Free speech versus “hate speech”

Thanks to Portland Realist for bringing my attention to an article in the Portland Tribune that masquerades as “news” when, in fact, it’s propaganda. When the corporate-controlled media accepts dogma as truth, it is bound to confuse the boundaries between “news” and “editorial.” At the very beginning of the article, accompanying a provocative photo, we read:

Defining hate speech may be more difficult than passing a law restricting it, yet most western democracies outside the U.S. have attempted to do both.

The unspoken, and underlying, assumption here is that there is a need to make a distinction between free speech and hate speech. In a bona fide news piece, the writer would present the case for making such a distinction (and for not making it), and then go about explaining how it might be done. But since no such argument is made (at least not at the beginning of the article), but rather it’s assumed, this falls into the realm of propaganda. In every country where hate speech laws are in effect, they are selectively enforced to the detriment of whites, males, Christians and heterosexuals. Rarely are they enforced against non-whites who speak hatefully against whites, or against Muslims who speak hatefully against Christians. “By their fruits ye shall know them.” It is evident that hate speech laws are merely tools of oppression to be used against select groups.

Korn treats us with yet more assumptions in the second paragraph of his article.

Blevins is TriMet’s director of marketing, the guy who deals with the ads. During the past two months, he has accepted – because TriMet attorneys said he had to – two controversial ads that Blevins recognizes aren’t hate speech but are moving in that direction.

One ad asked for public support for Israel and the defeat of jihad and “savages.” The other, which was pro-Palestinian, headlined “Palestinian Loss of Land.”

Why are they “moving in that direction” and who gets to determine when they cross the line into “hate speech”? It would appear that the first ad is objectionable because it attacks jihad and “savages”. If jihad is a call for war against infidels – and the Quran requires it – then wouldn’t the Quran be “hate speech”? How can objecting to a call for war be “hate speech”? Was it “hate speech” when people protested against the Vietnam war or the war on Iraq? Furthermore, is it not accurate to describe people who commit “honor killings” and acid attacks as “savages”? If the problem is the implication that all Muslims are savages, because they believe in jihad, then we should be asking ourselves honest questions about Islam and the definition of “savage.”

Here’s a proposal. Make it a requirement that anybody who wishes to reside in the U.S. must swear, and sign, that he disavows any sort of violent jihad. He would have to explicitly repudiate all passages, in the Quran and the Hadeeth, that call for war against infidels. If such a proposal were seriously suggested, there would be an outcry from the Muslim community. Of course, some would lie to gain residency, but it would keep some of the worst elements out.

I have more difficulty understanding why the pro-Palestinian ad is problematic. Had the ad decried the theft of land from native Americans, would it still be considered problematic? Apparently Korn (Jewish?) believes that a pro-Palestinian positions must be anti-Israel, and that anti-Israel = anti-Semitic.

Korn goes on…

In August, Ellis Bradley discovered that somebody overnight had spray-painted swastikas and racial slurs on his North Mississippi Avenue food cart and on the Sons of Haiti Masonic Lodge next door.

If Bradley’s food cart or the Masonic Temple had been in Canada, France, Germany or just about any other western democracy, the people who spray-painted their messages, if caught, might face punishments much harsher than they could get for mere vandalism.

Does Korn really think that the culprit, if caught, would not face charges of ethnic intimidation or worse? When a white person calls a black a nigger, he practically loses his rights in the eyes of the law. But, as mentioned, blacks can call whites “white boy”, “cracker” or “racist” with impunity.  Hate speech laws are ridiculously biased against whites in Canada, France and Germany. If Korn wants the U.S. to be like those countries, it must be because he shares their anti-white, anti-Christian, bias.

Not surprisingly, Bradly (who is black) favors the implementation of hate speech laws:

Bradley, a 41-year-old black man who grew up in Northeast Portland but lives in Vancouver, Wash., says he would favor a law against hate speech.

“I wish there was a law so when you do something like that, especially when I have my child with me, there would be some kind of sanction, someone I can call and say, ‘Hey, look, this is wrong.’ “

It’s obvious from the article that Korn also favors hate speech laws. I wonder if Korn and Bradley would support locking up rap artists for their hateful lyrics. Would they hold Islamic writings to the same standards as Christian preachers who condemn homosexuality from the pulpit? The Bible contains “hate speech” as well. Would Christianity and Judaism then be illegal? I don’t expect the average citizen, especially blacks ones, to comprehend the importance of freedom of speech. But a journalist, of all people, should know better.

The article is a fairly long one, and Korn makes it abundantly clear that hate speech laws are not intended to protect whites. He writes, for example:

Waldron would try to narrowly define hate speech in any legislation. Words that offend would not be enough, he says. They would have to attack fundamental dignity. And they couldn’t be simply hateful on a personal level, but would have to attack the dignity of an entire class of people such as blacks or gays.

“Such as” here clearly means “exclusive of whites or heterosexuals”. I would say “majority groups” – except that whites are a minority in many places, yet they are never given minority status. Neither Detroit nor South Africa recognizes whites as a protected minority. There are countless examples of anti-white speech, many of them from the pages of the Portland Tribune, that Korn could have cited. Yet he saw fit to ignore them completely and focus exclusively on white on non-white offenses.

To be sure, Korn does present the case against hate speech laws in his article – but only toward the end of the article, where most readers do not venture. As in the beginning of the article, the end also supports the enactment of hate speech laws:

Clackamas County attorney Ed Trompke, who is writing a book about the Oregon Constitution and characterizes himself as extremely liberal, says he’s coming around to the idea that maybe we should at attempt to address hate speech.

Trompke suggests legislation that would make public hate speech a low-level offense, like a traffic ticket. It could be a violation, Trompke says, not a criminal charge, but enough to let offenders know society doesn’t approve.

“There’s a very fine line between what is merely offensive and what is so offensive as to attack a person’s dignity as a human being,” Trompke says. “But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. We have to trust our judges to do the right thing. That’s what it comes down to.”…

The Portland Tribune is preparing the groundwork for the abolition of the First Amendment. It’s warming the public to the idea that hate speech legislation is a progressive idea whose time has come. Look for referenda in the near future to outlaw such speech. When they ultimately pass, bolstered by black, Hispanic and Asian voters, who will have the wherewithal to challenge them in court? Making them a “low-level offense” is a sneaky way to discourage people from challenging such laws in court. Stocking the courts with hyphenated Americans will assure that even if such cases make it to court, those laws will be found “constitutional.” At that point, the only means left to us to defend the First Amendment will be to exercise the Second Amendment.

 

“What you can’t say”

Fortunately, you can say almost anything in a blog. The challenge is in speaking the truth, speaking it well and in getting people to read it. But public figures  face dire consequences for breaking the rules of political correctness. Syndicated columnists, talk-show hosts and politicians will lose their jobs – after being made to grovel and to publicly humiliate themselves.

But one public figure:

… recounts various recent instances of black racist crime, which have been the subjects of articles on this blogsite as well as others not covered here, including serious incidents at Skidmore College, in Denver, San Francisco, Philadelphia, and on Chicago’s beaches.  All involved black gangs committing patently-obvious racist hate crimes against both whites and Asians, although the more punitive hate crime charge is rarely applied by either the police or by the media to the miscreants. In a scathing and verified indictment of the MSM, (he) audaciously and perspicaciously writes, “In many of these brutal attacks, the news media make no mention of the race of the perpetrators.  If it were white racist gangs randomly attacking blacks, the mainstream media would have no hesitation reporting the race of the perps.”

It’s hard to believe that the above refers to anything but a pro-white blogger. But it’s actually referring to economist Walter Williams, pictured below.

Williams also recounts the following, in a recent column:

During a reception, one of the Marxist professors asked me what I thought about the relationship between capitalism and slavery. My response was that slavery has existed everywhere in the world, under every political and economic system, and was by no means unique to capitalism or the United States. Perturbed by my response, he asked me what my feelings were about the enslavement of my ancestors. I answered that slavery is a despicable violation of human rights but that the enslavement of my ancestors is history, and one of the immutable facts of history is that nothing can be done to change it.

The matter could have been left there, but I volunteered that today’s American blacks have benefited enormously from the horrible suffering of our ancestors. Why? I said the standard of living and personal liberty of black Americans are better than what blacks living anywhere in Africa have. I then asked the professor what it was that explained how tens of millions of blacks came to be born in the U.S. instead of Africa. He wouldn’t answer, but an answer other than slavery would have been sheer idiocy. I attempted to assuage the professor’s and his colleagues’ shock by explaining to them that to morally condemn a practice such as slavery does not require one to also deny its effects.

Neither point is an original one for readers of this blog, or any other pro-white blog. We’ve been declaring these truths over and over again for years. But there is zero chance of any pro-white blogger being allowed to voice his opinions on national T.V. No major newspaper will print our columns. Our opinions will not grace the pages of Newsweek or USA Today. But regarding Walter Williams, Wikipedia says:

His syndicated column is published weekly in approximately 140 newspapers across the United States, as well as on several web sites by Creators Syndicate. He also wrote and hosted documentaries for PBS in 1985. The “Good Intentions” documentary was based on his book The State Against Blacks.

I’m happy for him; I’m glad that he is able to advance positions that I happen to agree with. But the fact remains that, had he been white, it’s doubtful he would be allowed to say half the things he says without being forced into ignominy and poverty. Though he takes a lot of heat for his opinions, he’s still allowed to state them without dire repercussions. For better or for worse, Williams can say what whites, in similar positions, cannot say. I’m certain that he would be the first to agree.

 

“Hate crimes” in Eugene, Oregon

I just visited Eugene, Oregon and couldn’t help but notice prominently displayed signs such as these:

From what I’ve seen of Eugene, it’s an ultra-liberal, almost entirely white, college town. Any “hate crimes” against non-whites must be few and far between. The City of Eugene website has a presentation about hate crimes in which only four incidents, non of them violent (all involved graffiti), are listed since 2008. That’s a pretty good track record, even if we assume that all of them were legitimate.

There’s no way of knowing how many anti-white incidents occurred during the same time period since nobody keeps track of those. The above-mentioned presentation lists resources and organizations for fighting hate crimes. Tellingly, none of them look after the interests of white people; their goal is to protect non-whites and sexual minorities. Of course, the governmental institutions listed are well-known for turning a blind eye to anti-white hate crimes.

Here’s an interesting page from the presentation:

I’m sure it will come as news to many of y’all that a non-criminal activity can be a “crime”. Evidently, “hate speech” is already considered a quasi-crime by the municipality of Eugene. “Hate speech” is any speech that is critical of non-whites, or views whites in a positive light. It is also any speech that challenges orthodox views on race. I’m guessing that some will disagree with me on this. So I’m tempted to pass out some flyers in Eugene to prove my point.

 

Werewolves call for a ban on the full moon

Between 80,000 and 90,000 new werewolves have arrived annually to the U.S. each year recently and their numbers are projected to continue growing. Clearly the werewolves find the U.S. (and Europe) attractive places to live – or they wouldn’t continue to stream in.

In their native countries, werewolves have established provisions to block the effects of the full moon. Unfortunately, in the U.S. and Europe such provisions do not exist. Therefore the werewolves of Kansas City have called for a ban on the full moon. According to Fox News:

“We understand that the United States Constitution allows for the moon to appear in all its cycles, to wax and wane and even to be full , but when the allowance of the full moon incites violence it should be banned,” read a statement from the Werewolf Society.

While condemning the violence that was originally blamed on the full moon, the Werewolf group said it would “be in everyone’s interest to ban the moon from appearing in its full form.”

“We condemn the violence and feel that, in spite of the U. S. Constitution, action may be necessary to pass such a bill or, at least, censure such actions in order to calm the current situation as well as prevent future re-occurrences,” the statement read.

The Werewolf Society in Kansas City is not alone in their calls for limiting the appearance of the full moon.

“We, as Americans, have to put limits and borders [on] the moon,” the head werewolf told The Blaze.

There have been several recent instances where werewolves have gone on the rampage, randomly tearing out peoples’ hearts and engaging in other such mayhem. Each occurrence has been linked to the full moon.

There are no plans to limit the immigration of werewolves to the U.S. and Europe; their numbers are already large enough that such a move would be politically impractical. Furthermore, werewolves are on the endangered species list and any action against them could be prosecuted as a Federal crime.

 

“Innocence of Muslims”

I just wasted about 14 minutes of my life watching “Innocence of Muslims“. I can’t believe somebody actually spent money making such garbage. It’s even more incomprehensible to me that millions of Muslims worldwide are rioting because of it. Normal people would laugh at such a movie, not go on a rampage and murder innocents.

There are millions of lousy movies on YouTube and we think little of it. But we should pay close attention to the Muslim reaction. It should serve as a warning that “blasphemy” will be punishable by death anywhere large numbers of Muslims settle. This punishment might be de jure or de facto, but either way freedom of speech will become a thing of the past. Some Western countries already have anti-blasphemy laws on the books. Instead of calling it “blasphemy”, they call it “hate-speech” or “ethnic incitement”.

If we are to guarantee the long-term survival of freedom of speech in our societies, then we must carefully limit the number of Muslims we allow into them. Freedom of religion is not, in the long run, compatible with freedom of speech. Some people try to get around this contradiction in the Constitution by defining Islam not as a religion, but as a political system.

Is Catholicism a political system? For centuries the Catholic Church stifled freedom of expression, tortured and executed people for heretical views and persecuted non-believers. Jews would also be guilty of similar crimes if we had the power. I don’t believe in the distinction between a religion and a political system. If you take your religion seriously, it’s also a political system. If you don’t, then you are only nominally religious – at least when it comes to “religions of the book”, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Of course, most Muslims haven’t taken to the streets. The vast majority of them, no doubt, have carried on with their daily lives. But the fact remains that wherever there are large numbers of Muslims, there will be an element of fanaticism that raises its ugly head at the drop of a hat. There is no way to distinguish between “normal Muslims” and “fanatical Muslims” at the border. There is no known way to ensure that immigrant Muslims, and their children, will refrain from going berserk every time they encounter “blasphemy”. As a matter of fact, the younger generation of Muslims, in Western countries, often turns out to be more violent than their immigrant parents.

Western nations, pay attention and take heed!

 

The ever-expanding definition of “racism”

The word “racism” has never had a precise definition. It’s a tool of oppression against whites. As such, its definition is constantly changing. Though, according to reputable dictionaries, it is the belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits, or that one’s own race is superior to others, these days it can refer to practically any statement involving non-whites.

Take the case of Voula Papachristou for example. Her life ambition has been shattered because she pointed out the obvious in a tweet. According to Opposing Views:

Voula Papachristou was kicked off Greece’s Olympic team on Wednesday for making a racist, derogatory comment on her Twitter account.

Why did her insensitive tweet bring about such a harsh punishment? Well, according to the Times Union, because she made ” statements contrary to the values and ideas of the Olympic movement.”

Papachristou, an unapologetic supporter Greece’s extreme right Golden Dawn party, posted this controversial message last Sunday:

“With so many Africans in Greece, the West Nile mosquitoes will be getting home food!!!”

As you would expect, the joke was met with something of a negative reaction.That plus her affiliation with Golden Dawn (a party which rose to international infamy a few weeks ago when spokesperson Ilias Kasidiaris smacked a communist woman in the face) ultimately forced Greece to seriously reconsider her position on their national Olympic team.

Perhaps it’s just me but I don’t understand what’s so controversial about her comment. It’s a harmless joke that indicates no hatred or animosity whatsoever. She didn’t call for the killing of those African invaders. She didn’t say they are dangerous, stupid, ugly or unwelcome. All she did was point out, in a colorful way, that there are many of them in her country.

It appears that these days it’s “racist” even to notice that there are many foreigners in your country. Failure to ignore this fact leads to harsh consequences. Even George Orwell would have been shocked at this state of affairs.

To make matters even worse, she did the worst thing possible after the accusation was made: She grovelled. When will people learn that grovelling accomplishes nothing in the face of accusations of racism. But Papachristou is still young, and she is beautiful. I hope that she accomplishes great things in her life, that she encounters no harm from the Africans of whom she spoke, and that she has many Greek children.

 

The Bill of Whites

The Federal government has been whittling away at our constitutional rights for decades now. Some might say it has been doing so for centuries. Our struggle for liberty has seen ups and downs, to be sure. In some ways, Americans today enjoy more liberty than in the past. For example, the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 constituted some of the gravest threats to our liberty in the history of the republic. That they remained in effect for several years, and many people prosecuted under them, is evidence that the early republic was not a utopia for lovers of freedom. Abraham Lincoln’s treatment of those who opposed his war against the South would be unthinkable today. Much as we complain about government violations against our rights, so far they’re not arresting newspaper editors for their opinions (though this may be because government and the media are now controlled by the same people).

In other ways, we are much less free today than in the 19th century. While our freedom to criticize the government has increased, our freedom to criticize the government program of population replacement is severely curtailed. While there are no specific laws against criticizing non-whites, it’s virtually impossible to gain public office if you do so. You are also likely to lose your government job, or be demoted (hat tip to human-stupidity), if you express unorthodox opinions even outside of work.

It took whites a long time to recognized freedom of speech, and not all regions of the white world have advanced equally. How sad then, that the countries that have cherished this freedom the most, have also been the ones whose governments have been actively working to replace their white majorities with more primitive peoples – peoples that have little concept of “freedom of speech”. Eventually, the increasing numbers of non-Asian minorities will bring about a decrease in freedoms and the standard of living. When this reaches a certain point, the influx of NAMs will diminish – because there will no longer be a strong enough incentive for them to come here.

Considering that Obama’s predecessors, all of them white, showed little respect for civil liberties, we can hardly expect the mulatto (self-proclaimed “black”) president to be any different. Whether he was born in the U.S. or Kenya, some four years of his formative years were spent in Indonesia. Obama is not a protector of freedom and now, it would seem that Obama has issued an executive order making it a crime to obstruct the implementation of the new regime in Yemen. According to Salon:

As it does with most U.S.-compliant dictators in the region, the Obama administration has since been propping up Hadi with large amounts of money and military assistance, but it is now taking a much more extreme step to ensure he remains entrenched in power — a step that threatens not only basic liberties in Yemen but in the U.S. as well:

President Obama plans to issue an executive order Wednesday giving the Treasury Department authority to freeze the U.S.-based assets of anyone who “obstructs” implementation of the administration-backed political transition in Yemen.

The unusual order, which administration officials said also targets U.S. citizens who engage in activity deemed to threaten Yemen’s security or political stability, is the first issued for Yemen that does not directly relate to counterterrorism.

Unlike similar measures authorizing terrorist designations and sanctions, the new order does not include a list of names or organizations already determined to be in violation. Instead, one official said, it is designed as a “deterrent” to “make clear to those who are even thinking of spoiling the transition” to think again. . . .

The order provides criteria to take action against people who the Treasury secretary, in consultation with the secretary of state, determines have “engaged in acts that directly or indirectly threaten the peace, security or stability of Yemen, such as acts that obstruct the implementation of the Nov. 23, 2011, agreement between the Government of Yemen and those in opposition to it, which provides for a peaceful transition of power . . . or that obstruct the political process in Yemen.”

In other words, the U.S. Government will now punish anyone who is determined — in the sole discretion of the U.S. Government — even to “indirectly” obstruct the full transition of power to President Hadi. But what if someone — a Yemeni or an American — opposes Hadi’s rule and wants to agitate for a real election in which more than one candidate runs? Is that pure political advocacy, as it appears, now prohibited by the U.S. Government, punishable by serious sanctions, on the ground that it “obstructs” the transition of power to Hadi? Can journalists who report on corruption or violence by the Hadi regime and who write Op-Eds demanding a new election be accused, as it seems, of “threatening Yemen’s political stability”?

Few Americans care about what happens in Yemen. This is what makes such executive orders so dangerous; they pass under the radar – only to bite us later when we least expect it. If the president can issue an executive order prohibiting us from “obstructing” the transition of power in Yemen, it is not such a stretch to imagine a similar order that applies to a regime here in the U.S.  Obama is establishing a dangerous precedent. If a future president (or even Obama himself) issues a similar order protecting his own regime, he can answer his critics by saying, “you didn’t seem to have a problem with the Yemen order; this one is no different.”

Following a link in the comments there, I found a case where a Muslim (holding U.S. citizenship) was prosecuted, and convicted, for translating “39 Ways to Serve and Participate in Jihad”. Reading the article, I have little sympathy for the man. He clearly works for the downfall of Western Civilization and he has no business even being in America. He obviously presents a threat. But the court ruling against him also presents a threat.

How can we reconcile the two threats? How can we mitigate the danger of radical Islam and, at the same time, protect our own freedom of speech? I think the answer is: We cannot! Freedom of speech is a concept that is foreign to Islam, at least to traditional Islam. As a matter of fact, is is foreign to most civilizations; it is at home only in Western-style democracies. It’s a white concept. I’m not saying that non-whites can’t learn it. Asians certainly can. I would hope that, some day, the whole world can learn to value the civil liberties of others. But I hope they learn it in such a way that they also recognize the limitations of civil liberties. If, through the protection of individual civil liberties, a society loses sight of its own identity, then all their struggles come to naught.

 

Call me a conspiracy theorist but…

It seems to me that the internet is getting slower, more buggy and more downright frustrating. It’s gotten to the point where it’s almost unusable. In my daily life, I use various computers, at home and at work. They’re all slow and the internet connection on all of them (each one supposedly “high-speed”) reminds me of the dial-up connections of yore.

It goes without saying that, as more and more of the Earth’s teeming billions get online, there will be more traffic, more demands on already strained systems, more malicious software, more spam and more mistakes at all levels. This is to be expected.

But let’s face it. There are powerful forces that view the internet as a rival, as a dangerous force and as something that needs to be contained – or even controlled. The leftist media, though it uses the internet itself, does not like the freedom of speech that comes with it. It does not like the proliferation of unorthodox, unapproved, opinions. It fears the challenge to its own monopoly on “news” and entertainment.

Government uses the internet, but there can be little doubt that some government entities view it with suspicion and loathing – at least when others (who view those same government entities with suspicion and loathing) have equal access to it.

Conservatives and religious groups also use the internet, but they’ll do anything in their power to prevent others from viewing material they consider “offensive”. For some of them, the internet is a tool of Satan to infiltrate the minds of our young with pornography and all sorts of deviance and decadence.

Lots of powerful people have secrets and sometimes those secrets get leaked – usually through the internet. Witness Wikileaks.

Until recently there has been (we think) a balance of power between the various foes of the internet. The rest of us benefit from this balance, because the result is our own freedom of speech. But would I be particularly paranoid if I wrote that there might be some willful sabotage involved with the recent slowness? I don’t think it’s very far-fetched at all. Perhaps the balance of power is giving way to some sort of unholy alliance. Maybe religious conservatives are working together with government officials and leftist ideologues in order to curb the power of the internet – or at least make it gradually less attractive for the average joe.

I apologize for the lack of links in this post; I’m away from home and working on my very small travel laptop.

 

The slippery slope on which we find ourselves

I recently posted about Britain’s lack of freedom of speech. But things are not much better in the U.S. Even though, in theory, our Constitution guarantees us freedom of speech, in practice we have de-facto laws against it whenever such speech violates certain taboos.

A school girl’s rant against Asians not only put her in a situation where she was forced to grovel, but she faced disciplinary action and death threats for her trouble.

Two other school girls were forced out of their school for airing their own anti-black rant on youtube. This was after they were made to apologize. When will people learn that apologizing does not help when it comes to accusations of racism; it only makes matters worse.

And now a firefighter in Miami is fighting for his job after some facebook comments he made, against black thugs in general – and specifically against Trayvon Martin – were reported to his empl0yer. According to the Daily Dot:

A firefighter in Miami is feeling the heat after posting a message about Trayvon Martin on Facebook.

Miami Dade Fire Rescue is investigating Capt. Brian Beckmann following a rant against Martin and “urban youth.” The screed was posted last Wednesday, not long after it was announced that George Zimmerman would be charged with second-degree murder in the killing of 17-year-old Martin in February.

A person who had access to Beckmann’s Facebook account took a screenshot and sent it to theGrio, a news community site focused on African American issues.

Beckman, a member of Miami Dade Fire Rescue since 1997, was quoted as saying that:

“Listening to Prosecutor [Angela] Corey blow herself and her staff for five minutes before pre-passing judgment on George Zimmerman. The state seeks reelection again, truth aside. I and my coworkers could rewrite the book on whether our urban youths are victims of racist profiling or products of their failed, shitbag, ignorant, pathetic, welfare dependent excuses for parents, but like Mrs Corey, we speak only the truth. They’re just misunderstood little church going angels and the ghetto hoodie look doesn’t have anything to do with why people wonder if they’re about to get jacked by a thug.”

In a private message to theGrio, Beckmann defended his comments.

“I am a private citizen and have the same right to freely express an opinion on any subject that anyone else does,” Beckman reportedly wrote. “I choose not to embellish or alter the facts as your employer chose to do.”

Hopefully, Beckman will stick to his guns and not back down. Either way, we are rapidly approaching a state of affairs where constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech ring hollow.

 

Israel’s poor record on free speech

It is illegal in Israel to publicly proclaim that less than six million Jews died in the Nazi Holocaust. According to Wikipedia, the Israeli law reads, in part:

Prohibition of Denial of Holocaust 2. A person who, in writing or by word of mouth, publishes any statement denying or diminishing the proportions of acts committed in the period of the Nazi regime, which are crimes against the Jewish people or crimes against humanity, with intent to defend the perpetrators of those acts or to express sympathy or identification with them, shall be liable to imprisonment for a term of five years.

Of course Israel is not alone in upholding such thought crimes, but this “outpost of the free world” should strive for higher standards when it comes to freedom. A case last year, pitting a rabbi against anti-racism laws in Israel,  is reminiscent of some of the attacks against Christians in European countries.

If you publicly disregard the custom of remaining silent during the one-minute commemoration of fallen Israeli soldiers (accompanied by a loud siren), you will find yourself accosted by an angry public and the law will not be on your side. I can speak from personal experience on this matter.

But now it appears that any offensive statement, if posted publicly (such as on Facebook), can lead to detention and interrogation. An Israeli basketball player, Ido Kozikaro, learned this the hard way:

Ido Kozikaro, Gilboa/Galil’s center, was interrogated under caution by Afula police on Monday because of an off-color post on his Facebook page.

“There’s nothing like starting the holiday with matza dipped in the blood of Christian and Muslim children,” the post read in Hebrew on the basketball player’s page…

Kozikaro was making a joke based on the blood libels that have been made against Jews over the centuries. A member of the Gilboa regional council filed the complaint.

With laws such as these, the traditional feminist saying, “that’s not funny”, takes on new meaning. Admittedly, I don’t think it’s funny either – but I’ll simply hold my laughter; I won’t go running to the authorities.