Saturday, January 12, 2008

Censorship? Or Really Bad Luck?

"Foehammer’s Anvil website taken down - again!" is the latest post about "Foehammer's" struggle to keep his (politically-incorrect) website online.

I don't necessarily support his views, but I'm very, very concerned about the possibility that his hosting service is not accident-prone.

I went on at more length, in "It Can Happen Here: "Hate Speech" and Censorship," on another blog.

Related posts, on censorship, propaganda, and freedom of speech.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

First they kill the first amendment. Do I have to remind you what comes next?

Brian H. Gill said...

There are quite a few possibilities, I'd say.

About the First Amendment: I'd say it's still alive, but in serious condition.

America has been through this sort of thing before: Abrams v. United States, 1919, for example; and battles for the right to use naughty words in the sixties.

I'm not complacent, but I think there's a cultural sea change going on. This isn't the sixties any more: and It's my opinion that the war on terror will be the sort of crisis that will force a serious and profound re-consideration of the public policies of last four decades.

Brian H. Gill said...

katrina,

It's useful and instructive to learn about the lives of influential people.

I looked up your biographical post on sheik bin Laden. No question, he's a hero to many in the Arab world, young and old.

That is quite probably the reason that he "has been granted a safe haven by Afghanistan's ruling Taleban movement." (Update: The Taiban has not ruled Afghanistan since 2001. Hamid Karzai became the country's first democratically elected president in December of 2005.)

I'm not sure what you see as the significance of bin Laden's position as an Arabic hero.

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Blogroll

Note! Although I believe that these websites and blogs are useful resources for understanding the War on Terror, I do not necessarily agree with their opinions. 1 1 Given a recent misunderstanding of the phrase "useful resources," a clarification: I do not limit my reading to resources which support my views, or even to those which appear to be accurate. Reading opinions contrary to what I believed has been very useful at times: sometimes verifying my previous assumptions, sometimes encouraging me to change them.

Even resources which, in my opinion, are simply inaccurate are sometimes useful: these can give valuable insights into why some people or groups believe what they do.

In short, It is my opinion that some of the resources in this blogroll are neither accurate, nor unbiased. I do, however, believe that they are useful in understanding the War on Terror, the many versions of Islam, terrorism, and related topics.