I’d rather see an huge expansion of French-language blogs and other such things. Anybody know how internet use is growing over there?

…Iraq under Saddam was unique…

Maybe that’s why the Left is so enamored with Saddam’s Iraq. It was a reminder of happier times when they had Hitler to hate and Stalin to love. He gave them so much of both and they just don’t know how to replace it.

Most of the Iraqi tribes had guns and fighters. Heck, I loved the picture of a grey haired Iraqi grandmother in a black lace mantilla holding an AK-47 and smiling gently. It was in The View from Baghdad, a blog no longer on line ( Anyway, guns no longer do it. Every man needs a tank, or at least RPG’s and maybe some artillery and shoulder fired anti-aircraft missiles.

In the future, the well armed citizen might have use for plague, smallpox, designer flu, and tactical nuclear weapons as defensive aids. Now *that* will put the poison in the rattlesnake fangs. But I want to be far away when it happens.

(Go Rice/Larsen ’08!)

Upon getting it, i finally understood how pedestrian the ‘sophisticated’ perspective on this subject really is. (and by the way, the more passionate commenters on this site — which is arguably published in France too — are liable for criminal defamation charges in that country too.)

to my american brothers and sisters: never ever permit impingement on the First Amendment. That way lies ruin.

(Your apologies are always good with me, Buddy, and don’t feel bad. Trust me, I could hold my own in a marine barracks if necessary.)

I have no pity for Le Monde and the fact that France has these absurd rules I am glad that le Monde was tagged. But hate speech laws , beyond libel, that penalize speech do not work and they cause great damage.

The vast majority of the French chattering classes are rabidly anti- Israel. This ruling will only cause them to be more subtle in expressing the very same thoughts. It is better to know that someone is a racist then to try to interpret code language.

Hate speech crimes are always going to be abused. You canset up a libel law system that might not be perfect but it can be set up. If I beat someone or kill them the I should be punished regardless what my politics or religion is. Deciding the degree of “hate” is such a vague term that it will eventually be used to resrict or criminalize thought and speech. It is the ultimate tool of a repressive state. I don’t have to use logic, reason and history to show that your arguments are wrong, I can get a lawyer to prove that you have hate in your heart and put you in jail before you have committed a crime.

It is often a hard and seemingly hopeless effort to halt the vile Protocols of Zion mentality that infects this world. But declaring it illegal will not change the hate that flows from people who swallow this bile. they will just learn to hide it behind vague terms that there fellow bigots will learn and absorb. I feel safer that a Ward Churchill, David Duke, Edward Said, and Noam Chomsky are allowed to freely spew their vomit from their minds and that I don’t have to guess whether or not what they are saying is what I think it is. By having them out in the open it allows me to watch my back and make sure that they never achieve power.