French court sets a bad -- and ridiculous -- precedent

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Mon, 28 May 2001 10:03:06 GMT

FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED NOV. 23, 2000
THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
French court sets a bad -- and ridiculous -- precedent

Even a schoolchild can probably identify the places in the world where local governments still don't allow adults to enjoy the free exchange of information.

They're the kind of places where movies and newspapers are subject to ruthless government censorship (assuming the government doesn't simply produce and distribute the whole shebang by itself, monopoly-style) -- where quotas are set on imported foreign information and entertainment, and all are carefully counted and monitored ... under threat of hefty fines or even prison.

Places like Singapore -- where you have to belong to the one dominant party to write for the monopoly daily newspaper.

Places like Red China and a lot of the "former" Soviet Union, for instance, where it's still against the law to spread factual information which may tend to bring the ruling government into "disrepute." Places like, you know ...

France.

In a landmark ruling Monday, a Paris court ordered the web service Yahoo! -- located in Santa Clara, Calif., which is not in France -- to somehow block Internet web access from France to an auction site where Nazi memorabilia is sold. Judge Jean-Jacques Gomez gave Yahoo! three months to figure out a way to keep Frenchmen from seeing such stuff, or Yahoo! will be fined $13,000 for each day it ignores the French court's order.

Really.

Fortunately, Yahoo! responded appropriately -- pretty much quoting General Mcauliffe in Bastogne -- as lawyers for the firm pointed out the French court has no jurisdiction over its operations, and vowed they ain't gonna do it.

Good. If Yahoo! has any forfeitable assets under French jurisdiction, the proper solution is to get them well out of sight within 90 days -- the likely result of such attempted censorship thus being that such nations will lose foreign investment and find themselves increasingly cut off from commerce with the rest of a world being quickly liberated by the information revolution.

Yes, the Nazis and their works were evil -- thoroughly so. But that doesn't make it any more reprehensible to buy and sell tattered war souvenirs bearing their crooked cross, than it does for Frenchmen to hang saint-like portraits of the tyrant Napoleon in their dining rooms, or for coin collectors to buy and sell depictions of the various Roman emperors in silver or bronze -- with the issues of those who showed the most notably murderous depravity generally fetching the highest prices.

The correct response to anyone who perversely promotes the Nazi or fascist cause is to reply with solid evidence of the evil such collectivist doctrines produce -- not by banning such discussions before they can happen. Time has shown that evil hates exposure ... and thrives far better in the fetid dark.

Of course, the French court's order also happens to be unenforceable. In this cybernetic age, how long would it take a Frenchmen really determined to access such a site to rent himself an e-mail address based in Andorra or the Channel Islands -- or to log on through a "re-mailer" which would present the appearance that the user is tucked away safe and sound in the suburbs of Helsinki?

The French lawsuit was brought by two French advocacy groups: The Union of Jewish Students and the International Anti-racism and Anti-Semitism League.

The plaintiffs should be ashamed. The goals of these groups may be noble, but can they really fail to realize they thus set a precedent under which similar suits could be brought in Arab nations, blocking the presentation of the work of Jewish news reporters or filmmakers under the false label "Zionist propaganda"?

Free speech is a two-way street.

"The French approach would lead to a lowest common denominator world where the most restrictive rules of any country would govern all speech on the Internet," warns Alan Davidson, staff counsel with the Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington. "What happens when the government of China decides to prosecute a human rights group in the U.S. for publishing dissident materials that are legal here but illegal there?"

Not that this all doesn't figure -- in a way -- once we consider the source. Unable to stand foreign competition, the French have long barred the import of foreign cheeses, are nearly unique in setting up a quasi-government agency to discourage people from adopting better foreign words, and have even been known to set quotas requiring theater owner to show almost as many execrable local products (Claude Berri and Emmanuelle Beart always excepted) as they do American films ... usually on the bottom half of a double bill, so everyone can go home.

A U.S. court could still decide to help the French enforce their silly ruling. Here's hoping they find no takers. Instead, perhaps we should take this opportunity to send them a whole bunch of little replicas of that big statue in New York harbor. What's it called?

Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, and editor of Financial Privacy Report. His book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998," is available by dialing 1-800-244-2224.

Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com

"When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right." -- Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926)

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken

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Government doesn't work. Never did. Never will. Can't. But there are lots of good people. Love them.

-- Bill St. Clair

The Atlanta Declaration

Every man, woman, and responsible child has an unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon -- rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- any time, any place, without asking anyone's permission.

-- L. Neil Smith

Reread that pesky first clause of the Second Amendment. It doesn't say what any of us thought it said. What it says is that infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms is treason. What else do you call an act that endangers "the security of a free state"? And if it's treason, then it's punishable by death. I suggest due process, speedy trials, and public hangings.

-- L. Neil Smith

A Penalty Clause for the Bill of Rights

Any official, appointed or elected, at any level of government, who attempts, through legislative act or other means, to nullify, evade, or avoid the provisions of the first ten amendments to this Constitution, or of the Thirteenth Amendment, shall be summarily removed from office, and, upon conviction, deprived of all pay and benefits including pension, and sentenced to imprisonment for life.

-- L. Neil Smith

Based on 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some of its own empirical work, the panel couldn't identify a single gun control regulation that reduced violent crime, suicide or accidents.

-- John Lott, commenting on the National Academy of Sciences report on gun control laws.

Who is a libertarian?

Zero Aggression Principle ("Zap")

"A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim."

-- L. Neil Smith

(Formerly called the "Non-Aggression Principle", or "NAP")

Why Did It Have to be... Guns?

Make no mistake: all politicians -- even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership -- hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it's an X-ray machine. It's a Vulcan mind-meld. It's the ultimate test to which any politician -- or political philosophy -- can be put.

If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash -- for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your friend no matter what he tells you.

If he isn't genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody's permission, he's a four-flusher, no matter what he claims.

What his attitude -- toward your ownership and use of weapons -- conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?

-- L. Neil Smith

Concise

"Tell me," I was once asked, "What do you think about gun control? Give me the short answer." To which I replied, "If you try to take our firearms we will kill you."

-- Mike Vanderboegh

Also from The Atlanta Declaration:

... like going to the bathroom, breathing, eating, sleeping, or making love, it turns out that self-defense is a bodily function one cannot safely or effectively delegate to a second party.

-- L. Neil Smith

This does not mean that "Marijuana should be available by prescription." It means that morphine sulfate should be available in five pound bags at the supermarket for a couple of bucks, like sugar... but probably in a different aisle, to avoid confusion.

-- Vin Suprynowicz

If you refuse to pay unjust taxes, your property will be confiscated. If you attempt to defend your property, you will be arrested. If you resist arrest, you will be clubbed. If you defend yourself against clubbing, you will be shot dead. These procedures are known as the Rule of Law.

-- Edward Abbey

The state can only survive as long as a majority is programmed to believe that theft isn't wrong if it's called taxation or asset forfeiture or eminent domain, that assault and kidnapping isn't wrong if it's called arrest, that mass murder isn't wrong if it's called war.

-- Bill St. Clair

End the War on Freedom

French court sets a bad -- and ridiculous -- precedent