Proof that Europe isn't free

Two cases this week, both dealing with Nazis, prove that Europe is not a free society.  We aren't talking about Nazi's rallying or hate crimes being committed.  We are talking about two people who said one thing or another about the Third Reich and managed to get in trouble because of it.  Not just civil problems but criminal.  In America, if you defame someone or say something really nasty to another person, you can be sued under libel and slander laws if the victim can prove that monetary damages were inflicted.  Europe, with its thin skin, obviously cannot handle people saying inflammatory comments. 

 

Case 1: David Irving, known by some as an historian and by others as a holocaust denier, was sentenced to three years in prison in Austria for stating, among other things, that the Nazi leaders did not personally order the genocide during World War II.  He based his claim in that he never found any documentation on this fact.  Though this seems to go against what most people think to be the truth, the man has the right to his opinion.  Nobody is being forced to listen to him, and most people think he's just some quack.  But not the authorities in Austria, you see, there are laws there prohibiting someone from denying the holocaust.  Pretty strange in my opinion, and I personally think those laws help their cause.  Why have a law about something that is undeniably true?  Holocaust deniers will say those laws exist because they are right and the establishment is trying to prevent them from speaking the truth.  Do I agree with them?  No, but I think laws prohibiting someone from talking about something in any way go against fundamental human freedoms. 

 

Case 2: Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London, has been suspended from office for one month for calling reporter Oliver Finegold a "concentration camp guard" and a "war criminal."  Finegold is Jewish, and said that he was offended by these comments.  This is even more outrageous than case 1.  When a society has arrived at a point where calling someone a more colorful term than "bastard" can lead to being suspended from office for a month, that society is obviously a bunch of whiners. 

 

Dick Cheney once told Senator Leahy to "go fuck yourself."  What happened?  We had a good laugh. 

 

Europe, get your act together.

Ports

Many angry conservatives and liberals are demanding Bush's head over the UAE ownership of companies that will control several US ports. For those of you unaware of the situation, a British company that controlled six US ports was recently acquired by a company that is based in the United Arab Emirates.

I think this is one of the worst political scandals ever, but here's where I differ from most, there's nothing wrong with an Arab country owning our ports!

First of all, it was a British company before, so this isn't about us losing a domestic company to foreign control. I see no different between the British and the UAE.

Second, the security forces of the port, which includes US Customs, will all be based in the USA. Do any of you really care who owns the ports? This country was a free market the last time I checked, I see nothing wrong with us allowing foreign corporations to operate here.

Lastly, the big argument is that the UAE was a "home base" for Al-Qaeda. SO WAS THE USA. Where do you think they learned to fly and plotted their schemes?

Politicians like Hillary Clinton are jumping on this issue and saying that no foreign countries should control our ports. All of my points above address this issue. Anyone who agrees with these politicians is obviously uneducated or unaware of the situation; the politicians are playing on America's ignorance to use it for the own political gain.

Also, the UAE has been a pretty good supporter of the US for the last few years. They are doing this because, as an Arab country, they are seen as a haven for terrorists and can count their citizens as being among the usual suspects. We have very few allies these days, and I don't know why any American would want to risk losing one over a situation as trivial as this one.

We cannot sacrifice our free market principles because a few uneducated people are jumping on the idea of Arabs having something to do with the United States. Obviously you keep tabs on anyone dealing the the ports. But barring someone from doing legal business is a breach of our country's founding principles and ushers us down the path of fascism, not to mention losing a country that has supported us in recent years.

The Final Solution?

Read about this on Reason today.  Well, it seems the bigots can't get enough of stomping on gay people.  Since most of the people that don't like gays are not the most intelligent people in the world (read: Jerry Falwell), they are now trying to prohibit gay people from adopting children. 

 

Why are they doing this?  Who knows.  Statistics show that children raised by gay people tend to have the same chances of being gay as the rest of the population (obviously, since its not like you choose it).  Of course, the religious right doesn't understand this.  They think that having gay people adopt kids makes the kids gay.  So maybe if we don't let them "have" children, we will eliminate them, kind of like Hitler's "Final Solution" but a little less harsh, since we aren't killing them...yet.

 

The real hypocrisy is that the religious right hates abortion.  They say that adoption is a very good alternative, which I think everyone agrees with.  But many gay people adopt children who are physically or mentally disabled, which most couples avoid like a sick chicken.  These children just end up in foster homes, orphanages, or other undesirable locations.  Where do you think the kids would rather be? 

 

However, let's assume that we want to keep kids out of households that may cause the kids to be... whacky (for lack of a better word), later on.  I've introduced some rules that would lead to "mainstream" kids.

 

1. No children can be adopted by anyone with a below average (<100) IQ

2. No children can be adopted by anyone who attends a non-majority religious services (i.e. no Jews, muslims, hindus, etc.)

3. No children can be adopted by anyone without a college degree

4. No children can be adopted by anyone who has ever been or known a member of a fringe political group

5. No children can be adopted by anyone who was not born a US citizen

6. No children can be adopted by anyone who is married to, dated, or is friends with people of a different race

7. No children can be adopted by anyone who has committed any type of crime, including getting a speeding ticket (bad driving could endanger the child, or cause them to speed when they grow up)

8. No children can be adopted by someone who was fathered by or adopted by any of 1-7.

 

Now that we've taken care of all of the bad parents, we're left with about... 10 good ones, at best.  So, what do we do with the millions of children without parents?