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“The Finnish court ruling should be denounced not just as an attack on traditional Christianity but more broadly an attack on freedom of speech and liberty for all. Hate speech laws, with their identitarian political assumptions, make such prosecution of free speech inevitable.” - Juicy Ecumenism

Discussion

Wed, 04/01/26

Rule of thumb in our legal system is that after 22 years, the statute of limitations is generally over except for murder, treason, and a few other offenses. So apparently, in the leading party's view (or the leading prosecutor's view), the existence of an out-of-print tract is effectively equivalent to a dead body on the street.

There is also the legal principle that convictions ought to be handed down by a unanimous jury, a condition that is obviously ignored by the nation's Supreme Court deciding guilt 3-2. Finally, you've got the legal reality that in our system, you cannot appeal an acquittal.

So to get to this perhaps politically favored result, a lot of ordinary protections for the defendant have been ignored. It's a step back to medieval days, really.

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

Wed, 04/01/26

Increasingly, extremists on both the left and the right—extremism now being pretty much the “norm” on the right—only believe in “freedom of speech” when they like what is being said. This is a core difference between our new right and real conservatism. Our new right, aka Trumpism, cannot conceive of anything mattering that doesn’t give you a win or help you (in some really obvious way) get a win. On a generous day, a win for the tribe might be good enough, though it’s always a win for the individual that matters most.

It’s a profoundly unconservative way to look at things. It may not be woke, but that doesn’t make it good.

So the Finns went far astray on this one but how many of those decrying it would care at all if the plaintiffs were woke or Muslim or RINOs or whatever? Well, the Washington Post editors of all people. So that’s refreshing.

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.