Re: Oh No! Nazis on the Nets

Mike McNally writes:

> Really?  So your only defense against ideas you don't like is to make
> the dissemination of the ideas illegal?  Clearly there are values you
> rate higher than press freedom.  (That's not necessarily bad, though I
> personally don't like it.)

I never said this. Why do you think it is the only defense?
Why do you all mix ideas with calls for killing people?
Isn't it a difference whether I publish an idea or whether
I pray killing people? Is this allowed in your country?

You all seem to have a nice patent for defense against
Nazis. Why don't you tell/sell us this patent? It could
be very helpfull. 

Don't you believe that we are interested in a free press?
Don't you believe that we want to fight against Naziism?
How do you fight against your Nazis?



> Sorry, but if you have to go to some office and ensure them you're
> following the "rules of newspapers" or whatever, then that statement
> is incorrect.  


Arrrrrghl!  Stop this stupid tale! Do you want to play silly games
with me? Who did you tell that you have to go to any office in germany?





> I can this instant decide to print out thousands of
> copies of whatever I want, drive down to some public area, and start
> handing out my documents (or charging for them), all without a visit
> to a government office.  That's not illegal.  Only "pornographic"
> material is inherently illegal to distribute .

Exactly the same as in Germany! Many people do this! We printed papers
at the school, we print papers at the university, we do it everywhere.
Print anything with your computer, go to the next copy-machine. Print
as much as you can pay and carry and give it to everyone you want. It
happens nearly every day. When I began to study at this university I
got my half bag full of papers in the mensa every day. Meanwhile they
are printing less because noone reads them all, you can't read them
all, they are too many. At the first day at this university I got
invitations from two groups of homosexual groups, one invitiation of
the lesbians group, about 20 invitations of political groups and
a lot of paper I didn't even look at. 




>  > Seen from Germany, american presidents elections look like a mixture
>  > of a football game and a tv show. 
> 
> What does that have to do with press freedoms?

What is the use of press freedom if the press doesn't use it?




> Actually, we don't see much about German elections; there's not enough
> airtime between the football games and TV shows.

I'm sure you don't see much about Germany at all. Where did you get
all those stories?


> So can I in the US---today.  The problems spring up when I try to
> export what I write.

Is this what you call press freedom?

Hadmut

danisch@ira.uka.de (Hadmut Danisch)  writes:
>
> I never said this. Why do you think it is the only defense?
> Why do you all mix ideas with calls for killing people?
> Isn't it a difference whether I publish an idea or whether
> I pray killing people? Is this allowed in your country?

  In this country you are not allowed to "encite" people to commit crimes.
  So, while I can talk about how you might go about killing someone, I can't
  directly call for you to do so.  Providing information on *how* to build a
  bomb (provided it isn't classified national security-type stuff, like a
  nuclear weapon or poison gas) isn't illegal, but actually encouraging
  people to go out and do so is.

> You all seem to have a nice patent for defense against
> Nazis. Why don't you tell/sell us this patent? It could
> be very helpfull. 

  I'm sorry.  We don't have a patent on how to fight Nazism.  In fact, there
  are Neo-Nazis here in the U.S. as well.  As far as I know, the American
  Nazi party is still active and has been since 1930's.  And the Knights of
  the Ku Klux Clan have been around since the end of the American Civil War
  in 1865 or so.  

> Don't you believe that we are interested in a free press?

  Yes.  I believe that the majority of the German citizens believe in a free
  press.  I suspect that the Neo-Nazi's only believe in it while they are
  not in power -- call it a hunch.

> Don't you believe that we want to fight against Naziism?

  Absolutely!  Germany has a number of problems which it needs to overcome.
  As much as I have looked forward to the day when the two "Republics" would
  once again be one, I think that it is a very tough situation for the 
  Budesrepublic to take on.  A number of things may need to be done in order
  to stabalize the economy and reduce un-employment.  Restricting the influx
  of new immigrants may well be a reasonable policy which will help your
  great country along to it's goal.  Do not let the fact that the Nazis are
  calling for deportation prevent you from doing some hard analysis of what
  the benefits would be of a temporary (say, 10 - 15 years) of immigration.

  As we Americans are learning rapidly, it is just as important that you 
  assimilate the immigrants into the larger culture as it is that you let
  them in in the first place.  You'll find that assimilation is the *best*
  defense against the Nazis.  It's not a fool-proof mechanism, but when the
  German people think of themselves as one, regardless of where their ancestors
  came from, the Nazis will have a hard time appealing to most people.

> How do you fight against your Nazis?

  Unfortunately, in the past two or three decades, poorly.  Not only do we
  tolerate them, but by tolerating their counterparts in the "multicultural"
  wing of the New Left, we increase the appeal that the Nazis hold for the
  majority of the population... *sigh*

> What is the use of press freedom if the press doesn't use it?

  Not much.

> I'm sure you don't see much about Germany at all. Where did you get
> all those stories?

  God knows.  I recommend listening to Deutsche Welle on the shortwave if
  you want to catch some news on Germany.  

> Is this what you call press freedom?

  Nope.  And it's probably the primary reason why most people in the U.S.
  who are on this list are here.  If we didn't feel that the governments
  were actively trying to prevent us from using cryptography, we probably
  wouldn't have bothered to join.

 Jon Boone | PSC Networking | boone@psc.edu | (412) 268-6959 | PGP Key # B75699
 PGP Public Key fingerprint =  23 59 EC 91 47 A6 E3 92  9E A8 96 6A D9 27 C9 6C

Hadmut writes:

> You all seem to have a nice patent for defense against
> Nazis. Why don't you tell/sell us this patent? It could
> be very helpfull. 

It's not a patent. It's a principle. The idea is that the best cure for
bad speech is not censorship, but more speech.



--Mike

Hadmut Danisch writes:
 > I never said this. Why do you think it is the only defense?

Oh, well, I guess I don't suppose that's what you meant.

 > Why do you all mix ideas with calls for killing people?

Because the latter is a class of the former?

 > Isn't it a difference whether I publish an idea or whether
 > I pray killing people? Is this allowed in your country?

Well, I suppose there are some extremes which could get you in trouble
(like, in particular, something directly threatening to the President,
though I've never completely understood the Constitutional
justification for such a thing).  I don't think "Mein Kampf" is
anywhere near the extreme.  It's hateful and wrong, but it is a book
of ideas and deserves to be available.

 > Don't you believe that we are interested in a free press?
 > Don't you believe that we want to fight against Naziism?
 > How do you fight against your Nazis?

Not by restricting press freedoms.

 > Arrrrrghl!  Stop this stupid tale! Do you want to play silly games
 > with me? Who did you tell that you have to go to any office in germany?

You did!  I'm not trying to be inflammatory; that's what I thought you
said!  I asked whether anybody could print a newspaper, and you said
something like "as long as they register" or something.  Perhaps I
misunderstood; I foolishly did not save your note.

 > Print as much as you can pay and carry and give it to everyone you
 > want.

Oh; OK, then I take it back.  I wish I had saved the note you wrote
earlier; I must have severely misinterpreted it.

 > What is the use of press freedom if the press doesn't use it?

Well, that's sort of a different problem.  There are outlets for a
wide variety of ideas, but they're not the major news networks or
newspapers.

 > I'm sure you don't see much about Germany at all. Where did you get
 > all those stories?

As I said, I simply misinterpreted what you wrote.

 > > So can I in the US---today.  The problems spring up when I try to
 > > export what I write.
 > 
 > Is this what you call press freedom?

Actually, no; I don't call it that.  One of the reasons I'm "here" is
that I don't like the restrictions!

--
| GOOD TIME FOR MOVIE - GOING ||| Mike McNally <m5@tivoli.com>       |
| TAKE TWA TO CAIRO.          ||| Tivoli Systems, Austin, TX:        |
|     (actual fortune cookie) ||| "Like A Little Bit of Semi-Heaven" |

On Thu, 10 Feb 1994, Hadmut Danisch wrote:

> Don't you believe that we are interested in a free press?
> Don't you believe that we want to fight against Naziism?
> How do you fight against your Nazis?

We put them in jail WHEN THEY BREAK THE LAW. Before that, they have the
same rights as everyone else. Try it, you might like it.




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danisch@ira.uka.de (Hadmut Danisch) writes:

> You all seem to have a nice patent for defense against
> Nazis. Why don't you tell/sell us this patent? It
> could be very helpfull.
> 
> Don't you believe that we are interested in a free press?
> Don't you believe that we want to fight against Naziism?
> How do you fight against your Nazis?

Our secret weapon against Nazis in the USA is that we don't censor them.
 We let them publish their books so everyone can see how stupid and
ridiculous nazism is.  We also have books about what the Nazis did to
the jews in WWII.

The reason the Nazis are such a problem in Germany is that the
government gives them so much free advertizing.  The whole thing about
how a secret BBS network eludes the police makes people very interested
in it.  People like the idea of belonging to a special elite
orginaztion, and its "underground" status gives it that appeal.  There
are Nazi BBS systems in the USA, and they're not too difficult to find. 
And most people couldn't care less.

But to make a relevant comparison to cypherpunks: How many people used
PGP before the clipper debate began?  (Fairly few)  How many heard about
it because of the recent public uproar caused by the government wanting
to control crypto?  If clipper had never been introduced, many people
who now use PGP would never have heard of it.  The government created
its own encryption "problem" by telling people about it.  The Germans
are creating their own Nazi problem by telling people about it.  Food
for thought...