Well yes that is the big issue, but the issue cuts both ways. It is not clear to me that the existence of the internet should erradicate sovereignty and over-ride regional differences either. There will always be a country prepared to host a dodgy site, just like there will always be countries prepared to act as tax-havens or shelter the launderers of drug money. My bet is that countries like yours and mine would be prepared to act to prevent weakest-link controls on (say) fraud destroying national differences in laws.
And it is amusing that some of you seek to impose your definitions of freedom on others.
They are appealing the ruling but even if they win it doesn’t look like they’d change their decision after the statements they have made.
Like picmr I too find it amusing how some of you want to enforce your beliefs on other countries. The Netherlands is a haven of freedom. If they have made their decision about this one subject it should be viewed in context and should be respected IMO.
banning it serves no purpose at all, if people are aware of what happened and realize how horrible the deeds that were done are that will do more help than simply banning the items.
this is what matters about the yahoo ruling, what yahoo decided to to was to abandon the sale of theese products instead of pulling out of france.
it would have been a VERY serious ruling if yahoo would not have had any contact in france at all.
what i belive should be done is to enlighten people about what theese groups are and have been doing, not shut up about it and try to hide it under a pillow.
[ul][li]Tu quoque - 2[]Other logical fallacies - 0[/ul]*;)[/li]
Saying, “Well, you do it too!” doesn’t address the original issue, and wouldn’t make it right if it did.
Well, no. Since when are you the Debate Umpire here?
The point is that trying to “educate” someone about how a perfectly free society operates makes little sense when the illustrative example contains some flaws and imperfections as well.
I’m not going to tell anyone here that my country is a perfect example to the rest of the world. Neither should anyone else, as far as I’m concerned.
First, the freedom issue. Everyone has limits on their speech, from the dinkiest banana republic to the good old USA. In the US it would be absolutely ridiculous to contemplate making Mein Kampf illegal, although we won’t let you broadcast dirty words, and McCarthyism isn’t so long ago you know. Our selection of what is to be verboten may differ, but we all do it.
As far as Yahoo! and the French goes, I think that their resolution stinks. If France does not want its citizens to visit certain sites it should be France that does the blocking, not Yahoo!. It is one thing for them to ask the French division of Yahoo! to block French citizens from getting to certain things on American Yahoo! servers through their site. It is an entirely different thing to ask the parent company to try and block any French citizen coming from any ISP from access to those American servers.
[QUOTE] Originally posted by Screwtape * [ul][li]Tu quoque - 2[]Other logical fallacies - 0[/ul];)**[/li][/QUOTE]
Uh, what about Daniel’s incredibly slippery slope?
By the way, if the Flag Burning ban did get those four more votes, it would still need to pass the House of Representatives with a similar majority and then be ratified by 38 state legislatures.
Forgive me if I’m misunderstanding you picmr, but are you saying that people are trying to impose their definitions of freedom on France?
It seems to me that in the Yahoo!/France case it is France that is imposing their definition on what should be free on a non-French company, not the other way around.
AFAIK France just said they couldn’t do it in France.
There is legally grow canabis in Holland but my Government wouldn’t allow it to be shipped to here via a web site as it’s illegal. I don’t see much differences.
There’s a difference between outlawing the shipping of a product into your country, and outlawing a web page in another country that shows what is being sold.
Yopu seem to be forgetting something. Yahoo is a company, not a state body. It can display items on anything it wants to, and can also restrict its search engines from displaying any information it wants to.
If Yahoo auctions dosent want to sell Nazi Items, there is no freedom of speech law that will force them to sell Nazi items.
Yahoo pulled the Nazi items as it is probably easier to do that wholescale than to try and defend lawsuits in every country that outlaws the sale of such Items.
You can learn all you want to learn about Nazism without reading Mein Kampf. It is an important historical text, But it contains opinions and statements that cound be deemed extremely offensive to the citizens of a country.
Censorship is very much a current opinion thing. In Ireland, “Debbie Does Dallas” is still banned, but “Lolita” was shown on the National Station last year. It all depends on wether the Government feels that the People that elected it would be comfortable with certain items being on general release.
It is imperative that you consider this issue form the point of view of the countries that issues like this affect. you may not agree, but it dosent make it rediculous.
My point is not that America is free from assaults on liberty; far from it. The flag burning issue is a good point, and I agree with you one hundred percent. Not a day goes by without some government body proposing some restriction on my freedom of speech. I think the difference I was trying to make is that, in America, assaults on our constitutional rights are greeted with outrage, and people are mobilized to demonstrate. If a flag burning ammendment was ever passed, the sun would be blotted out with the smoke from the mass inceration of Old Glory, and I would be the first to flick my Bic. I don’t see a comparable response in France (or Europe in general) when blatant censorship is imposed.
Hmmmm…I can understand why Mein Kampf was banned after the war while de-nazification was still going on. But it is 56 years after the war ended, are there any nazis left? I guess it’s one of those things that if someone proposed banning “Mein Kampf” now it would never happen, but since you have to take the affirmative step of unbanning it no one wants to be seen to be in favor of nazism.
Btw…I’ve got a copy of Mein Kampf on my bookshelf, published in the late 30s in America, and I read it. Pretty boring history writing by a crank. If he hadn’t gone on to perpetrate WWII no one would think it any worse than dozens or hundreds of other racist tracts.
I dunno, though…the whole “the only copies are under lock and key” thing strikes me as a bit silly. I mean, it’s not like anyone is going to actually READ it, or be inspired by it. Maybe some neo-nazis would want a copy, but they’re not going to READ it, they’d just want to have it. Anyway, there are many more virulent racist books out there…anyone else read “The Turner Diaries”?
I think that the concentration camps should be left in perpetuity as a monument to man’s inhumanity to man.
Same with a section of the Berlin wall, complete with guard towers and everything.
The world need solid reminders of where we have come from and what direction we need to go in.
The continuing existence of nazism is a disturbing and crystal clear example of how far we still have to go. To engage in such hate mongering goes beyond offensive, it borders on seditious conduct against mankind as a whole.
That something is offensive or disturbing is not sufficient grounds in and of itself for total proscription or censorship. The advocacy of genocide and extermination, the desire to re-establish an underclass of humanity and the wish for the reinstatement of tyranny is worthy of censorship and the world shall not suffer in its absence.
The French university students used to champion ideas like ending the Vietnam War in 1968, but lately their motives and issues are less than altruistic; usually something like outrage over tuition increases. Call me when they take up issues like censorship.