“The ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas — that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out.” –Oliver Wendell Holmes
”Freedom of speech includes responsibilities and limitations”
In a private email conversation with a few acquaintances, concerning free speech and the detestable Finnish anti-Semite, Juha Kärkkäinen (pictured below), and his continued incitement of Jews and Israel on his website connected to his family’s grocery store chain, a couple of points were bought up, by myself and by Finnish blogger, Kumitonttu.
Kärkkäinen has already been fined 90 000 euros in a court case he lost concerning incitement of an ethnic group (subsequently halved), and it hasn’t stopped him, in fact, after the town of Ylivieska had awarded him last year (2014), with a medal for being a top entrepreneur for the city, he’s been upping his anti-Semitism full throttle.
The truth of the matter is, the answer to bad examples of free speech, is more free speech, that not only debunks, but marginalizes it. The danger lies in abdicating a fundamental right (free speech, upon which all other freedoms rest) into the very hands of those who, throughout history, have abused that position far more than any single person, or group or persons, and with greater ramification.
It’s a government with concentrated power, statist, (socialist or otherwise) that needs to be corralled, not individuals, for the state bears the banner of authority and therefore, credibility, upon which un-hinged voices capitalize on. Every act of state sanctioned massacre and genocide first carried out that agenda through vilification of the target, government(s) did that, statist government(s).
Kärkkäinen grocery store chain should have had their suppliers targeted in a campaign of ”Why are you still dealing in business transactions with a known anti-Semite”, the success from that, more than any fine imposed, would end Kärkkäinen’s evil stupidity.
We all want the same goal, but there are other means at achieving it than a knee-jerk turning to the courts (outside of explicit calls for violence) to tell us what and what can’t be said. Thankfully the US still has a first amendment, but unfortunately they’ve allowed ”hate crime” nonsense in as well. That’s just my opinion.
Blogger Kumitonttu says basically the same thing:
Power and responsibility belong together, freedom and obligation belong together. Freedom and responsibility are not measurable by the same standard, if there is no power, there is no responsibility. It’s simple. A politician has a huge responsibility. A parent has both power and responsibility. A child has freedom according to how he/she manages to fulfill the obligations it receives eg, homework and housework.
Freedom of expression is not related to liability/responsibility, but to obligations. The obligation is determined largely by cultural foundations. Our culture has different responsibilities of men, women, children and the media, in comparison, for example, as the Arabs. We have that media tries to keep the truth, but not so the Arabs. We frown upon lying, we do not have what is known in Islamic circles as taqiyyaa.
So please, stop talking about “freedom of speech and responsibilities”.
“…Kärkkäinen has already been fined 90 000 euros in a court case he lost concerning incitement of an ethnic group (subsequently halved), and it hasn’t stopped him, in fact, after the town of Ylivieska had awarded him last year (2014), with a medal for being a top entrepreneur for the city, he’s been upping his anti-Semitism full throttle….”
It seems it has cost this idiot a lot of money to indulge in his unwarranted Jew-kicking.
What justification do these sorts of people have for their behaviour apart from a malicious psychopathy.
Really, if you must demonise a group – take a close look at real and wannabe jihadis and the muslims who do nothing but give the their tacit approval. It is esablished fact that these people do more harm to large numbers of other people, themselves and society in general than any Jews are doing or have done.
That is perfectly obvious and completely undeniable. Yet nasty mided people like Mr Kärkkäinen choose to turn a completely blind eye to islamists, excusing their behaviour with absurd rationalisations and instead focus on harmless Jews .
One name for this is willful ignorance. There are many others – all bad.
Thanks MWKI, it goes to show how deeply their anti-Jew hatred is, that jackasses like Kärkkiänen, focuses all his interest in going after the Jews, who by the way, if they’re interested in anything outside their borders, it usually is only the tiny Jewish state, while the Muslims have a manifest destiny that seeks to turn the earth into an Islamic (hell hole) paradise. The whole fetish with Jews drips with irony.