Do not let it be denied that there is merit in free speech. No, nor in robust and verbose argumentation neither. Though one man shall be a nonce and a nationalist, let him be heard. Though another be a bit racist and religious, then let him draw his unfunny cartoons and seek a rise out of the fundamentalists. I grant you that it does become a tad complicated and more than a little redundant in the country of the ‘catholic underground’.
Speaking personally I draw the line at holocaust denial and hate speech but that’s just me and my peculiar little foibles. No need for such prohibitive panaceas in pure Eire where everything is a secret and everyone will talk a good leftist fight to cover a cowardly show. As on the day after the latest center-right electoral victory when not a single FF voter can be found anywhere.
It may be that the only time a closet ‘wingnut’ talks in honesty, is when they think nobody can understand them. It is a truth that I have heard more honest and open chat from Irish people in Spain and Portugal when they assume there’s no other ‘bog brained murphy’ for at least a few hundred miles near them. However I don’t really miss it, so when two Spaniards settled down beside me this evening in a restaurant I had planned to mind my own business and settle into my copy of ‘red and black revolution’ but…
“I don’t like Franco but we have problems with water now that we did not have before… The economy is bad because there is no protection for Spanish companies like Repsol who are going to be sold to foreigners… The government is giving money and houses to the lower classes and foreigners and taking it away from the upper and middle…”
For a moment I thought Deco G had slipped into my subconscious. I sighed, unzipped my top to show a nice fat ‘A’ resting inside an even nicer fatter red circle and sang along with Juanes who was playing ‘La Camisa Negra’ over the sound system. The two would-be fascists beside me shut up and left me alone to drink my coffee.
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Thursday, 27 November 2008
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7 comments:
Ah, the indiscriminate violence of the t-shirt. What about the innocent bystanders, V? What about them?
well a combination of the shirt and the "I'm going to kill you if you don't get out of my face" look.
Perhaps it was the pentangle that frightened them off.
There was a famous case of a well known professor of political science, who published a book where apparently he questioned the holocaust. I say apparently because as it is illegal to deny the holocaust in France he ended up in justice and his book was withdrawn.
Now I'm not defending his views but nor can I condemn them for the simple reason that I do not know how he jutified his arguement. He was found guilty and is forbidden to talk about the case as part of his judgement. Therein lies the folie.
I'm sure that if every body was allowed to hear what he had to say then they would quickly arrive at the conclusion that he was talking out of his arse. But now we don't know, and we never will. In fact the extreme right has used the case as an example of jew censureship or some shite like that.
It's a shame we need the governments to legislate what ideas we simple souls can deal with and accept or refute. And as the old saying goes, if you'll do it for a good reason, you'll do it for a bad one.
"Perhaps it was the pentangle that frightened them off."
Folk-Rock never scared anyone.
The Holocaust stuff depends on whether you believe that suppressing extreme views leads to an increase in the number of supremacist deviants, by causing sympathy and curiosity for the cause, in people who are predisposed to fascist supremacist ideas. I have great faith in the human ability to differentiate right from wrong, I also have great faith in the human ability to be irrationally self destructive.
Still, one cannot make an informed decision if one hasn't all the details (excuse the queen speak).
I suppose that alot of that profesor's theories would have come from underground right-wing extremist propaganda. Had the public been allowed to hear these theories then thy would have been shown to be bullshit publicly, including to the underground right wing extremists.
There's something ironicly fascist about deciding what we can and cannot make an informed opinion on. I suppose the politicos have been bullshiting us for so long that they know how gullable we collectivly are, and are afraid that some body less... well intentioned..hmm.. might bullshit us too.
The holocaust was a terrible thing as it gave raise to supermodels but I really dislike the way Israel has turned into a Nazi type state but more desperate. Being Irish you should know that someone is always the whipping boy. Mussolini had the trains so Franco had the water? He also had the objection of German Nazis marching through Spain to get the enemy but I doubt that was for reasons of morality.
Where ever you go there are dicks. I judge people by what they do not what they are but when you keep pointing out the number of stupid Yanks there are people start to call you anti-American why not anti-moron?
Anyway my party ice breaker is, "Hitler had the right idea."
Always good for a laugh.
Water and its distribution is a big political issue in Spain.
Good point, Anti-Semitism is interchangeable with Anti-Americanism in the sense that they are both used as weapons to stifle debate.
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