Re:
Is there room for hate on the Web?
"The debate over freedom of e-speech is raging Down Under, after an
Australian-based site is ordered to remove offensive material related to
the Holocaust."
By Megan McAuliffe, ZDNet Australia
October 12, 2000 12:38 PM PT
The people acting most like Nazis in this case are the Executive Council
of Australian Jewry and the so-called "Human Rights and Equal Opportunity
Commission".
Like the Nazis, who murdered millions of people, the anti-free speech
crowd believes that taking away the rights of the minority is moral when
done for the sake of the majority. Sacrifice of the few for the sake of
the whole - THAT is exactly what the Nazis believed.
Not surprisingly, the Electronic Frontier Foundation gives a lame defense
of the freedom of speech:
"The EFA doesn't believe the site should be banned, it just results in
the further publication of the views of the Adelaide Institute. It gives
them a platform over and above the web site," EFA chairman Irene Graham
told ZDNet Australia.
Well, no kidding. Of course this is true. But it's not the reason why one
ought to defend everyone's right to free speech, no matter how
reprehensible the speech is.
The reason we have free speech is that our lives are our own, and we have
no right to impose any force on anyone else. A Nazi has no right to throw
someone in a gas chamber, and a Jew has no right to force someone to stop
speaking or publishing his ignorant B.S. Once the line of *force* has
been crossed, regardless by whom, the behavior is essentially identical
to that of the Nazis.
And if you don't think force is what's being advocated by the Jewish
group in this case, then ask them what they propose to do when the
individual declines to remove his material from the Internet.
You can read my related article, on movie marketing censorship, on my site now.
