The owner of a bookshop in Barcelona, the Librería Europa, Pedro Varela, has been arrested this week by the regional police, Los Mossos d’Esquadra for distributing books with a racialist, and neonazi content
This is one of several cases coming out of Europe where an individual has been arrested for saying or writing something.
Why, exactly, should the United States continue to be allies with nations that Jail their citizens for doing nothing more than expressing an opinion, albeit an unpopular one? Where is the international outrage against this violation of one the most basic of human rights?
It’d probably be best for our government to do nothing. I agree that the laws in some nations regarding the dissemination of certain types of literature is a bit silly but let’s keep things in perspective. For the most part Spain is ok and when it comes to human rights abuses we’ve got bigger fish to fry. That isn’t to say we can’t be concerned when these things happen but in the grand picture it isn’t that big a deal.
I’m very much opposed to those sorts of laws, but suggesting that the U.S. withdraw from our treaties with our European allies is a bit much. After all, they would argue that our continuing to put people to death is a pretty permanent and total deprivation of human rights; and on the free speech front I think a lot of Europeans find our penchant for getting into a big governmental-censorship snit over some pop star flashing her tit during a televised sporting event to be a bit quaint.
At any rate, we continue to be allies with other countries both because they do share our fundamental values, but also because it’s in our national interest to do so. And the latter is (perhaps unfortunately) more important than the former–we’ve been and still are de facto very close allies with some extremely unsavory dictatorships, so long as they’re “pro-Western” dictators and/or have lots of oil.
Germany also has strict laws prohibiting neonazi activity. I don’t know if it extends to
literature, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it did. In countries that have some form of
democratic government, that truly gives power to it’s people, it’s up to those people to
choose what restrictions they want. The U.S. has a long way to go before we can hold
ourselves up to scrutiny on civil rights.
After Europe’s last century, I’d chalk such laws up to being “gun shy”. 25-30 years more, & the mood will arise to change the laws. Too many bad memories, now.
Why isn’t that the attitude when some parent whines to some local school-board here in the States?
I mean, here’s a man who has lost his livelihood and his freedom all just for being a loser, and the attitude is “eh, who cares.” Let Wal-Mart ban Music to Bukkake by, vol. 3 and the world seemingly explodes.
Oh, well. I’ll just stand back and let the Hypocrisy Express run past as people explain why it’s “OK” for Europe to ban things on a national level, but it’s not OK for US citizens to ask that stuff be banned on a local or commercial level.
Waits for rebuttals saying, in effect: 1. “But Europe bans violence, while the US bans sex!” 2. “NeoNazis are different from Parental Advisory Labels” 3. “Enlightened people ban stuff in Europe, idiotic Christians ban stuff here (and I don’t like idiotic Christians)” 4. “Wal Mart is evil and expresses an undue amount of control over our society (as, apparently, opposed to the Spanish governments relative control over Spanish society) and should be fought on any level possible.”
(As far as the issue of having this action effect our diplomatic relationship with Spain - no, we shouldn’t. Our ambassador is likely keeping up with events (if he’s doing his job, that is) and will make recommendations if necessary, but we’ll just keep out of it as we always keep out of these things whenever they happen in Europe.)
Hypocrisy Express, eh? I sure wouldn’t buy a ticket for a train conducted by a strawman.
Who’s saying it’s “OK”? “It’d probably be best for our government to do nothing” does not mean “Two thumbs up!”, it just means we shouldn’t take the extreme step of breaking off our alliance with these countries, especially when we have our own issues of questionable censorship.
In the case of whiny parents getting books banned from school libraries, stores refusing to carry uncensored versions of CDs, etc., there are less extreme steps we can take in opposition.
Before you take this personal, it might be well to be sure that the same persons who have expressed about minor censorship issues in the U.S. are the same persons who are suggesting that European laws are not a big deal.
You might also want to be prepared to distinguish between the complaints of a person in the U.S. complaining of laws and actions in the U.S. (where, it would be supposed, the speaker has both a vested interest in the outcome and some remote chance of affecting that outcome) and the actions in a foreign nation. One might further consider the DNSGWAS principle: expressing disfavor regarding a foreign action may not rise to the level of requiring dramatic international political actions. Severing associations of trade and defense on points of difference in the enforcement of particular laws is pretty much the definition of swatting gnats with a sledgehammer.
Alright, I concede that.
But I’m still disgusted that our leaders remain silent on something like this. Especially leaders whom invade other countries to “bring freedom to it’s people”. Other countries leaders regularly voice their opinion on our policies here, it would be nice to return the favor.
To me it’s chilling to think that in industrialized nations one can be jailed for saying or writing the wrong thing.
But you doreturn the favour, and rightly so, IMO. What I found of US State Dept criticism of Europe was pretty mild, I’d guess partly because, as MGibson said, there’s no shortage of bigger fish to fry. But it’s there, for instance:
I also remember reading of some (well deserved) US critcism of Norwegian shortcomings regarding religious discrimination. (My google-fu deserted me when looking for the exact quote.)
If nations would only accept alliances when they could find no human rights problems in their ally-to-be, there wouldn’t be an alliance left on the planet. Instead we criticise each other, gently or not-so-gently, as the case may be (with a generous helping of Matt 7:3). You do it, we do it. Perhaps we sometimes even listen to each other, though I’m not holding my breath.
Do you not find it ironic that it’s illegal to sell a book that may be pro-Nazi, when one of the many evil things the Nazis did was ban certain books?
Selling a book & taking part in murder are 2 different things.
Under your guidelines there are quite a few books in America that could/should be banned and the authors & sellers jailed.
Who makes that distinction of whats allowable and what isn’t? You? Or the “other mob” (ie, the majority) who decides the freedoms of others based on “dangerous opinions”.
The best way to be protected from “dangerous opinions” is indeed with freedom of speech. Not jailing citzens for doing nothing more than stating an opinion or writing/selling a book.
Earlier posts on this board will show that I’ve always been a strong supporter of free speech. I’ve put my money where my mouth is by joining the ACLU and the EFF, and I participated in rallies for free speech during the recent brouhaha over Danish cartoons. But none of that makes me so arrogant as to believe that the laws of the United States are the “basic” laws that must govern the entire human race. As for the cries of “where’s the outrage?”, I would hazard a guess that those few of us who care about human rights are putting our more limited supply of outrage into issues such as genocide, mass arrests, child labor, etc… China, an ally of the United States, executes thousands every year, forcibly shuts down political dissent and uses forced labor. Saudi Arabia, an ally of the United States, jails dissenting journalists and severely punishes women for crimes such as wearing the wrong clothes. I can’t recall seeing any Republicans demanding that we cut ties with China or Saudi Arabia, but now apparently the conservative cause du jour is to demand that all foreign policy be determined by the plight of Europe’s poor little neo-Nazis. Go figure.
In passing, I will state the obvious fact that it would be massively hypocritical for the U. S. to start lecturing Europe about free speech. In the United States, in case anyone has forgotten, the government is currently waging a "war on porn "; many producers and distributors have been shut down by force or intimidation. Ted Stevens is leading a movement to give the FCC cencorship power over satellite and cable TV. It would be absurd for the United States to upbraid other countries, since those other countries allow far more free speech than we do.
Do we happen to have a list of either Republicans or conservatives who have demanded that we adjust our foreign policy based on the freedom (or lack thereof) of the press in Europe?
No. Pedro Varela is a major neo-Nazi leader in Spain, not an innocent bookshop owner. He is a publisher and distributor of fascist and Nazi propaganda.
They are two points on a continuum from ideas to genocide. How many Jews did Julius Streicher kill? Maybe none by his own hand, but his propaganda made it possible for other Germans to feel justified in participating in genocide.
If a book, and the movement behind it, presents a clear and present danger to my civil rights and survival, I’m not going to sit idly by. You do not have the right to publish lies and encourage others to kill me. The Constitution is not a suicide pact.
That’s all fine and dandy when the threat is abstract and distant. Forgive me if I don’t volunteer to sacrifice myself on the altar of free speech.
Those who deny the Holocaust may be as ignorant as those who still claim the Earth to be flat or the Moon landing to be fake. But if they really believe it, it’s not actually a lie. And many of things being an arrestable offense in some countries has anything to do with Naziism. Some of it is just about questioning the status quo.
Under your rules, the Bible, the Qur’an, and the Talmud should all be banned, as well as some who preach from them, because they contain writings that MAY incite some to do bad things. Who is to say what we ban and what we don’t?
YOU?!?
Please answer that!
At what point do we limit all speech because someone may do something, in fact at what point do we limit EVERYTHING because the likes of mks57 would rather be safe than free?
The legislature makes the laws, the judicary determines whether those laws are broken. Just like for every other issue where society might want to ban some kinds of actions.
Suppose someone says “every day, our people are being plundered and destroyed by [specific group] who suck our land empty of wealth and replace it with immoral and un-Norwegian thoughts” or “[specific group] rob, rape and kill Norwegians every day.” (Replace “Norway” with “US”, “Spain” or whatever, if you prefer.) Suppose these statemenets are made in publicly, are intended to be believed, and that the specific groups mentioned are (either currently or in recent past) victims of discrimination, harassment and/or violence.
Now, if [specific group] = a list of named individuals, I’d guess that you wouldn’t have a problem with those statements being illegal. Am I right?
Why, then, should there be a different standard if [specific group] = jews, immigrants, homosexuals, or blacks?
Well, I would say that the issue here is not that his opinions are wrong (abhorrent as they may be)- it’s that he is actively inciting others to commit illegal acts, which is a crime in the US, correct?
Even if it’s done in a wink-wink, nudge-nudge manner, suggesting that right-thinking Spainards should go out and beat up [homos/immigrants/jews] seems a perferctly viable reason to prosecute someone to me. But on the other hand, my government seeks to make the telling of religous jokes illegal, so take all I say with a pinch of salt.
you’re right – any limit we (or in this case, actuall, European countries) do set would be arbitrary. Totally a matter of discriminating against one kind of viewpoint or another.
But if there is one viewpoint we (or European countries) do wind up arbitrarily discriminating against, I’m just fine with it being the Nazi racialist ideology. It’s vile, it’s dangerous, it’s stupid, they lost the war, they get what’s coming to them, ha ha!
Unfair? Eh, maybe. Arbitrary? Totally. Makes us hypocrites or somehow a worse country? Meh, having society filled with openly promoted Nazi hate certainly doesn’t make us BETTER, safer, or more pleasant to be around. A slippery slope? Possibly – but openly tolerated hate speech might ALSO prove to be a slippery slope, as it indeed did in Europe in the 1930s.
Free speech is extremely important, and should be abrogated only in the most extreme circumstances. Is Nazi hate speech such a circumstance? I honestly don’t know, but I do know I’m not going to call " hypocrites" those who decide, after much struggle, that it is.
Plus, if there’s any group ever that I enjoy watching suffer frustration and official rebuke, this it it.
Quite so. But, as you point out, any moral distinction is “arbitary”. We as a society have “arbitarily” decided that you shouldn’t be able to go out and murder people without cause. This is clearly discrimnatory against a number of people who hold the opposite viewpoint- but there is little protest about such an arbitary distinction. Equally, it does not seem to me that my free speech is in any way significantly infringed if I am unable to distribute literature that incites others to go out and murder people without cause (or, in this case, because of the colour of their skin/sexual inclination/religion- who exactly was Pedro Varela attacking, anyway?). There is always a point when we give up a little freedom for a little safety- and the freedom to state a factually incorrect point of view in exchange for safety from rampaging mobs is a reasonable trade-off, IMO.