New bill to punish people who boycott Israel with a minimum civil penalty of $250,000 and a maximum criminal penalty of $1 million and 20 years in prison. So far 43 senators cosponsoring — 29 Republicans and 14 Democrats (including the fake progressives Ted Lieu and Kirsten Gillibrand). https://theintercept.com/2017/07/19...-support-for-boycott-campaign-against-israel/ https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/720/cosponsors
Did we have politicians trying to pass similar laws when we were trying to boycott the apartheid regime in South Africa? I would not boycott Israeli products personally, but people have the right to do so, be it for reasons of politics, human rights or antisemitism, it is their right IMO. There are a shit lot of countries that violate human rights that could be boycotted, Israel, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Zimbabwe, the Central African Republic, ect. People should be free to choose what repressive regimes they want pick on and what oppressive regimes they avoid calling out. To be fair, buying shit from N.K. CAR or Zimbabwe may be hard even if you wanted to.
So, the only time that the Senate gets bi-partisan is when it sponsors a pandering, deeply anti-American bill? That figures. This time, both sides really did do it. That I cannot deny. #Bothsidesdidit. Oh, and for those who don't like the term "political correctness" -- this, friends, is why the term exists. There is no better term for what these Senators are doing. (Yeah, I know, sometimes "political correctness" is just an all-purpose insult used by the right against the left, and that is a stupid usage, but the term if used properly applies equally to the left and right.)
What I want to know is who this heap of steaming mess is supposed to achieve? Half of American Jews think Israel kowtows to the orthodox and is too aggressive on foreign policy. I mean, they wouldn't boycott Israel themselves, and they certainly wish for it to exist, but they can see why people would have an issue with Israel. So this bill is to appease the other half of American Jews -- 1% of the entire population -- plus the Christian fundamentals who have an Israel fetish? Correct?
What behavior does this bill actually sanction? Are they seeking to compel people to buy Israeli oranges, or just to avoid announcing the reason they are not buying Israeli oranges? And will donations to politicians who support this bill be protected as free speech, but those to any seeking its repeal be sanctioned?
I am sure this will be challenged in court, here are a lost of American companies that do boycott Israeli companies that do business in the occupied territories. http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-e-u-vs-b-d-s-the-politics-of-israel-sanctions Remember European countries also had some similar laws (France I believe was one, I am not sure about Germany), but the EU court struck them down.
Seems that most of the senators who signed on, didn't even read it (they are now because of the criticism). They automatically sign what AIPAC gives them.
I think you are correct, and that is shameful. I don't want Senators rolling over like that for any lobby, even if it's one that I adore.
Blasphemy laws table, where does your country rank. https://www.economist.com/blogs/erasmus/2017/08/anti-religious-speech
That's pretty reliably a list of the world's best countries, in reverse order. It also correlates well with corruption ratings, which doesn't say much for religion's moral powers.
I'm guessing the source has something to do with it. To be more charitable, perhaps it's a "laws on the books" thing and not necessarily enforcement.
Yes, that is why Ireland is so high in the list, they do have laws even when they are hardly enforced. Wait a second, that is Italy not Ireland. Why is Ireland so low (not directed at you Timon, just a general I am surprised question on my part)?
Well we know European countries have more limits on free speech. Some hard left people in the USA may like things like this (I mean it sounds good but the implications, there are Christian TV personalities that have said similar shit after homophobic attacks). https://www.yahoo.com/news/muslim-leader-compared-gay-people-paedophiles-jailed-093216499.html
The Most Shortsighted Attack on Free Speech in Modern U.S. History A faction on the left wants to weaken the free-speech rights that protect marginalized people at the very moment when doing so would help Donald Trump to persecute them. https://www.theatlantic.com/politic...tack-on-free-speech-in-modern-history/537468/ When free-speech advocates point out that the First Amendment protects even hate speech, as the attorney Ken White recently observed, they are often met with extreme hypotheticals. For example: “So, the day that Nazis march in the streets, armed, carrying the swastika flag, Sieg-Heiling, calling out abuse of Jews and blacks, some of their number assaulting and even killing people, you'll still defend their right to speak?" In Charlottesville, he declared, something like that scenario came to pass: “Literal Nazis marched the streets of an American city, calling out Jews and blacks and gays, wielding everything from torches to clubs and shields to rifles, offering Nazi slogans and Nazi salutes. Some of their number attacked counter-protesters, and one of them murdered a counter-protester and attempted to murder many others. This is the ‘what if’ and ‘how far’ that critics of vigorous free speech policies pose to us as a society.” ... Yet even now, at the bottom of the slippery slope, a broad reading of the First Amendment is still the framework that best protects ethnic and religious minority groups. In fact, marginalized groups—street activists, Muslim immigrants, Black Lives Matter protesters—would suffer particularly at this very moment if the faction of progressives who want to limit free speech got their way. This last bit is why the ACLU is correct, that the hate which was spewed in Charlottesville should have been allowed because when "hate speech" en mass is judged to be too far, it is the powers that be to define what they think is worthy of investigating and prosecuting as "hate speech."
Hell, I don't know how that report works. Just that if the subject is blasphemy, as in religious discussions, that we don't have many laws against that (if any).
In the case of the US with your polarized political system that would be the likely outcome. But it doesnt have to be like that. You can set standards when defining hate speech that lie outside the reach of everyday politics or authorities. That is why this, your argument is more of a lazy excuse for not having to change the current state.