In France, Only Journalists Can Film Violence 531
BostonBTS sends word that the French Constitutional Council has just made it illegal to film violence unless you are a professional journalist (or to distribute a video containing violence). The law was approved exactly 16 years after amateur videographer George Holliday filmed Los Angeles police officers beating Rodney King. The Council was tidying up a body of law about offenses against the public order, and wanted to ban "happy slapping." A charitable reading would be that the lawmakers stumbled into unintended consequences. Not according to Pascal Cohet, a spokesman for French online civil liberties group Odebi: "The broad drafting of the law so as to criminalize the activities of citizen journalists unrelated to the perpetrators of violent acts is no accident, but rather a deliberate decision by the authorities, said [Cohet]. He is concerned that the law, and others still being debated, will lead to the creation of a parallel judicial system controlling the publication of information on the Internet."
Re:Similar to good samaritan laws? (Score:5, Informative)
Another difference with the U.S. Supreme Court is that it can actually be seized (by Members of Parliament) before a law is voted on by Parliament itself. For instance, if some people introduce a law saying Linux is illegal and should be banned, it is highly possible that the Constitutional Council would be seized by MPs sympathetic to Linux. It is therefore, considered as the guardian of the Constitution and of Human Rights.
On the other hand, it is sad to note that its evolution has also mimicked the recent evolution of the U.S. Supreme Court: President Jacques Chirac has packed the Constitutional Council with conservative (sometimes ultra-conservatives) judges, people who can be extremely authoritarian (by French standards -- they would be considered as dangerous lefties in the U.S.) and sympathetic to his positions. And these positions probably include a lot of censorship of the Internet.
So, IMHO, it's not a surprise this stupid law is now passed in France. The ultimate appeal, of course, would be for a French Citizen to bring his/her case to the European Court of Human Rights, which could overturn the Constitutional Council decision as well as any and all court decision on such a matter. But that would probably take years of hard legal work, with all legal fees you can imagine.
Yes, this is bad news. As a French citizen, I am personally ashamed the Constitutional Council has taken such a position, especially since, as you mentioned, "happy slapping" videos could already be prosecuted under French Law as not helping someone in danger (Good Samaritan Law?), or even as being an accomplice to assault and battery. In France, if you see something, you have to do something!
In short: stupid, stupid, stupid. And shameful, to boot.
Re:liberty (Score:4, Informative)
Re:CCTV (Score:3, Informative)
Besides, they are not allowed to sell CCTV tapes, or broadcast them on the Internet. They'll be prosecuted if they do. France has got some pretty strong privacy laws like that. Furthermore, the fact CCTV cameras are in operation, for example in a mall, must be clearly advertised at the entrance of the mall itself. So, CCTV operators are not considered journalist in any way, only as people who are providing some sort of security to the general public.
Re:In France?! (Score:3, Informative)
The last "war for oil" was a series of minor battles running as a side-show to the WWII. Even the oil-starved Germany did not set Russia's oil-rich Caucasus as its main target.
To call our Iraq war "war for oil" and then call someone else "stupid" is a good illustration to that kettle-pot proverb, if you know, what I mean. Oil is not worth fighting for — US could've gotten Iraq's oil (and cheaply) by siply lifting the embargo — as France (among others) were suggesting.
But let's not change the subject, shall we? While continuously painting the US as a gloomy monster goose-stepping towards Fascism, France herself has seen prolonged racial riots and such new limits to freedoms, over merely suggesting which Bush would've been carried out of the office by his guards. Ha ha.
It's a serious problem. (Score:3, Informative)
For a number of reasons (poor language skills, almost no work ethic, a lack of European cultural understanding, etc.), these youth gather in gangs, and proceed to slap random individuals while videoing them with their cell phone cameras. They tend to target rather helpless victims, including younger children, the elderly, and women. They usually don't severely injure their victims, but it is still assault nevertheless.
Now, as an American I found it to be quite difficult to understand when I first moved to Europe. If a bunch of little punks had tried that sort of bullshit back in Omaha, they'd have likely gotten the living hell beat out of them. But Europe's a different place. People don't dare to fight back against these youth, as they will assuredly be convicted of committing a "hate crime". Politicians won't directly address the problem because doing so may be seen as politically incorrect. It's really pretty sad.
Re:liberty (Score:2, Informative)
Probably because the "Annual Worldwide Press Freedom Index" is bullshit, perhaps ranking only to what extent the press is censored into agreeing with "Reporters Without Borders".
No legitimate report on press freedom lists France ahead of America.
Re:Workaround (Score:3, Informative)
Re:It's a serious problem. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Workaround (Score:2, Informative)
And it can't ever work as you describe so long as they are essentially "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." and any government attempt at welfare programs must degenerate to that, almost by definition but certainly in practice.
Because if the government is doing it you get several undesirable side effects. First is that is done at gunpoint, like anything the government does, i.e 'donate' or we will kill/imprision you. Second is that letting the government do it turns charity into an entitlement. When someone is down on their luck and depending on a private charity they understand (or are quickly educated) that they are getting a free handout because someone feels sorry for em and that if they don't show some motivation to improve themselves they will eventually get told to bugger off. But if one is entitled, simply by virtue of citizenship (or now just by managing to scurry over the border....) to being supported out of the government's treasury then it is a short mental jump to deciding they are OWED a living.
But the worst problem with a representitive government getting into the charity business is that the freeloaders can vote themselves bread and circuses...... it has only taken a couple of generations to create a vast and growing unproductive class who have decided that not only are they owed a minimal existence that they are also owed enough to afford a cell phone, cable tv, dvd and a stash of weed. And it didn't take long at all to find an ample supply of politicians who are willing to pander to the needs of those who 'vote for a living.'
Consider that most of the people displaced out of those housing projects in New Orleans' 9th Ward were second, third and a fair number of fourth generation welfare clients incapable of ever sustaining themselves. Which is why for all the public statements, every city was desperately trying to divert as many of those busses elsewhere as they could. And for good reason, the vast majority of them are to this day still wards of the state, living in the housing projects in their new host states & cities.
France forward thinker in human rights? (Score:2, Informative)
Most countries in western Europe DO accept refugees and grant asylum. Btw, France doesn't come off all that well, ranking low in terms of inflow of refugees per capita:
#1 Sweden
#2 Denmark
#3 Germany
#4 Switzerland
#5 Norway
#6 Austria
#7 Canada
#8 Netherlands
#9 Australia
#10 United States
#11 Finland
#12 United Kingdom
#13 New Zealand
#14 France
(...)
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/imm_ref_inf_199
Re:liberty (Score:5, Informative)
Or like the eight US attorneys [mediamatters.org] who were fired because they were getting a little too close to improprieties by Republicans or because they wouldn't speed up an investigation into one alleged Democrat lawmaker's improprieties to meet an election timetable. They were fired under the pretense of poor job performance even though "at least five of [the U.S. attorneys] received positive job evaluations before they were ordered to step down" and one of the fired U.S. attorneys, John McKay, of the Western District of Washington, received a "glowing performance review" from the Justice Department seven months before he was forced out
Some of their replacements are poorly qualified Republican political flunkies.
Your other line of defense against fascism was the 4th estate and it's pretty clear in whose pocket the media conglomerates are in now.
You may not have fascism yet, but the stage is well set.
Re:yes, please be real... (Score:5, Informative)
Can we please lay this stupid myth to rest?
The French did fight, and fought hard; France suffered more battlefield deaths during WW2 than the US did. They surrendered because they were beaten, by an army -- the Wehrmacht -- that was unquestionably the best in the world at that time; quite possibly, allowing for technological changes over time, the best in history. And had London or Moscow or, yes, Washington DC had the misfortune to be as close to Berlin as Paris is, they would have suffered the same fate. There was simply no one in the world who could beat the Germans on the battlefield at that point; it took the surviving Allies years of catch-up, protected by the Channel, the Atlantic, and the simple size of Russia, to match them.
No one ever accuses the Poles and the Czechs of cowardice for falling to the Blitzkrieg, or the British for Dunkirk, or the Russians for being driven back across a piece of their country far larger than France in its entirety, or the Americans for waiting two years while Hitler ran wild. And anyone who believes that cowardice is part of the French national character should go count the graves at Verdun.
Re:It's a serious problem. (Score:4, Informative)
The real figures (Score:3, Informative)
In comparision the Americans lost 407,000 military personnel in total, some 130,000 of which were in Europe. Total civilians killed were 11,200.
And if you really think that they Americans came in (late) and saved the day, then look at the Russian casualties, 10,700,000 military personnel and 11,500,000 civilians. This was some 13% of their population. The USA lost under 1% of its population.
Clarifications (Score:3, Informative)
French are essentially a non-agressive people, the last time we INVADED another country in a formal war was probably in 1804 with Napoleon going all the way to Moscow (and back quicker than he went)
In the meantime (since 1804) and outside of WW periods the US has invaded Mexico (Alamo), Cuba (1905), Vietnam, Grenade, Panama, Irak (2 times), I didn't count Korea because it was a UN mandate and so I could also left aside the first Irak war
France is situated in the heart of Europe and more interestingly on the Atlantic wall, making it a VERY, VERY interesting place of land for Germany for example, check out a map and tell me why Germany has had no navy ? Because it can't take if out of it's harbours without going by England which is traditionally the great maritime power of Europe, and when you're a maritime power you have COLONIES, and when you have colonies you have MONEY
In the 2 WW where the french army was REALLY bad we were "taken by surprise" each time, it's not an excuse, it's a REASON for our defeats, besides the fact that each time the bulk of the German people WANTED war and were prepared for it and that the French didn't the French military command was/is UTTERLY HOPELESS
Since France is not a belligerent country the military career is FAR LESS appealing that in Germany at the beggining of XX century for example, thus Germany produced FAR BETTER soldiers and we had to stick with 70 years old generals using outadated tactics with absolutely NO SENSE of reality
In 1914 the Germans used an excuse to start the war and invade France, they were ready and willing, we were not, after a disastrous summer we managed to stop them some 40km east of Paris before "locking" the front, the same thing happened in 1940, except that the war was going faster, tanks and planes were going faster than in 1914 and we didn't have the place (think Russia) to slow them down and stop them
The French military is DEFINITELY not a great one, but what can we say about the US military in Pearl Harbor, what can we say about the US in 9/11 ?
The bottom line is that when you're taken by surprise you can do what you want but "the fish smells bad"...
Every historian agrees that if the French army didn't commit suicide in Dunkirk to allow the BEF (British Expeditionary Force) to get back to England (or at least a great part of it) WW2 could have had a VERY different outcome, would the US have "saved the world" if England had fallen in 40 ? Would Russia have been able to stop the Germans if England had fallen ?
Personally and looking at the general mood of US society in these days (racial laws and a generally right wing society) I think we ALL got VERY lucky that
1) The BEF got out enough men to make Hitler think twice about a frontal attack
2) Goring was a joke and the luftwaffe couldn't take out the RAF
3) The war started before the US 1940 elections where FDR was reelected when it seemed at the time it would go the other way around
4)And so on
The bottom line is that France is NOT a belligerent country and when you're surrounded by belligerent countries it's no wonder you lose wars, we don't LIKE war, come on, food and women are more interesting.
On top of this there is NO question that the french military in terms of equipment and leadership is not up to par and that poses the question of whether we NEED an army today, what for ? Who's going to invade us (AGAIN) ?
Re:Workaround (Score:2, Informative)
Shows how much you know about leftism
I'm an anarchist, all anarchists are socialists* (using the broad definition of socialism, not "state" or Marxist socialism) and progressive.
As an anarchist, I oppose the state. The state forces people to do things, takes away their "rights".
The only thing about anarchism, is that it doesn't allow people to force others to do things, or to create a social hierarchy. In practice, this only affects one area of "rights" as commonly understood. That is the area of "property". The unlimited accumulation of property would not be permitted in an anarchist society. The control of resources allows a person to dictate to others. Fuck that.
* "Anarcho-capitalists" are not true an anarchists, anarchists are against hierarchy, capitalism creates hierarchy.
So, to sum up. You are wrong and a troll. A fuckwit indeed. If you want to learn what at least some leftism is about, see my "homepage". Here you will find political ideologies ranging from the "Stalinist" and "leftists" that you seem to be talking about, to true anarchists and autonomous communists. If you want to discuss this with people, feel free. But you will have to do it in the cage, as you are likely to disrupt conversation otherwise.
Re:yes, please be real... (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, most of the work to liberate Europe was done by Russia. The entire western front pales in comparison to the scale and the number of casualties on the eastern front. For several years, Russia bore nearly the entire brunt of the German attack. It's the eastern front that exhausted the German war machine. Could the US have accomplished anything without Russia being there? I sincerely doubt it. Could Russia have done it without the US? Very probably (although lend-lease certainly helped).
But back to the comparison of the US and the UK. Could the US have staged an invasion like Normandy without England as a jumping-off point? I have my doubts.
Part of the reason why the US joined in the war was not just to defeat Germany, but to make sure it was defeated by the West. Without them, a much larger part of Europe would have come under Russian influence, and Russia would have emerged as the ruling world power instead of the US. And I'm really grateful for that. Without the US, my country probably wouldn't have been liberated by Canadians, but by Russians. Just don't think WW2 was simply the US versus Germany. The war was much more complicated than that.
Re:Workaround (Score:3, Informative)
Could you be any more wrong? Many true leftists believe in individual liberties. And many rightists don't. See, the thing is, the liberty-authority scale is completely orthogonal to the left-right (socialism-capitalism) scale. While communist Russia was a good example of a leftist state without individual rights, many capitalist systems don't respect individual either. Ever heard of Pinochet? One of the most extreme laissez-faire capitalists ever, yet at the same time one of the most brutal dictators with a penchant for having anyone who tries to excercise any individual rights "disapppear". For more recent (though less extreme) examples, consider the US PATRIOT Act or modern state-capitalist Russia. The fight for individual liberties started at the left wing of the spectrum, and still continues there.
Re:It's a serious problem. (Score:2, Informative)
Educate yourself http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_the_
Historical evidence cited by these supporters of gun rights includes the fact that during the Pacific War, Japan rejected the idea of invading the West Coast of the United States due to the prevalence of armed civilians. As noted after the war by one Japanese Admiral, "We knew that your country actually had state championships for private citizens shooting military rifles. We were not fools to set foot in such quicksand."
Which, upon checking the references, I find the quote comes from this page : http://www.realfighting.com/0102/rational.htm [realfighting.com]
Barely more than half a century ago, the Nazi war machine considered invading Switzerland. It was the sort of nightmare that would make a field marshal of an army of conquest wake up screaming in the middle of the night. Every home a sniper's nest? Mountain roads and bridges all mined, ready to be blown up and made impassable within 24 hours of an invasion? A populace unworried about embargo because every home had a year's supply of food, not to mention a significant supply of ammunition? And why had the German spies reported that every Swiss village had a 300-meter rifle range, busily used by the citizenry every weekend?
It was Invader Motel. "They check in, but they don't check out." Why did field marshals who could not dissuade Adolf Hitler from invading Russia in winter manage to convince him that there was no future in attacking tiny Switzerland? Because some things are so obvious that even raving madmen can understand them.
Even if it could be consistently demonstrated that gun control results in lower murder rates (it can't, you need to be very selective to attempt that) higher violent crime rates would, IMO, be a small price to pay compared to the inability to repel invasion or tyranny from your own government.
Re:"Cheese-eating surrender monkeys" anyone? (Score:1, Informative)
- do most of the dying
- hold a nice beachhead for years till the USA were ready to come help in the last stages (and reap most of the wins)
When France failed (not a shameful defeat but a defeat nevertheless) ultimately leading to many american deaths in Normandy it caused a large irrationnal resentment. I don't think any level of bootlicking would have healed this after the war, but France coumpounded its case by insisting on keeping political independance. And some american politicians played on this sentiment later, fueling various myths (any american vet that went to France in the past 60 years can attest the country was and still is hugely grateful to the USA. Just like the huge human sacrifices of the Soviet Union during the war played a big part in France's later moderation towards Soviet policy.)
I personnaly think France should be just as proud of its soldiers behaviour during the first WWII battles than during the WWI ones. It started from a much weaker situation than in 1914 and yet went to war for its Polish ally:
- in 1939 France had still not recoverred from WWI losses (The demographics were unescapable, but the economy could have been better if not for the restraint the USA insisted on after WWI. And that after being the only clear WWI winner in economic terms)
- it hadn't spent decades preparing for war like in 1914
- it lacked Russian/Soviet support (Stalin had correctly assessed anyone going against Germany in 1939 was going to be crushed)
- Germany was just out of a massive rearmement effort and had proved its armies in Spain
Like in 1914 its military leadership was average (and the politicians knew it). To put some perspective, American military leaders let Perl Harbour happen years later and the Western front history is not one of great strategic moves. Atlantic, Pacific and Channel saved the West more than any military brillance.
The French respect American sacrifices in WWII. However they won't equate them to a proof the USA can't go wrong or has won eternal unlimited world leadership. Nor are they under any illusion the USA will help France above its own interests. That tends not to go well with US citizens.
Is the problem on French side ?
Re:Workaround (Score:3, Informative)
Like this? [sptimes.com]
Those colonialists were the French. The only reason Ho Chi Minh "went full commie" was that the French demanded we back their colonial authority in Vietnam, on threat of withdrawing from the newly formed NATO. So really, the loss of the Vietnam war can be traced directly to backing the shitheel French whining over their rubber plantations. If Truman had had the balls to tell France to go piss up a rope and recognize that not all communism was the result of evil Soviet puppetry, things might have turned out quit a lot better.