Senate European ultranationalists!

I tripped over a Persian rug once and immediately converted to Zoroastrianism.

 

the darth guy I know would have made a quizzical look, shrugged, and continued his trudge towards the bathroom

 

VIvec is trying to suggest he's better than Europeans, which is laughable on all levels. He's also trying to suggest that since nationalism over there has to all sorts of nasty things - like a genocide - banning denial of the holocaust is also bad.

In short, an area he knows next to nothing about and probably hasn't spend too much time in (to get a sense for custom and opinion) is an area he's comfortable lecturing from the lofty perch of American liberalism. Like, you know, every other American ever.

 

What's thay saying about a thief thinking that everyone wants to steal from him? You spend so much time asserting how superior "le europe" types are that any challenge to that is people thinking they are superior.

 

j
Jello what are you on.

When have I ever suggrsted that people who disagree with me are less or inferior? That's Ender's schtick.

 

While I understand what Vivec is trying to say -- really, dude, I do -- America is generally self-correcting for such things. Rampant antisemitism that caused additional untold millions of my people (including some family) to die because "the US didn't want Jews flooding the shores" in the late-1930s/early-1940s, the shameful period of Japanese internment, the shameful periods of slavery, Jim Crow, etc. Though it may take time, because we're a constitutional republic it works itself out in the end. Even now with protectionism for marriage "outside the norm" coming in a tide of history, it took decades to get here but we're here and it'll stay.

The Euro-nations have a much, much, much more serious problem with it -- collectively and individually -- with it than we do. They also don't share, as noted, the same free speech laws codified as we do. The French, in particular, having suffered through Napoleonic eras, Vichy France, Nazism, etc. have way more restrictive speech laws in regards to certain things (especially Nazis) than we do because it's more important to them than overall free speech. And that's a valid POV, even if you do not think so -- it's not entirely up to us to legislate such things for the rest of the world, even if we seem to want to.

PS - in regards to being on the same street as a bombing... assuming it doesn't have to be "at the same time" I obviously was; and took in refugees from one. And I still thought the people who didn't want the building across from the WTC site to become an Islamic Education Center and mosque were bigoted, close-minded fools -- but they are entitled to their opinions and their thoughts.

 

Really I don't know what universe you're in. There's literally a guy here who called me stupid twice for disagreeing with a law, and I'm the smug one who thinks everyone disagreeing with me is horrible? What is wrong with you?

 

Frankly, I'm in complete support of anti-hate speech laws even if it violates one's freedom of speech, but that's most likely because I'm constantly ashamed of being an American and want more than anything to move to Cardiff.

 

I think it's unfair to tar him as somehow misunderstanding the context that informs European legislation. He simply takes the view that the costs of hate speech are not sufficient even in those contexts to warrant it's banning. That's sort of what defines an absolutist position. Such positions are not inherently wrong or ignorant.

That said, I think this one in particular is quite manifestly wrong. In decades of experience from all over the world these sorts of laws have never been either the opening wags or slippery slope that opponents fear. They ought to admit that realistically not much is being surrendered at all for huge gains in the quality of the society as a whole. Let's continue the debate in this fashion discussing the issue in this fashion, assuming that people's differences of opinion are not due to some inherent ignorance.

 

Yes, I agree with your position thus far. I should have been clear that the first half of my post (and it's concluding sentence) was directing criticism largely/solely at Ender, who is the only one who did those things.

 

lmao, why the hell would you want to go to wales, boyo? thats where the damn welshmen are

 

I did promise a fuller discussion, but that was before my mother got diagnosed with a ballooned aneurysm and I'm stuck in a hospital with only one liners to give.

 

damn, **** got real. good luck to you and your mother, man

 

What's so bad about the Welshmen? Anthony Hopkins is one!

 

Yeah.

In the absense of my ability to post walls of text without typos, I'd argue it's a failing that Ender and co can't seem to argue for a law against holocause denial without pointing to "bad guys might say bad things." Last I checked, it's up to the people appriving a law to defend why it should be there.

I also have a hard time believing people actually think it's okay to send someone to jail for saying that the holocaust never happened.

 

Obviously the thought crime was snark (this is the jcc). But conceptually it's still worrying. And I don't think it warrants ender's accusation that I think Americans are superior. When have I ever been rah rah patriotism is awesome?

And I appreciate the sentiment.

 

You are already personally aware of all the comments I have made on both this subject and your lately emerged personal concerns. I publicly stand by the sum and individual components of those private remarks.

 

Yes, when I said, about you, " a bright mind being incredibly lazy" on the previous page, that was calling you stupid?

Tell me; being hysterical and histrionic and inventing excuses to be offended - who does that remind you of? Another username starting V is who it reminds me of...

It's not that; as a people you are typically blind to other cultural norms and values. Believe me, it's not just me that sees it. And I understand where it comes from; anyone growing up with the privilege and opportunity Americans grow up with is going to be somewhat sheltered.

I don't think that you can sit there in the US and apply US values to Europe, simply because you've never experienced half the things Europe has. There's no value judgement about better or worse here; just history. A value judgement would be pointing out that they suffered the worst of Nazi brutality whilst the US was profiteering from the war and refusing to get involved, for example.

Europe has shared land borders; the US doesn't. Europe's been the centre of two world wars; the US hasn't. Western Europe is facing a challenge to both collective (pan-EU, that is) and individual identity from migration of both Eastern Europeans but more North African and Arab Muslims which the US isn't and as the US hasn't really had much more than Southern imbeciles dressing up in bedsheets it cannot draw a parallel between its history and Europes when it comes to extreme racist responses. Europe's liberalism is very different to the US' and you need to - and are not - make allowances for this.