I was a bit surprised at this sentencing myself. What bothers me more than this (since Le Pen has proven himself to be a danger to society in the past in my mind), is the abuse of the power of state over religion. The law says that exterior expressions of religion, such as wearing headscarves, turbans, yamakas, and crosses over a certain size, are offensive in public places, specifically schools. This is supposed to mean separation of church and state, except is is unevenly applied and another example of the French intolerance of difference. I saw Segolene Royale speak yesterday at Harvard and defend this law.

Germany and Turkey too. What's good for the goose is not necessarily good for the gander; I don't unambiguously think every country should have the same tenets as America, even if I think the first amendment is awesome. If a people doesn't want freedom of speech, why should they be forced to endure it? Do you believe there are moral and ethical absolutes?

Yes, Jon, I do think there are some things that pass the threshold of ethical human rights. Freedom from slavery and universal suffrage are two easy examples. Freedom of speech isn't as obvious as those two examples, but is extremely important to me. Also, what evidence is there that the people of France don't want freedom of speech? You may be right, but I'm underinformed on this one.

Now, as to thinking every country should have the same tenets of America, that I would agree with. Gay rights and drug laws being the obvious examples for me.

I don't know how much the French want to allow klansmen to have rallys.

Really? Suffrage? You think everyone should be able to vote in all countries? That starts to sound like the imperialist spreading of Democracy the neocons are pushing all the time. I'm not so sure I agree -- certainly the American style of democracy, with direct elections of the head of state seems rather suspect. Maybe we should give our fairly young system a little more time before declaring it the best and ramming it down everyone else's throat.

Really, suffrage.

However, I did not in any way suggest forcing countries to fall in line.

If you're willing to live and let live I submit you don't really think there is an ethical absolute. Otherwise, what's the point of having one?

I didn't use the phrase "ethical absolute," and cosmically, I don't believe that exists. I said "threshold of ethical human rights" and I stand by that. There is a point in having them even if one believes that violence is not a proper recourse in all matters that cross the threshold. For instance, a country can choose not to conduct business with a country that does not surpass their chosen thresholds. Or an international organization can coalesce around countries who meet minimal conditions.

United Democratic Nations, it can still happen. I'm a big fan of voting... let's export the electoral college at gun point. The rest of the world will be crippled by internal dissension as they vainly struggled to determine who won their myriad of contested elections. We'll be the sole superpower based on the fact that we've gone through that mess before and know, more or less, how to deal with it. We'll have a government, everyone else will have muddy civil wars.

"In 1987 he was fined for describing the Nazi gas chambers as a "detail of history"."

He's not even getting fined or put in jail for saying "I love NAZIs, bring on the Holocaust." His assertions, as quoted, seem so vague and non-threatening that it's hard to imagine that he's actually being punished for the statements and not his politics.

1. the concept of freedom of speech is necessary for every other right in the sense that your ability to speak about your rights is one's most powerful tool as an individual.
2. many french would love to have klan rallies. there are more visible swastikas in a typical european city, i would imagine based on my own experience, than your average southern city. also, folks like LePen and other neonazi candidates do fantastically well in france...the weird thing is, no one knows who they are! unlike the US, they can't assemble, and it's therefore more difficult to marginalize them. martyrdom is a powerful tool!

The number of swastikas that you find in Europe is disconcerting.

You didn't use the phrase "ethical absolutes" but I did, when I asked you if you believed there were any. You said "Yes". Did you mean to say "no"?

I really had a hard time wrapping my mind around it the first time I read about a German hate speech prosecution. I like to think this reflects my Americanness.

Honestly, the religious prohibitions (on head scarves, crosses, whatever) seem like bad public policy purely because they create more problems than they solve. Well, or maybe I just have a hard time seeing why someone else's headgear could be so offensive that it outbalances their right to wear it.

The "yes" wasn't to your question, but to my statement about the threshold. I was ignoring the question as originally stated.

When I asked you a question and you answered yes you were ignoring my question? I don't understand.

About the headscarves, I was teaching in France right after that was passed and I couldn't believe how strongly people felt that it was separation of church and state. Meanwhile, girls had t-shirts on that said "BITCH" in sparkles in English (not knowing what it meant of course) or worse provocation and mid-riffs and somehow this was not offensive or creating distraction in this elementary school (K-5). I taught in a district (suburb) with many students from North Africa and Turkey and the teachers (mostly French in the "pure" sense, which basically to them means the ancestors of your ancestors were born on French soil--and they can identify the exact strip of soil and what vegetables and grape variations can grow there--the part that I think is awesome) made awful comments in the teachers' lounge. As I pointed out to my one Algerian colleague, he and I were both under their scrutiny--whether it was intended like jokes or not (never mind the sexual harassment). Anyway, I've had somewhat scary experiences in the Marais (Jewish district) of Paris and my sister dodged one of Le Pen's rallies with molotov cocktails in Strasbourg. I've always thought France needs a Martin Luther King-like movement for many groups. They love/envy this part of American culture/history, but don't feel the need to act on it and like to blame us for slavery. These are the major reasons I'm not still living in France! That said, plenty of the French agree with us. However, I must say Le Pen won the district where I lived and yet, no one I asked ever knew anyone who voted for him!

And I do think freedom of speech is #1 (as flea points out) and should be universal. Which brings me to the other country where I had difficulties...

Lorelei,

It seems like bad public policy in France... every time the issue is raised in France it seems, from the outsider perspective, that it's being done because the French just hate the growing impact on Muslims in their country and they're trying their damnedest to blunt that. This despite the fact that extreme Muslims are unlikely to have a major impact on those not of the faith.

Compare that to this:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/02/09/turkey.headscarf.ap/index.htm...

It seems like good public policy in Turkey where, again from the outsider perspective, it seems like a desperate attempt to stave off an ominously looming fall from their modern secular heritage to a disappointing more extremist Islamic future. I'm honestly shocked that they've made it this long. As soon as the army stops deciding elections for them, they're in trouble. And so the headscarf ban is an attempt to slow the progression of extremist movements... like these:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/02/08/iraq.women/index.html

CNN was a real fount of links for me today. And while we're at it, does anybody remember this story from 2004? I didn't:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/08/30/france.hostages.villepin/inde...

PS, I may be more down on intra-Middle East politics than ordinary because I saw Persepolis yesterday.

Thanks for that, Annie. And I of course had China in mind when I spoke about the importance of the 1st amendment above.

Ingen, how was Persepolis? I like the concept, but the trailer is sort of annoying.

Yes, thanks for an informed perspective, Annie. And after having seen Juno twice, I think Persepolis was better (though less heartwarming, obviously).

Ingen, do you think banning headscarves is going to actually stop Turkey from sliding into fundamentalism? It's just headgear! If anything, putting unreasonable prohibitions on what people can wear sees like it'd radicalize them.

Lorelei -

My cursory knowledge of Turkish internal politics is that Turkey is one of those countries which, if left to purely democratic means, would revert itself to an Islamic state that would make the rest of us sigh and turn away. The military has, for the last fifty years, acted as a check on democratic government, adjusting the country's course with the occasional coup when they seemed to be wandering away from Ataturk's dream of a secular state. Whether this is good on a theoretical level can be debated (probably not), but from a Western perspective the outcome has been mostly positive (it remains secular).

The logic behind banning headscarves in, for example, Turkey would be to prevent the sort of thing that we're seeing in Iraq today... the abuse and murder of women who choose not to wear them. The ultimate outcome of the abuse and murder, of course, is that everybody's going to wear them. The strongest women will be murdered and the rest will fall into line (and who can blame them? see, for example, Persepolis). If religious culture is seeking to force this sort of abuse on women, society is given a choice of extremes - either all women will wear headscarves or none will. I prefer none and I understand why a society would enforce that sort of rule if placed in that unhappy position.

France is, of course, not in that position yet (and hopefully never will be) so their laws are silly and make them look petty. Turkey, who knows?

CM -

About half way through Persepolis I thought it was great, then by the end I had come back down. It has the same flaw that every story based on someone's real life has - that the story isn't really a coherent story, it's just a bunch of things that happened to somebody presented in a linear fashion. If you don't have a conveniently cinematic life, it's not going to leave the watcher feeling like they got a whole movie. I know you don't agree with me on this (see, for example, The Pianist) but it irked me. I really liked the animation style, but if you didn't like it in the trailer you're not going to like it in feature form. The story was interesting and reminds you that Iran is a country that we really can hope for a better future for, and it's worth seeing for that.

So, yeah, I'd recommend it, but it's got drawbacks. It felt a lot longer than the 93 minutes that it theoretically took place during. Some of the conventions of the movie were a little bit childish, even when the main character had grown old enough that they shouldn't have been anymore (particularly one scene with an ex boyfriend).

The other thing about the headscarves is that certain countries have never traditionally worn them (I believe in North Africa, Egypt). Women in our mother's generation sometimes haven't traditionally worn them in their home countries, but their daughters are turning to it as a way to show their distinction and signify their disappointment with their continued low status in their adopted countries (France, UK). Consider that 30-40% of Muslim men are unemployed in France!! That makes *me* want to burn cars. Again, they need an MLK. I thought it could be Zinedine Zidane to build the bridges, but he ruined it all at the last minute in violence and I still haven't forgiven him. I found myself almost wishing that the comments the Italian made would turn out to be prejudiced so that it would get people talking. Ya, France has a long way to go. That's partly why I'd like to study immigration in Canada and consult their government.

and I was thinking of suffrage today...at the NAACP breakfast, Charles Ogletree (a founder of my school) spoke of Deval Patrick's win, and yet at the same time how residents in Roxbury and Dorchester did not have enough ballots to vote, which happened similarly this week. Why can't we figure this out? And, side question: why don't they ask for identification when we vote?

Ah, Zinedine Zidane. After the pain of the Pats loss this weekend it is good to be reminded of that. Thank you for making me feel good.

In some states you *do* have to have an ID to vote. It's a politically hot issue, because ID requirements tend to disenfranchise the poor in greater numbers, so Democrats aren't usually into it. I'm of two minds about it, mostly because I haven't thought/read about it enough.

Dems hate voter ID, Republicans like voter ID.

I generally like it because the voting system that I went through in Boston was laughably insecure. You walked in and told them your address, at which point they'd pull out a book (in front of you) that listed everyone who is registered to vote at your address. The list was ridiculously out of date and list probably twenty or thirty people living in my apartment. I could see the whole list and could see who had and who had not yet voted. I could have come back ten more times and voted under ten different names and unless a 90 year old poll worker recognized me, there would have been no way to stop me. Even if they DID recognize me, how do you prove I'm not who I say I am without being able to check IDs?

It makes the system feel fraud-laden.

"It makes the system feel fraud-laden."

Except there's little evidence that it actually is.

I think flea's 7:26 post is just about right. it avoids a natural law sense of cosmically defined rights, and provides an instrumental justification for free speech in setting the stage "for every other [democratic?] right."

But I say only "just about right," because it leaves open the question whether a different arrangement could suffice. Say we design a council of scholars or lawyers whose duty is to present all the arguments that society may have (including Nazi sympathizing). If all of those points of view are heard--and the effect is to motivate all of those other [democratic?] rights, then why not do away with universal free speech? Is our passion for free speech really purely instrumental? I tend not to think so--but only because I adopt a morality of individualism.

I don't like any restrictions on speech that derive from content and the reason is two-fold: first it is censorship and I think that individuals, not government, should be the central unit of analysis in a republic with a limited constitution. Granted, that is purely my moral perspective. Second, if the government is fearful of the effects of hate speech, they are frustrating their own purpose by driving such speech underground. Le Pen is not the only one saying such things--and others who share his ideas are or might be acting on their awful opinions. Better to know who is saying the words you believe to be symptomatic of imminent lawless action. Ya know, I hate the Klan, but at least I know who to steer clear of.

"Except there's little evidence that it actually is."

There's also little evidence to show that it isn't happening.

The answer given to this objection is that (a) it requires so much effort to catch and prove voter fraud of this nature that nobody bothers, and (b) without the ability to check IDs, how would you even know? How can you catch someone voting under a false name without the ability to card them?

Also, I'd just like to point out that you actually linked to a DailyKos thread which asserted that there was exactly this sort of voter fraud going on in the Nevaucus but the author was prevented from verifying this fact due to the prohibition on ID checking:

The Clinton operative herself had a Brooklyn accent and I overheard her mention having been from New York. When she stood to be counted in the middle of the room, I objected and asked her if she was actually from Nevada. She said yes. I talked to the chair and asked him to ask her name and find her on the list. He asked her her name and checked the list, and she was not on it. At this point the chair said, "well, I can't ask for ID." I said, "She can't participate if no one will vouch for her." At this point a Hispanic man wearing a Hillary shirt said she was his wife. While that's not impossible, it was also improbable--but I had no way to verify or object further.

Regardless, even if there is very little voter fraud going on today, that is not alone enough reason not to legislate in order to prevent it from occurring in the future. Do you really want to wait until after it has a documented impact on an election before you act to prevent it? Isn't it too late then?

As long as the poor are provided a means of getting ID cards for free, I don't think requiring such an ID to verify your identity should be too problematic.

Argh, BLOCKQUOTE doesn't work huh? Well, just imagine the first and fifth paragraphs are indented.

What does CITE do? Testing.

Italics. Weird.

Yeah, you can use CITE but not plain old I. Which I always always forget.

I maintain that punishing individuals who hurt women for their headgear choices is more appropriate than punishing women for wearing headgear. I am quite sure that societies where "honor killings" take place punish them less harshly than they would a similar killing of a man. Because that's part of misogyny. I wonder if those sorts of things would take place if they were punished publicly and harshly enough to make an example of the perps. However, if the choice is between a society that mandates religion and a society that bans it (which is what you seem to think could happen), I personally would prefer the ban.

Since you can't prove a negative, it's impossible to show that there's no voter fraud at all. In fact, I'm sure there is some. (Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004?) But I think the right to vote is too fundamental to risk taking away without solid proof that there's a good reason to take that risk.