On Freedom of Speech, Religion and so on…

In the last several days we’ve seen quite a few very visible examples of people harshly criticized for expressing themselves publicly.  I think it’s a worrying trend, and I think we’re in a period of declining tolerance.

Salman Rushdie, who’s famous for his 1988 novel The Satanic Versus, gave an interview to the BBC a few days ago as he prepares to publish his memoires.  One of the interesting things he said is he didn’t think such a book would be published today.

An editor in Ireland was just suspended for publishing topless pictures of a member of the UK royal family.

There’s a band named Pussy Riot in prison in Russia for criticizing the government and religious institutions.

Now in the news are violent attacks on foreign missions over a film trailer made in the US criticizing Islam.

I live in The Netherlands, a country thought to have one of the highest legal standards of free speech almost anywhere in the world.  The other day I was physically threatened and intimidated, in part over what I’ve written on my Dutch language blog.  Anyone familiar with Bifurcated Carrots will know I’ve written some very provocative things in the past, especially targeting large agricultural and food companies.  I’ve made a lot of people mad for sure, but so far no one has threatened me.  Indeed many of the provocative things I’ve said have been the basis for further constructive discussions.

An interesting inconsistency with the notion of freedom of speech here, is it’s very socially unacceptable to express yourself in a visible or confrontational way.  This is something I reject completely.  I discussed these threats with the police, and they were very negative.  Yes, they agreed I had the right to say what I wanted but their position was, short of a clear threat to my life or serious injury, I had to take full responsibility for what I said myself.  They strongly discouraged me from saying provocative things in the future, not from a legal point of view, but from a cultural one.

Bifurcated Carrots is not about religion.  Except for maybe something very small in passing, you won’t find any criticism of Islam, Judaism, Christianity or any other religion.  I personally don’t think criticizing religion is very constructive, and in particular I find the recent YouTube videos which are the source of unrest in the middle east very distasteful.  Pictures that violate the privacy of individuals are also wrong.

Reacting violently or with aggression towards someone else for what they’ve said or written is even more wrong.  Trying to demand something that’s been published be retracted is not constructive, especially with the modern Internet where things can be rapidly duplicated and widely distributed.  The violent events in the middle east and elsewhere are wrong.

If you disagree with something someone said, you should say so — publicly.  You should demonstrate on the street if you want.  You’re always free to say something just as compromising about them!  The Internet and news publications of the world cannot have too many opinions, and yours are always welcome.   As long as you are reasonably on topic, not unreasonably disruptive and don’t intend to promote a product commercially, your comments are always welcome here.

Maybe most importantly, if someone says something that makes you mad, it’s also important to look within yourself and understand what it is that makes you mad.  If something makes you mad like this, it’s because of weakness.  If someone says you’re racist, it’s time to reconsider the way you treat other people.  If someone criticizes or makes fun of your religion, it’s time to reconsider your beliefs and think about how you can better coexist with the world around you.  If you’re a royal family who’s privacy was violated, it’s wise to consider how you can make yourself less of a target.  If you’re a government or business, you should think about how to incorporate the criticisms, and improve what you do.

Freedom of press is an important way the world improves itself.  If you don’t view freedom of press as a positive thing, and attack it instead of using it to improve things, all that happens is even more confrontational things are published later.

Above all else, if you don’t like what you see on YouTube, you don’t have to view the videos.  If you don’t like what you see on this blog or any other, you don’t have to read it.  If you’re offended by a book, you don’t need to buy it.  If you don’t like what you see in the paper or on TV, you don’t need to watch.  We are all free to choose the websites we visit, or the sources of news and other media we use.

Monsanto loses in Mexico

In a small victory in the ongoing fight against GMOs, beekeepers in Mexico dependent on selling GMO free honey to European customers, have won a suspension in the planting of GMO soy.  Now the fight continues to make this ban permanent

It goes to show how many of these fights come down to what we as consumers are willing to buy, and how linked together our world has become.

Cynthia, a long time reader and commenter here just sent me this link.

Kokopelli Ruling

http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=125002&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=req&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=35284

Yesterday the EU Court of Justice made a ruling in the Kokopelli case.  I posted about this earlier here.

It’s not great news I’m afraid.

I’ll leave the full interpretation to others out there, but on the surface Kokopelli seems to have lost most of their arguments.

The good news is that farmers cannot themselves categorically be prevented from growing saving and selling their own seeds — but this is not really completely clear in the ruling.  This would appear to legalize what companies like Kokopelli do, but not make it much more likely traditional varieties will become more widely grown or slow the erosion of agricultural biodiversity in Europe.

This is perhaps a small step in the right direction, but far from a complete scrapping of the DUS related marketing rules that’s needed.

The fight goes on!

Dutch Government Firmly in the Hands of Big Tobacco

I’m really disgusted at recent news the Dutch government is planning to raise the drinking age from 16 to 18.  This is an issue that’s been coming and going ever since the public smoking ban came into effect a little over a year ago.

The idea of raising the drinking age is a very unpopular one.  Tolerance to drugs like alcohol and marijuana is widely seen as the reason we have escaped many of the social problems of places like the US, with less tolerance towards recreational drug use and much more of a hard drug problem.

Quite simply the tobacco companies want their product the only legally available drug for young people.  I can imagine soon the smoking age will also go up to 18, but then it will be because they want young people to have had an interest in using legal drugs for a period before they are allowed to drink and smoke, to make smoking more appealing.

Having a drinking age, and a smoking age equal or less, it simply allows young people to compare the relative safety of these products.

Caretaker Government

Our government coalition recently collapsed, and we now have a caretaker government preparing for elections.  In theory this means no ‘controversial’ issues will be considered until after the election, but an increase in drinking age looks set to go through now anyway.

Why is this?  For some time now the right wing parties have all been bought off by the tobacco lobby.  Not to be left out in the days leading up to the election, the left wing parties have also fallen prey.  Now big tobacco has a clear majority in parliament, and feels this is the best time to push it through.

It’s also the summer holidays, and so not many people are paying attention to politics.  This is colloquially known here as cucumber time, when the news is so slow there’s nothing to do but watch the cucumbers grow.

Criminalized

One of the things passed through the government the last year or two is criminalizing the possession of alcohol by someone under-age.  This is a very controversial thing here, as it technically subjects a 15 year old (or younger) to the criminal justice system.  It means the possibility of getting a criminal record, as well as being punished as a criminal.

Many people here feel no activity by someone of that age should be criminalized, under any circumstances, not the very least having a beer in their hand.

Young People’s Brains are Still Developing

Yes, I’ve heard this one too.  Alcohol damages young people’s brains.

We’ve now had decades of a higher drinking age in the US and a lower one in Europe.  Does anyone really believe the brains of Europeans are underdeveloped because of drinking as a youth?  What we’ve seen are developing social problems in the US, increasing hard drug and prescription drug abuse, and a civil war in Mexico.  Could these be related to the higher drinking age?

In any case, anyone seriously concerned about the health of young people would be putting more effort into making smoking less attractive to them.  There’s still lots of work to be done on this.  How about forbidding the display of cigarette packages, banning vending machines and prohibiting sale in supermarkets, bars, snack bars, post offices and other high traffic public places?  Limiting the hours they can legally be sold?

How about making our public smoking ban a little more credible?

Young People are Drinking More, and Becoming Hospitalized More for Alcohol Poisoning

This is in the news here a lot.  No one is quite sure where are these drunk young people are, as they aren’t visible on the streets or anything.

The argument used to be that with a good economy young people had more money to spend, and so were more likely to spend it on alcohol.  Now that the economy has gone down, young people have much less money.  Many young people can’t afford their first house, or to buy a car.  Now this argument has changed into young people are getting hospitalized more with alcohol poisoning.

Just what does this mean and what does it prove?  Does it mean they are changing the way they are keeping statistics for this kind of thing?  Does this mean adults are quicker to take drunk kids to the doctor?

This sort of claim is not in any way credible, and it’s only an emotional statement.

People are getting tired of being manipulated with arguments like this!