Christopher Hitchens

[harkin]

Originally Posted by apple

Shashi changes his mind during the dialog. At first, he says that governments will have to rein in "offensive" expressions to keep order, cloaked in the usual crap about responsibility, and later on, he appears to disavow it by claiming that he does not favor any government intervention.

I'll have to listen again (havent done so since I first heard it) because I thought he just got half-hearted, I didn't pick up on the reversal.

Tharoor seems well-intentioned trying to prevent violence while failing to understand that he's enabling the violent to supress basic rights, therefore actually endorsing violence as political action.

I think he was taken aback a bit when CH explained the origins of "yelling fire in a crowded theatre" being an excuse to not only supress anti-war pamphleteers but to throw them in prison for life. I once heard CH give a great analysis of Lincoln's extreme actions regarding basic rights during the civil war. The anomaly of what's OK to do to preserve a union vs what's not OK to appease the violently religious is certainly remarkable.