There has been a storm in a teacup over here. What happened is that someone decided to hang a nazi-flag in his balcony in Helsinki. People noticed it, and called the police. The cops came over, inspected the situation and told the people "There's nothing we can do. It's not illegal to display a flag on your balcony". After a while, someone climbed to the balcony, and ripped the flag down, while others applauded him.
Naturally, the opinions on the matter have been divided. Some people think that the person who ripped the flag did a good thing (even though he broke the law, since balconies are considered to be part of your home, so he was guilty of trespassing and maybe theft), and that the society should ban the "ideology", and the display of nazi-symbols should also be banned.
I and several others took the exact opposite viewpoint. If we want a free society with free citizens, it means that we must tolerate ideas, symbols and viewpoints that we might not personally condone. I have no sympathy for nazis, but if we start banning opinions and ideologies, how exactly are we different from the nazis? Nazis punished people who had "wrong" opinions, and now we should do the same, all in the name of "freedom"?
It was surreal to see people who called themselves "opponents of nazism" advocate the use of exact same methods as nazis used to use. They advocated punishing people for their opinions and ideas without batting an eyelid. When I and others told them that they are in fact mimicking what nazis did, the fact totally escaped them.
It's not really a free society, if we are free to agree with one another. The measure of freedom is that we can disagree. that we can have opinions that others might not like. If we want to have freedom of opinion, it means that EVERYONE has that right, including the nazis.
At this point I was told that "of course you are free to have any kind of opinions you like, but you should not be allowed to express them just like that". For a while I had to think that was the person joking or not. But no, apparently he was being serious. Are we a free society if we are not allowed to express our ideas and opinions?
It's strange, really. So we should ban nazism and related symbols, but in the meantime we have two (or more, depending who you ask) communistic parties in Finland. We even have a big statue that glorifies communism in Helsinki that was donated by Moscow. I bet that communism has just as much victims as nazism has, maybe even more. Yet no-one is calling for the banning of that ideology, nor is anyone vandalizing the statue (although there are several people calling for it's removal). The only difference I can think of is that nazis lost the war, while communists won it.
Of course all this does not mean that nazis (for example) should be allowed to attack minorities etc. Ideology and opinion is not a "get out of jail"-card. The point is that opinions can never be considered a crime. Someone might have the opinion that "all red-headed people should be beaten up", and he should not be punished for that opinion. If he actually started beating red-headed people up, THEN he would be due for a punishment.
Yes, it was stupid to hang that flag on the balcony. But people should have the right to be stupid.
Showing posts with label people. Show all posts
Showing posts with label people. Show all posts
Awkward moments in the morning
Every time I step out of the train in the morning, I need to walk this past older gentleman who hands out free newspapers in the train-station. I think he gets paid a nominal fee for the service he provides. But since I read those very same newspapers on the train, I do not need to get a newspaper from him. And that fact torments me.
When I walk past him, and not take the newspaper he offers, I feel a sting in my heart. Am I robbing him of his income? What should I do? I don't want to get a newspaper, since I have already read it. So it's better for him to hold on to the paper and give it to someone who has not read the paper yet. Should I just look at him and shake my head when he offers the paper? I have tried that, and he always seems to disappointed. I have recently tried to hasten my pace and look away, but that feels even worse.
Sometimes it seems that life is one small awkward moment after another.
When I walk past him, and not take the newspaper he offers, I feel a sting in my heart. Am I robbing him of his income? What should I do? I don't want to get a newspaper, since I have already read it. So it's better for him to hold on to the paper and give it to someone who has not read the paper yet. Should I just look at him and shake my head when he offers the paper? I have tried that, and he always seems to disappointed. I have recently tried to hasten my pace and look away, but that feels even worse.
Sometimes it seems that life is one small awkward moment after another.
Shootout
Well, as you may or may not know, there has been a serious case of school-shootout in Finland. There's not much to say about the tragedy itself, since words would be pretty pointless.
What I can talk about is the reaction of the media and people to the event. "Disappointed" doesn't even begin to describe my feelings. Where to begin...
First of all, media is telling how "we may never know the reasons for his crime". Well, apart from the lengthy manifesto he posted on the internet? Now, his motives are obviously screwed up, but they are nevertheless his motives. So we do know. We do not agree with them, we might not understand them, but we know what they are.
Second, we get the usual comments in the media that "did he practice the killing in videogames?". Um, no. Aiming with the mouse and clicking the mouse-button does not in any shape or form prepare you to fire an actual handgun on a living, breathing human being. And even further: the dude specificly said that games, movies, music, his parents or his friends are not the reason for his actions.
Third: we get bunch of people telling how we should "ban handgun". Well, banning handguns would not change the fact that this person was homicidial psycho. The gun was just a tool, not the reason. Had he not had a gun, he could have used a knife (like the killer in Japan did in 2001), or pipe-bombs, or Molotov cocktails instead. Guns are very rarely used for killing others in Finland, even though we are one of the most heavily-armed nations in the world. Usually people use knives or something similar.
What I find lacking is real discussion to the reasons for this tragedy. What could have been done to prevent it? What could we do to prevent future cases? What we DO get is pointless discussion about videogames and banning guns. Since knives kill a lot more people than guns do, why isn't anyone insisting that we should ban knives while we are at it? Instead of intelligent discussion, we have a moral panic, where people talk about the easy things: guns. Guns are easy to blame. But they are not the reason, they are merely a tool. They are easy to blame, but they are the wrong thing to blame. What they do not talk about are the hard things we should be talking about instead: why?
What I can talk about is the reaction of the media and people to the event. "Disappointed" doesn't even begin to describe my feelings. Where to begin...
First of all, media is telling how "we may never know the reasons for his crime". Well, apart from the lengthy manifesto he posted on the internet? Now, his motives are obviously screwed up, but they are nevertheless his motives. So we do know. We do not agree with them, we might not understand them, but we know what they are.
Second, we get the usual comments in the media that "did he practice the killing in videogames?". Um, no. Aiming with the mouse and clicking the mouse-button does not in any shape or form prepare you to fire an actual handgun on a living, breathing human being. And even further: the dude specificly said that games, movies, music, his parents or his friends are not the reason for his actions.
Third: we get bunch of people telling how we should "ban handgun". Well, banning handguns would not change the fact that this person was homicidial psycho. The gun was just a tool, not the reason. Had he not had a gun, he could have used a knife (like the killer in Japan did in 2001), or pipe-bombs, or Molotov cocktails instead. Guns are very rarely used for killing others in Finland, even though we are one of the most heavily-armed nations in the world. Usually people use knives or something similar.
What I find lacking is real discussion to the reasons for this tragedy. What could have been done to prevent it? What could we do to prevent future cases? What we DO get is pointless discussion about videogames and banning guns. Since knives kill a lot more people than guns do, why isn't anyone insisting that we should ban knives while we are at it? Instead of intelligent discussion, we have a moral panic, where people talk about the easy things: guns. Guns are easy to blame. But they are not the reason, they are merely a tool. They are easy to blame, but they are the wrong thing to blame. What they do not talk about are the hard things we should be talking about instead: why?