[ExI] hitchins fans: hitchins on UN free speech proposal

[Stathis Papaioannou]

2009/3/7 spike <spike66 at att.net>:

> Depends on how one defines "behave better."  Making blasphemy illegal seems
> like a license for any organization, regardless of how egregious, to have
> arbitrary legal sanction against it's enemies.  We have already seen how a
> "religion" has used that against one of our own.  Imagine any religion being
> given the authority to do that.  I can imagine the radical Presbyterians
> would want to have a word or two with me for instance.  I don't see any
> legal way to define exactly what is and what is not a religion, and what
> actually constitutes criticism.

I don't agree with the UN making blasphemy illegal, but the UN is
unlikely to pass a motion proposing that blasphemers have their tongue
cut out, for example, while an individual member state conceivably
might do so. I would feel safer if the UN had the power to veto
legislation that my government passed which the rest of the world
considered a heinous crime, even though the human rights record of
most of the voting nations is probably worse than that of mine.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou