Re: Oh No! Nazis on the Nets

> I will note, however, that the U.S. has far better press freedoms than
> almost any other country on earth, and that Germany is pretty damn bad
> about freedom of the press. I can walk into any book store in America
> and buy a copy of Mein Kampf -- and although I hate Adolf Hitler's
> works, I am happy that I can read them if I so choose. I cannot do
> things like that in Germany.

I don't know at the moment whether it is allowed to sell "Mein Kampf",
but what is the question: One says that in Germany nobody cares
about the right-wing, the other says that you can't buy such books.
What do you expect? Shall we care or not? We can't fight again
right-wing people and sell such books!

I'm sure that american press freedom is not better than german ones.
Seen from Germany, american presidents elections look like a mixture
of a football game and a tv show. Is is possible that we have different
oppinions about 'democracy' ? (I'm sure german elections don't look
better for americans...)


And there is another difference:

In Germany I can get my Cryptosoftware from whereever I want,
I can give my software to whereever I want and I can write
a PhotoCD decoder. [ ;-) ]


In Germany it is always surprising what american people don't
know about Germany. How many of you think that we wear 
trousers of leather, eat Sauerkraut and have women with
blond plaits and name "Gretchen" all the time, not without
a "Kuckucksuhr" at the wall?

Hadmut

Hadmut Danisch says:
> > I will note, however, that the U.S. has far better press freedoms than
> > almost any other country on earth, and that Germany is pretty damn bad
> > about freedom of the press. I can walk into any book store in America
> > and buy a copy of Mein Kampf -- and although I hate Adolf Hitler's
> > works, I am happy that I can read them if I so choose. I cannot do
> > things like that in Germany.
> 
> I don't know at the moment whether it is allowed to sell "Mein Kampf",
> but what is the question: One says that in Germany nobody cares
> about the right-wing, the other says that you can't buy such books.
> What do you expect? Shall we care or not? We can't fight again
> right-wing people and sell such books!

Incorrect. Those who do not understand freedom think that by
oppressing Nazis and preventing them from speaking you have somehow
protected freedom. However, in doing so, you have used the methods of
the Nazis. Becoming what you wish to stop is not an effective
strategy. If only certain ideas are permitted to be expressed, you
have reduced freedom, not increased it.

You can fight Naziism by spreading information about the evils of
Naziism. You can fight it by vigorously prosecuting those who commit
acts of violence. You can fight it by keeping your legal system free,
and not by doing things like giving in to the right wing by
prohibiting immigration to Germany. You cannot fight it by emulating
it, and censorship is one of the basic tools of Naziism.

> I'm sure that american press freedom is not better than german ones.

Untrue. In the U.S., I can start a newspaper without any licenses from
the Government, and I can print anything I wish in that newspaper
without fear of government prosecution. (I might be sued by a private
party for libel if I intentionally lie about someone, but thats quite
different.) In Germany, I cannot just open a newspaper and print, say,
Nazi editorials in it.

> Seen from Germany, american presidents elections look like a mixture
> of a football game and a tv show.

Yes, but that is a statement that the press in the U.S. is bad, not
that it is unfree. Freedom and quality are orthogonal.

> In Germany I can get my Cryptosoftware from whereever I want,

Actually, you can do that here, too. We just cant send the software
overseas.

Perry

On Thu, 10 Feb 1994, Perry E. Metzger wrote:

> Untrue. In the U.S., I can start a newspaper without any licenses from
> the Government, and I can print anything I wish in that newspaper
> without fear of government prosecution.

That is truly amazing. Are there no laws against libel of groups such as 
ethnic or racial agitation? Can you write 'all niggers are pedophiles' 
or 'every single Catholic father of a teenage girl has proved to be 
incestuous' and get away with it?

Hadmut Danisch writes:
 > I don't know at the moment whether it is allowed to sell "Mein Kampf",
 > but what is the question: One says that in Germany nobody cares
 > about the right-wing, the other says that you can't buy such books.
 > What do you expect? Shall we care or not? We can't fight again
 > right-wing people and sell such books!

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'm sure that american press freedom is not better than german ones.

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.  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 (and that irks me, I
assure you) (though not because I'm interested in that line of work).

(I'll leave it to Mr. Godwin to point out the various little laws I
might break doing something like what I described above; the point
stands nevertheless.)

 > 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?

 > (I'm sure german elections don't look better for americans...)

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

 > In Germany I can get my Cryptosoftware from whereever I want,
 > I can give my software to whereever I want and I can write
 > a PhotoCD decoder. [ ;-) ]

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

--
| 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, Mike McNally wrote:

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

If you are interested, try CNN (if you can find out how to decode the 
scrambled cable waves).

Mike McNally says:
> 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.  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 (and that irks me, I
> assure you) (though not because I'm interested in that line of work).

I'll remind you that the supreme court has held that text-only works
can not be held to be obscene. You can write anything you want,
including explicit descriptions of sodomizing dead children, and it
can not be censored.

Perry