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He caused a controversy for Pope Benedict XVI, who repealed his excommunication of Williamson.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
Tootie:
I know more about the benefits of capitalism than you or probably most people you know. I also know why it works and what is preventing it from working now.
If you think I am a Marxist you really are quite wrong.
If you really believe the crap you are writing and are typical of the Tea Partiers, then god have mercy on us all.
Tootie:
“The income of Americans has stagnated throughout the same time we have opened the flood gates of immigration to benefit the rich!
Only a boob could not see the connection.”
no, the reason that income has stagnated is that free market capitalism has been taxed and regulated until it is almost dead. It has nothing to do with immigration. The left nor the right want you to figure that out.
Property is very important, but it doesn’t do one much good if there are no property/individual rights to protect it.
Yep John Locke is a good guy and was right when saying a man had a right to his labour. And that is what our country is basically founded on the right to own ones life to do with it as he sees fit, that his labor is his own and that property being an extension of his labour should be protected. It all goes back to the rights of the individual and the concept of liberty. If you don’t have liberty/freedom you don’t own your own life and you are not free to buy property with the labour of your person.
What part of this don’t you understand? Property rights has nothing to do with this, they are an extension of individual rights. Who gives a shit about property rights if you don’t have individual rights. It is all based on individual rights. And those are based on the necessity of man having a mind uncoerced by force or mysticism.
You blame the immigrant, it is not the immigrant who is at fault.
“What don’t you like about the Tea Party folks? That they love America and insist on restoring our Constitution?”
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Here’s the “flash card” for you:
mespo:
Awe, poor baby. What don’t you like about the Tea Party folks? That they love America and insist on restoring our Constitution?
Sticks in your craw, eh?
I’m not a racist; racists are those who want to eliminate white folks from America through immigration and plunder.
Byron:
There IS no freedom without property….We (some of us) learned that from the bloodbath last century and our Founders taught us the same lesson too:
Here is a nice summary of their views in the text of the Property Rights Resolution, California, Wally Herger, Congressman. Locke and Blackstone excluded:
“Whereas there is no greater expression of freedom and liberty than the defense of the God-given right of an individual to hold, possess, and use private property;
‘Whereas John Locke, the great political philosopher lauded by so many of the Founders of this Nation, stated, `the preservation of property [is the reason] for which men enter into society’ and that `no [government] hath a right to take their [property], or any part of it, without their own consent, for this would be in effect to leave them no property at all.’;
Whereas William Blackstone, whose lectures shaped and helped inspire the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and primal laws of America, wrote: `So great moreover is the regard of the law for private property, that it will not authorize the least violation of it; no, not even for the general good of the whole community.’;
Whereas Samuel Adams, the political writer, statesman, and signer of the Declaration of Independence, declared that our rights included: `First, a right to life; Secondly, to liberty; Thirdly, to property; together with the right to support and defend them.’;
Whereas John Adams, diplomat, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and President of the United States, firmly proclaimed: `The moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.’ and that `Property is surely a right of mankind as real as liberty.’;
Whereas John Adams also affirmed: `Property must be secured or liberty cannot exist.’;
Whereas James Madison, author of the Constitution, and President of the United States, announced: `Government is instituted to protect property. . . . This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own.’;
Whereas John Dickinson, signer of the Constitution, stated: `Let these truths be indelibly impressed on our minds: (1) that we cannot be happy without being free; (2) that we cannot be free, without being secure in our property; (3) that we cannot be secure in our property, if, without our consent, others may, as by right, take it away.’;
Whereas Thomas Jefferson, the mind behind the Declaration of Independence, and President of the United States, wrote: `The true foundation of republican government is the equal right of every citizen in his person and property and in their management.’ and `The first foundations of the social compact would be broken up were we definitely to refuse to its members the protection of their persons and property while in their lawful pursuits.’;
Whereas Thomas Jefferson also affirmed: `Charged with the care of the general interest of the nation, and among these with the preservation of their lands from intrusion, I exercised, on their behalf, a right given by nature to all men, individual or associated, that of rescuing their own property wrongfully taken.’;
Whereas Noah Webster, the `Father of American Scholarship and Education’, stated: `It is admitted that all men have an equal right to the enjoyment of their life, property and personal security; and it is the duty as it is the object, of government to protect every man in this enjoyment.’;
Whereas John Jay opined: `No power on earth has a right to take our property from us without our consent.’; and
Whereas Fisher Ames, framer of the Bill of Rights and Massachusetts Representative to the first four Congresses, said: `The chief duty and care of all governments is to protect the rights of property.'”
Byron:
Your ideas about property is quite similar to Karl Marx’s. He had no respect for private property either. The National Socialists in Germany agreed. So did Mao and Stalin. Castro too.
Brian Caplan, curator of the Museum of Communism at George Mason University says it this way:
“Marx did not deny the close connection between personal freedom and property rights. Rather, he accepted their connection, and denounced both as manifestations of what he called “bourgeois freedom.”
You, Marx, and the National Socialists appear to have nothing in common with the Constitution and founding values. I’m sorry for you.
http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/museum/marframe.htm
http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/museum/musframe.htm
“Sheesh. There is way too much insanity going around these days.”
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Agreed. Most wear teabags and talk like tootie, our resident racist, homophobe, immigrant basher, and, of course,flag waiver.
Pool* (not Pooh, or Poo Poo)
mespo:
Paul Nachmann (retired “Physicist and immigration” activist writes at Vdare online):
” The estimated $200 billion per decade “immigrant surplus” (Borjas’ term) in benefits that native-born Americans receive as a result of the immigrant influx is very far from equally divided among us…
…It accrues basically to capital owners and to the managerial classes—stiffing Americans at the bottom of the economic pyramid, because their wages are bid down by competition from immigrants.”
Peter Brimelow says it this way:
“…immigration does cause a significant redistribution of wealth among Americans—shifting as much as two percent of GDP from labor to capital, basically by beating down wages.”
and not only to the rich get rich by YOUR scheme but:
“…the bulk of that [increase in the GDP] is captured by the immigrants themselves in the form of wages.”
Gee, thanks for nothing you callus so and so.
The income of Americans has stagnated throughout the same time we have opened the flood gates of immigration to benefit the rich!
Only a boob could not see the connection.
Steve Camorata (from the Center for Immigration Studies) tells us what the future would be AFTER amnesty:
“… mass amnesty would boost net federal costs [of services/handouts/etc] by $19 billion/year. And this doesn’t count similar amnesty-induced increased expenses to the states.”
I guess all this is worth importing a criminally prone immigrant pool that doesn’t like school as oppose to a law-abiding prone immigrant poo that embraces education at the highest levels?
Sheesh. There is way too much insanity going around these days.
http://www.vdare.com/nachman/100211_illegal_immigration.htm
http://www.vdare.com/pb/090601_economic_impact.htm
tootie:
“How is letting in tens of millions of people from a specific immigrant group, with a knowable past history of becoming a burden on the tax system and an underclass subject to high rates of crime and high school drop outs, leading to increasing the wealth and strength?”
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Carve this into your tiny little brain:
1. Undocumented workers are a net tax surplus not a burden
2. The Welfare reform Act of 1996 denies undocumented workers all means tested benefits. In fact, they only receive guaranteed K-12 education and emergency medical care.
3. The incarceration rate of the US born (3.51 percent) was four times the rate of the foreign born (0.86 percent). The foreign-born rate was half the 1.71 percent rate for non-Hispanic white natives.
Quit making stuff up to support your wild accusations against people I would much rather have living beside me than some freaked out religious nut with flag draped around them howling at the moon.
Tootie:
America is an abstraction, liberty is a concept. If you have no concept of freedom what good is property? Your property is a concrete, the idea of property rights is an abstraction. Without the abstraction there is no concrete. The idea of property presupposes property rights.
your ideas have been around before: Ein Reich, Ein Volk, Ein Furher and Germany for Germans.
You have more to fear from those who would negate the concept of liberty as a moral value/virtue than you do from an illegal immigrant trying to make a living.
Byron:
America IS a place, like your house is a place and your waving a magic wand making it not so won’t change that.
You are dabbling in John Lennon nonsense and gobbledygook that leads to the abolition of sovereign states. This is a sure fire way to lose everything you cherish.
If you cherish the Constitution (and by your comments, I guess you don’t because it is a code designed specifically for one certain place?) then what protects you and I from all of Mexico barging in and taking over is NOTHING.
That is not rational thinking.
The “idea” of America is portable and transferable to others for them to recreate in their OWN homelands. It is not for them to seize our idea by force or corruption on our soil. Or it can only be bestowed on them to live out on our shores according to the express desires of the the American people and according to OUR laws.
If America is merely an idea, then nothing protects your right to keep the house on this soil, your car on its highways, or your stuff on the shelves since they are too live only theoretically inside and your idea of America which does not exist in material form.
James Madison said “”If we are to be one nation in any respect, it clearly ought to be in respect to other nations.”
Implicit in that comment is the idea that there are distinct bodies of people in specific geographical locations which retain their geographical position according to certain operations of political rules that distinguishes one location from another and bars others from intruding.
“If words lose their meaning, there is NO PLACE to put hand or foot.”
Confucius
If you corrupt the meaning of your physical existence you will end up with no place to live, because it is just an idea instead of a reality. In others words, you are without life and liberty if you are without place.
Slart:
This isn’t about some ridiculous gibberish called “freedom from demographic change”. It is about the right of the people of America to determine who “we the people” are. We already have had and do currently have laws that bar certain immigrants groups. So your claim that we don’t have a choice, or say, or even an expectation of it is ignorant and without merit.
It is utterly self-destructive to bring in 30 million people who have little loyalty to America and have no intentions to support the best interests of the country. In fact, their very presence here proves they have no intention to consider the best interests of the American people. And one in their right mind considers it remotely correct to do this but Democrats, George Bush, and John McCain.
James Madison said in the debate over naturalization (Art. 1 Section 8)
“I do not wish that any man should acquire the privilege, but such as would be a real addition to the wealth or strength of the United States.”
How is letting in tens of millions of people from a specific immigrant group, with a knowable past history of becoming a burden on the tax system and an underclass subject to high rates of crime and high school drop outs, leading to increasing the wealth and strength?
It is insane to believe such an immigrant group would be in the best interests of the American people.
Your argument would have some weight if the immigrants the best and the brightest, but moreover had a motivation to learn our language and join in with our customs and culture. This is not the case with the hostile foreigner invaders from the south who are for all intents and purposes burglars and thieves sponging off of citizens. They are criminally-minded persons who stole their way in country to cheat tax payers out of their money and evade our lawful immigration process, however cumbersome it may be. Naturally, such underhanded, devious, and despicable person are quite appealing to the criminally-minded thieves who make up the bulk of the Democratic Party.
Using anything the cat drags in as weapons in political contests has a long history, even in this country. During the Constitutional Convention debates it was noted by Mr Jackson:
“Shall stories be told of our citizenship, such as I have read in the Pennsylvania Magazine of the citizenship there? If my memory serves me right, the story runs, that at a contested election in Philadelphia, when parties ran very high, and no stone was left unturned, on either side, to carry the election, most of the ships in the harbor were cleared of their crews, who, ranged under the masters and owners, came before a Magistrate, took the oath of allegiance, and paid half a crown tax to the Collector, as the Constitution required, then went and voted, and decided the contest of the day. On the return of one of the vessels, whose crew had been employed in the affair of the election, they fell in with a shoal of porpoises off Cape Henlopen: “Ha!” said one of them, “what merry company have we got here! I wonder where they are going so cheerfully?” “Going,” replied one of his comrades, “why, going to Philadelphia, to be sure, to pay taxes, and vote for Assembly men!” I hope, Mr. Chairman, we have more respect for our situation as citizens, than to expose ourselves to the taunts and jeers of a deriding world, by making that situation too cheap.”
I’d say that letting in the hostile foreign invaders previously mentioned by me, then to bribe them with welfare handouts to vote for democrats is about as cheap and low-down a thing as can be done. And it won’t be the world deriding it, it will be me and those who have a reasonable expectation that immigration ought not be used to overthrow the political process or the very character and nature of the American people.
It is not rational (nor decent) to invite in tens of millions of people here who reject our civilization and violate our laws to get in. That is not merely a demographic change; it is part of a calculated effort to intentionally replace one population with another, and to do so against the will of those being replaced.
As I said before in another post, when the citizens were informed about the immigration act of 1965 there were promised no noticeable impact on our civilization. It is ludicrous to believe that that promise has been kept. It doesn’t matter why Americans wanted to hear that promise about the character and nature of their civilziation and its citizens, what matters is that the promise was made by government official and is it now broken–perhaps beyond repair. And now who is to have an opinion about it? The pawns of that broken trust?
This is like the police knocking on your door and demanding that you allow a family to come live in your house and become co-owners with you and you have no choice about it. And the co-owners forced on you have all the legal rights you have, including the right to sell the house. No rational person thinks this way. No ethical person thinks this way.
Your accusation that I’m xenophobic might be true if I was against immigration, but I’m not. I had one grandfather and one grandmother who were immigrants. My grandmother isn’t even buried in this country. Your false statement about me makes your claim to be a scientist a worrisome thing since scientists who make up stuff can be very dangerous.
I believe in America, that is why I want to ensure that those we let in do too. And that is why I demand that our leaders ought to keep their promises, or at least explain why they broke them.
Slarti:
I’ll give you the 30 minutes but I dont consider Dominos to be real pizza 🙂
Byron,
That may be true, but the foodstuff that we think of as pizza (and the practice of getting it delivered to your door in 30 minutes) is something that is very American. A rose by any other name smells as sweet, but if you call a bee a rose you’ll still get stung…
Slarti:
“The origin of the word “pizza” is unclear, but by 997 it had appeared in Medieval Latin, and in 16th century Naples a Galette flatbread was referred to as a pizza. The pizza was a baker’s tool: a dough used to verify the temperature of the oven.[citation needed] A dish of the poor people, it was sold in the street and was not considered a kitchen recipe for a long time.[citation needed] Before the 17th century, the pizza was covered with white sauce.[citation needed] This was later replaced by oil, cheese, tomatoes or fish. In 1843, Alexandre Dumas, père described the diversity of pizza toppings. In June 1889, to honor the Queen consort of Italy”
Byron,
I agree with you, especially about gyros (when pronounced to rhyme with heroes – it matters to me ;-)), port (particularly vintage red port), Chinese art and Indian women (really any foreign women* – black, brown, yellow, or red – even white ones (gotta love those Scandinavian hotties)). But I feel it necessary to point out that pizza is a quintessentially American food.
*I like American women, too…
By the way, I think that Ron Paul identifies real problems that people care about and comes up with solutions that make extremely good populist talking points which if they were enacted would cause catastrophic unintended consequences.
Tootie:
what Slarti said, I love pizza, samosas and chicken tikka, and the pho bowl at Viet House is excellent. I also like The Rubaiyat, Russian literature, Greek Mythology (gyros aren’t bad either), Sun Tzu, Koala bears, Argentinian wine, Cuban cigars, Dominican cigars, Port, Stilton cheese, Kiwi fruit, African Art (those masks are cool), tacos, empanadas, the Irish day parade, red cabbage, brie, Chinese art, and Indian women.
And we have it all here in America. As I said before America is not a place it is an idea. Wherever men are free to pursue their self interest, that is where you will find America and that is what it means to be an American.
And if you are spouting Ron Paulisms then he is a fool and your are to to believe that BS.
Tootie,
There’s no Constitutional right to freedom from demographic changes nor a guarantee that society will always look like the founding fathers. Also, I wonder what you think about the descendants of slaves – are they ‘real’ Americans to you? Personally, I think people who think that the only true Americans are the ones who are exactly like themselves are narrow minded bigots who’s opinions should be ridiculed rather than taken seriously. I checked out the website you referenced and while it may not be a white supremacist site, but it is certainly racist under a thin veneer…
As for academics in ‘difficult fields’, I’m an American of european descent as you put it who has a PhD in mathematics (who, except for my PhD at Duke, was educated in public schools and universities) and does cancer research in cellular modeling and all I want is the chance to stand or fail based on my talent (I’ve worked hard and achieved that chance and I’ll let my work stand on its own and let the chips fall where they may). As far as people coming to this country for graduate school, I think that it’s a good thing – if they get PhD and stay they (or their children) become highly educated Americans (a good thing) and if they go back to their home countries (like China, for instance) they bring back their experiences with American freedom and help spread those idea and ideals in their homeland. The xenophobic crap you espouse is the most counterproductive and damaging attitudes possible in terms of how it makes us appear to the rest of the world (as well as your attitudes about science which greatly contribute to making sure American kids aren’t prepared for the ‘difficult fields’ – no one who didn’t understand that the scientific evidence for evolution is overwhelming would be able to function in my field, for instance). If you really believed in the greatness of America and ‘the melting pot’, then you would understand that we take in people of other cultures and make them a part of us – not the other way around. America is in no danger from immigrants with different cultures – the only cultural danger we are in is from intolerant people like you convincing the rest of the world that we don’t live up to our ideals.
Tootie:
in the circles I hang out in Ron Paul is considered anti-American and a nut job.
I doubt the Hispanic immigrant cutting my lawn is taking money from any Americans, well maybe the neighbor kid.
If I was a citizen of a foreign country I would crawl on broken glass to come here. Why shouldn’t others have that right as well? Why don’t you go talk to some of these immigrants you despise and find out why they come here. Some are as you say but most come for a better life and they thank god America exists.
You need a remedial course in everything. Go back to stormfront and post there.
It isn’t immigrations or immigrants that are the problem, it is the thought process that thinks the pie is static. That says if I have a bigger piece I am somehow taking from your piece. The pie is ever expanding and if government would get out of the way and set my people free we would all have enough of an ever expanding pie.
You talk a good game of freedom but at core you are just another 2 bit dictator.
Byron:
People who justify illegals, excessive work visa programs, and heavy immigration for the sake of cheap labor are called the “treason lobby” in the circles I travel.
The treason lobby is willing to do anything for buck, including destroying the prosperity of native-born Americans in order to make businessmen and women rich. Bill Gates comes to mind. And the treason lobby is also willing to bring in those who are not loyal to our civilization in order to make a buck.
None of that is well thought out.
Who can believe democrats are serious about uplifting the poor when it is the poor who are so severely impacted by the illegals?
And who can believe that democrats are serious about education when they are flooding the nation with a people who eschew it even decades after they arrive here? Why didn’t they flood the country with people who embrace embrace education?
And what is the purpose of encouraging any race in America to pursue higher education when the government turns around and stabs them in the back with an unlimited supply of foreign scientists and scholars who are hired because they are the cheap labor you trumpet?
Do me a favor. Go to any distinguished college or university website. Go to the science or math department. Click on the link to the faculty. There you will find why it is pointless for Americans to pursue the difficult fields (especially in engineering). Why should they when they are going to be discriminated against in favor of cheap wage foreigners?
And in the case of colleges and universities, they have been granted by congress unlimited numbers who they may bring in from overseas. But it has nothing to do with Americans being stupid or there being a lack of a suitable number of American candidates. It is all about stabbing American workers in the back for a quick buck. They have the system rigged against Americans who chose the difficult fields.
The same will happen with health care. Soon, most of our doctors will be foreigners. This is insane.
Destroying the culture is the bonus.
This is treason, not according to the Constitution, but according to the dictionary definition and according to my heart.
http://www.vdare.com/walker/090514_neo_slavery.htm