Liberty
stcynic | February 22, 2006Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine, has an op-ed piece in the LA Times about the imprisonment of David Irving that is well worth reading. He cites a famous passage from the Robert Bolt play, A Man for All Seasons:
Roper: So now you'd give the devil benefit of law.
More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the devil?
Roper: I'd cut down every law in England to do that.
More: Oh? And when the law was down - and the devil turned round on you - where would you hide? Yes, I'd give the devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.
Quite right.
stcynic | February 22, 2006Not content with sentencing a man to 3 years in prison for speaking his mind, vile as his thoughts may be, Austrian prosecutors have appealed that sentence and demanded that the 67 year old historian David Irving spend ten years in prison instead for the crime of having made an unapproved speech in 1989. Austria seems quite intent on engaging in the very fascist behavior they allegedly want to prevent with such laws. And I, for one, would like to hear my fellow civil libertarians, who have stood up for the right of a Danish newspaper to print cartoons that some find offensive, to stand up and…
stcynic | February 21, 2006While I was unable to post this weekend, I did see this column by Ben Shapiro (though I saw it at the Worldnutdaily) and planned to comment on it. Shapiro, for those who don't know, is a budding right wing pundit who wants to ban pornography and pretty much anything else he finds offensive. And in this column, he's urging that we revive the sedition laws and punish those who speak ill of the government in wartime. His reasoning is truly ridiculous. It takes this form:
In World War I we had the Espionage Act and punished those who spoke out against the war (including folks like Eugene Debs);…
stcynic | February 20, 2006David Irving, the famous holocaust denier from the UK, has been sentenced to 3 years in prison in Austria. It is illegal to deny the holocaust in that nation. I agree entirely with this:
A few Austrians, such as Lothar Hobelt, an associate professor of history at the University of Vienna, believe it should never have been set up at all.
"This is a silly law by silly people for silly people," he said.
"In fact, having a law that says you mustn't question a particular historical instance, if anything, creates doubt about it, because if an argument has to be protected by the force of law, it…
stcynic | February 13, 2006A conversation I had this weekend reminded me of a wonderful quote from Mencken. I first cited it nearly 2 years ago in a post and I want to reprint it again because it describes my views so perfectly. In this essay, Mencken was actually commenting on what he, the arch-cynic who seemingly believed in nothing, really held out as true. Many critics had bashed him as one who merely casts aspersions on the views of others, a man with no positive beliefs. His reply could well have been written about me as well:
What do I primarily believe in, as a Puritan believes in Hell? I believe in liberty.…
stcynic | February 9, 2006Eugene Volokh has an interesting post about the comparison between flag burning and the Muhammed caricatures. I agree with him that anyone who thinks that there should be an amendment banning flag burning but supports freedom of expression to print caricatures of Muhammed that inflame Muslims is being inconsistent. I would go even further than perhaps he would, however, and say that those who freak out over flag burning are engaging in very much the same kind of thinking that many Muslims are in the case of the caricatures - I'm offended and therefore this should be banned, or, in some cases…
stcynic | February 8, 2006The Middle East Times has a rundown of various anti-blasphemy laws in Europe. All such laws are a blatant violation of the right of free expression and thankfully they are rarely used.
stcynic | February 2, 2006Sandefur links to this post about the oppression of women in Saudi Arabia and many other countries that wonders why the West has not been as adamant in opposing this as they were in opposing apartheid in South Africa (aside from the obvious practical argument based on oil and necessity, of course). After listing some of the barbaric laws in that nation, the author writes:
And this is just a bare outline of the laws. Imagine the day-in and day-out degradation of having to live under these rules every day. Imagine being subject to total control by one's own family members and not being able to…