Thursday, February 23, 2006

And Then They Came for the Blasphemers

Germany has apparently decided to one-up Austria for illiberal nonsense by throwing a man in jail for blasphemy. Apparently the guy (who has the usual subtle-as-a-jackhammer and clever as a slug sense of humor so characteristic of these dark ages) printed up toilet paper with the word "Koran" on them and offered them to mosques. Yuck, yuck. What a card.

So, now he's going to jail for "insulting religious beliefs". Yes, that's illegal in Germany. A liberal and enlightened society decides that the state should abandon one of the central tenets of enlightenment liberalism so that it can persecute one of its citizens. Hasn't Germany been down this Sonderweg before?

2 comments:

SecondComingOfBast said...

I tell you, this kind of thing is going to cause a backlash eventually, it already has in a way. This is a perfect example of why France, of all places, voted down the EU. The average person is getting tired of all this nonsense, but the governments either are too stupid to get it, or are hoping it will all eventually blow over if they ride it out.

In the long run, they might give rise to power of the very thing they fear most-another Hitler. Maybe not in the short run, but-

Rufus said...

Well, let's hope not. But, here is the problem that liberal democracies have- they often resort to offering these concessions to all-or-nothing extremists who offer them nothing of the sort in return. Can you imagine an Arab country jailing its anti-Semites? Of course not.