This is SO typical of those who scream about THEIR freedom of speech. While he/you professes to be all for freedom of speech, when it comes to those he doesn’t agree with, he’ll resort to namecalling, and I’d be willing to bet that he doesn’t stop there.

I don’t know if the Holocaust happened or not, and neither do you, but namecalling and cheap insults will only show the ignorance, lack of decency, and lack of intelligence on the part of those who practice these pathetic tactics.

Thanks.

My point is that too many people are looking to the EU as the harbinger of bad times to come whereas we ought to pay closer attention to the degradation of our own system of governance here — and at the hands or our own leaders, no less.

Yes, politics makes not only strange bedfellows but some unsavory ones, too.

Yes, what the EU is proposing is a level of cynicism yet higher — even if in there, somewhere, is a nub of idealism, which there may well be.

It was genocide, the first of the 20th century. Sadly, it occured in the age before modern telecommunications. So, when the tree fell in a forest where no one was listening, there were plenty of people who were ready to claim that it made no noise.

Hitler understood the opportunities this presented to him when he famously asked (in Mein Kampf): “After all, who remembers the Armenians?” And this was barely a decade after it happened.

On a related note:

I think I’ve said here before that you/we don’t need to travel to Europe to experience the mealy-mouthed kowtowing of bureaucrats.

Remember when Robert Gates and Condi Rice warned Nancy Pelosi AGAINST a Congressional vote to classify the killings of Armenians by the Ottoman Turkish government early in the 20th century as genocide?

No? Neither do most people. But everyone should be aware of the Gates/Rice letter and the rationale for dropping the matter:

“Turkey remains an indispensable partner to our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, helping our troops accomplish their mission to combat terrorism and build security in both of these young democracies…”

Really, Ron, is this any better than the EU? No it’s not.

More:

“When the French National Assembly in October 2006 voted in favor of a bill that would criminalize denial of the events of 1915, the Turkish military cut all contacts with the French military and terminated defense contracts under negotiation.”

Now I’d be the first to call bullsh-t on the French government for criminalizing free speech, just as I am for calling the Turkish government on their criminalization of those who “insult Turkishness.” But the Gates/Rice response to Pelosi is particularly craven and cowardly.

“A similar reaction by the elected government of Turkey to a House resolution could harm American troops in the field, constrain our ability to supply our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan…”

Pelosi’s resolution is exactly the kind of thing our troops are fighting for — freedom of speech.

And if Gates/Rice were to get their way, the terrorists would have won a small but important battle, no?

“After all, who remembers the Armenians?”

I do not believe in inherited guilt. I raised that briefly here and no one bit. but “collective guilt”? I believe you can usefully generalize about the people of a nation and that, yes, there can be national or collective responsibility for national or collective actions taken in the national or collective name. Otherwise how can war be waged?; and yet sometimes it must be.