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To: annalex
What boots?

The boots of the men who arrest those who voice "illegal speech."

What "wow"?

The "Wow, you have no idea what totalitarianism is like . . . you have no sense of history and folks like you would doom us all to repeat it."

129 posted on 02/02/2006 11:20:53 AM PST by Petronski (I love Cyborg!)
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To: Petronski

The penalty for defiance of censorship in the West has always been a fine, with closing the newspaper a sanction of last resort. No boots.

I have a very good idea of what totalitarianism is like: I grew up in the Soviet Union. I remember sneaking around with typewritten copies of Gulag Archipelago very well. We understood freedom of speech because we knew why it matters. To ridicule the faith, however misplaced, of a religious minority from under the protection of an atheist state is very much akin to what the Soviet propaganda machine was doing; it has zero relevance to freedom of speech. Are you seriously comparing the uber-establishmentarian Le Monde to a dissident publication?

Decency in the public space is what safeguards freedom of speech.


130 posted on 02/02/2006 11:33:40 AM PST by annalex
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