Je Suis Dieudonne, anyone?
What a surprise! not.
Probably some analogue development in the US, Canada, UK etc etc, pretty much all of them were/are slavering to take advantage of these killings.
Dieudonné is an anti-semetic holocaust denier. Are you sure you want “To be Dieudonné”?
hate speech and glorifying terrorism (incitment to violence) are a different category of speech to that of charlie hebdo though, so this isn’t really a great example of hypocracy (not that there haven’t been plenty of genuine examples recently: https://storify.com/tometty/staunch-defenders-of-free-press-attend-solidarity).
…also, Greenwald has shown himself to be profoundly ignorant when it comes to this issue, https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/01/09/solidarity-charlie-hebdo-cartoons/ is a pretty awful article.
To an American civil libertarian’s eyes, it’s pretty hypocritical, but for France it’s par for the course. Hate speech isn’t protected in the same way in Europe as it is in the United States. People just don’t seem to get that. I think it’s wrong that things in continental Europe are like this, but to say that this is suddenly out of character and a 9/11-esque witch hunt is profoundly ignorant. (And in case anybody hasn’t gotten the memo, there’s a world of difference between saying “the government shouldn’t punish hate speech” and saying “hate speech is something that is ok.”)
That article seemed spot on to me. Not sure what I’m missing. Free Speech is Free Speech. It can’t be for just people we agree with.
his criticisms of the charlie hebdo covers was way off the mark, as a journalist he could’ve made a bit of an effort to do some research before calling a bunch of people who had just been murdered bigots and racists.
He is, sort of, at the moment. He’s a little unusual in that he’s worked out how to make serious money from his obsessions. Certainly he paid himself more than the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists. The more outrageous his public voice, the more money he makes. Sort of like US crowdfunded extremists, only more so.
That’s a very good point. If this happened in America, I would know just what to say, but I’m pretty rusty on the Napoleonic Code. I seem to recall there’s no First Amendment.
Me? No. But anyone who takes a position (or postures about it for political purposes) about absolute freedom of speech?
Which was kind of my point. What’s the point of going on about that quote attributed to Voltaire:
I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.
if you aren’t going to defend (or are going to lock up) people who say things that you personally find abhorrent.
Well, some would say Charlie Hebdo is particularly offensive to religious people… especially since it tries to be.
But then those people (not me, of course, because Je Suis Charlie) would end up on a government list for not climbing on this bandwagon and getting behind their anti-terrorism actions. So it’s not a good idea to pick the opposite side, for reasons other than anti-semitism!
Sure, from here we are always surprise to see you can’t swear on tv in US and that so few big media actually show any Charlie’s cartoon…
So it seems free speech can’t be absolute.
Sure, from here we are always surprise to see you can’t swear on tv in US and that so few big media actually show any Charlie’s cartoon…
So it seems free speech can’t be absolute.
The Déclaration universelle des droits de l’homme of 1789 say « tout citoyen peut parler, écrire, imprimer librement » : “every citizen can talk, write, and print freely”… And add you can’t abuse of this liberty.
Do as I say, not as …you…say… 
Well, everyone saw this coming, and yet it’s still incredibly dumb. Let’s all think happy thoughts about life in the US, where we don’t have hate speech laws because nobody has anything to say.
Speech on media owned by private entities is allowed based on the grace of the owner; this is why BoingBoing can disemvowel my comment at its leisure. It’s just that in the United States, the government isn’t allowed to do so.
Pradaldi, I don’t want to debate the finer points of our differing legal systems. I understand the French approach even if I disagree with it. My intention was to shoot down the tinfoil hat notion that this is an abuse of the legal system or that the French are being hypocritical. No, the French are being consistent. I seem to recall the elder Le Pen being prosecuted several times for Holocaust denial.
The problem I see is that hate speech against Muslims is being celebrated, while other sorts of hate speech are being condemned and prosecuted. And all this is going on in the context of military actions against people in the Middle East by the US and European states, including France.
What hate speech against Muslims would this be?
