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Originally Posted by Pie
I was just listening to a very interesting piece on NPR's Talk of the Nation. They were contrasting the furor over the Mohammed cartoons with the recent conviction and sentencing of David Irving for the crime of denying the holocaust. (The trial was in Austria; he got 3 years.)
This is a very awkward situation. I realize that Germany and Austria must have a very special relationship to their own history and their responsibility for the millions of WWII atrocities, and this form of censorship may be appropriate -- for them. America is really an outlier when it comes to our militant free-speech stance.
On the other hand, the Mohammed cartoons have killed protesters, and those the protesters target. Self-inflicted, all of it.
1. You can express your ideas.
2. You can't cause a riot.
What happens when your ideas cause a riot? |
Irving's sentence was largely self-inflicted. He brought himself to fame (or infamy) by bringing a lawsuit in the UK against his detractors. He claimed that he was the victim of a world-wide Jewish conspiracy out to get him. He lost the case. Had he just laid low and contented himself with sniping in academic journals, I doubt if he would ever have come to the notice of the Austrian government.
The governments of Austrian and Germany can hardly be blamed for their stance on this subject. The two nations have the blood of 6 million people on their hands - especially Germany.
Let's face it, if someone had written that Mohammed inspires Muslims to become terrorists (this gets written all the time), it would not have had the impact of the cartoon. I'm not saying that the people causing riots or killing other folks in the process were in the right, but the cartoon was sacrireligous and, thus, doublely inflamatory to the Muslim world.
The Muslim people honestly believe that the West is to them what Hitler was to the Jews. The cartoonist and the newspaper which published his work were expressing their right of free speech the same way someone shouting "fire!" in a crowded theater does.
Again, I do NOT condone the more outrageous actions of the protesters. I'm just sayinng.