Insulting politicians in France gets you fined

So a case of [lack of] free speech in France is related to Obama... how? Sheesh!

I love how the right wing nuts compare anyone to the slightest left of them with Hitler, I imagine they skipped school when they explained what fascism was really all about.

I always thought of France as an artsy type of country of creative open minded people but all the news I hear about that country lately seems to indicate it has become very fascist. Don't they see how well that worked out in America?

Is there any country this day and age with a government that one can admire?

anon1mat0, do you believe only 'right wing nuts' compare people to Hitler? I would argue that all nuts compare people to Hitler. Plenty of 'left wing nuts' compared Bush Jr. to Hitler. How quickly we forget!

Oh, and FYI... Hitler rose to power in a time of economic ruin in Germany. Germany was deeply impoverished after WWI due to harsh reparations and a shattered infrastructure.

As of now, the US is deeply impovereshed due to an ever-growing national debt, and also has a failing economic infrastructure (entire states dependent on automobile manufacturing, etc.)

In essence, Obama is presiding over a nation that could be easily manipulated into a mob mentality. If we do anything as a nation based on revenge, with people afraid to stop it, we will have adopted the Nazi mindset.

As you implied, Facism is about more than uniforms and genocide.

... Godwin's law

The French Revolution, the American Revolution. People stood up and kicked some ass and said they weren't gonna be held under someone's thumb any longer, and had the lead to back it up.

Now people are being scaremongered and fined. Shame on us both!

To my fellow Americans: we as a whole are not the people our forfathers were. We are complacent. We are growing ever more dependent on infrastructure. We can not claim we are independent when we are dependent on the grocery store for food. We can not claim we are independent when we either rent or pay mortgage, and loosing our job means loosing our home.

We have allowed ourselves to be enslaved, we are dependent on the financial system just to stay alive. We are no more than share croppers.

As we become utterly dependent we also choose to uneducate ourselves, choosing NASCAR or NFL over something that might actually better ourselves. An athleat we will never meet makes a game-winning shot and we consider ourselves vistorious, while we are eroded into cattle.

We compare people to Hitler. Why? Animal Farm has much closer analogies, they even made a TV movie for the non-readers. Hitler has been advertized more, Hitler is trendy. Actually, Hitler is the only one most of us know about. We are so politically uneducated we can't even have a discussion without bringing up Hitled because we are ignorant of any real political history.

We gotta get our crap together, one person at a time.

I don't agree with comparing Obama to Hitler; two very different people. Obama and the Democrats are much more like Stalin and the Bolsheviks. But then, most people don't actually know much about the madness that engulfed Russia for 70+ years.

George Orwell was employing his usual brilliant wit when he lampooned the Marxists, Bolsheviks, and other far left wing whackjobs in "Animal House". Simply brilliant satirical work.

"Some animals are more equal than others."

Quote: "If we do anything as a nation based on revenge, with people afraid to stop it, we will have adopted the Nazi mindset."

So you adopting the Nazi mindset is the reason for the war in Afghanistan? The 'war' on terroism in generel right? I mean that was just revenge for 9/11...

And as for Bush, the US and fascism I'll say there might be some truth to the comparison.
I live in the US and love it, but this definition does make me think of the US we could sometimes see during the past years

According to Paxton, fascism is

a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.

Paxton, Robert. The Anatomy of Fascism. Vintage Books.

Just 'cos he married that ex-model, she is probably only interested in his money anyway. He thinks he's someone important - going around the World - making himself out to be the caretaker of the problems of humanity or something like this, the guy is a legend in his own mind.... Probably even thinks of himself as GOD himself!

What a twit. At least the old guy (whatever his name was) had the balls to disagree with the Americans and make it public unlike Blair being the lapdog of Bush. I respect the old guy just on that. No one has the right to oppress another, and everyone should be treated equal.

Bye. Jon.

It has yet to become a descent tech ad rag. Diving into political dribble...What does that have to do with tech. The message was sent over email. That's the tech link?!

From a tech perspective, when a French guy sends an email, this isn't exactly news...

Two types of people rule the world, Greedy old men and angry young men.
Young men become the old men.
Castro, Chavez, Putin (most recent) were angry young men, they got old and through the arrogance of power became the greedy old men. Just like many of our Senators and Congressmen. Good people rarely go into politics as they aren't so angry or greedy.

Believe it or not, there are 3 direct links to “Hell” where the physical and the meta-physical boundaries are indistinct and hazy. Gay Paree is one of them [the other two being New York & Flower Power SF]. Spooky if not mind-bendingly mumbo-jumbo. As such, those who are realised and taking birth in those centres of “advancement” are not only courageous but need character of balance. Just name anything [really] nonsensical and you’ll be propelled to those places without any form of physical transportation.

Impure knowledge, knowledge lacking absoluteness/divinity/living-force, is the means by which morality is dismantled and most people in the “West” [ie Westernised in valuation] have a weak immune system. They lack two protective genes which those in the “East” [ie traditional in valuation] have. Better get the geneome project to uncover them before rocketing-off to Mars and much will be revealed.

Like local council barons here in Blighty [and elsewhere], French magistrates, hic, bottle in hand, are the modern-day barons. When the root is rotten, the tree [ie French intellect] will be too but there has to be balance even amongst the fire and the brimstones. Of course, that gift from France guards the waterway entrance to New York. Free to do anything other than being Mature and Moral and the joke is that freedom means “of maturity and morality” and not, “How I sees it”, or, “Don’t get caught”.