Quote:
Originally Posted by Libertine
It's that way in most EU countries.
It isn't really about punishing stupidity though. Imagine the period just after the second world war. Millions in Europe had died, the entire continent lay in ruins. Everyone in Europe was still scared the Nazi's would somehow resurface, and win the second round - like the monster in a bad horror movie. To prevent that from ever happening, many pieces of nazist/fascist thought were banned entirely.
Later, it became almost impossible to change such laws, since almost everyone in Europe had lost family members in WWII - changing laws like that would feel like "becoming accepting lenient of fascism". And, of course, apart from how that would make survivors feel like their dead family had been forgotten, everyone was afraid that it would be the first step toward forgetting what had happened.
Now, the EU bill proposed by France is something different entirely. Basically, it's a reaction to Turkey's persecution of those who say a genocide did happen. With Turkey still (roughly) on the path to joining the EU, and a majority of EU citizens opposed to that, politicians consider it essential to make some strong demands of Turkey if they are ever to join, and to give a clear signal that Turkey isn't just "getting in for free".
Personally, though, I think that people should be allowed to be as stupid as they want to be... their ignorance is much more easily exposed by allowing them to speak freely than by banning their ideas.
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Interesting that throughout the whole second world war when they allied themselves with another communist fascist (yeah, they don't always contradict) named Stalin that they never went so far as to outlaw denying the Soviet Holocaust in the Ukraine of 1932 and 1933 in which millions were also genocided. Or outlawing denial of the millions that were killed in the Gulags from all across Eastern Europe? Or how about outlawing Communism all together? Like they have Nazism? I mean for the 40 odd years after WWII that you talked about certainly Communism was much more a threat to Western Europe than Nazism, and certainly it was doing MUCH more damage to the people of Eastern Europe than Nazism at that time no?
Why is it that parliamentarians in Europe sing along to the Communist anthem 'the internationale', yet OUTLAW Germans from even singing the original national anthem in which they declare 'Germany before all others', not for supremacist reasons, but to encourage the various regions of Germany, such as Bavaria, to come together as one. Europeans are absolutely hypocrits on this matter, and rather than criticisng the US for the Patriot Act, etc (which is certainly not a step in a good direction either) they should concentrate on hoping to get the same speech freedoms guaranteed to US citizens in their Constitution, rather than making excuses for their leftist authoritarian Governments.
And here is a perfect example Sly. Le Pen (a French veteran of WWII - who fought against the Nazi's) recently said "In France, at least, the German occupation was not particularly inhumane, although there were some blunders, inevitable in a country of 550,000 sq km." He is now on trial for these remarks, apparently he was denying the Holocaust, and faces heavy fines or jail time.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...357865,00.html