Goody Two Shoes: James Taranto Outs Himself (A Double Standard on Free Speech - From a Conservative)

The Stiletto Blog ^ | October 13, 2006 | The Stiletto

[theothercheek]

The Stiletto wondered about James Taranto’s stance on the Armenian Genocide ... today he outed himself as a genocide denier in a stunningly hypocritical article replete with intellectual dishonesty and moral cowardice.

About the new law passed by the French parliament that makes it a crime to deny that the Turks tried to wipe the Armenians off the face of the earth in 1915 (to do so is punishable by a year’s imprisonment and a €45,000 fine - the same as for denying the Nazi Holocaust - Taranto writes:

"We have no opinion on whether the events of 1915 constitute genocide or not, and if we did have an opinion, we'd tell you we didn't, for the simple reason that we wish to avoid getting grief from either Turks or Armenians."

Having "no opinion" on whether the wholesale slaughter of Armenians in 1915 (one of many such episodes of mass murder perpetrated by Turks, going back to the 1850s) is an established historical fact is akin to having "no opinion" on whether the Nazis killed six million Jews - or even one. Hitler himself used the Armenian Genocide as the blueprint for the Final Solution.

Further, the term "genocide" was coined to describe the deliberate series of actions taken by the Ottoman Turks and the Nazi Germans to systematically eradicate Armenians and Jews. Therefore, the Turks were directly responsibile for the Armenian Genocide, and indirectly responsible for the Nazi Holocaust.

Taranto continues:

"We do have an opinion, though, on the French proposal to criminalize the Turkish viewpoint. It's a very bad one.

"We come at this issue, of course, from an American perspective: We don't think any idea, no matter how odious or false, should be against the law. But we can understand why Europeans feel constrained to criminalize Holocaust denial and other forms of anti-Semitic speech. Anti-Semitism is a dangerous part of the European psyche, and if Europeans think it necessary to resort to extraordinary means to suppress it, who are we to argue?"

He can "understand" why a ban on anti-Semitic speech is necessary, but not a similar ban on speech that perpetuates the suffering of the Armenian people by denying their grievous losses.

He must also "understand" Turkey’s Article 301, which makes it a crime to "insult Turkishness" by speaking or writing about the Armenian Genocide, because he did not characterize it as a "Turkey of an Idea" when it was enacted in June 2005.

The Stiletto does not believe in criminalizing speech – whether that speech is anti-Semitic., insults Turkishness or is odious in any other way. She also agrees with Nat Hentoff that it is wrong to punish odious speech with additional hate crime laws, an alarming trend in the US.

France’s effort to stifle speech on the Genocide is particularly ironic, considering that courageous Turks like Pamuk are risking their freedom – and their lives – to fight for the right to speak out on this shameful chapter in their country’s history. Turkish novelist – and newly minted Nobel Laureate – Orhan Pamuk ran afoul of Article 301 and was threatened with imprisonment, along with 60 other writers to date.

Fearless opinion slinger that he is, Taranto will gladly risk "getting grief" from neo-Nazis or Islamofascists by rightly condemning violence against Jews, but balks at arousing Turkish ire over the Armenian Genocide - even though he writes from the safety of the US, where he is not subject to free speech restrictions, or threatened with loss of livelihood or of his very life.

The bottom line is, you won’t get an argument from Taranto if you criminalize speech that denies the Holocaust or acknowledges the Armenian Genocide. It’s only criminalizing speech that denies the Armenian Genocide that he has a problem with. Hitler famously asked, "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?" If Taranto's double standard on free speech prevailed, no one could.

[bahblahbah]

I don't doubt the Armenian genocide happened, but no way denying that it happened should be a crime.

[rlmorel]

My grandfather was a full blooded Armenian whose mother fled to the USA.

athe Armenian Holocaust happened. But what are we going to do about it today? It is true that I will carry the anger of 9/11 in my heart as long as I live and the people responsible still walk the earth, but I wouldn't want to pass it on to my kids.

My grandfather did not have the hate passed on to him, and he did not pass it on to us.

[Steve Van Doorn]

]”I don't doubt the Armenian genocide happened”

Just curious why you don’t believe these Muslims didn’t wipe out Christians?

[Zeppo]

He must also "understand" Turkey’s Article 301, which makes it a crime to "insult Turkishness" by speaking or writing about the Armenian Genocide, because he did not characterize it as a "Turkey of an Idea" when it was enacted in June 2005.

That statement is pure and unadulterated nonsense. The French proposal was widely reported in Western news media. Was "Turkey’s Article 301" similarly reported? I don't remember seeing articles about it, and a quick google search shows at least an order of magnitude more hits for the French action than for the Turkish one. The author damages his (her?) own credibility by making such statements, not Taranto's.

[Between the Lines]

Genocide, the original hate crime.

[Between the Lines]

I don't doubt = I do believe

[Steve Van Doorn]

yeah but bahblahbah doubts.. i just wonder why.

[Steve Van Doorn]

oh boy... i am all messed up today. I am sorry. You are right. my bad

[MNJohnnie]

Typical Leftist hysteria. More worried about a historical sin, none of whoms perpetrators are still still a live, then actually dealing with real genocide going on in Dafur or Iran or North Korea or else where.

The American Left, a Hive of Hypocrisy

[Michael.SF.]

from the safety of the US, where he is not subject to free speech restrictions

The author really does not have a clue.

[theothercheek]

Here in the US, Taranto cannot be imprisoned for what he writes in his column. That is not the case for writers and journalists in Turkey who acknowledge the Armenian Genocide as historical fact. They face three years in prison - and Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk was also forced to flee the country for several weeks or months because of death threats.

[theothercheek]

The Stiletto is emphatically not a liberal - read through random posts on thestilettoblog.com and see for yourself, if you want. The historical sin of which you speak has never been acknowledged by the perpetrators and reparations have never been made. In other words, justice was never done. Also, you may not know the extent of the sin. Yes, in 1915 1.5 million Armenians were killed. But every 10 years or so from the 1850s onward, the Turks killed 200,000 to 300,000 of them even before they embarked on their "final solution." By the time the Ottoman Empire fell, more than half of all Armenians ever born had been wiped off the face of the earth. Even now, there are only about 4 million Armenians in the entire world - 91 years later and the population still hasn't recovered from the massive loss. Shouldn't the Turks be brought to account for this?

[theothercheek]

I just did a Google News search and found something like 800 articles on this Turkish law. Every time a writer was threatened with prosecution, the press covered it - and not just Orhan Pamuk. The Arizona Republic, for instance, covered the case of Elif Shafak, a Turkish novelist who is a professor at ASU and ran afoul the law because a character in her novel acknowledged the Genocide. I will refrain from commenting on your credibility, but your research skills leave a lot to be desired.

[theothercheek]

If the Berlin Wall can come down, there can be peace between Armenians and Turks. But, the Turks have to acknowledge their crime against humanity - and the first step would be to repeal Article 301 (there is also an Article 305 that is also relevant) so that the honest dialog that needs to occur between the two groups can occur without people fearing imprisonment.

[theothercheek]

I agree that criminalizing speech is a bad idea. France's law criminalizing speech denying the Genocide should be repealed - along with its law criminalizing speech denying the Holocaust (other European countries have similar laws as well). And Turkey's laws criminalizing speech acknowledging the Genocide should be repealed. Jeff Jacoby had a great column about all this yesterday: "Censoring Ideas" at: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/10/18/censoring_ideas/

[rlmorel]

I can agree with that, although to be honest, I have soured a bit on the concept of a people apologizing to some other people about something that happed hundreds of years ago. Maybe it was Clinton that finally made me come to that point...

[Michael.SF.]

We do not have today, nor have we had for a long time unlimited freedom of speech and if the left continues to get their way we will have even less. Others may deal with restrictions on speech more harshly then we do, but they have had a jump on us. Give us time and we will do the same.

[Zeppo]

I just did a Google News search and found something like 800 articles on this Turkish law.

Your attempt to cast aspersions on my Google searching competence is way off base. In fact, you need to examine your own ability to do a meaningful Google search.

Go back and perform the search again, and you will see that many or most of those Google News search hits are recent references from obscure Turkish sources, and many of the ones that are from Western sources are recent articles that talk both about Article 301 and the French action with respect to Armenian genocide denial. More importantly, look at the dates of the articles in your Google News search, and see how many of them date from the time when Article 301 was enacted (which was claimed to have been enacted in June 2005). I expect that you will find that none (or almost none) of the Google News results go back to that date. So, the results of your search are completely irrelevant to the original charge that I disputed, which was, He must also "understand" Turkey’s Article 301, which makes it a crime to "insult Turkishness" by speaking or writing about the Armenian Genocide, because he did not characterize it as a "Turkey of an Idea" when it was enacted in June 2005.

My comment concerned the fact that Article 301 did not generate contemporaneous news reporting in Western media (in June 2005) comparable to that of the recent French action at the time that it was taken. The original charge, which I was commenting on, does not mention the "every time a writer was threatened with prosecution, the press covered it" litmus test that you later came up with in your reply to me. Your 'test' conveniently moves the goalposts. I can not let you get away with that...

Contrast that with the news coverage of the French ban, which happened very recently, and not in 2005. You will see many more Western news sources quoted. It was widely reported in the Western news media. Taranto's column is titled "Best of the Web Today", because its focus is on items that are being reported on the web "Today".

So, the article is indeed trying to make a "federal case" out of nothingness, and is imputing motives to Taranto that can not be supported by any objective analysis presented in that article.

[theothercheek]

1. Taranto has written approvingly of Turkey joining the EU on several occasions, and has run a number of items from "obscure Turkish sources" - so he must either read them or one of his readers sends them to him for story tips. It is not inconceivable that he would have known about the Turkish laws criminializing Genocide acknowlegement from one of these sources.

2. Taranto certainly was aware of the laws by the time he wrote his column last week and should have mentioned them in the same breath as the French law - as Jeff Jacoby did.

3. Taranto had no problem with the French law when it only criminalized Holocaust denial - but when it was expanded to include Genocide denial as well that's when he had a problem. Even then, he was against the expanded version but found it in his heart to "understand" why the original verion was necessary.

I'm sorry, but all of this adds up to a double standard on free speech.

BTW, I am very well aware of the editorial scope of coverage of BOTWT as I read it every day. The "Today" part is not to be taken literally as Taranto often tackles historical subjects or puts things into historical context.