New at Reason

Tim Cavanaugh | January 27, 2005

Michael Young says non to both Jean-Marie Le Pen and the criminal speech case against him.

Comments

gaius marius|1.27.05 @ 6:33PM|#

"In the final analysis, one does not refute a closed system, a total lie that is not refutable to the extent that its conclusion has preceded any evidence."

vidal-naquet is a wise man.

not to redirect the debate, but i for one can't help drawing parallels between le pen's circular revisionism and the torture apologism that currently runs about the american intellectual sewers. seems to me that vidal-naquet's maxim applies there too.

raymond|1.28.05 @ 12:55AM|#

...les propos tenus mardi à Berlin par le dirigeant du Congrès juif mondial sont inacceptables. Israël Singer y avait qualifié de «crime» la politique de neutralité de la Suisse pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale.

LePen est détestable. And I'm not too fond of Israël Singer, either.

If Switzerland had not been neutral, she'd have been occupied eventually. And if Switzerland had been occupied, the Jews here would have been in danger.

Hateful speech from LePen, hateful speech from Singer.

Evil lies from the former, stupid opinion from the latter.

The latter, I think, "protected" speech. The former, not.

|1.28.05 @ 10:38AM|#

Interesting article, Michael.

Raymond,

All speech should be protected from government restriction. The purpose of freedom of speech is to protect speech that we don't like.

raymond|1.28.05 @ 11:27AM|#

We protect opinion. Not incitement to crime.

Drawingblood.com|1.28.05 @ 1:51PM|#

Calling a soft-headed far-right nationalist's dopey interpretation of the historical record "anti-semitism" in itself is fairly excessive. I know Europeans are sensitive about the issue, but just because inexplicably wide-ranging anti-semitic proclivites are frequently linked to holocaust denial doesn't mean holocaust denial should be censured, under any circumstances. For all I know that fellow's musing about political prisoners is true.

And he's right about France's occupation being fairly civil--compared to the occupation of Poland and the Soviet Union, which murdered 20% of the Polish population and maliciously murdered 16 million Soviet civilians mostly through starvation. Hitler also murdered more than 3 million Soviet prisoners of war systematically and would have gladly dropped atom bombs, had he had them, upon London and Moscow. The Stalin mass-murder figures are constantly disputed--frequently with very strong political undertones, too--but only free debate has solidified current estimates, at about 20 million. Now those holocaust figures used to be around 4.5 million, but the senseless taboo mentality surrounding this issue they have to be at six million, or you're an anti-semite? Weirdos.

This bizarre quasi-religious reverence for the Holocaust is frankly inexplicably, without the hypothesis of the usurous Jew leech-race that's conspired for hundreds of years to suck strong civilizations dry like a parasitical cancer.

raymond|1.28.05 @ 3:10PM|#

Perhaps it'd be worthwhile to read up on Le Pen. There's certainly enough information available, if one's interested in expressing opinions grounded in fact.

|1.31.05 @ 2:52AM|#

raymond:

We protect opinion. Not incitement to crime.

That means nothing if "hate speech" itself is a crime. To be consistent with the 1st Amendment, intent has to be established as well. Also, would you not protect someone's 1st Amendment rights, for instance, to speak of the joys that they perceived in smoking marijuana, and telling everyone that they should "turn on"?

raymond|1.31.05 @ 3:19PM|#

Art. 261bis 1

Discrimination raciale

Celui qui, publiquement, aura incité à la haine ou à la discrimination envers une personne ou un groupe de personnes en raison de leur appartenance raciale, ethnique ou religieuse;

celui qui, publiquement, aura propagé une idéologie visant à rabaisser ou à dénigrer de façon systématique les membres d'une race, d'une ethnie ou d'une religion;

celui qui, dans le même dessein, aura organisé ou encouragé des actions de propagande ou y aura pris part;

celui qui aura publiquement, par la parole, l'écriture, l'image, le geste, par des voies de fait ou de toute autre manière, abaissé ou discriminé d'une façon qui porte atteinte à la dignité humaine une personne ou un groupe de personnes en raison de leur race, de leur appartenance ethnique ou de leur religion ou qui, pour la même raison, niera, minimisera grossièrement ou cherchera à justifier un génocide ou d'autres crimes contre l'humanité;

celui qui aura refusé à une personne ou à un groupe de personnes, en raison de leur appartenance raciale, ethnique ou religieuse, une prestation destinée à l'usage public,

sera puni de l'emprisonnement ou de l'amende.

The above statute (from the Code pénal suisse) is something I can live with.

All speech should be protected from government restriction.

I disagree. I imagine you do, too.