ещё раз о цензуре и свободе слова

[avva]

“Получается, что у американского общества отсутствует какое-либо моральное превосходство перед гитлеризмом или сталинизмом в части подавления неугодных идей и политической цензуры.” — пишет zarnitsa (в комментариях там).

Update: Автор закрыл запись. Речь там шла о решении компании Дисней запретить своей дочерней компании Мирамакс дистрибуцию нового фильма Майкла Мура (ультралевого журналиста, получившего “Оскар” за свой предыдущий фильм, Bowling for Columbine).

Хороший пример леволиберальной истерики, о которой я писал подробнее год назад. Цитируя ту запись: “Когда русскоязычный американец говорит мне (а я слышал заявления такого рода от нескольких), что со свободой слова в США сегодня дела обстоят примерно так, как в СССР брежневских времён, мне интересно, чем обусловлено возникновение столь чудовищного по своему несоответствию истинному положению дел взгляда. Дело ли именно в непонимании самого понятия свободы слова, или взгляде на реальность вокруг себя сквозь какие-то особенно искажающие идеологические линзы, или ещё в чём-то?”

В данном случае пишет русскоязычный канадец, поэтому (довольно характерно!) отрыв от реальности ещё дальше, вместо брежневских времён имеем приравнивание к сталинским/гитлеровским.

Comments

Re: here you go

[talash.livejournal.com]

technically yes, but prior to that he was excluded from school, lost his job and now has a criminal record despite this fact.

Re: here you go

[dr-tambowsky.livejournal.com]

Come on, that's quite some backing up from the original statement. This is a very nasty story, I could not agree more (though I hope - and believe - that they will be able to fight the record off as well, the fact that the judge labeled the legislation as 'too vague' may have many implications). But the fundamental difference in our perceptions seems to lie in the following: you see it as a sign of a frontal assault on the liberties, I see it as (unfortunately) unavoidable jitter in the system (please don't ask me if I would like to experience such jitter myself, no, I don't). It's akin the specificity/sensitivity interplay. Either - or. You want to make sure that your sensitivity is high (in a sense that everything, which is wrong passes the filter and gets noticed), the price for that is lowered specificity - sometimes your filter lets perfectly ok things through. I basically find it reassuring that in this particular case the wrong signal was manually taken out of the system. Formally, the debate made perfect sense: the prosecutor strived to prove that there was an intent. I think you will have no problem with army shooting a terrorist wearing explosive belt before the explosives went off, on the basis of intent only, or you would say, "oh, what if that was just a fashion statement?" As soon as the lack of intent was proven (even not that, they just failed to prove the presence of intent), the guy was released. Again, I have my objections, it took too long, and the record too and so on and so forth. And I also believe that 'watchdogs' must be in place to help with identifying such 'jitter cases'. But I do not support your interpretation. For that matter, the recent case of the woman accused and charged for not having C-section is much more alarming, in my opinion.

[arpad.livejournal.com]

Very good definition. Thanks.

Re: here you go

[--oblya.livejournal.com]

The difference is as you said that you have not experienced "The system". Glad for you. Drive carefully. If not, be sure to check out what to expect, like for instance:

www.spr.org

The things that you do not see and do not know, may still exist.
People have not realized at a time that Stalin camps existed as well.

As for the free press, checkout the latest:

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38376

No I am not a liberal, just curious.

Re: here you go

[dr-tambowsky.livejournal.com]

you have not experienced "The system". Wrong. I did. Fortunately, not to the extent being discussed. All the rest applies only if you agree that some "system" must be in place (what exactly it should be is another question), otherwise just skip the post.

The things that you do not see and do not know, may still exist. True. I was discussing the particular case, in which the system actually did work as intended (with all the downsides given the attention). I have no problems whatsoever with the case. I do have big problems with handling the case. I tried to stress this difference. I might have problems with some other cases per se.

People have not realized at a time that Stalin camps existed as well. Also true. This is a very strong argument that supposedly proves anything. If you look carefully, I have never said that the system is perfect. Neither did I say that any system should be left alone. On the contrary, it should be tickled all the time to keep it on its toes. And that is the only thing radicals (left or right, depending on the question at hand) can be useful at all. As watchdogs. Because they are inherently incapable of creating anything useful in the world, which is not black and white. And if they are, well, I'd rather not see them succeeding :) My only point, which I am reiterating now the 5th time in a row I guess, is that even radical people in the watchdog role (not mentiong all others!) should not exaggerate to such an extent when noone would ever take them seriously. Claiming the 'censorship' is just one of the examples of such exaggeration that only hurts their case (and demonstrates stupidity too, in my humble opinion).