Dispatches from the Creation Wars

So SamanthaJoy, are you saying that Elisabeth should be fined because she had an opinion? Or that she should be fined because her opinion was *wrong*?

Posted by: KeithB | February 22, 2011 11:21 AM

Samantha,

Mohammed, according to accepted teaching of Islam, has sex with the girl repeatedly. This was NOT a "marry her so she is financially secure" issue, this was a "fu*k a little girl" issue.

Posted by: Heinrich | February 22, 2011 11:27 AM

The definition of "pedophilia" used in this trial included sexual ACTS with a child; so yes, Mohammed was a pedophile regardless of what he was or was not thinking when he consummated the marriage. A 9-year-old is still a child, at least by our standards (which, again, were the standards used at the trial).

Posted by: Raging Bee | February 22, 2011 11:36 AM

And here I had thought that all of Europe had become enlightened as we, after WWII.

Posted by: Reverend Rodney | February 22, 2011 11:44 AM

To add to my previous statements: It is very unlikely that the FPÖ, the party the ESW was doing those seminaries for, would attempt to take the laws about denigration of religions off the book. They are the austrian version of the religious right. One of their campaign slogans a couple of years ago used to be "Abendland in Christenhand" which loosely translates to "The western world in the hands of christians". It was part of a larger campaign entitled "Tag der Abrechnung" or "Judgment Day" as it would be in english.

Essentially, we're seeing one religious hate group trying to make generalizations about another religion and demonize them. I don't think it should be illegal though.

Posted by: chaosof99 | February 22, 2011 11:57 AM

Surely she's got a pretty decent chance of appealing this bizarre application of an antique law under the ECHR?

Let's be absolutely clear here: this is nothing do with with any recent attempts 'to criminalize the "defamation" of a religion' or any so-called "hate speech" laws - she was acquitted of "incitement to hatred". The law she was actually found guilt of violating is a pre-WWI relic of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. So everybody getting their "creeping sharia" buzz on this is barking up the wrong tree.

Posted by: Dunc | February 22, 2011 11:58 AM

Several of the Hadiths say she consummated at 9. Of course, it usually doesn't say "we had sex" but things like "I was handed over to him", "admitted to his house", which is sufficiently vague for people to believe different things. Muslim theologians teach they did not have sex until much later NOW, I wonder, 300 years ago, what did they teach?

And in the end, the people saying "but he didn't have sex with her" are missing the point. Whether he had sex or not is a valid historical question. To say we cannot even question it or advance the idea that he did or else go to jail, is an abhorrent restriction of free speech. I bet those same clerics who would advocate this have no problem defending a man who said the Holocaust never happened, which is far more recent and easier to verify. But both things should be allowed to be said, so that we can learn and grow as society, even if only so the people with crazy ideas can be identified and mocked, it is still a valuable conversation.

If we cannot even say "I think Mohamed was a pedophile" then it will not stop there, Muslim scholars will not be able to critically examine ANY documents, for fear of prison if their examination turns up the wrong things. It will end debate on important matters. It will harm the future of Islam as much as it harms others.

Posted by: plutosdad | February 22, 2011 11:59 AM

Child marriage is common among primitive peoples. It's just the way it is.

Posted by: asdf | February 22, 2011 12:06 PM

Huh. I'm Austrian, and this didn't make the news. Bizarre.

The law is intended to prevent strife between religions. Repeatedly, people who parodized Catholicism were charged with violating this law and walked free.

Hadith sez Muhammad married Aisha when she was SIX and waited with consummating the marriage till she was nine. Muslim theologians usually say Aisha must have hit puberty unusually early... wwwwellll...

The FPÖ is the xenophobe party. They don't have much of a program other than xenophobia (OK, there's a bit of law & order and other fear -- -phobia -- issues). Religion only entered the question when it dawned upon them that the immigrants from Turkey are Muslims, which makes them yet one more little bit more unlike "us".

And for the record, I think the law is anachronistic at best and should be abolished, even though neither its intent nor its application are as bad as one might think at first. ...In fact, I'm actually surprised the law is constitutional. Maybe someone should sue at the constitution court; freedom of opinion and expression is in the constitution somewhere, IIRC.

Posted by: David Marjanović | February 22, 2011 12:29 PM

So if enough people in that society were pedophiles,we're not allowed to call any of them pedophiles?

What I want to know is, how old was Mary Christ, mother of Jesus, when Bible-god knocked her up?

She was probably about 13 years old.

Posted by: bananacat | February 22, 2011 12:34 PM

@ 18

... Odd that such an anachronistic law would be enforced, even if still on the books.
The state of Alabama technically had a law on the books into the 90s (maybe even early 2000s?) prohibiting mixed-race marriages (read whites and blacks intermarrying). They finally did indeed remove it but it had not been enforced in decades.

Posted by: Fifth Dentist | February 22, 2011 12:38 PM

"Odd that such an anachronistic law would be enforce"

Yeah, when's the last time Austria had a problem with the treatment of a minority religion?

Ahem.

Posted by: Jon H | February 22, 2011 12:40 PM

@22

They couldn't enforce because of a supreme court case that overturned it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia

Posted by: jojo | February 22, 2011 12:48 PM

So what exactly is this woman's point supposed to be? It's like someone from Alabama criticizing Georgia for having been a slave state.

So nobody in a former slave stat can ever criticize slave states? There's a reason that tu quoque is a logical fallacy. It's still wrong to have sex with kids or be a slave state, even if lots of others or even you accuser have done the same thing.

Posted by: bananacat | February 22, 2011 12:52 PM

Actually, this is a Marie-Antoinette kind of case: Sabaditsch-Wolff behaviors and speeches point toward her being a far-right activist trying to hide her ethnic cleansing agenda beind lip service for democracy:

She wants to "keep Europa christian", made unsubstantiated claims about Muslims' behavior in Europe, put in the same bag the holocaust and the "socialist welfare state", openly said that if things hab gone her way, "millions of Muslims" would not be living in Europe, claim that immigrants are "unassimilable imported foreigners" (someone from Austria calling a religious minority "unassimilable"? What could possibly go wrong with that?), or said on reccord, after the cast lead operation, that the difference of wealth between Israel and the Gaza Strip was "proof" of western superiority...

So on one hand, my wingnutdar is sending me all kind of warnings about this person.

On the other hand, the trial was clearly botched:

First, while the "Muhammad was a pedophile" is problematic because:
1. It is based on the acceptance of Hadiths as historically accurates (ahem)
2. It has been used far far-right extremists as a justification for some of their most despicable traits (as in "Muhammad was a pedophile, so Islam is a religion for pedophiles, so my boner for murder is virtuous cause they're all child molesters anyway") It should not justify a conviction, it should not even justify one to press charge (well, one could argue that someone saying, "It is a scientifically established beyond any reasonnable doubt fact that Mohammad raped kids" is technically slander, but since this argument was not even used by the accusation, I'll leaver it at that).

Second, the other charge was based on one summary of one conference she gave: instead of trying to do a throughout inquiry, the accusation did a very very very shoddy job.

So, in the end, this trial will be used as a precedent to shut up anyone opening their mounth against abuses commited in the name of religion, while at the same time, the ethnic-cleansing wannabes and their propagandist will play the martyr card. I have a hard time deciding which one is worst.

Posted by: Laurent Weppe | February 22, 2011 12:57 PM

"So nobody in a former slave stat can ever criticize slave states? "

Not if you're trying to play holier-than-thou, no.

Oh, Muhammad's so outrageously horrible, he married a 9 year old girl! (pay no attention to the scads of westerners who did the same through history).

It's bullshit. Culture was fucking primitive, and every culture married young, especially when it was advantageous, because people died fucking young.

Calling out Muhammad as if he's some kind of world-champion Hitler of marrying children is just cheap bigotry.

Posted by: Jon H | February 22, 2011 1:00 PM

Calling out Muhammad as if he's some kind of world-champion Hitler of marrying children is just cheap bigotry.

Maybe. I don't care when a grown person marries a nine-year-old, whether it was 1500 years ago or two weeks ago--it's wrong, and it needs to be denounced. However, to single out Mohammad for criticism while ignoring the many Old Testament examples of statutory rape is, at best, quite hypocritical.

Posted by: Sadie Morrison | February 22, 2011 1:12 PM

Abby Normal,

Mary was 14 at the time of the Immaculate Conception

Actually she was -9 months at the time of the (supposed) Immaculate Conception. It refers to her conception, not Jesus'.

Posted by: heddle | February 22, 2011 1:14 PM

The people are saying that this was a common practice are missing the point. The point isn't whether or not it was considered an acceptable practice in the past. The point is that in Austria, it's considered a crime to even raise the issue for discussion. By all means, let's talk about the other instances of child marriage throughout history and in the Bible. Let's talk about how Lot offered his daughters up to be gang raped in exchange for leaving his guests alone and how later, his daughters got him drunk and had sex with him in a cave.

All of these points should be open for discussion without fear of criminal prosecution. The idea that certain ideas should not be opened up for dialogue simply because this group or that group might object to their sacred cows should be abhorent to any civilized society.

Posted by: greatbear | February 22, 2011 1:59 PM

What greatbear said.

I think Muhammad should have waited until she was 11, then chained her up in the basement. That would have been more in line with modern Austrian practice.

Posted by: Martin Ek | February 22, 2011 2:15 PM

Thanks Heddle. I got my doctrines mixed up. I was of course referring to the Incarnation, when Jesus manifested in Mary's 14 year-old womb.

Posted by: Abby Normal | February 22, 2011 2:17 PM

Child marriage is common among primitive peoples. It's just the way it is.

You say a lot of seriously stupid stuff, but this is among your dumbest.

Let's see: X is common among Y. That's just the way it is.

Slavery was common among Southerners. It's just the way it is.

Rape was common among primitive peoples. It's just the way it is.

Child labor was common for early 20th century America. It's just the way it is.

Working 6 days a week, sun up to sun down, was common for early 20th century America. It's just the way it is.

That didn't make any of it right. That didn't mean it wasn't a good thing to change that.

We live in a modern world, now asdf, We can change things that are harmful to people. We can pity the people in the past who thought it was okay, AND still criticize it.

Welcome to reality, compassion and the 21st fucking century.

Posted by: Aquaria | February 22, 2011 2:21 PM

Ah nutz! I sent a letter to the editor of the Vienna Times berating Warren Jebs for being a polygamist with multiple child brides.

Will I now have Interpol after me?

Posted by: unter | February 22, 2011 2:29 PM

That's not true at all. She didn't raise the issue for discussion.

Why? Because she didn't do it in an manner you approve of or belongs to a group whose views you don't like? She can be the most obnoxious, xenophobic a$$hole in the world. She still should have the right to express her opinion.

Posted by: greatbear | February 22, 2011 2:44 PM

@49

Not only self-evident, but further evidence that Jon H. is probably a narcissist with an inability to understand the devastating consequences of forcing a young girl to have sex with an older man.

Jon H. - the Qaddafi of Dispatches From the Culture Wars.

Posted by: 6@7 | February 22, 2011 2:57 PM

What's the big deal about pedophilia?

I have it from good authority that since the 1970's, pedophilia is "fully in conformity with man and even with children".

Posted by: Gingerbaker | February 22, 2011 4:12 PM

Greatbear @ 38 wrote:

The people are saying that this was a common practice are missing the point. The point isn't whether or not it was considered an acceptable practice in the past. The point is that in Austria, it's considered a crime to even raise the issue for discussion.

There's a major technical problem here, though, and that's conflation of the term "pedophile" (which is rather inciteful) to the idea that marrying anyone under the current recognized age of consent is wrong. Both may be true, but in many cultures, this is not the case. It is also certainly problematic for ESW to argue that the Prophet was a pedophile: Was he inordinately attracted to puerile, nonpubsecent, nonmature, or adolescent children to the exclusion of older women/men? If so, sure, he might be a pedophile. But this requires some form of perversion or disharmony with the norms of his own times, and I do not see it.

As noted by others, the Prophet did not consummate the marriage until she was older, and thus simply marrying a girl at 9 cannot itself be considered an "act of pedophilia," which begs why simply claiming (as Ed says) that this is why ESW was convicted of this crime. ESW committed almost certainly intellectual fraud when she misrepresented the case of the Prophet's relationship, and the Austrian justice apparently rightfully points this out. While that is borderline "criminal" (teaching something that doesn't actually occur in the Q'uran as deriving from it, seems rather erroneous) ESW was operating under Austrian law, and should be subject to it.

Yes ... I believe in free speech, but when in Rome do as they do. The link Ed provides above lists as part of its argument a law that was applied when Muslim Bosnians were once part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, when the law was enacted, but that this is now no longer the case, as if this were relevant: Does religious denigration only matter when the original purpose (protecting pre-WW1 Bosnian Muslims in the Austrian citizenry) is not viable anymore? That seems to be part of that link's premise, and it carries over into this analysis as if the law is misapplied.

Posted by: Jaime Headden | February 22, 2011 4:32 PM

"There's a major technical problem here, though, and that's conflation of the term "pedophile" (which is rather inciteful) to the idea that marrying anyone under the current recognized age of consent is wrong."

Again, so what? You are still missing the point. Go ahead and raise that argument, but do not throw someone in jail just because they think the two are the same thing. Or because they believe the Hadiths that say they DID have sex at 9.

But by throwing her in jail, you lose your opportunity to educate someone on the point you just made. Instead, you end the discussion without actually teaching them, or their target audience, anything. You create a martyr, play into their "the world is against us" fears, and you make it harder to discuss anything controversial in the future.

Posted by: plutosdad | February 22, 2011 4:58 PM

Mohammad was a child rapist. He's almost Catholic or Mormon in that regard.

And all of Austria needs to be ashamed of itself.

Posted by: William George | February 22, 2011 7:04 PM

Quote:
You can disagree with her interpretation of the events without making it a crime for her to express her opinion.
end quote.

Wow.
What a concept.
Sounds vaguely like freedom of expression to me.

Posted by: eib | February 22, 2011 7:44 PM

Sadie Morrison: Do I understand you correctly when I interpret this remark to mean that you actually want a case to be made that the practice of taking child brides is harmful? I think that most people would find it pretty self-evident.

If it were self-evident, there wouldn't be so many cultures that do it, now would there? If you want them to stop that practice then yes, you _do_ have to explain to them why it's harmful.

Posted by: Michael Crichton | February 22, 2011 9:12 PM

Is it right to impose our Western values on primitive cultures? Isn't this imperialism? Isn't this arrogance? Wasn't that the excuse used to "civilize" the "savage" Indians? Should we follow Sadie's cry to arms and bomb and occupy the Amazon jungle and force hunter gathers to accept modern ways? I say no. I say leave 'em alone and let their cultures live.

Getting married at age 9 is an ethical and smart thing to do when life is short, when food is scarce, when every day is a war against disease and hunger and against enemy tribes. This remains the reality for a few people and was reality for all humans for millions of years. Adolescence is a recent concept. Becoming an adult at puberty was the rule. A people deciding to cling to the old ways and living by the spear and having to start reproducing at a young age because odds are they won't live to be old ... well it is okay with me.

Posted by: asdf | February 22, 2011 10:21 PM

asdf, we aren't imposing our culture on any backward savages. Members of a foreign culture have chosen to come and live among us due to the superior society *our* culture delivers.

Our culture should in no uncertain terms spell out to these newcomers what is acceptable in our society, and what is not acceptable in our society.

Paedophilia is not acceptable in our society.

Posted by: Vince whirlwind | February 23, 2011 1:37 AM

If we really want to apply our modern values to Muhammad, then we should also aknowledge the fact that all that point toward him being a child molester comes from sources which historical accuracy is to say the least unreliable. Treating unconfirmed suspicions as established facts happen to be quite antinomic to western rule of law.

Funny how people who often treat religious texts as mythology and superstition and rewritten by propagandists history can suddenly decide to treat the same texts as absolutely accurate as soon as it becomes convenient.

But that's a secondary point.

The main problem with propagandists and dog wisthlers like Sabaditsch-Wolff is that, as they cannot/dare not openly state their agenda, all their craft consist of is to go as close of the line as possible and letting their audience cross it. Sabaditsch-Wolff is way too cowardly to openly admit that she wants an ethnic cleansing to take place in Europe, so she's "just" going to give the euphemistical toned-down version of ethnic cleansing justifications, gambling that those who listen to her will do the rest of the illogical steps toward her real agenda:

So she will say things like:
"Muhammad was a pedophile" while her audience is supposed to hear "Muslims are child rapists who want to force their rapist ways on us"
"they create parallels society" while her audience is supposed hear "They are conspiring against us"
"Muslims are unassimilables foreigners" while her audience is supposed hear "We have to get rid of them"

Posted by: Laurent Weppe | February 23, 2011 3:29 AM

Oh for fucks sake, this peripheral discussion about whether what she said or not was accurate is fucking stupid. Who gives a flying fuck what she actually said? The point is that a woman, vile and ignorant or not, was convicted for the defamation of religion.

Should it be illegal for someone to say that the Christian god is a fictional, genocidal and psychotic fucking excuse for people to hate? Or do we have to claim something that isn't "true," like Jesus was fucking whore - the "real" reason he hung around with prostitutes?

And for the record, no matter how many people engaged in it pre-menses sexual relations is and always has been pedophilia.

Posted by: DuWayne | February 23, 2011 7:25 AM

Eric @ 55 writes:

It is - or should be - perfectly legal to speak one's personal opinion of an historical figure without there being ANY legal need to determine the truth of that opinion. I.e., it should be legal to say regardless of its truth value. Libel (a malicious and intentional attempt to damage someone's reputation) being a fairly narrow exception. I don't think anyone is arguing that applies here.

Personally, libel and slander should not be exceptions to freedom of speech, in a pure libertarian sense. In this way, the ability and freedom to say whatever we wish without the likelihood of persecution, frees speech in the most uncomfortable areas, and permits more open dialgue (what this lady was doing). But it also opens her to persecution on a more "moral" level, such as the malicious intent (think Rep. Michelle Bachmann -- I am not making a comparison between ESW and Bachmann) it may involve, or the right of others to voice their speech, as perilous as hers, in response.

I am in favor, as it were, for the Danes (only coincidentally being a Dane by descent myself) to have published the cartoons of the Prophet, and I am equally in favor of the Islamic community (or the multitudes of them in their variety) to protest. But understanding that actions and words can have detrimental effects, including the violent response one may receive (why the law was put in place, and became even more relevant in the last decade)
when voicing such potentially antagonistic speech leaves one morally weak to protest rights. I shouldn't have to hear Westboro Baptist chanting outside my front door for being gay (or perceived as such), but leaving my door puts me into the public realm, and I am subject to the public effect of my actions (as was ESW).

I think Ed's point was that he is very happy we don't 'live in Rome' - i.e., he's happy we have the 1st amendment to protect us from bad legal speech restrictions such as this one.

I've discussed the horrendously yoking legal restrictions in Germany with an expat at work, and he's similarly of the mind that Germany in general has gone too far to stifle expression of negative viewpoints (especially in a certain historic direction).

But on the other hand, consider: Speech can cause issues, and we are NOT secure in our neighbors abilities to be rational, nor are we capable of rationality in all cases. I am sure Ed has posted here a time or two in a way that was emotional and compromising of a thoughtful, logical argument he would perhaps have made otherwise (including not posting said item). What results is, ultimately, his fault. Likewise, ESW is at fault for breaking a law, even if said law is probably "immoral" or "wrong," based on even the shallowest of libertarian thinking. If she knew the law was in effect and being enforced (I'm not clear on this), this becomes willful violation of the law. The only time I would respect someone for this would be if they break it, argue they knew they were doing it, and offer that they felt the reason for the violation deserved it. And they took their punishment.

I would respect Bush much more (as I respect Cheney on one thing only, gay rights) if he admitted he broke the law, argued he did it for a cause in freedom (as he argued), and accepted he violated the law and was subject to punishment. Advocacy for ESW wants her to have her cake and to eat it, in contradiction to this, by being able to break the law and avoid the punishment that it entails. It is not OUR right or decision to enforce our views on Austria, or any other legal entity. Instead, I suggest reasoned discourse to effect change in what is essentially an offensive, stifling statute. One can sue to have the charges reduce or reversed after the fact, but I would warn ESW to pay the toll for her actions.

Posted by: Jaime Headden | February 23, 2011 8:59 AM

For that matter, there is no reason to assume that if she did believe it was actionable, that she wasn't prepared to accept the consequences.

Actually, she might have done this on purpose: get fined, they go on around saying "I was condemned by the eviiiiiiiiil dhimmi state of Austria" in order to reinforce the self-righteousness of her fan club.

While it is entirely reasonable to argue that the speech itself is immoral, the protestation of rights is not

The problem is not that Sabaditsch-Wolff's speeches are merely "immoral", the problem is that they can be assimilated to murderous propaganda (the kind that says "I'm not calling for the murder of X, I'm just saying that if X is murdered in a very degrading and murderous way, it will serve him right"), such representing a threat for society: members of the majority who start saying to one ethnic or religious minority "You don't deserve to be here and you and us are at war" (which is exactly what Sabaditsch-Wolff is saying in her cowardly, underhanded way) are not exactly helping social harmony. The fact that the accusation made such a piss-poor job at backing up its claims in front of a juge render this point moot, but only in the specific case of this specific trial.

Posted by: Laurent Weppe | February 23, 2011 11:51 AM

Sadie Morrison: You will not get any traction with members of those "primitive" societies by telling them they're a bunch of stupid savages who should listen to their cultural betters because they're just too dumb to figure it out for themselves. In fact, that would be actively counter-productive. If you want to convince them to stop child marriage/genital mutilation/infanticide/whatever, you have to actually talk to them like rational people, and explain _why_ what they're doing is destructive.

asdf : People in most pre-industrial societies go through puberty later than modern westerners, not earlier. Child marriage usually has more to do with cementing family alliances than it does with early reproduction. The logic is, if you marry them off when they're 10, they couldn't possible have been "impure", but if you wait longer, they might have lost their virginity elsewhere.

DuWayne: You are conflating child molestation with pedophilia. One is a mental condition, one is a behavior, and the two are not always coexistent. Plenty of child molesters aren't pedophiles, they're opportunists who would prefer adults, but will take whoever they can get.

Laurent Weppe: You're almost certainly right, Sabaditsch-Wolff was looking to be a martyr for the cause. The law is still BS.

Posted by: Michael Crichton | February 23, 2011 9:44 PM

DuWayne @ 73:

My argument is pretty simple:

1, we argue for the fundamental right for our speech to go without punishment;
1a, we recognize that others may disagree, sometimes even aggressively;
1b, we respect their right of disagreement, and therefore the speech that flows from this;

2, you reject the premise that no person should take action as a result of a person's speech against them, even if it was inciteful to harm;

3, we might argue that libelous and slanderous words can be exceptions to "free speech," but I argue it shouldn't be:
3a, a person has any right to say whatever he/she wishes without fear of being punished or silenced as a result;

4, but as a society of laws, determination by the group for how forms of speech may be regulated can impose restrictions on speech, and these restrictions include (in most European countries and in this) libel, slander, and things said to cause incitement,
4a, this form of restriction may be to impose the sense of safety on a group to not fear that a vocal majority can act against them or invoke a tide of agreement against them, such that this becomes a competing liberty to free speech;

5, as such, I would then argue that free speech in a country of laws is different from a libertarian "free speech" and is in fact restricted by the rights of the minorities, rather than the will of the majority, and this conflicting right permits the state to impose punishment on those who engage in libel, slander, and to incite.

I don't need to agree or disagree with ESW's actions or that of Austria, even if I reject her argument of pedophilia. The website posted by Ed supports ESW's actions and speech and rejects Austria's to the point of attempting to find ways of reversing or ameliorating this. Without regard to agreeing or disagreeing with ESW's words, I stand by Austria's right to impose a law as a sovereign state -- protecting the rights of the minority -- and would act against that interest if another minority would be harmed. This is because of the competing liberties, the rights of a group (not an individual) matter more. In a true libertarian sense, the individual is greater than the group, but a law is not an individual thing.

Posted by: Jaime Headden | February 24, 2011 7:20 AM

Jaime -

P1 - I most certainly do not believe that speech should go unpunished, I just don't believe the government should have a role in it excepting within very narrow parameters.

P2 - I am not sure exactly what you mean due to double negatives (not a criticism, I do it myself sometimes), but I will explain my position. I believe that people certainly do have the right to take action against those who speak out against them. Legally, that should be limited to more speech - unless they actually have a reasonable fear that said speech clearly puts them in danger. At that point I would argue that the speech is actionable and that that person has a right to defend their person - that would include having a right to legal protections (which are imperfect).

I also think that we all have the right to utilize any action for which we are willing to accept the consequences of. For example, if the Phelps clan protested a funeral I was attending, I would have absolutely no problem with going to jail for assault and would very likely do so.

P3&3a - I actually rather strenuously disagree with you here. I think that libel and slander should be very narrowly defined and that the burden of proof should be exceptional high. But I believe very strongly that if a person suffers actual harm stemming from someone else's speech and can make a case that fits those narrow standards, they should be able to collect on those damages - as well as forcing the slanderer to retract the slanderous/libelous statements in the same venue in which they were made.

4&4a - and I believe that such laws are wrong, wherever such laws are enforced. I don't believe that I have a right to force other countries to eliminate them - but neither do I have to silence my criticism of them.

I also would argue that we do have a right to bring whatever pressure we might be capable of producing to foster changes we believe should be made.

5 - Bullshit. The problem with restrictions on speech is precisely that it is inherently oppressive to the minority. The very reason that maximum freedom of speech is important, is because without it, minorities can and are restricted from having a voice.

Without regard to agreeing or disagreeing with ESW's words, I stand by Austria's right to impose a law as a sovereign state -- protecting the rights of the minority -- and would act against that interest if another minority would be harmed.

Taking this argument into the context of the situation being discussed here, what minority is being harmed? What minority would be harmed if I were to go to Austria and say that Jesus Christ was a slut who liked to fuck both men and women? That statement would fall well within the parameters of an actionable statement in Austria, but would certainly not harm anyone, much less a minority group. Neither does the claim that Mohammad was a pedophile harm anyone, much less a minority.

But let's talk about speech that actually "threatens" a minority group. Lets say that giving a speech, I make the assertion that everyone who lives below 150% of the poverty line should be killed out of hand - that we should have the right to go into the streets with guns and just start blowing them away. That is an absolute threat to a whole group of minorities - so should I be silenced? (not that I would ever argue such a thing)

I would argue that rather than being arrested for it, I should be ridiculed and denounced as a fucking lunatic. That rather than being driven underground with the fractional fraction of the population who would agree with me, people should respond the same way they have responded to white supremacists in the U.S. - with absolute and unwavering derision. While we have a long way to go in terms of racism and racial equality, the lunatic fringe has been completely marginalized in that context.

And that is precisely what should happen to Sabaditsch-Wolff, if what she said was as xenophobic as it seems it was (not the pedophile comment specifically, but rather the rest of her bullshit).

Posted by: DuWayne | February 24, 2011 10:39 AM

Laurent -

At first, it was a rethorical defense mecanism used by those who wanted to commit an ethnic cleansing in order to claim the moral high-ground.
In the last few years, it has become, at least in Europe, a coded phrase that far-right extremists use to identify themselves, just like "I'm in favor of States Right" ended up meaning "Nigger should learn their place", "Muhammad was a pedophile" now means "Brown skinned subhumans don't deserve to live among us". There is no way, absolutely no way that Sabaditsch-Wolff is unaware of it, especially since she's been saying it in a seminar organized by the neo-nazi austrian party FPÖ.

So the FPO is presumably a massive power in Austria and their majority is all set to kill all the Muslims who can't get out of Austria in time?

This does not suffice to make a condemnation ethically valid, but it is sufficient to know that this woman is bad news and that her speeches are not innocent accademic discussions.

Given the tenor of comments here, I assume she's a vile piece of shit. Doesn't change my opinion on speech.

You know why western Europe has a different take on freedom of expression than the USA?

Probably rather more than the average WWII layman. Sociocultural psychology and culture change is a particular interest of mine and the rise of fascism makes a fascinating study in that context.

Except that it just made an impressive comeback in the guise of the Tea Patry, with exactly the tricks I just described: they managed to regain political clout by demagoguing an important chunck of the population while the existing ruling class stupidly thought that they could tame said lunatics and use them as a tool for crowd control.

So essentially the Teabaggers = the Nazis? And the Teabaggers have the power to convince their barbarian hordes to start gunning down Muslims and people who happen to look like Muslims?

The Teabaggers are a particularly vocal minority who have managed to garner some political strength. They are fringe loons who will be relegated back to the fringes before all that long. While they have provided some impetus to prevent much of a swing to the left and may have moved us slightly to the right of where we were, they haven't had and won't have a substantive impact on national policy - nor will they cause more than a infinitesimal fraction of the population of the U.S. to shift to their lunatic fringe in terms of race and racism.

Posted by: DuWayne | February 24, 2011 5:37 PM

Laurent -

But the fact that the FPÖ is lacking the power to implement its ethnic cleansing agenda does not invalidate the fact that this is the long term dream of this party activists and core voters.

It's lack of power does, however, mean that it doesn't have the power to implement it. There are all sorts of nuts out there, with insanely violent agendas. The very best way to quash them is by letting them rant and marginalize themselves. Repression makes them far more dangerous.

Yeah, right, try to pull a Godwin so that I will lose my time and energy trying to explain how what I just wrote is not a Godwin. Either you can see by yourself that what I wrote is in no way comparable to such a simplistic sentence or you're not worth my time.

Fuck this stupid "Godwin" fucking bullshit. What you wrote is not only comparable, it is exactly what you fucking wrote. No matter how much you draw out the description and studiously avoid using the word Nazi, you were comparing the teabaggers to the rise of the Nazis.

And you know what? You aren't out of line making that comparison. There are some fundamental correlations. The difference is that for the teabaggers to truly gain power in the U.S. that is even in the ballpark of the power the Nazis gained in Germany, they would need to gain super-majorities that are impossible for them to manage.

The fundamental difference between using the Nazi comparison with the teabaggers and using it in most any other context is that like the Nazis, the teabaggers are a massive, completely insane populace movement. Ie. one of the fundamental, defining characteristics of the rise of the Nazis also fits the teabaggers. And it is important to recognize that like the Germans who fell into line with the insane rhetoric of the time, most teabaggers are essentially decent people who have been driven into a frenzy of hatred by the rhetoric of fear and scapegoating.

Once again you seem to confuse willingness and capacity.

I am confusing nothing jackass. That they lack the capacity is precisely my point. It is my point with the marginalized FPO in Austria and it is my point with the teabaggers. They lack the capacity and will always lack the capacity.

Teabaggers have shown during the past 30 months that they did not want to live with Muslims as their equal fellow citizens, and to justify this they reuse the tricks used by the fascists of the 30's, like taking the imaginary conspiracies thrown at them by Glenn Beck & co seriously or pulling things like "Obama is a secret Muslim" (It used to be "This politician I don't like is secretly jewish").

I am not quoting this to disagree with you. I merely point it out because it rather supports my assertion that you are equating teabaggers with the Nazis.

Of course, unlike Europe where Muslims have become by far the primary target of the far-right, Teabaggers still have multiple targets (black, latinos, I've even seen teabaggers accusing the Chinese-Americans of conspiring to destroy the white race) for their ire.

And that just further marginalizes them. Let these motherfuckers take over the GOP - let them have at it and destroy it once and for all. Nothing could please me more (politically speaking) than to see the teabaggers inexorably wedded to the republican party. Let the democrats fall apart as well and we may just be able to make something of this trainwreck that the U.S. has become.

And nothing would make me happier that seeing them running into a wall and breaking their nose while sane and non sociopathic people retake the Tea Party clout.

Not me. I want them to drag the republicans down with them.

But that does not make my comparison between them and the pre-WWII european far-right less valid: people tend to think that there was something very specific about european facists compared to other far-right movements; but the only specific thing about them is that they were politically succesful (taking control of enough territories to implement their policies and bring them to their logical conclusion) while most far-right movements manage to lose their momentum before securing power.

Actually, there were some very specific elements that were played upon, that don't exist in very many far-right movements. First, they weren't simply a far-right movement. Politically they were at the extreme right, economically on the other hand, they were a hell of a lot closer to the other end of the spectrum completely. Second, the Germans were pretty well good and fucked over after WWI. Their economy was decimated by reparations - this of course drew in the socialist element of the Nazi party. Finally, the Nazis worked together in a very well coordinated plan that put their people into specific and important positions so they could effectively take over the government.

The Tea Party have not yet lost their momentum: they may be only a vocal minority, but as long as they hold the Republican party by the cojones, they remain a credible threat to the survival of the American Republic.

I don't believe that the teabagger hold on the republican balls (thanks for that, I needed a giggle) is a threat to the United States. We are in very serious danger to be sure, but that danger has everything to do with policies that carry unilateral support and which have been carried over from a president whose party was thrown out, in part, because of those policies. The danger to this republic isn't the lunatic fringe - they're just a convenient distraction.

Our very real danger comes from the government we have and will continue to have, until we manage to throw out all the fucking republicrats.

Posted by: DuWayne | February 24, 2011 9:13 PM

It's lack of power does, however, mean that it doesn't have the power to implement it. There are all sorts of nuts out there, with insanely violent agendas

Indeed, but there is quite a large domain between "lone nut with genocidal fantasies" and "totalitarian regime busy slaughtering its minorities", and I for one would argue that "well organized political party with dozens of elected official several propaganda outlets and conduits between its leaders and mainstream politicians" is not that far from becoming really harmful.

Fuck this stupid "Godwin" fucking bullshit [...] you were comparing the teabaggers to the rise of the Nazis. And you know what? You aren't out of line making that comparison

A Godwin is an undue comparison. Since you clarified yourself and obviously does not considere what I wrote to be a Godwin, there is no way to keep throwing F bombs everywhere.

The difference is that for the teabaggers to truly gain power in the U.S. that is even in the ballpark of the power the Nazis gained in Germany, they would need to gain super-majorities that are impossible for them to manage.

As I wrote in my previous post, the major difference between 30's fascists and most other far-right movements is that fascists were successfuls. So there's not much disagreement between us, except that you think that a teabaggers takeover is absolutely impossible while I think that it is merely improbable.

Politically they were at the extreme right, economically on the other hand, they were a hell of a lot closer to the other end of the spectrum completely.

That is a misconception: "economically on the left" is an annoying canard born from the fascists demagogic elite-bashing and from the fact that once they were in power they pretty much merged the state with the upper-echelon of the private sector. But this is not different from the desire of the plutocratic wing of the GOP to make the political elite subserviant toward the economical elite. One group had th political power and used it to take control of the economical power, while the other has the economical power and want to obtain political power to boot.

Actually, I'd even go as far as arguing that it was, if anything, the communist USSR, whose leaders also merged the political and economical elites in one single monolithic ruling class, that showed that they were a lot more on the right than what their rethoric claimed.

Second, the Germans were pretty well good and fucked over after WWI. Their economy was decimated by reparations

Except that between the immediate aftermatch of WWI and the economical crisis which struck Germany during the 30's, the economy was not doing so bad. As for the reparation, they kept being demanded (and paid) after WWII: Germany wrote the last check to France last october. Sure, reparation helped to run Germany's economy into the ground during the great crisis, but it was certainly not the cause.

Finally, the Nazis worked together in a very well coordinated plan that put their people into specific and important positions so they could effectively take over the government.

Actually... Nope. I too used, like so many people, to believe that nazis were well organised efficient super-villains led by a master con-man, but in fact they were mostly a clusterfuck of incompetent wankers who fancied themselves as übermensch. In the end, the stupidity and willingness to destroy the Weimar Republic in order to mainstain their social status of the conservative leaders had way more to do with the Nazis rise to power than their occasionnal display of cunning and political savvy.

Posted by: Laurent Weppe | February 26, 2011 10:29 AM

Jon H: You ask what her point is.

Yes, it was common in history. You might have picked a better example however for even at that time, globally, 9 was quite young, even as a marriage of convenience and the age difference was vast. 12 is at least potentially fertile and able to bear children. I think that it is still on the wrong side of the line but much closer to it. You fail to discuss whether that marriage was "consummated" in the traditional manner. It is in doubt whether the same custom applies as strongly in that situation as it does for Muhammed's. It is not currently possible to verify your claim without further detail and as a less extreme example it does not compare well.

The point is that we don't hold those people to the same light as Muslims hold Muhammed. Their Muhammed is supposed to be more than but a man in history, he is described as a prophet, the messenger of God. He is seen as a man who brought holy teachings, was inspired by God and most importantly, whose life is an example to be followed.

If Muhammed was so inspired by a timeless morality then why were his actions and moral edicts not particularly abnormal and not notably ahead of those at the time? Why, when under inspection, does he appear as no more than yet another warlord or tribal leader? If he was so close to the "ultimate source of morality" him self and yet was morally decrepit then what good is his word? What good is his example and would you want it taught to your neighbours or your neighbours' neighbours? What is it to make such a man an idol, a role model, a figure of worship?

What you discount is how Muslims relate to Muhammed. You are right that to us, he nothing more than a relic of distant times. The way he behaved is not particularly special to us and nor does it make him particularly villainous given what was normal in his setting. To the Muslims he has become something else entirely.

Posted by: dogbreath | December 30, 2011 11:08 AM