Europe’s War on Free Speech
In Italy, the journalist and author Oriana Fallaci was taken to court for writing that Islam “brings hate instead of love and slavery instead of freedom.” She died in September 2006, two months after the start of her trial. In France, novelist Michel Houellebecq was taken to court for calling Islam “the stupidest religion.” He was acquitted in October 2002. More recently, animal rights activist Brigitte Bardot was convicted in June 2008, by a Paris court for “inciting racial hatred” for demanding that Muslims anaesthetize animals before slaughtering them.
In Britain, the 2006 Racial and Religious Hatred Act, which creates a new crime of intentionally stirring up religious hatred against people on religious grounds, has led to zealousness bordering on the absurd. In Nottingham, for example, the Greenwood Primary School canceled a Christmas nativity play because it interfered with the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha. In Scarborough, the Yorkshire Coast College removed the words Christmas and Easter from their calendar so as not to offend Muslims. In Scotland, the Tayside Police Department apologized for featuring a German shepherd puppy as part of a campaign to publicize its new non-emergency telephone number. The postcards are potentially offensive to city’s 3,000-strong Muslim community because Islamic legal tradition says that dogs are impure.
In Glasgow, a Christian radio show host was fired after a debate between a Muslim and a Christian on whether Jesus is “the way, the truth and the life.” In Cheshire, two students at the Alsager High School were punished by their teacher for refusing to pray to Allah as part of their religious education class. In East London, all elected members of Tower Hamlets town council were told not to eat during daylight hours in town hall meetings during the Muslim month of Ramadan. Special arrangements were also made to disrupt council meetings to allow for Muslim prayer. Meanwhile, the council renamed a staff Christmas party as a “festive meal.”
Nor are Muslims the only ones trying to restrict free speech in Europe. In Britain, for example, the government is facing pressure from homosexual rights activists to overturn a free speech protection amendment added to a controversial “gay hate” law. The free speech protection clause, which states that criticizing homosexual practice or urging people to refrain from such conduct will not, in itself, be a crime, was added to the new offense of “incitement to homophobic hatred.” But now the government wants to remove that protection. The crime of inciting homophobic hatred includes any words or behavior which is threatening and intended to stir up hatred. It carries a maximum sentence of seven years in prison.
At the European level, meanwhile, government ministers from the 27 member states of the European Union are debating a draft EU directive that aims to outlaw discrimination and “harassment” in the provision of goods and services. The new legislation would, for example, shut down Christian adoption agencies if they refuse to provide same-sex couples with children. Indeed, the definition of “harassment” is so broad that even moderate explanations of Christian beliefs on sexual conduct or other religions could be considered a crime.
Europe’s war on free speech is the result of a profound identity crisis, one that is being generated by the blanket abandonment of traditional Judeo-Christian values coupled with mass immigration from Muslim countries. But in their zeal to criminalize free thought and free speech, the leftwing guardians of Orwellian political correctness are systematically destroying European democracy.
Not only are European elites using hate crime legislation to silence people with opinions that do not conform to official state policies. They are also dividing Europeans into two groups (the majority and the minority), each with different rights and responsibilities. The minority (Muslims, homosexuals, socialists) is imposing its will upon the majority (non-Muslim, heterosexuals, non-socialists) by aggressively prosecuting those who refuse to fall into line.
Europeans lack an American-like First Amendment, which means they can be punished for expressing the “wrong” opinions. But Europe’s war on free speech should serve as a warning to Americans about the perils of complacency. Indeed, the Obama administration says it intends to “strengthen federal hate crimes legislation, expand hate crimes protection by passing the Matthew Shepard Act, and reinvigorate enforcement at the Department of Justice’s Criminal Section.” Some politicians have also expressed support for re-imposing the Fairness Doctrine, which would effectively censor the opinions of tens of millions of Americans.
More than 200 years ago, Thomas Jefferson warned of the slow drift from freedom to tyranny when he observed that “there are rights which it is useless to surrender to the government and which governments have yet always been found to invade. These are the rights of thinking and publishing our thoughts by speaking or writing.”
Will the United States follow in Europe’s footsteps?
Free Speech is dying. And the leftist-Islamist alliance will not stop until it is crushed everywhere. The Red-Greens now control the media, the universities, the arts, and most NGOs, and are using that power to brainwash people into accepting their loss of freedom. Most Europeans are sheeple who readily accept it; Muslims never believed in freedom to begin with.
Democracy is dead outside of the US, and dying here. If we don’t die in a nuclear war, we have only an eternal Dark Ages to look forward to.
Interesting that the Appeals Court feels they can order a prosecutor around, telling him which cases to prosecute. How about which cases not to bother with? Will they next tell him how to prosecute? Suppose he opens with no argument and merely “rests”? What will they do? Jail him for contempt? Force the next guy to retry the case? (Double-Jeopardy much?) Will they set aside the jury’s not-guilty verdict and convict?
Lesse, try this man for this crime, then we will convict him regardless of the process. Isn’t that the very example of Kangaroo court?
I’m not familiar with Europe’s blasphemy and xenophobia laws. What kind of crimes have European subjects been charged with who made indelicate remarks about the Pope, Martin Luther, Wycliff, Hus, Calvin, Jesus, Mary, etc? If we have a concern for equality before the law, we need to know both sides of the story.
tehag
Most Europeans do not love liberty and never have — the ones who stayed in Europe never did, the ones who did mostly came the the United States.
The Dutch and the English have had the strongest traditions of liberty, and even there free speech has always faced more significant limits than it ever has here. We forget that even in the Enlightenment, writers risked jail in pre-Revolutionary France, in the Germanies, the Austrian Empire, Russia and Spain — not to mention the absolute lack of liberty in the Ottoman Empire. The Swiss have always been quietly relatively free — if only by inclination — but also a remarkably conformist culture where social pressure exerted such censorship as the society wanted.
We want to think so highly of the Europeans because of the culture they created mostly before 1800, but they have also given the world the worst forms of tyranny in socialism, communism and fascism.
“If we don’t die in a nuclear war, we have only an eternal Dark Ages to look forward to.”
Cheer up Eric, you must must be great company at parties.
“Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn was assassinated for his views on Islam and Muslim immigration”
You should have added “after a concerted effort by the Dutch Left to demonize him as a xenophobe and fascist by grossly misrepresenting his views.” I regard what the Left did as effectively incitement to murder.
I’m not sure what to say about people who will not help themselves.
Perhaps it just best to turn our attention to those willing to help themselves and let the complacent perish, tragic as that may be.
I’m offended by Jonesy55′s remark! I want him prosecuted for a hate crime against Eric!
“MP Susanne Winter was convicted for the “crime” of saying that “in today’s system” the Prophet Muhammad would be considered a “child molester.”
Aha! There’s her mistake…she should’ve used the term PEDOPHILE.
Peter the Bubblehead @8….you’re right! Let’s do it.
Cato @4…your last paragraph makes a great point. Gonna have to think about that….
Don’t worry Europe, the US is fast on your heels. As the article states, our new Socialist President will be doing all he can in the name of fairness. That, along with diminished rights to own a weapon and we’ll be ready to join the EU.
“I’m not familiar with Europe’s blasphemy and xenophobia laws.”
Neither am I, though I think I am likely to become personally very aware of them in the near future. I think this is the EU law on racism and other associated PC don’ts that has not been imposed as a directive yet, what makes me think that, is that the fine and suspended jail sentence of an Austrian politician was actually not legally applied, which was seriously odd…, but then again nothing about the EU ever surprises me…
Eric R, feel the same way too, I was getting really depressed and then I realised that there is often light at the end of the tunnel, the whole lot is about to collapse in my view and cause a rebirth, perhaps this time people will learn from history.
So who let this set of barbarians in?, Rome, the EU, don’t we learn anything?
Actually, even by the standards of Mohammed’s day he was considered weird, if not outright sick. In ancient societies, it was one thing for a grown man to marry a girl who was barely pubescent because she could bear children, but not a completely prepubescent child.
I believe some of the readers can also read french,
the election of O doesn’t serve the republican integration but exarcerbates communitarism
http://blog.lefigaro.fr/rioufol/2008/11/bloc-notes-le-faux-proces-en-r.html
he also wrote :
“Ce n’est pas l’islam qui est, en tant que religion, une menace pour la culture française et européenne, même si une stricte application de la doctrine sociale et politique du Coran n’est pas conciliable avec une démocratie. (…) C’est l’amenuisement du sentiment national qui est dangereux, quand il donne prise aux exigences identitaires des minorités. L’écueil (…) est dans la confusion des esprits qui désigne comme “musulmans modérés” des personnes qui ont le dessein d’islamiser leur environnement, alors qu’il faudrait soutenir ces très nombreux autres musulmans qui vivent leur religion dans leur intimité et veulent accélérer sa modernisation (…).”
um the guardian and the british papers don’t like Houellebeck
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/sep/18/booksnews.islam
though, a video , judge if he is “stoopid”, I don’t think so :
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2i276_michel-houellebecq-chez-ardisson-12_politics
Brigitte Bardot’s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AErpefnJx7s
well, it’s not the muslim population as a mere that is the threat, but the associations that are supposed to fight “racism”, they are too zealous, and most of the time hold by “lefties” dhimmies, and these are promoting the clash !!!
BB complains about these associations, and points on the muslims for rhe way they are slaughtering animals, this is her life combat. She lose, because she didn’t bother to attend the trial, while Houellebeck, Philippe Vial… writers and or journalists won in the final appeal court. So long our regalian republican services work, we are safe, and we have to watch for them
Repressive tolerance. Free speech for me, but not for thee.
Which is why those marching with violence-inciting ‘behead the infidel’ signs will never see the inside of a courtroom. Not that I think they should, mind you — just as long as I have the right to chastise and ridicule them.
Like mein kampf, everything you need to know about islam is contained in the koran. If it’s truly the word of God, he must have been caught on a bad day.
This is just the latest stage,in Europe’s long decline.Europeans have always had a sick love affair with hysterical ideologies cooked up by psychotic intellectuals,and implemented by self-serving,authoritarian politicians.Everyone of these ideologies,feudalism,nationalism,imperialism,nazism,communism,and in this century,pc multicultualism,pacifism,imposed by nanny state socialism,function through repression,and lead to fecklessnerss,chaos,murder and destruction.It’s a symptom of a decadence that will end in dhimnitude; the subjugation of Europe by Islam;and the Europeans,like the human excrement on the dutch court,are not any more bothered by iy than their parents who collaborated with the Nazis.In the end, those who will fight for their culture will impose it on don’t who won’t;say goodbye to Europ,er,Eurabia. The human race will survive and get along without these pathetic,servile, little cowards.
Maybe we should extend Churchill’s opinion of the French to the entirety of “Old Europe” ……..Lovely country, pity about the EU’s”. I do have hope for the nations that suffered under the Soviet Occupation, they seem to have a little more backbone and much better common-sense.
Maybe, just maybe, the elites will piss off the remaining Europeans before they can give away the farm. The pent-up anger of the average joe might just prove to be an adequate corrective.
Much of the same is starting to happen in the US. Thanks to the media which is always clamoring for the “eye popping” news. Moslems demonstrations seem to be one of their favorite subjects. It seems that the news media has become the vanguard of the new Islamo-Facist agenda. Thank you CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN and all the others for bringing to our attention all the wants and needs of the Islamic world. Also thank you, our dear media, for helping the Moslem apologists explain away all the horrific things done in the name of Islam. We must refrain, refrain, refrain. Please do not judge, condemn or despise. Put your blinders on and be ye the draw of the new agenda.
Anton, Maybe we should extend Churchill’s opinion of the French to the entirety of “Old Europe” ……..Lovely country, pity about the EU’s”. I do have hope for the nations that suffered under the Soviet Occupation, they seem to have a little more backbone and much better common-sense
Churchill took office just as Hitler’s armored legions were breaking into France. It soon became clear the French would not be able to withstand the German assault.
The French begged Churchill to send fighter squadrons to help them, but Churchill decided that even those squadrons would not be enough to save the French. In one of his hardest decisions, he turned down the French request in order to preserve the planes needed for Britain’s own air defense.
In mid-June Churchill flew to France. He presented a radical plan to unite France and Britain under one government with a combined military, but the French refused it.
For example Churchill’s famous phrase, “Si vous m’obstaclerez, je vous liquiderai !” (If you get in my way, I’ll destroy you !), to which the General retorted “Libre à vous de vous déshonorer” (“You are at liberty to dishonour yourself”)
http://www.charles-de-gaulle.org/article.php3?id_article=186
uh, didn’t the crown of England not pretend having authority on a few french provinces until 19 th century ?
um, I bet Churchill was one of its representants as 7th duke of Malborough !!!
Freespeech is a myth. Try and discuss the holocaust freely, you will be pounced upon. Germany and Austria may even jail you up to 5 years.
Marie Claude, because Churchill wanted the FRench military and most importantly the powerful and professional French fleet to sat out of German hands, the refusal of the French resulted ultimately in the attack on the French fleet at Dakar.
I also agree with that decision on the air force, again it was a toigh one, but they realised that they could not recover the situation at that point.
Anton, there is a back bone in Europe, most people do not see it, there are more and more people getting it and I feel that the Elites are getting afraid, their time is running out…
Marie,
In the 30′s the French were riven by political weakness and their leaders either unwilling or not capable of seeing the looming threat. Old Europe (Great Britan ,France, the Low Countries, Spain and Germany) are in the same situation today. Shrinking populations, stagnant economies, aimless leaders, political gamesmanship at the expense of the population, rising unemployment, unsupportable entitlement programs all go unanswered while the leaders worry about wording of the EU Constitution that will never be approved.
Decades of living as the ward of the US, not being responsible for their own self-defense seems to have left them to be led by innefectual dreamers that think, “if we are just nice to the people that threaten us, they will realise we mean them no harm and be nice to us too”. Chamberlin thought the same.
I have been to France twice, in 2000 and again in 2003. I found the ordinary people to be level-headed and squared away. I found it difficult to understand why they were lead by the likes of Chirac. Perhaps it is a case of “pity about the leadership”. I know that over the last fifty years I have found half of my Presidents to be simply appalling.
Are f-bombs still allowed? Because I’ve been self-censoring myself like craz-zazyyyyyyyy!
Freedom to speak one’s own mind within reason [i.e. not threatening serious violence...well, DUH] is something I hope my country holds dear and learns to appreciate…especially now.
Will the United States follow in Europe’s footsteps?
I do not think so; we have the First Amendment and 100,000,000 gun owners.
tino:”I do not think so; we have the First Amendment and 100,000,000 gun owners.” And growing daily. I never considered buying a handgun and think about it now. I will not purchase one until I have be schooled by an expert. But, it is now on my to do list.
The Communist tyrants are also acting in the United States, in schools and universities. See Alan Kors and Harvey Silverglate, THE SHADOW UNIVERSITY, and the Residential Life Programs, e.g., at the University of Delaware. (The NAS Website has information about this.)
#21 mohammed – You’re right. Holocaust denying is illegal in Germany and Austria. They don’t allow Jew-hating Muslims like you to freely spout your vile views. Good for them.
Speech that incites violence is forbidden in free countries. What’s interesting is that violence-inciting speech is de rigeur in tyrranical societies, as long as that speech is directed against some external enemy, or other politically-approved target.
David, I believe your wrong, it was Mers el kebir near Oran in Algeria, that was the first perfid attack of the British, where more than 1000 seamen were brutaly killed. The rest of the navy found then some points to fight the British back in Dakar, even with the presence of de Gaulle, they ignore him as their navy spirit is quite a bit independant from the rest of the other army clans.
I understand that Churchill was in urge to be quiet about that, and didn’t want to pursue the negociations anylonger ; though, he was asking a big deal to the french navy, that was up to that date a feroce concurrent on the different seas and oceans.
C’est le drame de Mers el Kébir (en Algérie), qui va déclencher un sentiment général, dans la Marine
française d’animosité à l’égard des anglais.
- La Grande-Bretagne jusqu’à la défaite de la France, estimait qu’une invasion était impossible du fait de sa
suprématie navale, mais elle pensait que si la flotte française tombait entre les mains allemandes, elle ne
jouirait plus de la même sécurité.
- Donc l’armistice de la France avec l’Allemagne représentait pour les anglais un danger et ceci malgré les
garanties qu’avait donné Darlan de ne pas laisser les allemands s’emparer de la flotte il existait notamment
des directives secrètes qui avaient été envoyées aux commandants des navires pour, en cas de tentative de
capture, obligation était faite de saborder le navire.
- C’est sous la direction de Churchill, premier lord de l’amirauté que l’opération contre
- Mers el Kébir dit “catapult”, est décidée et ceci malgré l’opposition de certains amiraux anglais.
- Cette opération a pour but de forcer les navires en rade de Mers el Kébir à rejoindre les forces alliées.
- Le 3 juillet 1940, des cuirassés et porte avion britanniques se trouvent à proximité de la rade.
http://www.droit.univ-nantes.fr/labos/cdmo/centre-droit-maritime-oceanique/cdmo/neptunus/nept/nep0/nep0_1.pdf
Anton, I recommand you to read what I answered to Mark and fred as far as France is concerned in that thread :
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/small-business-to-get-short-shrift-from-obama-administration/#comments
Given Obama’s penchant for imposing the World Court (in The Hague, Netherlands) upon America, this directly impacts us. It is certain that the kangaroo court opinions of the country around it will impact the thoughts of the World Court. What happens when our soldiers and sailors and marines and airmen are tried in absentia for “war crimes”? The WC has already attacked states rights to execute convicted criminals, reaching deep within the US legal structure to do so, while ignoring Islamic state-sponsored executions of gays, free-thinking women, and political prisoners. If Obama signs onto this mess, we are directly in the crosshairs of the Muslim-loaded European howitzer.
Mohammed: I have no problem with holocaust deniers,and other rancid cretins;howeverI have a serious problem with anyone,-or any religion-trying to interfere with my right to speak freely. It seems that one of the things islamic thugs have learned from the europeans is political thuggery via the courts!
marie Claude: I sympathize with your attempts to defend the french;but France was spineless at the beginning of the War. However, given what it went through in WW1,it seems to me undrestandable.
10-15 years ago English and most Europeans lost the right to have guns. Now the right to free expression is going down the tubes. The EU is the second coming of the USSR.
The second amendment is the garntor of all the others.
deguello, I only show facts, not a legend, like you like it
BTW, what does mean your nic, cuz litterally translate it means “puker” ?
Ruebacca, we still have the right to possess “rifles” for hunting, I got myself a collection of nice small knives
The Koran is so poorly written and organized that I find it unbelievable that this could be the work of God.
As it becomes intolerable in Europe, expect massive migrations toward this side of the Atlantic by ethnic Europeans whose sheep-like, socialist souls will only accelerate our own descent into that Brave New World.
How sad. Islam is domesticating European pride and spirit, and European leaders obediently don islamic leashes without so much as a raised eyebrow.
What’s happening to Geert Wilders is a complete disgrace, absolutely shameful!
The Dutch should be out in force, in crowds of 100,000 or more, legally protesting if the unjustified crucifixtion of Mr Wilders doesn’t stop.
Where are the Dutch voices? Seems they have chosen to graciously bow out of this fight for their rights and freedom. After the sad events of Theo and Ali one would have thought that this latesty travesty would have been the last straw.
If the snoozing Dutch don’t wake up soon, a day will come when a “sandal” replaces the “clog” as a symbol of Dutch culture.
Marie Claude,
I just love it when you write in French, Grrrrrrrrrrr………….
too bad I can’t understand a damn word of it!
#21 Mark — I never thought I would side with Mr. Mo here but that’s exactly the point — once you made any speech criminal, and that includes Holocaust denials, or Zion elders protocols, — your speech rights are out the window and next they’ll come for you for your critique of a genuinely dangerous cult. Shoah deniers should be exposed for being hateful frauds, not shut up and punished.
Mohammed, personally I think making holocaust denial illegal is simply wrong too and I would remove those laws, they were placed on the books in a misguided approach to deal with National Socialists… So what, I don’t accept having laws blocking the truth about Islam.
Marie Claude, it was imperative that the French navy did not fall into German hands, if it had then a sea borne invasion of Britain might have succeeded.
Forbidding Holocaust denying, I believe, is not a law, but rather part of their Constitutions. It is part of their penance, if you will, to prevent revisionism. The Holocaust was real. It cannot be denied, period. Anyone doing so is merely inciting to violence. I liken it to claiming that the U.S. never had slaves, then saying we should actually enslave the blacks. It is vile. It is the worst sort of propoganda. It is a knowing falsehood, put forth in furtherance of their goal to kill an entire race, the Jews. Should we tolerate it? No. Not at all. The Holocaust is not a theory. It is a fact. The facts are overwhwelming, and literally damning.
#42 David H – Marie knows that. That’s what all that Frog-speak
said, just in more detail.
Understand one thing as severe and pathectic the self loathing left is in western socialist europe the opposite extreme has always been europes polictical signature as seen in the rise of facism. All hell is going to break loose in europe when these two extremes finally clash. The left is producing a radical right. So watch out mohammed cause the last time europe erupted into violence 8 or 9 million jews were killed, this time around it will be worthless and ignorant muslims the right with its fury targets.
Marie Claude – there is truly no defending the collapse of France before and during the early stages of World War II. The French Navy’s refusal to give the British adequate assurance that the Navy would not be used either by, or the cause of, the Germans made it a completely legitimate object of British attack.
I love French wine, French cuisine, and (many) French women, but as an historian who has studied French history, it is difficult to respect French politicians, the elite from which they come, or the leadership of the French military. Except in alliance with the English, or the English and the Americans, the French military has not won a war against a serious opponent since the Revolution, unless you count some sparring with the Austrians in Italy in the mid-19th century. The poilu usually (let’s not forget the mutiny in 1917) fought with courage, but he has been miserably led and badly equipped and supported by the nation.
I wrote to Tayeside Police saying that most British people like dogs – didn’t get a reply though. Apparently it is thought that the dogs have spirits of Christians/and or Jews in them and that’s what’s offensive to some Muslims who believe this claptrap, didn’t mention this, might have been misconstrued as ‘hate speech’ the fact this view is offensive to sensible people/Christians and Jews wouldn’t cross anyone’s mind.
Have also written to our EuroMP re Geert Wilders quoting Winston Churchills view of Islam and how Muslim’s freedom of speech/demonstration goes unhindered e.g their placards with ‘god bless hitler’ and ‘jesus is alah’s slave’, ‘democracy go to hell’&. – is tolerated, is it because we don’t riot, throw shoes and burn embassies or threaten people that we’re not given equal rights or taken seriously? Perhaps. Again, I got no reply here either.
Cato- there is truly no defending the collapse of France before and during the early stages of World War II. The French Navy’s refusal to give the British adequate assurance that the Navy would not be used either by, or the cause of, the Germans made it a completely legitimate object of British attack.
precisely, the British had already shown their interest to defend but themselves, after having experienced the mighty Germans in Belgium and then refused to fight on the continent anymore, thus helping the Frenchs to carry on. (ie the retreat of Dunkerke)
precisely, again, Churchill feared that the french Navy felt into the german hands, thus a catastrophe for UK, (uh, pardi, the french navy was quite well equiped,thus the requisition of its ships, but at his conditions, therefore the french seemen would have been infeoded to the Albion navy, and not be chiefs of their navires as alliees anymore, which made the dilemn (ie what I wrote above, and in the link)
Though the french navy had promised to scuttle itself in case of a german requisition, which it did make in Toulon !
I love French wine, French cuisine, and (many) French women yeah, in the halloween costum of the “soubrette” LMAO !!!
but as an historian who has studied French history, it is difficult to respect French politicians, the elite from which they come, or the leadership of the French military.
ummm, depends on which perspective you stand, I could say the same for what I know of your politician elite too !!!
Except in alliance with the English, or the English and the Americans, the French military has not won a war against a serious opponent since the Revolution, unless you count some sparring with the Austrians in Italy in the mid-19th century. The poilu usually (let’s not forget the mutiny in 1917) fought with courage, but he has been miserably led and badly equipped and supported by the nation.
yes, parlons-en de l’alliance with the English, they had only an agenda : to discredit us for centuries,on ground, on seas, on legends… actually we assist at their mental “déconfiture”, legends don’t help in front of islamists
-Crimea war ~1850, England was a poor alliee, France made the hard work and won !!!
-Ab-el-Kader was a serious opponant in the war of conquests
-Boxer war 1900, pacification achieved
…
-WW1 won, while supporting the major part of it, England for the half, the US soldiers came in april 1918, already victory was forecasted because of Marechal Foch restructurations, and your guis had just to wait and watch.
yes, the “poilus” weren’t well prepared to such a harch and long war, they went, though, with “la fleur au fusil” at the beginnings ; most of them had difficulties to understand each others because of the still dialects and or patois spoken in provinces.
-Algeria war, military won, politicaly the same atmosphere like Israel is experiencing at the moment
Cato instititution, chacun sa version !!!
Marie Claude,
Marie, you wrote in French again. I can’t contain myself………
Gasp, gasp, I agree with you. The French won WWI and WWII and Vietnam and Algeria and in the streets of Paris during the Moslem riots. What more can I say?
mon petit grincheux, try a translation thing, there are many free on the net !!!
besides,, I am sure Cato understand, he, some french women did educate him some long time ago
I miss Peter the Bubblehead. I look for him everywhere since the Leon de Winter article. He does not comment enough. Peter more, more!!
Marie Claude,
I have to apologize to you for the unfortunate tone I took earlier. I sat down and actually listed all the things the French have done to enrich my life.
French Bread
French Toast
French Fries
French Wine
French Cheese
French Onion Soup Mix
French Mustard
French Connection (the movie)
French Hens (3)
French Postcards
From the bottom of my heart I want to thank you for all these things.
It just brings tears to my eyes.
The French also introduced many great concepts from philosophy and cooking to lingerie and oral sex.
Damn I knew I forgot something!
I seriously want to get back to the main topic which is the censorship of free speech in Europe. That is pretty true for most of the EU nations.
“Old Europe (Great Britan ,France, the Low Countries, Spain and Germany) are in the same situation today. Shrinking populations, stagnant economies, aimless leaders, political gamesmanship at the expense of the population, rising unemployment, unsupportable entitlement programs ”
There are many myths about Europe peddled by the US right, many of them listed here. Of those countries mentioned, only Germany has a shrinking population, the others are all growing.
The economies are not really ‘stagnant’ either, GDP per capita has been rising almost as fast as the USA in most of those countries (faster in some of them)and as we now know, the economic growth of the US over the past decade and a half has been exagerrated by the rising levels of unsustainable borrowing. The UK, Spain and Ireland have gone on the same borrowing binge that the US has but this has not occured in Germany and only to a limited extent in France and the low countries. Strip out the effect of this and western Europe has seen GDP per capita rise at around the same rate as the USA, admittedly this is not as good as the performance in the 60s and 70s when western Europe caught up rapidly with the US but it is no more stagnant or disastrous than other developed nations.
Unemployment is rising at the moment, as it is across the world but for the past several years, it has been falling rapidly, many European countries have lower unemployment than the US.
Finally entitlement programs are not unsupportable, the public just has to make a decision as to whether they want to support them or not.
“10-15 years ago English and most Europeans lost the right to have guns.”
No they didn’t. You can still legally possess guns here, if you need evidence, just look at the stories below from my region. The first concerns this guy who shot dead his wife and daughter before killing himself with his legally held rifle and the second story about a guy who killed a police officer with the rifle he used in his job as a gamekeeper.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article4662049.ece
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/policeman-shot-dead-after-domestic-dispute-447769.html
You may be thinking of the ban on handguns that was introduced in the UK about 10 years ago but even before that there were very strict controls on gun ownership. The UK isn’t Europe though, the situation in the various countries differs widely. Look at Finland for example, gun ownership is common and they have even had a couple of US-style campus massacres recently.
oscar the grincheux, seems that my response got moderated, umm too “rude” I suppose LMAO
mon p’tit grincheux, oh I forgot, umm, not oral***, but written :
“The Last Model Standing Is France”
French-style pragmatism is spreading across Europe
http://www.newsweek.com/id/178822
see ya, french style works, not only in oral ***, that is more an anglo-saxon fantasy, but in the “real world !!!
have a nice night
Marie: My nickname does not mean ” puker”.It is spanish for beheading someone Muslim style,ie with a knife,you can see this on you tube. Used as a noun ,it means a general massacre,such as the ones which will sweep the West (including the US), when the system of frauds,con games,corruption,and intellectual degeneracy collapses, every ethnic and political group decides to go “balkan”; and the war of all against all is unleashed. I am actually looking forward to it. I am angry,alert,and prepared.The west is like a toilet clogged with the multiculturalist,consumerist,legalist excrement of its corrupt elites and peoples . Unless the toilet is flushed;The West shall die. History will flush this toilet;it will be neither pretty, nor painless, but it will be necessary, and for some of us, fun. The day of the progressive intellectual,the banker, the lawyer,the bureaucrat is over; the time of the warrior is coming. Que viva el deguello!
thanks for the explanation, Deguello, viva la muerte !!!!
Marie Claude: Brava chere madame!I like your sense of irony! Yet,death is very much alive in many of us,and I don’t mean cancer. Saludos!
Salut Marie-Claude ca va? Je ne suis pas certaine que tout-le-monde a compris que vous etes assez americaine droite dans beaucoup de vos pensées, donc doucement…aussi, c’est difficile pour les gens de comprendre les pointes de vue differentes de l’histoire, surtout les anglais et leur idées de se proteger et ceux des français, les americains sont souvent influencer par le point de vue des anglais…Oscar the grouch I was just explaining to Marie Claude that she doesn’t always make clear that she isn’t on the left, she usually is defending the point of these articles, but in a way that is very French, which is normal, she is French.
Deguello: that is the close translation in French, I fear for my children in your version.
I agree with this article, Europe doesn’t have the freedom of speech that the US does, although I know France used to be alot better in this regard at one point in time.
Jonsey 55, your head is still in the sand. I realize that there is not a screaming danger today, but should we allow things to get to the point that we’ve lost all of the democratic gains of the past, trying to please people who will not be pleased until everyone else does and thinks exactly like they do. And that to me is too scary to imagine
Marie Claude,
My love, I just love it when you get rude!
By the way, I didn’t say anything about oral. Blame that on the guy who really said it.
We’ll see about the French model of Economics, I think it is already in place here in the USA. The USA kicked itself in the a’s when it exported all its jobs overseas. What’s left is a hollow shell ready to implode. I don’t think Obama can turn it around no matter how much money he throws at it. The US has to retool, rebuild its factories, and go to work.
This whole economic mess is due directly to corporate greed. They sold out the American worker for the profits of being a middleman. Now there is nobody who can afford to buy their foreign made products.
I see a lot of good people all hurting because the jobs aren’t there. The basic American is a really decent person (sorry my love, better than the French) and they deserve better than what’s just been doled out to them.
They resort to dubious camaoflaged threats of prosecution and persecution because they know that their virulent political philosophies do not hold sway in the realm of free debate and thought.
view from afar, he, you seem to improve in your understanding the french psychology
well, there haven’t had any kind of freedom of speech in France like our US counterpart, cause of our former religions wars, first, you couldn’t openly say you were for protestantism, but for the official religion, catholiscism, that was the banner of the french kingdom ; second, after the Holocaust, kind of blind law forbidded us to profess that we were anti some population ; any twisted talk, even irony could be understood as a verbal and dangerous agression, that could also be pursued in trials ; third, since the muslims and our former colonies immigration, there seem to be an ambiant guiltiness sentiment that they press on us, it’s more difficult to talk about them without the threat of a trial pursuit by their zeelous associations, though it is rare that they threaten us to death, cuz our rensignments aren’t kinda gentle with those that risk such threats, so they prefer to go in tribunals and get lot of money…
ah Oscar, love your nic
your completely right until : The basic American is a really decent person (sorry my love, better than the French) and they deserve better than what’s just been doled out to them.
you defend your banner, I defend mine, so, let’s make it fifty-fifty, there are good and decent persons in both part of the pond, though sometimes difficult for them to realise it through the fuzzy net and medias bias !!!
uh, you seems quite decent, even with your preferance for “rude” persons (I do too, I never liked the political correctness
)
Marie Claude
Well said. Thanks you’ve been fun.
Marie Claude,
I’m reading your insight to the French legal and social system. Here in the USA we are so used to freedom of speech that it doesn’t even occur to us that an advanced country such as France would limit that right or that there could be judicial reprisal for such a thing. Become a hunter and learn to shoot a gun. You still have the right to defend yourself, do it the American way. It may become a necessary evil.
By the way, I thought of another French thing I like—Bridgette Bardo!
Oscar, it’s not “officially” told or written, though the Frenchs instinctivaly refrain themselves from provocating the different communities, but they don’t comply to their requests for so ; see where it is difficult to become a terrorist :
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4316
besides, we expell discretly about 30 000 illegal immigrants each years, included from our Dom Toms (abroad territories) ; no imam with hateful sermons can stay on our soil, they are sent back to where they came from !!!
though there is still the “surburbs problem”, not really linked to a religion contest, but to a civilisation contest, mostly expressed through idleness, gangsterism and political manipulations from Al Jaazira.
We have to redefine our identity, not only gallic, frank… but also mediterranean ; the education of imams in french envision of our secular republic is important ; this has already started last year, when an university degree in french language, laws and values, was decreated for them if they want to talk in the french mosquees ; plus, the mosquees are surveyed by our renseignements.
so, I’m hoping this will not go worst for us, but for the other EU countries, yes, I am afraid of that !!!
Wilders movie ” FITNA” shows only the truth about Islam. planes into buildings, barracks blown up, trains blown up, public executions and amputations, stonings, teaching 3 year olds to call Jews “PIGS” and APES” 6 year olds getting military training, that is what Islam does and that is what Fitna shows. Nothing but hate and more hate. And our Judges and Courts are protecting those animals by limiting free speech. There is a lot more we can say about Islam and none of it is good. Read the Koran it reads like Mein Kampf.
If Geert Wilders falls, then Freedom of speech is dead in Europe. We are launching an extensive International Action SITA including two possible texts ; one comparing Wilders and Winston Churchill and another Wilders and Charlie Chaplin:
http://sitamnesty.wordpress.com/2009/01/23/i-support-democrat-geert-winston-wilders-against-islamic-fascism-and-its-dhimmis (Winston Eng)
http://sitamnesty.wordpress.com/2009/01/23/i-support-democrat-geert-charlie-wilders-against-islamic-fascism (Charlie Eng)
To support Geert Wilders and our dearly acquired freedoms please participate to the 2 suggested actions and transmit this message to your friends owners of a website in order they publish it.
An other way to support Geert Wilders is to give some money. To donate: http://www.geertwilders.nl
“for demanding that Muslims anaesthetize animals before slaughtering them.” (Soeren Kern)
No. Brigitte Bardot has been convicted for claiming that Muslims were ruling France and destroying its culture.
“Not only are European elites using hate crime legislation to silence people with opinions that do not conform to official state policies.”
Opinions like claiming that Jews are ruling Europe and destroying its culture or that Shoah did not append, because something called “World War 2″.
“If Geert Wilders falls, then Freedom of speech is dead in Europe.” (zebu)
There as never been total freedom of speech in Europe (neither in USA).
cher Mr Krebs, I read the afferent article, but unfortunately it doesn’t give numbers for France, but for the global EU and for a few EU countrie
also, I know that people like to point on France first, but the very people who suffered from Holocaust don’t say that we were the worsts, besides the war casualties numbers corroborate their dire ;
here a witness
http://kimel.net/france.html