Thursday, May 17, 2007

The price of tomatoes

The Gates of Vienna covers efforts by Finnish authorities to make all bloggers liable for statements on their sites, even those made by commenters, which may contain "racist" speech. There have been a considerable number of efforts to suppress speech deemed politically incorrect. David Broder discovered that Liberal credentials do not confer a leave to step beyond the Party Line. Nicolas Sarkozy was declared ipso facto illegitimate. The Flying Imams are ready to sue anyone who might even look at Islam the wrong way -- as the recently disciplined students at Tufts University must now realize. Larry Summers and Paul Wolfowitz learned to their cost the the social penalty of being on the "outs". Martin Solomon has described how moderate Muslims may be persecuted under the banner of tolerance.

"Tolerance" has now come to mean its exact opposite, in the long tradition of such such phrases as "peace loving communist countries", "the worker's paradise", "Iraqi freedom-fighterss" and "Uncle Joe". But then "free speech" was never free. Nothing worthwhile ever was.

8 Comments:

Blogger Annoy Mouse said...

I am peaceful as long as you submit to my will. I am tolerant as long as you think as I do. Should you violate these rules I will destroy you.

It is amazing that non-totalitarian nations could speak of politically correct speech and hate speech in the same breath. I hate it when they do that. Let us bow in appreciation to the ‘polite’ murderers. Things do not look well.

5/17/2007 05:21:00 PM  
Blogger John Aristides said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

5/17/2007 05:21:00 PM  
Blogger Db2m said...

"Under the spreading chestnut tree..."

Hate speech, disrespectful of pine trees.

5/17/2007 05:29:00 PM  
Blogger Chavo said...

This is exactly why the UN must NEVER take control of ICANN.

5/17/2007 05:49:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

"...Larry Summers and Paul Wolfowitz...."

Don't forget John Bolton, in the current cycle of hemlock-drinkers.

5/17/2007 05:56:00 PM  
Blogger Fat Man said...

Don't forget the Democratic Republics and the Peoples' Democratic Republics.

5/17/2007 07:11:00 PM  
Blogger buddy larsen said...

If it's "The People's", it ain't.

5/17/2007 08:13:00 PM  
Blogger NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

Well, if I were Finnish I'd turn off comments! The law would certainly chill the blogger's speech, but the real effect would be to silence feedback to the blogger.

If I had a high- traffic blog I wouldn't bother with comments just because the odd bad comment gets assoicated with the blogger.

5/18/2007 04:03:00 AM  

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