Peter Chattaway
2011-06-23 01:35:36 UTC
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/270251/hate-couture-mark-steyn
June 22, 2011 12:53 P.M.
By Mark Steyn
I gave (via video) a short speech in Melbourne this week supporting Andrew Bolt and the cause of free speech in Australia. It’s easy to defend Bolt: He’s a humane and civilized writer, and his prosecution is a disgrace.
John Galliano is a harder case. The celebrated Dior couturier would appear to be a visceral Jew-hater: He told Geraldine Bloch she had a “dirty Jewish face,” and two Italian women that their parents should have been gassed and that he loved Hitler.
Nonetheless, like this (Jewish) blogger, I don’t see why someone should be hauled into court for calling someone a “dirty Jew.” Had I been Mme Bloch’s “partner” (in Euro-speak), I would have slugged the rancid little toad. But I’m not interested in empowering the state to micro-regulate human conversation. France, in particular, could use a lot more honest discourse.
And, if the justification is pour encourager les autres, it doesn’t seem to be working — any more than the prototype “hate speech” regime of Weimar Germany did. Euro-leftists are ever more openly anti-Semitic, and liberal Jews get harassed in Central London. The ever more coercive enforcers of the Diversity Commissars will have no impact on those malign trends, except to ensure that no one gets to raise the subject in public with any honesty.
Galliano is an irrelevant drug-addled old queen, but the law under which he’s being prosecuted is a big part of Europe’s problems.
June 22, 2011 12:53 P.M.
By Mark Steyn
I gave (via video) a short speech in Melbourne this week supporting Andrew Bolt and the cause of free speech in Australia. It’s easy to defend Bolt: He’s a humane and civilized writer, and his prosecution is a disgrace.
John Galliano is a harder case. The celebrated Dior couturier would appear to be a visceral Jew-hater: He told Geraldine Bloch she had a “dirty Jewish face,” and two Italian women that their parents should have been gassed and that he loved Hitler.
Nonetheless, like this (Jewish) blogger, I don’t see why someone should be hauled into court for calling someone a “dirty Jew.” Had I been Mme Bloch’s “partner” (in Euro-speak), I would have slugged the rancid little toad. But I’m not interested in empowering the state to micro-regulate human conversation. France, in particular, could use a lot more honest discourse.
And, if the justification is pour encourager les autres, it doesn’t seem to be working — any more than the prototype “hate speech” regime of Weimar Germany did. Euro-leftists are ever more openly anti-Semitic, and liberal Jews get harassed in Central London. The ever more coercive enforcers of the Diversity Commissars will have no impact on those malign trends, except to ensure that no one gets to raise the subject in public with any honesty.
Galliano is an irrelevant drug-addled old queen, but the law under which he’s being prosecuted is a big part of Europe’s problems.
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