thom space

This about a german geting sent to jail for being “ironic” brings up so many interesting points for me. 1)Does an author have juristiction over the meaning of the words he/she writes? In the example of the german with his comments about 9/11, does his intent to draw attention to hypocracy by making a faintly ironic statment protect him from from breaking a law that forbids statements being made that “glorify crimes”?

(Sure there is MORE)

I think that clearly he is in violation of the law as it is written, because the law makes no distiction as to intent, the law is only concerned with content. I think that clearly the statement

“Yes, Congratulations to the murderers of 11.09.02…. Good, that on 11.09 a couple of real men (!) found the courage to show the evil ones, the USA how it really is!”

has the effect of “glorifying a crime” even if it is meant to be sarcastic.

2) Is it a question of freedom of speech? I don?t think it is. It is a question of whether or not it is right to have laws that forbid the use of certain speech that have been clasifed as harmful. If it is right to make laws that forbid such speech, than the german should be sent to jail, if it is not than the german should be sent on his merry way. I don?t think it is difficult to think of examples of forms of speech that should be outlawed, but at the same time I find it hard to support limits on speech no matter how dumb they might be.

On a different subject 3)does the german have a point when he said “he was attempting to display the hypocrisy in valuing American lives over others” when he posted his coment in response to a person “who appeared to be pleased about the alleged murders of thousands of Taleban fighters by local militias during the downfall of the Afghan regime in 2001″? I think he does. Murder is murder after all, and if they were simply murdered for being a member of a political party I can?t imagine any thing more unjust. On the other hand if the were killed in the process of defending a political doctrine that was in support of the murder of innocent people, which is very well the case, I think that the moral value of the lives lost in the world trade center is much higher than the moral value of the killed Taliban fighters. There is a very fine line between what seperates a “terrorist” from a normal person. I think that line is crossed when a person decides to attempt to make political or military gains at the expense of people who are not politically or militarly involved.

I think this transfers directly over to the conflict in isreal. There is a moral difference between the Isreal and Palistine. One side attemps to make political gains by killing the public in bus stations, and the other trys to attack military leaders responsible for killing people in bus stations. Anyways I am done talking about this now.

In closeing: in this day and age an author does not have juristiction over the meaning of their words. Becuase the beauty of Cut and paste has done away with the last shed of relivance context ever had.

Therefore be very very careful what you write not what you mean.

(I may be being ironic, not that it matters)