Why do they have to be so goddamn Frenching French about everything?

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris


You're right. But the tendency is towards journalists "behaving" themselves anyway.

Yeah, I've seen them give the tapes to the cops. I geuss he was filming it in the first place just to make the cops look good.

[LordShiva]

French (tele) journalists

[Lul Thyme]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
Mathematicians don't always add up.

He don't try to bunch him up with us.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
I think its less about the current unpleasantness between civilizations, and more about reaction to pulls in the other direction, the way technology and globalization continues to open up new possibilities and options, and threats, some real, some illusory, and people, faced with "the shock of the new" and unable to put a word on their unease, and sometimes ashamed to admit to it, instead focus on "Security"

Indeed, much of the authoritarian (I use the word "réactionnaire" IRL) reaction I see around seems to stem from two points:
- reaction over the "laxity" that we inhereted from May 68's values.
- reaction toward many new stimuli of modern society, globlization being an important one. Not a reaction toward specific stimuli, but more that people are afraid, and want an ever more protective bubble around them.

No one put happy slapping on the internet when I was a kid. Were we unfree then? Which is not to say this ban is wise public policy. But "melting liberty" must be seen in historical perspective and in a broader context. If we just count up dumb things pols due that limit liberty, we will find that EVERY era is one of the death of liberty. Much as every golden age is in the past, and civilization is always in decline.

My beef is not so much with the ban on filming and broadcasting happy slappings. The filming/broadcasting part is instrumental in the crime (which would be otherwise fully gratuitous), and it should be fought. You know we aren't free-speech absolutists.

My beef, however, is with the increased control. The massive CCTV they have in Britain is slowly seeping over here. The biometrics ID. The electronic devices that let the police know your location extremely well.
And, on top of that, in France there has been an extension of the police's role at the expanse of the judiciary. In some cases (which can be interpreted very broadly), the police can arrest someone without a lawyer for up to 4 days.
Besides, the judge who inquires on a case (over here, it's a specialized judge's job) can send you to jail without trial. This practice started off as exceptional, but the law has strongly extended it for years now.

The illegal aliens are suffering foremost from this loss: it is becoming increasingly harder for an illegal to defend his rights on trial. Their "justice" has become increasingly speedier, more selective, for years now. They are put into dire internment rooms before being shipped back. The police is hounded them much more than they used to. Social helpers are now forced to rat them out.

As to the police: the police feels safer than before with arbitrariness, and the amount of abuse has dramatically risen in recent years. Sarkozy, with popular support until recently, completely stopped the preventive role of the police, and demanded a dramatic increase in arrests. Proximity police, whose role was to create a bondage between the instituion and the neighbourhoods, was disbanded.

I feel all this is much more worrisome than the ban over happy-slapping videos. And IMO, it's not simply a ban over something new: putting people to jail without trial is an idea as old as jails themselves. So is police arbitrariness. As to the use of latest technologies to keep track of people, it's an idea that has existed for the whole XXth century.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
It's because you value a piece of paper more than real-world conditions.

In the real world I can deny the holocaust in the US, but not in France.

[Ninot]

Would bloggers be considered journalists?

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
In the real world I can deny the holocaust in the US, but not in France.

Over here, yes you can. Privately, at least.

[Elok]

Whereas in the U.S. you can publish a book entitled "Jewish Lies: Hitler Baked Cookies, Not Israelites," and face no legal threat. You'd be laughed out of the bookstore in all likelihood, but you'd be allowed to say it.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Spiffor
Over here, yes you can. Privately, at least.

Own goal?

[MRT144]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


In the real world I can deny the holocaust in the US, but not in France.

why would you want to?

[SlowwHand]

Originally posted by Ninot
Would bloggers be considered journalists?

No more than anyone who ever kept a journal or diary.
Of course, Robinson Crusoe's journal would be more interesting of a read than, oh..I don't know, Harrison's.






(Old Harrison's time to be pushed around for a bit. )

[RGBVideo]

you fail, fakeboris

Originally posted by Oncle Boris


Face it, the state of civil liberties is no better in America than it is in France.

0.4/10

[SlowwHand]

I just ignore insanity if I can, is why I didn't comment on that one.

[RGBVideo]

This law does nothing to deter crime. It does deter the public from learning about crimes though, which is a short-term boost for the government's reputation.

It's depressing to see that Sarkozy is behind this. He's not going to be France's Reagan with this kind of empty stunts which only curtail the freedom of French people.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by VJ
It's depressing to see that Sarkozy is behind this. He's not going to be France's Reagan with this kind of empty stunts which only curtail the freedom of French people.

At the risk of further saddening you, he removed quite a few things because of the demonstrations. For example, his law intended to identify "risky" children from age 3 on. It was eventually removed because the shrinks massively opposed it.