
Ausmerican
Illuminator
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Could you, in the U.S. try and recruit people into a little al Quieda cell without fear of government reprisal? If not...as above.
Ausmerican
Illuminator
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You could start with the FCC, an unelected, government appointed board who decides what is okay for you to see and hear and since they are unelected you have no say in it. Happy hunting!
No, but 1) we're at war with al Qaeda, and 2) I could speak favorably about them without getting arrested. I could even do it publicly, even with a signed letter to the editor. My neighbors would probably hate me for it, but I would have committed no crime.
So there is a difference.
Ausmerican
Illuminator
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Not to nitpick BP but I wasn't arguing the many posts were you commented on speech laws. However in that particular post you were talking about active recruitment which is a whole different barrel of monkeys.