Random Musings on Freedom

Reading about a German policeman being suspended and possibly prosecuted for making a Nazi salute and greeting to a fellow officer, I can't help but marvel at the statement:

Inciting racial hatred, displaying Nazi emblems like the swastika and performing the Hitler salute are crimes punishable by imprisonment in Germany.

In America, such actions are not crimes, but "self-expression". n this case, the Germans are practicing censorship in the name of society's good. I've noted over the years that European countries tend to have limitations on speech and self-expression that the ACLU should have fits over.

Soemtimes I wonder if, perhaps, we value each part of our body so much that we don't cutting out the tumors that might ultimately bring great disease to the whole. That is, are we bringing trouble upon ourselves by allowing odious speech to be expressed and, thence, multiplied? A difficult question to ask AND answer, to be sure, because the standard we use to determine acceptable and unacceptable is a difficult line to draw that varies for each individual who cares to render it. The safest path has been to err on the side of permissiveness, but is it the best path?

It is a standard that is defined by popularity, much like the American Idol. In the marketplace of ideas, viewpoints will only survive as long as they have popularity.

Which then touches on the nature of defining morality. Essentially, society's morality is relative. Morality as expressed through law is defined by representational government; therefore, morality is relative to the morality of that majority that makes up the law. I disagree that morality is relative, for truth and morality are absolutes.

An ancient passage records a society that "did what was good in their own eyes" and that society was ajudged to be in the wrong.

In practical terms, society operates in relative terms. As much as I yearn for an absolute standard, it is not a standard that the majority will accept. Thus, it is unenforceable. Where is the hope, then? Hope is found in change, but change cannot be forced upon this people, so the practical result must be that change must come a step at a time--the inner transformation of each part of the majority.