8 ms·

France is about to become less free

48 points by cwwc 6y ago

sleepysysadmin 6y ago
France has been under martial law for years. It started November 13th 2015. They didn't declare it during Charlie Hebdo, but rather the Paris and Saint Denis attacks. It was likely to going to expire but they extended the measure until after the election. So France had been under 'state of emergency' for years and there just so happens to be a fresh terrorist attack each time they needed to extend the state of emergency. The election was very unusual as well. Very unusual results that certainly appears like election fraud. No worries though, he was running against Hitler and the Nazi party. Dont worry the governments thoroughly investigated her for various crimes during the election and even demanded she be put in confinement to answer for the charges in front of the court. With that majority he could let the state of emergency lapse. Oh right I forgot, they only let it lapse because they created anti-terror legislation. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-41493707 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-41493707 Basically the police can walk into any house in France without warrant and search it. Thousands of searches a year and only single digit charges. Oh don't forget that virtually everyone's internet can be monitored anytime by French police. Or how about the: >One measure will allow the Interior Ministry, without approval from a judge, to set up large security perimeters in case of an identified threat, restricting movement of people and vehicles and with power to carry out searches inside the area. The very clear violation of human rights for years the yellow vests formed to protest the government. It wasn't just the human rights, tons of bullshit by the government. In response to the yellow vests the army was deployed. France's state propaganda even wrote about it: https://www.france24.com/en/20190322-france-macron-risky-plan-army-streets-yellow-vests-protests-sentinelle https://www.france24.com/en/20190322-france-macron-risky-pla... That was March 23rd 2019. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_vests_movement#16_March:_%22Act_XVIII%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_vests_movement#16_March... The reason the yellow vests didn't really have any updates after March 16th was because France arrested all the yellow vest leaders. https://news.yahoo.com/yellow-vest-leader-eric-drouet-arrested-220652802.html https://news.yahoo.com/yellow-vest-leader-eric-drouet-arrest... Also notice the September wiki entry that 'a new wave of protests' and 'demonstrators taken into custody' Then covid hit and the government went much further. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/09/france-thousands-of-protesters-wrongly-punished-under-draconian-laws-in-pre-and-post-covid19-crackdown/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/09/france-thousa... "It also finds that long before the pandemic, first aiders, journalists and human rights observers were among those targeted under vague laws during nationwide protest movements that began in late 2018." "Between November 2018 and July 2019, 11,203 Yellow Vests protesters were placed in pre-charge detention." "Frédéric, a trade union organiser, has been arrested and prosecuted several times over the past two years for his peaceful activities and fined five times for participating in what the authorities considered ‘banned protests’." In 2019, 20,280 people were convicted of “contempt of public officials”, including protesters. This vaguely defined offence covers anything deemed to “affect the personal dignity or the respect owed to a public official” and is punishable with up to a year in jail and a fine of up to €15,000. The amazing thing is that the French people aren't even aware they are under martial law and their human rights are gone. That this happened before Covid even was a thing. In this case it's just a new measure to restrict journalists from revealing the reality of their martial law.
thecureforzits 6y ago
You become what you hate.
- racl101 6y ago
  I need to hate skinny people.
- sharkjacobs 6y ago
  Do you though? I think there is dramatic irony if you become what you hate which makes it feel unexpected and important and memorable, but I would push back against the idea that you more likely to become something if you hate it, without further evidence, or at least some kind of exploration of why that happens and in what kind of circumstances.
NikolaeVarius 6y ago
I find it annoying that I can't actually verify the claims in the article because the alot of the stuff it references are still in French. I find french politics to be strange though, so I'm not surprised
- curiousmindz 6y ago
  I'm not sure why that is "annoying". Of course, French-centered topics would be in French. Also, your browser probably has an integrated translation feature. If not, you can copy'n'paste the url on a translation website.
  - NikolaeVarius 6y ago
    Because I want to be able to double check claims made by an article. Do you take claims with face value? And why the hell would you think a auto translation feature would be adequate to figure out the nuances of law text?
jpster 6y ago
Will the EU weigh in?
- hiq 6y ago
  Already done: https://www.politico.eu/article/commission-opinion-france-law-journalism-police-photos/ https://www.politico.eu/article/commission-opinion-france-la...
- bobthechef 6y ago
  Of course not (well, not anything beyond a ceremonial slap on the wrist, perhaps). France is the junior partner in the Franco-German hegemony that is the EU, even if they are a bit of a Fredo of the pair. You have to be a "second tier" subordinate member before the "EU" will say anything, and not really because any freedoms are being restricted necessarily, but because it messes with the tight grip of the German hegemonic power structure. If you were a neoimperialist, would you want your de facto colonies getting "uppity"? Heck no. In dictatorships, you use the baton. In democratic republics, you use the media to shape opinion and "soft" political coercion. You don't want people to know you're an imperialist, after all.
varispeed 6y ago
What's weird is that I cannot see a connection between the attacks and the changes in law. Had these changes have been in place, would these have prevented the attacks? It seems like the French want to look "tough", without actually solving the problem and perhaps introducing a dash of more problems.
- shrimp_emoji 6y ago
  >An amendment requiring that academic research hew to the “values of the Republic” was scrapped only at the last minute, after strong pushback by scholars who feared that its intent was to restrict freedom of inquiry. >Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer has bemoaned the influence of American critical race theory on the French social sciences, blaming them for undermining France’s race- and ethnicity-blind universalism, and for giving comfort to “islamo-gauchisme,” or “Islamo-leftism.” That term, coined by the French far right, blames progressive intellectuals for nourishing radical political Islam through their work on structural racism and Islamophobia. “The fish rots from the head,” Blanquer quipped. Wow.
  - wyoh 6y ago
    Well that part is true but I don't think they choose the best way to deal with it.
  - kazagistar 6y ago
    Critical race theory is so obvious its just boring. The boogeyman the right makes out of it just feels dumb.
    - rayiner 6y ago
      It’s obvious as a matter of academic theory to study society through racial lenses among other viewpoints. But that’s not what anyone is objecting to. (Critical race theory has been around for decades without much mainstream attention or opposition.) What people are objecting to is the application of critical race theory to restructuring social and political relationships. Earlier this year, this happened at my law school: https://thehill.com/opinion/civil-rights/516127-the-real-conversation-on-racism-is-much-more-difficult-but-necessary https://thehill.com/opinion/civil-rights/516127-the-real-con... > The acting dean of Northwestern University Law School began a diversity event by declaring, "I am James Speta and I am a racist." He was followed by Emily Mullin, executive director of major gifts, who said, "I am a racist and a gatekeeper of white supremacy. I will work to be better." These kind recitations are now expected of anyone claiming to oppose racism. Talk like this would have been an unimaginable norms violation just ten years ago when I was at Northwestern. And it’s “obvious” to me that it’s a terrible idea to replace our existing social norms with ones that center race in all places and at all times, and provoke confrontation along racial lines. As a “person of color” I don’t view the world through the lens of “white supremacy” out to get me. I certainly don’t want my half white daughter to view the world and the white half of her family that way. (I would go so far as to say that such rhetoric in a school environment would amount to creation of a hostile environment bordering on abuse.) Its one thing to study history, economics, and the law through those lenses. That can lend great and valuable insights. But it’s entirely different to single out individuals as “gatekeepers of white supremacy” so as to restructure interpersonal relationships at school or work along critical race theory lines. And the opposition isn’t just coming from the “right” but also traditional liberals. Macron is, of course, a left-leaning liberal. My mom, a Muslim immigrant who has voted Democrat ever since she became a naturalized citizen, forwarded me Donald Trump’s order banning critical race theory-based training, with the note “he did a good thing, that was evil.”
coldcode 6y ago
If they come back with guillotines, then I would be more worried.
- 01000010x 6y ago
  Be worried, a majority of us is actually thinking about it. https://www.google.fr/amp/s/www.leparisien.fr/amp/societe/peine-de-mort-une-majorite-de-francais-favorable-a-son-retablissement-14-09-2020-8384640.php https://www.google.fr/amp/s/www.leparisien.fr/amp/societe/pe...
raverbashing 6y ago
Take all interpretations of French politics/laws from American journalists with a good amount of salt. This week there was already a massive wave of disinformation by the part of WP and NYT saying France was going the way of a famous 20th century authoritarian regime.
- crocodiletears 6y ago
  I wonder what precipitated this slew of coverage. In my subjective experience, when Western European states do something creepy or authoritarian, publications like the WP and NYT seem to ignore or downplay it. Never gets much play here in the US unless you're reading fringe publications. Are France and the US in a policy dispute? Or is it just the strike against academia and critical race theory?
  - littlestymaar 6y ago
    It used to be the same about France (France has been on this slope for a decade), but now the French political situation has become more than just “something creepy or authoritarian”, and is becoming really scary even by American standards. In a law proposal discussed today, facial recognition via drones will be deployed and filming the police will get you in jail for up to 48h without seeing a judge, and your phone/camera will be taken from you for up to six month, again without judge intervention.
- littlestymaar 6y ago
  Yesterday night: An homeless immigrant being thrown from his tent https://twitter.com/RemyBuisine/status/1330979314272178185 https://twitter.com/RemyBuisine/status/1330979314272178185 Then, the journalist who made this shot (Remy Buisine) is beaten by the police https://twitter.com/Marco_cgr/status/1330997295618416643 https://twitter.com/Marco_cgr/status/1330997295618416643. He was assaulted three times in one hour (https://twitter.com/RemyBuisine/status/1330993051263791104 https://twitter.com/RemyBuisine/status/1330993051263791104) And the government is currently passing a law that will allow the police to arrest anyone filming their intervention (journalists included). The direction taken by France is indeed really concerning.
cryptica 6y ago
The government can never increase freedom. It can only reduce freedom. The only way to increase freedom is by reducing the government.
- Pet_Ant 6y ago
  That is rediculous. Your model assumes that all freedom is freedom from legislative restrictions. If I have universal healthcare, then I am free of the worry of medical bankruptcy. Being free from things is a significant source of freedom.
  - candiodari 6y ago
    As someone recently working in hospitals (in Europe), no it cannot. Medical issues can rapidly and permanently reduce you to government support, which is guaranteed to destroy your financial situation quickly. Also, quite a lot of treatments are not done, or have absurd waiting lists, so you’ll be tempted to get yourself into medical bankruptcy anyway by going private/abroad. Either that or accept delayed subpar care. Or no care at all.
- feoren 6y ago
  Do people really believe bullshit like this, or do they just regurgitate it to feel enlightened? Like the world is made up of 27 Absolute Rules and if you know all 27 then you are the smartest person. Only a Sith deals in absolutes.
  - alentist 6y ago
    What an ironic comment.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- romanoderoma 6y ago
  As a popular Italian artists said freedom is not the opportunity of doing whatever you want without any limit, if they leave me in the desert and tell me "you are free now, do whatever you like" I would not be free at all.
rayiner 6y ago
I think the situation in France is probably hopeless. Even Muslim-majority countries are having a difficult time reconciling themselves with the rise of Islamic separatism. In countries like Bangladesh, where I’m from, or Turkey or Egypt, the separatism takes the form of reaction against the moderate secular regimes of the 20th century. Here is the President of Egypt in 1958 recounting his conversation with the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood. He and the audience laugh at the leader’s request to mandate headscarves in Egypt, observing that the leader’s own daughter, a medical student, doesn’t wear a headscarf: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZIqdrFeFBk https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZIqdrFeFBk. Back then, few women in Egypt wore a headscarf. Today, 90% of women do (and Muslim Brotherhood was recently in control of the country). In Bangladesh there are objections to our legal system, which is based on British common law, and our western-style constitution that embodies principles of secularism: https://resolvenet.org/system/files/2018-08/RSVE_03BangladeshBrief_ShariaDemocracy2017.pdf https://resolvenet.org/system/files/2018-08/RSVE_03Banglades.... People don’t give the United States enough credit for how well we have assimilated our Muslim immigrants. In France and Germany, Muslims suffer from generational poverty. In the US, they have higher incomes than average within a generation. I think our religiosity had a lot to do with it. We are a country founded by people who got kicked out of Europe for being religious fundamentalists. Our society functions smoothly with Mormons, Jehovah’s witnesses, Amish, etc. Our society is accommodating on multiple levels—religious immigrants aren’t exclusively reliant on the goodwill of a segment of cosmopolitan liberals who like the idea of diversity for its own sake. Mormons and Southern Baptists took an active role in legal challenges to Trump’s “Muslim ban” (a tepid reaction compared to what’s happening in Europe). They have likewise challenged municipal actions denying construction permits for mosques. George W. Bush saw Islamic terrorists kill thousands of Americans and days later gave a heartfelt speech—coming from his own experience as a man of deep faith—about how Islam is a “religion of peace.” Meanwhile in France even liberal people strongly support stripping schoolgirls of headscarves. Macron is calling Islam a “religion in crisis.” French society barely manages to accommodate Christianity. How can it be expected to accommodate Islam?
- raverbashing 6y ago
  > People don’t give the United States enough credit for how well we have assimilated our Muslim immigrants Maybe because they are way fewer, having higher burdens for immigration (even given the geographical distance) and comimg from more tolerant generations/timeframes.
mensetmanusman 6y ago
Can anyone recommend additional analysis from a French perspective in English?
- svat 6y ago
  The following two articles I read earlier are not analyses of these laws specifically, but I found them useful to understand a little bit about the French perspective: • One of these two — https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/caroline-fourest-liberalism-france https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/caroline-fo... (“Why the American Press Keeps Getting Terror in France Wrong”) and https://unherd.com/2020/10/why-is-the-anglo-media-portaying-france-as-the-villain/ https://unherd.com/2020/10/why-is-the-anglo-media-portaying-... (“Why is the Anglo media portraying France as the villain?”) — points out ways in which the English-language media seems to have a different perspective from the French. For example, after a sword-wielding maniac decapitated a teacher on the street and was shot by the police, the New York Times framed it in the context of ongoing American conversations about police violence, emphasizing the police response more than the beheading (original headline “French Police Shoot and Kill Man After a Fatal Knife Attack on the Street”). • This one — https://unherd.com/2020/11/the-age-old-clash-between-islam-and-france/ https://unherd.com/2020/11/the-age-old-clash-between-islam-a... (”The age-old tension between Islam and France”) — takes a longer view, and it does not take the position of saying that Islamic values are against obviously-good French values: it shows how French/Western values have also sought to impose themselves on the Islamic world in an uneasy way, starting from when Napoleon took to Egypt “a printing press, a hot-air balloon and a small army of intellectuals”.
  - mensetmanusman 6y ago
    Thank you, these are great.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
bJGVygG7MQVF8c 6y ago
> blaming reporting by English-language news outlets, including The New York Times and The Washington Post, for “legitimizing this violence,” Where is the lie

48 points by cwwc 6y ago

France has been under martial law for years. It started November 13th 2015. They didn't declare it during Charlie Hebdo, but rather the Paris and Saint Denis attacks. It was likely to going to expire but they extended the measure until after the election. So France had been under 'state of emergency' for years and there just so happens to be a fresh terrorist attack each time they needed to extend the state of emergency. The election was very unusual as well. Very unusual results that certainly appears like election fraud. No worries though, he was running against Hitler and the Nazi party. Dont worry the governments thoroughly investigated her for various crimes during the election and even demanded she be put in confinement to answer for the charges in front of the court. With that majority he could let the state of emergency lapse. Oh right I forgot, they only let it lapse because they created anti-terror legislation. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-41493707 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-41493707 Basically the police can walk into any house in France without warrant and search it. Thousands of searches a year and only single digit charges. Oh don't forget that virtually everyone's internet can be monitored anytime by French police. Or how about the: >One measure will allow the Interior Ministry, without approval from a judge, to set up large security perimeters in case of an identified threat, restricting movement of people and vehicles and with power to carry out searches inside the area. The very clear violation of human rights for years the yellow vests formed to protest the government. It wasn't just the human rights, tons of bullshit by the government. In response to the yellow vests the army was deployed. France's state propaganda even wrote about it: https://www.france24.com/en/20190322-france-macron-risky-plan-army-streets-yellow-vests-protests-sentinelle https://www.france24.com/en/20190322-france-macron-risky-pla... That was March 23rd 2019. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_vests_movement#16_March:_%22Act_XVIII%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_vests_movement#16_March... The reason the yellow vests didn't really have any updates after March 16th was because France arrested all the yellow vest leaders. https://news.yahoo.com/yellow-vest-leader-eric-drouet-arrested-220652802.html https://news.yahoo.com/yellow-vest-leader-eric-drouet-arrest... Also notice the September wiki entry that 'a new wave of protests' and 'demonstrators taken into custody' Then covid hit and the government went much further. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/09/france-thousands-of-protesters-wrongly-punished-under-draconian-laws-in-pre-and-post-covid19-crackdown/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/09/france-thousa... "It also finds that long before the pandemic, first aiders, journalists and human rights observers were among those targeted under vague laws during nationwide protest movements that began in late 2018." "Between November 2018 and July 2019, 11,203 Yellow Vests protesters were placed in pre-charge detention." "Frédéric, a trade union organiser, has been arrested and prosecuted several times over the past two years for his peaceful activities and fined five times for participating in what the authorities considered ‘banned protests’." In 2019, 20,280 people were convicted of “contempt of public officials”, including protesters. This vaguely defined offence covers anything deemed to “affect the personal dignity or the respect owed to a public official” and is punishable with up to a year in jail and a fine of up to €15,000. The amazing thing is that the French people aren't even aware they are under martial law and their human rights are gone. That this happened before Covid even was a thing. In this case it's just a new measure to restrict journalists from revealing the reality of their martial law.

thecureforzits 6y ago

You become what you hate.

racl101 6y ago
I need to hate skinny people.
sharkjacobs 6y ago
Do you though? I think there is dramatic irony if you become what you hate which makes it feel unexpected and important and memorable, but I would push back against the idea that you more likely to become something if you hate it, without further evidence, or at least some kind of exploration of why that happens and in what kind of circumstances.

NikolaeVarius 6y ago

I find it annoying that I can't actually verify the claims in the article because the alot of the stuff it references are still in French. I find french politics to be strange though, so I'm not surprised

curiousmindz 6y ago
I'm not sure why that is "annoying". Of course, French-centered topics would be in French. Also, your browser probably has an integrated translation feature. If not, you can copy'n'paste the url on a translation website.
- NikolaeVarius 6y ago
  Because I want to be able to double check claims made by an article. Do you take claims with face value? And why the hell would you think a auto translation feature would be adequate to figure out the nuances of law text?

jpster 6y ago

Will the EU weigh in?

hiq 6y ago
Already done: https://www.politico.eu/article/commission-opinion-france-law-journalism-police-photos/ https://www.politico.eu/article/commission-opinion-france-la...
bobthechef 6y ago
Of course not (well, not anything beyond a ceremonial slap on the wrist, perhaps). France is the junior partner in the Franco-German hegemony that is the EU, even if they are a bit of a Fredo of the pair. You have to be a "second tier" subordinate member before the "EU" will say anything, and not really because any freedoms are being restricted necessarily, but because it messes with the tight grip of the German hegemonic power structure. If you were a neoimperialist, would you want your de facto colonies getting "uppity"? Heck no. In dictatorships, you use the baton. In democratic republics, you use the media to shape opinion and "soft" political coercion. You don't want people to know you're an imperialist, after all.

varispeed 6y ago

What's weird is that I cannot see a connection between the attacks and the changes in law. Had these changes have been in place, would these have prevented the attacks? It seems like the French want to look "tough", without actually solving the problem and perhaps introducing a dash of more problems.

shrimp_emoji 6y ago
>An amendment requiring that academic research hew to the “values of the Republic” was scrapped only at the last minute, after strong pushback by scholars who feared that its intent was to restrict freedom of inquiry. >Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer has bemoaned the influence of American critical race theory on the French social sciences, blaming them for undermining France’s race- and ethnicity-blind universalism, and for giving comfort to “islamo-gauchisme,” or “Islamo-leftism.” That term, coined by the French far right, blames progressive intellectuals for nourishing radical political Islam through their work on structural racism and Islamophobia. “The fish rots from the head,” Blanquer quipped. Wow.
- wyoh 6y ago
  Well that part is true but I don't think they choose the best way to deal with it.
- kazagistar 6y ago
  Critical race theory is so obvious its just boring. The boogeyman the right makes out of it just feels dumb.
  - rayiner 6y ago
    It’s obvious as a matter of academic theory to study society through racial lenses among other viewpoints. But that’s not what anyone is objecting to. (Critical race theory has been around for decades without much mainstream attention or opposition.) What people are objecting to is the application of critical race theory to restructuring social and political relationships. Earlier this year, this happened at my law school: https://thehill.com/opinion/civil-rights/516127-the-real-conversation-on-racism-is-much-more-difficult-but-necessary https://thehill.com/opinion/civil-rights/516127-the-real-con... > The acting dean of Northwestern University Law School began a diversity event by declaring, "I am James Speta and I am a racist." He was followed by Emily Mullin, executive director of major gifts, who said, "I am a racist and a gatekeeper of white supremacy. I will work to be better." These kind recitations are now expected of anyone claiming to oppose racism. Talk like this would have been an unimaginable norms violation just ten years ago when I was at Northwestern. And it’s “obvious” to me that it’s a terrible idea to replace our existing social norms with ones that center race in all places and at all times, and provoke confrontation along racial lines. As a “person of color” I don’t view the world through the lens of “white supremacy” out to get me. I certainly don’t want my half white daughter to view the world and the white half of her family that way. (I would go so far as to say that such rhetoric in a school environment would amount to creation of a hostile environment bordering on abuse.) Its one thing to study history, economics, and the law through those lenses. That can lend great and valuable insights. But it’s entirely different to single out individuals as “gatekeepers of white supremacy” so as to restructure interpersonal relationships at school or work along critical race theory lines. And the opposition isn’t just coming from the “right” but also traditional liberals. Macron is, of course, a left-leaning liberal. My mom, a Muslim immigrant who has voted Democrat ever since she became a naturalized citizen, forwarded me Donald Trump’s order banning critical race theory-based training, with the note “he did a good thing, that was evil.”

coldcode 6y ago

If they come back with guillotines, then I would be more worried.

01000010x 6y ago
Be worried, a majority of us is actually thinking about it. https://www.google.fr/amp/s/www.leparisien.fr/amp/societe/peine-de-mort-une-majorite-de-francais-favorable-a-son-retablissement-14-09-2020-8384640.php https://www.google.fr/amp/s/www.leparisien.fr/amp/societe/pe...

raverbashing 6y ago

Take all interpretations of French politics/laws from American journalists with a good amount of salt. This week there was already a massive wave of disinformation by the part of WP and NYT saying France was going the way of a famous 20th century authoritarian regime.

crocodiletears 6y ago
I wonder what precipitated this slew of coverage. In my subjective experience, when Western European states do something creepy or authoritarian, publications like the WP and NYT seem to ignore or downplay it. Never gets much play here in the US unless you're reading fringe publications. Are France and the US in a policy dispute? Or is it just the strike against academia and critical race theory?
- littlestymaar 6y ago
  It used to be the same about France (France has been on this slope for a decade), but now the French political situation has become more than just “something creepy or authoritarian”, and is becoming really scary even by American standards. In a law proposal discussed today, facial recognition via drones will be deployed and filming the police will get you in jail for up to 48h without seeing a judge, and your phone/camera will be taken from you for up to six month, again without judge intervention.
littlestymaar 6y ago
Yesterday night: An homeless immigrant being thrown from his tent https://twitter.com/RemyBuisine/status/1330979314272178185 https://twitter.com/RemyBuisine/status/1330979314272178185 Then, the journalist who made this shot (Remy Buisine) is beaten by the police https://twitter.com/Marco_cgr/status/1330997295618416643 https://twitter.com/Marco_cgr/status/1330997295618416643. He was assaulted three times in one hour (https://twitter.com/RemyBuisine/status/1330993051263791104 https://twitter.com/RemyBuisine/status/1330993051263791104) And the government is currently passing a law that will allow the police to arrest anyone filming their intervention (journalists included). The direction taken by France is indeed really concerning.

cryptica 6y ago

The government can never increase freedom. It can only reduce freedom. The only way to increase freedom is by reducing the government.

Pet_Ant 6y ago
That is rediculous. Your model assumes that all freedom is freedom from legislative restrictions. If I have universal healthcare, then I am free of the worry of medical bankruptcy. Being free from things is a significant source of freedom.
- candiodari 6y ago
  As someone recently working in hospitals (in Europe), no it cannot. Medical issues can rapidly and permanently reduce you to government support, which is guaranteed to destroy your financial situation quickly. Also, quite a lot of treatments are not done, or have absurd waiting lists, so you’ll be tempted to get yourself into medical bankruptcy anyway by going private/abroad. Either that or accept delayed subpar care. Or no care at all.
feoren 6y ago
Do people really believe bullshit like this, or do they just regurgitate it to feel enlightened? Like the world is made up of 27 Absolute Rules and if you know all 27 then you are the smartest person. Only a Sith deals in absolutes.
- alentist 6y ago
  What an ironic comment.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
romanoderoma 6y ago
As a popular Italian artists said freedom is not the opportunity of doing whatever you want without any limit, if they leave me in the desert and tell me "you are free now, do whatever you like" I would not be free at all.

rayiner 6y ago

I think the situation in France is probably hopeless. Even Muslim-majority countries are having a difficult time reconciling themselves with the rise of Islamic separatism. In countries like Bangladesh, where I’m from, or Turkey or Egypt, the separatism takes the form of reaction against the moderate secular regimes of the 20th century. Here is the President of Egypt in 1958 recounting his conversation with the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood. He and the audience laugh at the leader’s request to mandate headscarves in Egypt, observing that the leader’s own daughter, a medical student, doesn’t wear a headscarf: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZIqdrFeFBk https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZIqdrFeFBk. Back then, few women in Egypt wore a headscarf. Today, 90% of women do (and Muslim Brotherhood was recently in control of the country). In Bangladesh there are objections to our legal system, which is based on British common law, and our western-style constitution that embodies principles of secularism: https://resolvenet.org/system/files/2018-08/RSVE_03BangladeshBrief_ShariaDemocracy2017.pdf https://resolvenet.org/system/files/2018-08/RSVE_03Banglades.... People don’t give the United States enough credit for how well we have assimilated our Muslim immigrants. In France and Germany, Muslims suffer from generational poverty. In the US, they have higher incomes than average within a generation. I think our religiosity had a lot to do with it. We are a country founded by people who got kicked out of Europe for being religious fundamentalists. Our society functions smoothly with Mormons, Jehovah’s witnesses, Amish, etc. Our society is accommodating on multiple levels—religious immigrants aren’t exclusively reliant on the goodwill of a segment of cosmopolitan liberals who like the idea of diversity for its own sake. Mormons and Southern Baptists took an active role in legal challenges to Trump’s “Muslim ban” (a tepid reaction compared to what’s happening in Europe). They have likewise challenged municipal actions denying construction permits for mosques. George W. Bush saw Islamic terrorists kill thousands of Americans and days later gave a heartfelt speech—coming from his own experience as a man of deep faith—about how Islam is a “religion of peace.” Meanwhile in France even liberal people strongly support stripping schoolgirls of headscarves. Macron is calling Islam a “religion in crisis.” French society barely manages to accommodate Christianity. How can it be expected to accommodate Islam?

raverbashing 6y ago
> People don’t give the United States enough credit for how well we have assimilated our Muslim immigrants Maybe because they are way fewer, having higher burdens for immigration (even given the geographical distance) and comimg from more tolerant generations/timeframes.

mensetmanusman 6y ago

Can anyone recommend additional analysis from a French perspective in English?

svat 6y ago
The following two articles I read earlier are not analyses of these laws specifically, but I found them useful to understand a little bit about the French perspective: • One of these two — https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/caroline-fourest-liberalism-france https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/caroline-fo... (“Why the American Press Keeps Getting Terror in France Wrong”) and https://unherd.com/2020/10/why-is-the-anglo-media-portaying-france-as-the-villain/ https://unherd.com/2020/10/why-is-the-anglo-media-portaying-... (“Why is the Anglo media portraying France as the villain?”) — points out ways in which the English-language media seems to have a different perspective from the French. For example, after a sword-wielding maniac decapitated a teacher on the street and was shot by the police, the New York Times framed it in the context of ongoing American conversations about police violence, emphasizing the police response more than the beheading (original headline “French Police Shoot and Kill Man After a Fatal Knife Attack on the Street”). • This one — https://unherd.com/2020/11/the-age-old-clash-between-islam-and-france/ https://unherd.com/2020/11/the-age-old-clash-between-islam-a... (”The age-old tension between Islam and France”) — takes a longer view, and it does not take the position of saying that Islamic values are against obviously-good French values: it shows how French/Western values have also sought to impose themselves on the Islamic world in an uneasy way, starting from when Napoleon took to Egypt “a printing press, a hot-air balloon and a small army of intellectuals”.
- mensetmanusman 6y ago
  Thank you, these are great.

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bJGVygG7MQVF8c 6y ago

> blaming reporting by English-language news outlets, including The New York Times and The Washington Post, for “legitimizing this violence,” Where is the lie