Double Standards In Freedom of Speech

I'm writing this to escape the stifling backload of english work I'm trudging through.

On Monday an Austrian court sentenced British historian David Irving to three years in prison for denying the existance of the Holocaust. The implications for free speech are staggering, since we have here someone who was not violating any of the traditional tenets of free speech protection exemptions (inciting violence, causing undue emotional injury, etc.) and not only was he denied the right to state his opinion, but he was thrown in jail for three years for doing so. What is so hypocritical about this is the fact that much of Europe is siding with Jyllands-Posten in their arguments about their right to print cartoons that are offensive to Muslims. Protestors throughout the Muslim world have argued that their is a double standard in the West, one in which it is illegal to offend Jews and perfectly legal (and, some argue, encouraged) to offend Muslims. While most could (myself included) dismiss such statements as overblown posturing, this recent decision makes me second-guess this assumption.

Granted, the guy is loony. Anyone who denies, in the face of overwhelming evidence, the existance of a Nazi program to exterminate an entire race is either ignoring reality or is insane. However, they are granted the right to their beliefs, just as I can believe the sky is green if I so desire. Europe has become so touchy about its image that it has become reactionary in regards to discussion about the Holocaust, and anti-Semitism in general. Furthermore, the spokesman for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, declared that "While Irving's rants would not have led to legal action in the United States, it is important that we recognize and respect Austria's commitment to fighting Holocaust denial, the most odious form of hatred, as part of its historic responsibility to its Nazi past." What I find appalling about this statement is the insinuation that, because of the actions of men who have been dead for over a generation, the current generation of Austrians have a "historic responsibility" to, it seems, counter their country's past transgressions. This is the same argument as that made by advocates of reparations for slavery, which most Americans dismiss as unfair and impractical. Not only is free speech being curbed excessively, it is being curbed in the name of fighting past injustices. Such premises are very slippery slopes.

Editorializing

Yay, I'm writing again. This time, no long breaks. Really.

I ran across a gem in today's campus paper. Entitled "Defending America, Not Terrorists" and written by "guest columnist" Dominic Ambrosi, it provided me with some of the best laughs I've had in a while. I'll give the full text below, so no one can accuse me of misquoting.

The birth of this nation is the color red, the color of the blood that drips from the end of a thousand bayonets, the same color of the red in the original 13 stripes in this great nation's flag, coincidence, I think not. This country was founded on the very hard fought principles of life, liberty and justice, yet the liberalization and feminization of America is doing all the hard work for the terrorists and enemies of this state. My family did not immigrate here and break their backs working to witness the demise of perhaps the greatest free nation the world has ever imagined, yet this is what I see today.

The success of previous generations has perverted today's generation to the point that acceptance for that of which is unacceptable becomes not only common place, but sought after in a court of law. The great men who came before this generation of naive ignorance and unresponsiveness would literally turn in their graves if they saw what Americans not only willingly put up with, but make excuses for.

Picture this, a team of 15 Iranian crack commandos hijack an oil tanker from Saudi Arabia headed for an East coast city of the United States. In the tank stores of this ship is not precious oil for your SUVs or pharmaceuticals, but a Shihab 3 missile armed with a small nuclear device made from the enriched uranium that the International Atomic Energy Agency and United Nations has decided to do nothing about. The same material that Iran claims is their right to have for peaceful purposes. This ship sails harmlessly under the radar until it is 300 miles from the coast of America. It is here that the missile is prepped and launched to explode in the atmosphere over the United States. Who cares right?

This missile does not vaporize thousands sitting peacefully in one of the great cities of this prosperous nation - it creates an electro-magnetic pulse high in the atmosphere, the likes of which we have never experienced before. Within an instant the entire United States. experiences every single electric grid decomposing at the same time, every single engine starter in every single car, truck and train burns out rendering every vehicle, every means of transportation in this country, useless. Within 15 seconds we go from 2006 to 1776. And what results? Anarchy and mayhem on a level we have never seen, and why?

Because people of this free world have it so blissfully easy, they fail to see the determination in their enemies who hate them so much they swear on their own lives to kill you. Michael Moore and MTV only want to sell you a product, so they sell lies to the sheep of this country. This nation was not founded by liberals who think that evil doers are misunderstood. Organizations such as the ACLU who fight within the system to win the rights of terrorists who would stop at nothing to kill you with any chance they got are hurting America. The liberals constantly defend the rights of those who would slit the throats of your 3-year-old cousins to ensure another filthy American doesn't soil the world they have been bred to hate.

The real question here is why are the majority of Americans ignoring these threats to their futures? Why are they insisting on getting drunk or high to have a good time when they should be afraid for their comfortable lives and the lives of their unborn, spoiled children? This culture of complacency and laziness sickens me.

We need to bring back the visionaries of America's foundation and we need to ensure these people will not be sued by lawyers who only care about a profit. There were men not more then 60 years ago who put everything aside. They abandoned their carefree days and gave up everything they knew to fight an evil that was hell bent on destroying this awesome nation. And why, because they knew this force had to be fought, the very survival of their future and the future generations depended on. They could have easily given in to the Nazis and the nationalists, turned a blind's eye and continued their isolationism, but they didn't. They sacked up and fought for what they knew was right.
Have we become so complacent with the garbage that goes on in this country that we are hell bent to destroy it from both within and without? Every person must wake up and ask themselves the following: am I willing to kill for what I believe in, no matter what the propagandists in Hollywood want us to think? Because if you're not, this nation will fall along with your Starbucks double espressos, pink Northface fleeces and MTV, and you will be doing the hard work of every enemy of the state without anyone having to ever lift a finger.

Fun stuff, right? Notice that his Nazi reference is alright, so I'm not going to pull Godwin's Law out this time.

I just want to comment on a few things, ignoring the general tone of the entire article, which speaks for itself. His talk of how a Shahab-3 missile could be used to annhilate the electronic grid of the entire United States is a load. The missile would, if properly calibrated to explode in the atmosphere (which would require additional technological know-how beyond that which the Iranians already don't know) be able to cause widespread damage to power grids across a portion of the country, but would have neither the wide range or the all-encompassing effects that he describes. Furthermore, he fails to elaborate on how 15 Iranian commandos being dropped in from the air would be able to miraculously get a missile onto the ship without a large amount of help, which would be easily spotted by recon aircraft and satellites. While it is true that any nuclear attack would be devastating, he has decided to vastly understate the difficulty of the operation and overstate the effects of an attack.

Beyond this, he mostly just rambles about "liberals" (that evil being that no one can define, despite all the hatred vented at it from the right) ruining this country and defending the "rights of those who would slit the throats of your 3-year old cousin." Because, obviously, I'm big into throat-slitting.

I also like how he accuses everyone of having "unborn, spoiled children." If that isn't predeterminism!

Finally, his declaration that we all must be ready to kill for our pink Northface fleeces seems a bit overbearing. If he hates the way this country is going further and further down the consumeristic spiral (on which, I do agree with him, though I'm not advocating killing anyone over it), why does he want to save it?

The real issue here is that he fails to see why we are hated through the world. It's douchebags like him that insist we go and kill millions in order to protect our way of life from unseen, abstract enemies like "communism" and "terrorism." Sure, it exists, there's no disputing that, but how does invading Iraq help to fight the war? Specifics; something we never get from him in his essay. In fact, the course he advocates (killing for our lifestyles) would only breed more hatred and terrorism.