Austrian bakery sells Nazi-cakes, owner faces prison

[ag]

[quote author=Saint-Just Revivalist link=topic=134086.msg2862348#msg2862348
Why do only our (American) Libertarians seem to think they do? The idea Nazi cakes should be allowed is personally offensive (dare I say: repulsive?) to me. Anyone who's got even the faintest understanding of what this about will know the feeling.
[/quote]

Freedom of speech is there precisely to protect the offensive speech. If it is not offensive, it needs no protection. It would be funny if the law only prohibited stealing things nobody wants to steal, wouldn't it?

And, by the way, I am neither a Libertarian, nor an American. In fact, I am Jewish, quite a few relatives of mine perished in the Holocaust and I would most certainly boycot this bakery - as an individual, and would find it very satisfying if its idiot owner would go bankrupt. Still, I do believe that even Nazi speech should be protected - sending him to prison is a travesty.

[ag]

Before everyone goes all libertarian on this issue you might want to remember that this is Austria's way of saying they would very much like to kill their Jews again if given the chance.

I mean, technically, the Hutu radio hosts calling for the extermination of Tutsi cockroaches were also exercising their right to free speech, but on the other hand...

I didn't know this guy was Austrian President and Commander-In-Chief. If so, then, of course, he should be neutralized as fast as possible. Or, may be, law-and-order in Austria is collapsing and Nazi thugs are about to take over?

Seriously, there is a difference between me calling on my wife to exterminate all Tutsis in Mexico and the same call coming on radio in Kigali during the genocide.

Disclaimer: I am not libertarian.

[ag]

I don't believe in someone's right to bake Nazi cakes, sorry. Some things should never be trivialized or dealed with lightly. Freedom of speech is on my priority scale way less important than to make sure that something like that could never happen again and that it will never be forgotten.

The problem is: banning speech makes it more, not less likely that something like this would ever happen again.

[ag]

No, no, you see problems where there aren't. What matters above all other things is that this sort of thing is not tolerated. There is no way to prevent them from happening, but they have to be utterly unacceptable when they do. There'll always be idiots and scum, that doesn't mean we have to just let them be. One doesn't argue that murder might just as well be legal because 3 millenia of ilegality haven't made it go away either.

I don't tolerate Nazism - as a person I wholeheartedly despise it and I would definitely boycott that bakery. But as long as idiots and scum do not have a way of imposing their idiocy and scumishness on the rest of us, they have the right to be idiots and scum.

[ag]

Do none of the libertarians see a problem with the fact that this was subjected to a lawsuit from a survivor organization? I mean, beyond the fact that it goes against free speech and all that?

I am emphatically not a libertarian, but I don't see any problem at all. You know, between Hitler and Stalin my family lost more members in the 20th century that survived, but I would not ban either Communist or Nazi symbols. I would make sure to make my revulsion public in this case - as a private person. But I would not call on the government to enforce my revulsion.

[ag]

I'll leave the libertarians with a little quiz:

I know full well the answer to your quiz: we've discussed it before in a rather similar context. It is remarkable, how such different lessons may be received from the same history. The lesson I get here is, precisely, that mere speech should not be banned. Despise it, fight it - but don't ban it.

BTW, one of my grandfathers had a dosen uncles and aunts (w/ families) killed in Uman. The entire family clan in Lithuania disappeared without a trace. And I very well remember another uncle who sruvived by escaping from a ghetto in Riga (twice).

But, on the other hand, once we are at it, Communists killed two of my great-grandfathers, and a brother of a third one.  Would you advocate banning Communist  symbols as well, to spare MY feelings?

[ag]

I'll leave the libertarians with a little quiz:

I know full well the answer to your quiz: we've discussed it before in a rather similar context. It is remarkable, how such different lessons may be received from the same history. The lesson I get here is, precisely, that mere speech should not be banned. Despise it, fight it - but don't ban it.

BTW, one of my grandfathers had a dosen uncles and aunts (w/ families) killed in Uman. The entire family clan in Lithuania disappeared without a trace. And I very well remember another uncle who sruvived by escaping from a ghetto (twice).

But, on the other hand, once we are at it, Communists killed two of my great-grandfathers, and a brother of a third one.  Would you advocate banning Communist  symbols as well, to spare MY feelings?

And, of course, to reiterate, I am not at all libertarian

[ag]

The problem is: banning speech makes it more, not less likely that something like this would ever happen again.

Various restrictions on Nazi activity have been in place in certain countries since the 1940s and yet there has been a curious lack of resurgent fascist regimes in these countries. Extreme racist behavior and rhetoric has been illegal in Britain since the 1960s, yet the people who break the relevant laws are not regarded as martyrs.

Post-war Europe - which is what we are talking about - is the area with strong democratic institutions. This one glaring weakness is not enough to undermine them comprehensively enough for this to happen. It is for weaker democracies where the danger would be more imminent. However, by trivializing the evil of Nazism, by almost consciously mimicking it, these regulations do indeed undermine European democracy, making it more, not less likely that this evil would come back.

[ag]

Imagine that, hypothetically, the Confederacy had wanted to exterminate the black race and managed to kill about two-thirds of African Americans in the South before the end of the Civil War. Do you really think in that situation it'd just be a matter of free speech for someone to proudly display a Confederate flag in their window?

As Confederacy and its predecessors did want to (and did) things not that much preferable to extermination (the trafic of slaves to the New World is, arguably, a comparable evil) , I'd say: yes, it is a matter of free speech that any idiot is allowed to display that flag. It's also the matter of free speech that Commies are allowed to show their symbols - they exterminated quite a few people as well, didn't they?

[ag]

Apparently, this bakery had this in a brochure. Completely public.

I appreciate your frank opinion that speech should only be protected, when it is private. I guess, you'd be ok w/ this, if he only served this cake to his wife in their private kitchen. Would it be ok if he also let his mistress taste it, or would that be too public?

[ag]

1. If you don't advocate a ban of Nazi symbols, what are you advocating? Should this guy be prosecuted or not? If not, then I don't see what was all this discussion about: you could have made that point in 7 words. If yes, and he should not be free to say publically whatever the hateful bullsh**t he'd like to publicize, you are advocating a ban. Choose one or the other, please.

2. I am afraid, that the point here is, that I am not longer sure that you indeed fundamentally disagree w/, say,  Hitler on freedom of speech and democracy. And I am not making this as a stupid game: it is just that I increasingly see ideological totalitarianism in your publically stated views, be it on freedom of speech, or on treatment of minorities.

[ag]

2. I am not accusing you of being Hitler - you used that name first, if I recall correctly. What I am saying is, that your views are quite illiberal. You are, obviously, no Hitler. But voting for some sort of nasties, that would later turn out to be abominable, might come naturally: you don't have much immunity against such views.

1. You've said many things once again, but I still don't understand what is it that you are saying. It seems something like: Nazi symbols shouldn't be banned - but the government should do something about this guy. What?

I have a strong feeling you are a bit afraid of yourself, of your own intolerance. "Something should be done about what I think is evil - but let me not specify what, because that doesn't smell good". Try being honest with yourself.