We have been following the steady decline of free speech in the West (here and here and here) and we have another interesting case on criminal charges for uttering prohibited thoughts. Germany has long made it a crime to deny the holocaust. Now, controversial British clergyman Richard Williamson has started a trial in Germany on Friday for his denial that the Nazis had systematically murdered millions of Jews.
Williamson, 70, was fined 12,000 euros (16,000 dollars) for comments made on a television interview during a 2008 visit to Germany. In the interview, he alleged that the Nazi gas chambers are a myth and “only 200,000 to 300,000 Jews” had been killed by the Nazis.
He caused a controversy for Pope Benedict XVI, who repealed his excommunication of Williamson.
There is no question that Germany has tried through this law to prevent the resurgence of Nazi propaganda and lies. However, the best way to fight fascism is to allow free speech, not to censor prohibited thoughts and utterances. In this case, Williamson says that he was assured that his interview would only run in Sweden, which allows free speech on the issue. Despite our personal revulsion with such accounts, it is important for civil libertarians to stand with free speech. This trial should not be over the historical fact but free speech. Williamson has a right to speak his mind as to his view of history while the rest of us have a right to denounce those views.
For the full story, click here
Slarti:
I need to think about a good answer.
Take all the time you need, I’m not in a hurry.
But your last sentence was interesting. I would like to propose that the linkage was broken by government when they agreed to underwrite bad mortgages and also “forced” companies to make those bad mortgages.
I would say that underwriting mortgages that you force someone to make is just taking responsibility, but if you are referring to mortgages required under the CRA, then you’re talking about the government requiring banks to make good loans – those loans defaulted at a far lower rate and were not responsible for the meltdown.
Government has no business in any of this stuff because they operate from a position of “pull” and not a profit motive. Pull meaning the political clout of either the rich through large contributions or through community organizations being able to deliver votes for a politician. I am talking both left and right orgs.
We disagree about the role of government, but we agree about the corrupting role of money on politics – I would, however, note the community organizations being able to deliver large amounts of votes is how the republic is supposed to work. Citizens banding together to elect politicians to serve their common interests.
Profit/market forces are amoral and have no agenda.
I would say that market forces are amoral and have an agenda of making a profit.
I want a hamburger I choose the least expensive, best tasting hamburger available.
I also want the hamburger to be free of e. coli and I’d also like to know that hamburger that says ‘organic’ on it was raised without the use of hormones. There needs to be some oversight of what the supplier claims on the label. I’m not willing to give up FDA inspections, are you?
End of discussion.
If you agree that we need the FDA inspecting meat, then sure.
The best company makes a profit and they are forced to lower prices and have a tasty burger in a clean facility to attract more customers and make more money.
The problem with this statement is knowing whether or not the burger was made in a clean facility (and is free from parasites or other contaminates). I don’t consider finding this out via food poisoning an efficient system…
What if the owner gave a large campaign contribution to his elected official to prevent his competitor from having french fries? That actually happened to a friend of mine who owns an Exxon station in Fairfax City. And it cost him some business.
Again, I agree that money is a corrupting influence on politics (if the tea party was really serious about reforming government, campaign finance reform would be their first goal – and I would be out there with them). I think we should start a non-partisan political party for campaign finance reform – it would support politicians with any ideology so long as they agreed to support CFR and not take money from corporate interests.
All this intermingling of government and industry/business is not good and we are seeing the results.
The unregulated market is also bad since it does not take public health and welfare into consideration (it’s only concern is the amoral pursuit of profit). The proper way for government to regulate the market (in my view) is to attach costs (taxes and fines) to behaviors which undermine the public interests (such as pollution). Then the market eliminates these behaviors without further intervention – for instance, mandating greater fuel economy has been a terrible way to increase fuel efficiency of cars, but raising the gas tax by a few cents each year would get us to 100 mpg in a couple of decades (and get auto companies to spend more on research into alternative fuels).
The market will be a much harsher master than government can ever hope to be. In fact the market is an executioner compared to governments slap on the wrist.
Except that on its own, the market will only act to maximize profits – why stop dumping arsenic into the water supply unless there is an economic reason to do so.
I would go so far as to say that the businesses you want to tax for pollution may not even exist in a totally free market.
I don’t think that there is any evidence that a totally free market would have any incentive whatsoever to decrease pollution.
Think about it, a good many companies exist because of government favoritism.
I agree – and I’m against corporate welfare (the exception being to protect industries that it is in the national interest to prevent moving off-shore and even then I think that tariffs are a better means of protection, if possible).
Put that wonderful gray matter of yours to work and look at it from a purely mathematical stand point. the market yields 2+2 = 4, the government and market yields 2 + 2 = 3 or 6 or 10, whatever the hell they want it to equal.
What my Grey matter (incidentally, it’s GrEy matter as in ‘Grey’s Anatomy’) says it that the markets regulate themselves if you assign costs to antisocial behaviors – if the SEC successfully prosecutes Goldman-Sachs and requires them to pay back the money their investors lost (preferably doubled or trebled) don’t you think that will discourage other companies from selling shitty investments so that they (or other investors) can bet against them and make a killing?
Think about a regression (I think that is right) analysis with millions and millions of points of data, how smooth will the line be?
Regression is the right word (linear regression, to be more accurate). I’m a non-linear dynamics kind of guy, so I wouldn’t try to fit a line to data unless the data looked awfully linear in the first place – too much emphasis is placed on linear analysis because it is easy to do (it’s all many people know how to do). As a professor of mine at Michigan State once said, ‘Describing functions as linear and non-linear is like describing food as bananas and non-bananas.’ I tend to come at it from the other side – how complicated a model do we need to produce results that are qualitatively similar? What does that model tell us about the principles of the system? How does the model react to a given policy? My intuition tells me that the market reacts to attaching a cost to a given behavior by eliminating or reducing that behavior. I also believe that raising governmental revenue in this manner is an effective way of reducing the national debt (since it is a decreasing revenue stream by its nature, it shouldn’t be counted on to fund programs, but we must reduce the debt somehow).
Now same analysis but you draw the line yourself based on what you think the data is going to be. But the problem is that you have a million variables (all changing with time) to consider. You cant draw the same line with any degree of accuracy.
In the next couple of weeks I should be submitting a paper on my model of the DNA damage G2 checkpoint. As part of this paper I must justify (and I do) that even though NONE of the values in the 200-dimensional parameter space are set using experimental data that the model is still valid. I’m actually an expert at this sort of thing, and I’m telling you that I believe I could make a model of the market (or at least aspects of it) that would provide evidence that my hypotheses about the ramifications of policies are correct. Quite frankly, I regard economic systems as much simpler than a single cell.
That is what b-crats are trying to do with computers and historical data. It cannot be done and even if you could why would you?
I’m not a big proponent of using past data to predict future behavior (although it is valid within its limitations). My processes is to create a model and use the past data to validate it, at which point you gain confidence that the model can predict the systems response to various things (and then you test the predictions via experiment – in terms of an economic model you obviously can’t test every theory, but you can certainly apply a policy that the model says will work as intended and see it that prediction is accurate).
You are changing people’s right to purchase what they want, when they want. You are forcing them to do something against their own best interest as they see it. You are diminishing freedom and individual rights, your are not it expanding them.
No, I just want to force companies to account for hidden costs that they are passing off to the public. Let’s say that we raise the gas tax by $0.05 per year – this doesn’t effect anyone’s right to buy a Hummer and go on 100 mile joyrides every afternoon. It does make it more expensive to do so, but for that cost the public gets increased fuel efficiency, better public transportation and decreased dependence on foreign oil and the government gets revenue that can be used to decrease the debt. (Incidentally, I keep harping on decreasing the debt because I think that it is VERY important that funds raised in this manner be used for specific short-term projects rather than to fund continuing programs as they are not meant to be long-term revenue sources but to eliminate undesirable behaviors.
Byron,
I just heard Robert Gibbs say that BP is required to cover the cost of the cleanup and that they are doing so (although I’m sure that they are not responsible for the cost of the environmental or economic costs). I’m working on a reply to your post, I’m just busy right now…
Slarti:
I need to think about a good answer.
But your last sentence was interesting. I would like to propose that the linkage was broken by government when they agreed to underwrite bad mortgages and also “forced” companies to make those bad mortgages.
Government has no business in any of this stuff because they operate from a position of “pull” and not a profit motive. Pull meaning the political clout of either the rich through large contributions or through community organizations being able to deliver votes for a politician. I am talking both left and right orgs.
Profit/market forces are amoral and have no agenda. I want a hamburger I choose the least expensive, best tasting hamburger available. End of discussion. The best company makes a profit and they are forced to lower prices and have a tasty burger in a clean facility to attract more customers and make more money.
What if the owner gave a large campaign contribution to his elected official to prevent his competitor from having french fries? That actually happened to a friend of mine who owns an Exxon station in Fairfax City. And it cost him some business.
All this intermingling of government and industry/business is not good and we are seeing the results. The market will be a much harsher master than government can ever hope to be. In fact the market is an executioner compared to governments slap on the wrist. I would go so far as to say that the businesses you want to tax for pollution may not even exist in a totally free market.
Think about it, a good many companies exist because of government favoritism. Put that wonderful gray matter of yours to work and look at it from a purely mathematical stand point. the market yields 2+2 = 4, the government and market yields 2 + 2 = 3 or 6 or 10, whatever the hell they want it to equal.
Think about a regression (I think that is right) analysis with millions and millions of points of data, how smooth will the line be? Now same analysis but you draw the line yourself based on what you think the data is going to be. But the problem is that you have a million variables (all changing with time) to consider. You cant draw the same line with any degree of accuracy.
That is what b-crats are trying to do with computers and historical data. It cannot be done and even if you could why would you? You are changing people’s right to purchase what they want, when they want. You are forcing them to do something against their own best interest as they see it. You are diminishing freedom and individual rights, your are not it expanding them.
Byron,
The purpose of fines would be to pay for the cleanup of accidental pollution (I kind of doubt that the company is paying for all of the coast guard vessels we see in news footage of the oil spill…). The purpose of taxes would be to provide a disincentive for ‘everyday’ pollution. As for oil and gas not being pollution – I think you’re just raising a semantic issue here – an oil spill is an environmental disaster which is costly both in terms of cleanup and damage done to the environment (and businesses which depend on the environment – who compensates the beachfront hotels where the oil slick comes ashore?) I just want to provide transparency to the hidden costs. To me this is the same as the financial industry – companies are both knowingly and accidentally damaging property that they do not own secure in the knowledge that they get to keep all of the profits made thereby while assuming none of the risk. I honestly think that my position here is the capitalist one. A brief illustration: Why does a company dump arsenic into a river? Because they increase their profits by doing it (companies are amoral, not immoral). Dumping arsenic into a river has both intangible costs (loss of biodiversity and other environmental damage) and tangible costs (public health, devaluation of the value of riverfront property, etc.). If businesses were forced to pay those costs then they would not pollute unless it was economically reasonable to do so. By initiating the tax at a low level and slowly increasing it to balance the costs, business would be given time (and incentive) to change to less destructive technologies (spurring innovation in green tech – in my opinion America’s best hope at remaining the world technology leaders). Of course this sort of policy would have to be combined with a pollution tariff or it would just drive industry to other countries where they could still pollute for free. I truly believe that this sort of policy is no just consistent with, but necessary to the free functioning of capitalism which you have articulated and defended so well. The example of the financial meltdown shows us what happens in a capitalist system when the linkage between risk/cost and reward/profit is weakened or broken.
Tootie:
here are some lessons on Libertarians:
Above all, do not join the wrong ideological groups or movements, in order to “do something.” By “ideological” (in this context), I mean groups or movements proclaiming some vaguely generalized, undefined (and, usually, contradictory) political goals. (E.g., the Conservative Party, which subordinates reason to faith, and substitutes theocracy for capitalism; or the “libertarian” hippies, who subordinate reason to whims, and substitute anarchism for capitalism.) To join such groups means to reverse the philosophical hierarchy and to sell out fundamental principles for the sake of some superficial political action which is bound to fail. It means that you help the defeat of your ideas and the victory of your enemies. (For a discussion of the reasons, see “The Anatomy of Compromise” in my book Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.)
“What Can One Do?”
Philosophy: Who Needs It, 202
“Libertarians”
For the record, I shall repeat what I have said many times before: I do not join or endorse any political group or movement. More specifically, I disapprove of, disagree with, and have no connection with, the latest aberration of some conservatives, the so-called “hippies of the right,” who attempt to snare the younger or more careless ones of my readers by claiming simultanteously to be followers of my philosophy and advocates of anarchism. Anyone offering such a combination confesses his inability to understand either. Anarchism is the most irrational, anti-intellectual notion ever spun by the concrete-bound, context-dropping, whim-worshiping fringe of the collectivist movement, where it properly belongs.
“Brief Summary,” The Objectivist, Sept. 1971, 1
In the philosophical battle for a free society, the one crucial connection to be upheld is that between capitalism and reason. The religious conservatives are seeking to tie capitalism to mysticism; the “libertarians” are tying capitalism to the whim-worshipping subjectivism and chaos of anarchy. To cooperate with either group is to betray capitalism, reason, and one’s own future.
Harry Binswanger “Q & A Department: Anarchism,”
The Objectivist Forum, Aug. 1981, 12
who is the anti-capitalist now Tootie? You fit the mold baby, wide eyed mysticism. Your drugged out free love hippie days fertilized that intellectual soil. Soil being used in 2 ways in this instance.
Tootie:
can you come out and play or did your head explode?
Slarti:
don’t the companies have to pay for the cleanup? that is going to be a major expense. If you fine/tax them and they don’t have enough money for cleanup we end up footing the bill in any event or it doesn’t get cleaned up.
Oil and gas are part of the earth and are natural substances produced by natural mechanisms within the earth, so how is that pollution? It is like saying a volcano causes pollution. are we going to outlaw volcanoes? I say we need to start a program to cap volcanoes so that greenhouse gases are no longer emitted.
Byron,
We can’t sue the shit out of someone for polluting our air and water (in most cases, anyway). The government is the only entity capable of protecting these resources and I think the best way to do it is through taxation of pollution – companies who pollute are taxed, they pass the tax along to the consumer and get their ass handed to them in the free market when someone figures out how to make the same product without (or with less) pollution. Companies will never stop polluting when they have an economic incentive to do so – charging them for it is the best way to provide the incentive. Do you think offshore drilling platforms would be safer if companies knew that an oil spill would destroy a huge chunk of their profits? I do. The owners of the rig in the Gulf of Mexico should be facing a fine commensurate with the environmental disaster they just caused (plus taxes for the ‘normal’ pollution generated by the platform. Why should the government (by which I mean US) have to pay to clean up a problem caused by a company who gets to keep all of the profits themselves? In terms of your scenario, not only am I unable to sue you, but I’ve got to pay to clean up the well, too – all because of weak property rights…
Slarti:
Doesn’t it kind of go back to the golden rule, do unto others? If I pollute your well you should sue the shit out of me to correct a problem I created. I am not so sure the government should be the one doing the penalizing in the form of taxes.
But I suppose you could make a case that the government builds and manages the highways so it would be better able to act on a large scale.
Tootie gave me an excuse to post those excerpts, maybe she will read them but i doubt it. Once she figures out AR is an atheist that will shut her mind down pretty quick. She’ll do the intellectual equivalent of the wide eyed roll back. Her eyes will get big around, roll into the back of her head and she will black out, not literally but figuratively.
Byron,
p.s. I think exposing someone to that much Any Rand is against the Geneva convention… 😉 (which is not to say that I disagree with anything you posted)
p.p.s. Personally, I see Bill Gates as a monopolist – where’s Teddy and the trust-busters when you need them (and we need them BAD.
Byron,
A question about property rights: Who has the rights to the air we breathe and the water we drink? I would argue that it is the responsibility of the government to hold these rights in trust for its people and that with that trust comes a fiduciary responsibility to penalize (tax) ‘people’ (i.e. corporations) who despoil those resources for their own personal profit. What say you? (And, yes, we have come full circle…)
tootie:
Religious influences are not the only villain behind the censorship legislation; there is another one: the social school of morality, exemplified by John Stuart Mill. Mill rejected the concept of individual rights and replaced it with the notion that the “public good” is the sole justification of individual freedom. (Society, he argued, has the power to enslave or destroy its exceptional men, but it should permit them to be free, because it benefits from their efforts.) Among the many defaults of the conservatives in the past hundred years, the most shameful one, perhaps, is the fact that they accepted John Stuart Mill as a defender of capitalism.
“Thought Control,” The Ayn Rand Letter, III, 2, 2.
“Mill rejected the concept of individual rights and replaced it with the notion that the “public good” is the sole justification of individual freedom.”
I think I can state that you think immigration is “against the public good”. So how is my “good” served” if there is no immigration? I like spending $75 to get my lawn cut, I save about $200 per month. Don’t I have the right to save money or do you just want to punish Bill Gates for being rich? I don’t particularly care for Gates as he is basically a collectivist at heart. But wanting to punish him for his success or wanting to eliminate immigration is really un-American. As I told you on another post – Ron Paul is un-American.
tootie:
now a lesson in property rights:
The right to life is the source of all rights—and the right to property is their only implementation. Without property rights, no other rights are possible. Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life. The man who produces while others dispose of his product, is a slave.
Bear in mind that the right to property is a right to action, like all the others: it is not the right to an object, but to the action and the consequences of producing or earning that object. It is not a guarantee that a man will earn any property, but only a guarantee that he will own it if he earns it. It is the right to gain, to keep, to use and to dispose of material values.
“Man’s Rights,” The Virtue of Selfishness, 94.
Just as man can’t exist without his body, so no rights can exist without the right to translate one’s rights into reality—to think, to work and to keep the results—which means: the right of property. The modern mystics of muscle who offer you the fraudulent alternative of “human rights” versus “property rights,” as if one could exist without the other, are making a last, grotesque attempt to revive the doctrine of soul versus body. Only a ghost can exist without material property; only a slave can work with no right to the product of his effort. The doctrine that “human rights” are superior to “property rights” simply means that some human beings have the right to make property out of others; since the competent have nothing to gain from the incompetent, it means the right of the incompetent to own their betters and to use them as productive cattle. Whoever regards this as human and right, has no right to the title of “human.”
The source of property rights is the law of causality. All property and all forms of wealth are produced by man’s mind and labor. As you cannot have effects without causes, so you cannot have wealth without its source: without intelligence. You cannot force intelligence to work: those who’re able to think, will not work under compulsion; those who will, won’t produce much more than the price of the whip needed to keep them enslaved. You cannot obtain the products of a mind except on the owner’s terms, by trade and by volitional consent. Any other policy of men toward man’s property is the policy of criminals, no matter what their numbers. Criminals are savages who play it short-range and starve when their prey runs out—just as you’re starving today, you who believed that crime could be “practical” if your government decreed that robbery was legal and resistance to robbery illegal.
For the New Intellectual, 182
Man has to work and produce in order to support his life. He has to support his life by his own effort and by the guidance of his own mind. If he cannot dispose of the product of his effort, he cannot dispose of his effort; if he cannot dispose of his effort, he cannot dispose of his life. Without property rights, no other rights can be practiced.
“What Is Capitalism?” Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, 18.
TOOTIE:
here is some more on individual rights:
Since knowledge, thinking, and rational action are properties of the individual, since the choice to exercise his rational faculty or not depends on the individual, man’s survival requires that those who think be free of the interference of those who don’t. Since men are neither omniscient nor infallible, they must be free to agree or disagree, to cooperate or to pursue their own independent course, each according to his own rational judgment. Freedom is the fundamental requirement of man’s mind.
“What Is Capitalism?” Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, 17.
A right cannot be violated except by physical force. One man cannot deprive another of his life, nor enslave him, nor forbid him to pursue his happiness, except by using force against him. Whenever a man is made to act without his own free, personal, individual, voluntary consent—his right has been violated.
Therefore, we can draw a clear-cut division between the rights of one man and those of another. It is an objective division—not subject to differences of opinion, nor to majority decision, nor to the arbitrary decree of society. No man has the right to initiate the use of physical force against another man.
“Textbook of Americanism,” The Ayn Rand Column, 85.
Individual rights is the only proper principle of human coexistence, because it rests on man’s nature, i.e., the nature and requirements of a conceptual consciousness. Man gains enormous values from dealing with other men; living in a human society is his proper way of life—but only on certain conditions. Man is not a lone wolf and he is not a social animal. He is a contractual animal. He has to plan his life long-range, make his own choices, and deal with other men by voluntary agreement (and he has to be able to rely on their observance of the agreements they entered).
“A Nation’s Unity,” The Ayn Rand Letter, II, 2, 3
A right is the sanction of independent action. A right is that which can be exercised without anyone’s permission.
If you exist only because society permits you to exist—you have no right to your own life. A permission can be revoked at any time.
If, before undertaking some action, you must obtain the permission of society—you are not free, whether such permission is granted to you or not. Only a slave acts on permission. A permission is not a right.
Do not make the mistake, at this point, of thinking that a worker is a slave and that he holds his job by his employer’s permission. He does not hold it by permission—but by contract, that is, by a voluntary mutual agreement. A worker can quit his job. A slave cannot.
“Textbook of Americanism,” The Ayn Rand Column, 83
The Right to the Pursuit of Happiness means man’s right to live for himself, to choose what constitutes his own private, personal, individual happiness and to work for its achievement, so long as he respects the same right in others. It means that Man cannot be forced to devote his life to the happiness of another man nor of any number of other men. It means that the collective cannot decide what is to be the purpose of a man’s existence nor prescribe his choice of happiness.
“Textbook of Americanism,” The Ayn Rand Column, 84
and so ends the lesson on individual rights
tootie:
maybe this will help:
Individual Rights:
A “right” is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man’s freedom of action in a social context. There is only one fundamental right (all the others are its consequences or corollaries): a man’s right to his own life. Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action; the right to life means the right to engage in self-sustaining and self-generated action—which means: the freedom to take all the actions required by the nature of a rational being for the support, the furtherance, the fulfillment and the enjoyment of his own life. (Such is the meaning of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.)
The concept of a “right” pertains only to action—specifically, to freedom of action. It means freedom from physical compulsion, coercion or interference by other men.
Thus, for every individual, a right is the moral sanction of a positive—of his freedom to act on his own judgment, for his own goals, by his own voluntary, uncoerced choice. As to his neighbors, his rights impose no obligations on them except of a negative kind: to abstain from violating his rights.
The right to life is the source of all rights—and the right to property is their only implementation. Without property rights, no other rights are possible. Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life. The man who produces while others dispose of his product, is a slave.
Bear in mind that the right to property is a right to action, like all the others: it is not the right to an object, but to the action and the consequences of producing or earning that object. It is not a guarantee that a man will earn any property, but only a guarantee that he will own it if he earns it. It is the right to gain, to keep, to use and to dispose of material values.
“Man’s Rights,” The Virtue of Selfishness, 93
“Rights” are a moral concept—the concept that provides a logical transition from the principles guiding an individual’s actions to the principles guiding his relationship with others—the concept that preserves and protects individual morality in a social context—the link between the moral code of a man and the legal code of a society, between ethics and politics. Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law.
“Man’s Rights,” The Virtue of Selfishness, 92.
Man holds these rights, not from the Collective nor for the Collective, but against the Collective—as a barrier which the Collective cannot cross; . . . these rights are man’s protection against all other men.
“Textbook of Americanism,” The Ayn Rand Column, 83
BE CAREFUL READING THIS ONE YOUR HEAD MAY EXPLODE 🙂
The source of man’s rights is not divine law or congressional law, but the law of identity. A is A—and Man is Man. Rights are conditions of existence required by man’s nature for his proper survival. If man is to live on earth, it is right for him to use his mind, it is right to act on his own free judgment, it is right to work for his values and to keep the product of his work. If life on earth is his purpose, he has a right to live as a rational being: nature forbids him the irrational. Any group, any gang, any nation that attempts to negate man’s rights, is wrong, which means: is evil, which means: is anti-life.
For the New Intellectual, 182.
Tootie:
I am a reactionary Marxist radical looking to eliminate the middle class and their quaint ideas of property and class.
The surplus of labor rightly belongs to the workers who create it. Property is such a passe concept, and rightly belongs to the collective, except for the surplus labor which belongs to the worker. I can never get that part straight, does the worker own his labor or does the state? If the means of production belongs to the state, is the worker the state? Who the hell is in charge, no wonder Marxists don’t believe in Jesus. Then Jesus would own the money, oh it is all to confusing.
Workers of the World Untie!
Tootie,
Here are some concepts and slogans that it seems like you would agree with (I had to change some words here and there, but the meanings are all intact):
The Ancestral Heritage Research and Teaching Community – a think tank to research the history of your race and to prove its superiority – known as a “study society for Intellectual Ancient History.”
‘Warfare against Bandits’ – a term for the anit-partisan struggle
‘Blood and Soil’ – a slogan
The Conservative Revolutionary movement – a nationalist literary youth movement
“Cross of Honor of the Mother”-An award given to mothers who presented four or more children to the country
“God with us” – a traditional military motto
‘The race of Lords’ – a name for the race you think is the victim of genocide
“Children, Kitchen, Church” – a slogan delineating the proper role of women
“Fountain of Life”; an organization intended to increase the birth rate of your race by providing unmarried mothers shelter in nursing homes so that they would not seek abortions.
“My honor is loyalty” – a motto applied to belt buckles, etc.
“For [Americans] Only.”
“Racial Hygiene”–a program implemented to improve the race
“of pure breed.” Applied to human races, persons who could prove their (correct) racial ancestry
Folk – People, folk-community, nation, or ethnic group. It is extremely difficult to convey the full meaning of this word in English. It implies a “Folk community” rooted in the soil of the homeland with many centuries of ancestral tradition and linked together by a spiritual zeitgeist.
And here’s something that I like…
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
‘ With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
I’m sure you can guess the government and country I complied my little list from as well as who the ‘Mother of Exiles’ referred to in the poem is.
Here are a few quotes that I thought appropriate:
“We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” – Ben Franklin
“The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy. An equal dispensation of protection, rights, privileges, and advantages, is what every part is entitled to, and ought to enjoy.” – Ben Franklin
“Where liberty dwells, there is my country.” – Ben Franklin
“How many observe Christ’s birth-day! How few, his precepts! O! ’tis easier to keep Holidays than Commandments.” – Ben Franklin
“Strangers are welcome because there is room enough for them all, and therefore the old Inhabitants are not jealous of them; the Laws protect them sufficiently so that they have no need of the Patronage of great Men; and every one will enjoy securely the Profits of his Industry. But if he does not bring a Fortune with him, he must work and be industrious to live.” – Ben Franklin
“All men are created equal and have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” – Tom Jefferson
And finally:
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. ~Voltaire
If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all. ~Noam Chomsky
That you have the freedom to spew your small-midned racist bile is one of the things that makes this country great. That I have the freedom to call you out for it is one of the things that keeps it that way…