Friday Liberty Blogging - Death of a Robot

Just hit upon an old French song, "The Death of a Robot", by Daniel Balavoine, in 1980. It's amazing to think how up-to-date it is. Could very well be the original soundtrack of WALL-E. Here is a personal translation:

Tout articulé tout fabriqué Bien programmé pour vous aider Je suis robot depuis plus de 2 000 ans J'ai déplacé tous les océans C'était urgent, je le savais J'ai réinventé le cycle des saisons Et vos déserts sont pleins de poissons Je sais, mes circuits sont usés J'ai beaucoup travaillé Faudrait les remplacer Me laissez pas tomber Oh ! oh ! oh ! J'ai toujours dominé mes envies Je n'ai jamais trahi Jamais désobéi Vous me devez la vie Vous me devez la vie Avant la dernière guerre atomique Si pathétique que j'ai pleuré J'avais réuni le conseil des savants Le danger, c'est votre politique Vos présidents sont dépassés Mais avant qu'un fou n'appuie sur le bouton Quittez la terre il est encore temps Et la terre vous l'avez quittée Mais moi, je suis resté Quand vous étiez là-haut Et je vous ai sauvés Oh oh oh Si vous voulez m'assassiner Après ce que j'ai fait Moi qui vous ai aimé Je peux tout faire sauter Oh ! oh ! oh ! Pas de problèmes pour me soigner Vous m'avez fabriqué J'ai appris à pleurer Je vais apprendre à tuer Oh ! oh ! oh ! J'ai beaucoup travaillé J'ai beaucoup travaillé...

All jointed all fabricated Well programmed to help you I've been a robot for more than 2,000 years I displaced all oceans It was an emergency, I know it I reinvented the cycle of the seasons And your deserts are now full of fish I known, my circuits are overused I've worked so much They've got to be changed Don't ditch me Oh! oh! oh! I always controlled my desires I never betrayed you Never disobeyed You owe me life You owe me life Before the last nuclear war So pathetic it made me cry I gathered the council of scientists The danger is your politics Your presidents are obsolete But before someone crazy pushes the button Leave the earth while it's time And the earth you left But I remained When you were up there And I saved you Oh! oh! oh! If you want to assassinate me After all that I've done That I've loved you I can blow up everything Oh! oh! oh! Never mind healing myself You created me I've learnt to cry I'll learn to kill Oh! oh! oh! I've worked so much I've worked so much...

Friday liberty blogging - I'm French and that's something

It might be an unknown fact to my non-French readers, the French government is currently flooding the media with questions about the French identity. What is it to be French?

They also use the fuss to cover up their shameless unprincipled immigration practices, but that won't be the subject of the present bill.

The subject is the French identity, I would like to elaborate about it, because I'm one of the lucky ones down here who have spare time and spare thoughts to ask such questions and try to answer them. When my friend Thierry Kakouridis wrote an article about the matter (FR), I thought I had to reply to it.

France is a melting-pot of people with various views and cultural heritage. It is not one. For instance, several values are deeply written in the culture of my natal region that are not always shared in other places in France:

• Anti-clericalism: People can believe whatever they want as long as it does not encroach upon my life and my political freedom. If it does, they, not I, have to withdraw.
  
• Ability to live on one's own: You will be well-considered if you don't require help. You'll still be welcome if you do require help, but you won't be thought of so highly.
  
• Giving one's word: Something said is just as good as something signed in black and white on paper.

And I did inherit these values from my living there for twenty years. Yet, as I said, these are not prominent values everywhere in France. So which should be the values of the French? First of all, I think there is the freedom of ideas. Foreigners are often surprised at the way the French take the liberty to interpret non-negotiable things. Whether it be the law, the religion or the management theories, the French often only take what they want from it. And if you ask them why, they always have a good (yeah, or bad) explanation for it.

This is one the basic freedoms that people from occidental democratic countries enjoy. And that's a freedom that can only be removed from you if you don't use it enough.

For this freedom to be within reach of a humble citizen, it requires:

• A culture that values culture above wealth,
• A culture that values thinking above believing,
• And the associated society that preserves and enriches this culture.

I think other freedoms are less important to the French. We cannot be French without allowing ourselves to think freely about things of interest.

We also use to have equality and fraternity in our national motto. This to me relates to two other main components of the French conscience:

• The hatred of ubris. Not all the French believe in a God up-there but all the French agree that there is no God down-here. The excess of pride that leads to think of oneself as a God and to behave as such is un-French. It is considered a disease that can affect both individuals and nations.
  For instance, the French renounced the death penalty. We mostly consider that a nation has no divine right to claim lives.
  This it, to my mind, the meaning of the equality word in out motto: none of us is a God.
  
• The meritocracy. While we enjoy the equality of people in rights and dignity, we clearly know that we are different and of different skills. And none of us can pretend to be good at everything. Yet, we believe in the need to live and work together. And this means that we have to know and reward the merits of each. And this goes, not through money but through respect and consideration from others.
  This is precisely why the French are outraged at the idea of a film maker being treated as a usual burglar, or at the idea of their previous president being thrown in prison.
  Sure, the law is equal for all, but in conjunction with the fact that all the French choose by themselves which laws to apply and which not, meritocracy is commonplace in France. You get "powers" from being known for your past achievements. In exchange for these powers, you have to continue to serve well the nation. We know that we are not working against each other, rather for each other.
  That is, to my mind, the meaning of the fraternity word in our motto.
  

To answer Thierry's underlying questions:

• Yes, one is first of all what he/she wants to be. And most of the French want to be French rather than regional or European or other. And that's precisely why there is such a fuss about national identity right now: the French do feel that their identity is at risk. (To my mind that's more because of the current government than because of the immigrants. And some people are thinking the wrong way, because of fear or ignorance. That part is indeed a French failure.)
• There could be some confusion about Theodore Roosevelt's words. It could be misinterpreted as a call for "cultural purity". It's not. It's a call for everyone to adhere fully to the identity. And as such, the American president's words match my feeling about the French integration style. You can be more than French, but you cannot be half-French.
  There is no room for hyphenated Frenchism, reduced Frenchism, but there is plenty of room for people to bring in additional cultures from whatever source nationality.
  

Friday liberty blogging - Assaults on the neutrality of the network

The Internet as we know it: a place almost free of control, with sites rewarded by audience proportional to their qualities, with a good anonymity protecting political dissidents, this place is under high fire from governments and ISPs.
While we might have thought this kind of attacks would come from very liberty killing countries such as China or Iran, they are now in the headlines even in most liberal countries such as France or Germany. To give just a few examples:

• In France, giving as a pretext the fight against illegal downloaders of music and movies, the government is trying to install spywares on all citizens' computers.
• In Germany, giving as a pretext the fight against child pornography, the government gets a law voted for a censorship policy, and stars building an architecture able to filtrate the web's content.
• In England, judges rule that there should be no anonymity for authors of texts made public on the Internet.
• In England, an ISP starts using bandwidth modulation to discriminate against sites helping its competitors' businesses.
  

As far as I know, most of my readers are probably aware of some of these problems. So, instead of commenting on each of these assaults separately, I decided that from now on I would keep a list up-to-date gathering all articles that I would read about this matter. Most should be in English, yet there could be articles in any of the languages I can speak (French, German, Romanian and variants).
The web page of the list is at this address.
You can also find an RSS feed at that address.

Friday liberty blogging - Time for European Civil Society

By reading the news these days, I can't stop asking myself "Why don't they discuss those questions at a more European level?"

Problems of unemployment could be discussed better at a bigger scale. Problems of milk price should be discussed on multiple countries that produce milk. Problems of European universities versus giant universities from China or the US should be discussed among a council of university managers...

Indeed, Europe has working institutions, working agencies, awfully efficient lobbies, working-so-far agricultural policies... but we don't have a working civil society.

You could count famous European-wide NGOs, labour unions, newspapers, political forums... on the fingers of one hand! Few exist and most are unknown to Europeans.

OK, there are some problems to solve: languages, different definitions of words (like the English "liberal" very different from the French "libéral")... but I think those problems can be solved. I think the real problem is the hidden agenda of people with national interests and no transnational interests.

For this reason, I think it would be wise to encourage initiatives like "transnational regions", administrative regions that spread on two or more countries, for instance a region that includes parts of France and Spain, across the Pyrénées. The possibility to have a quantity of political power on transnational scale will help a new civil society emerge.

It's time for a European Civil Society!

Friday liberty blogging - "Bush frightens terrorists"

I read again yesterday that same comment on GW Bush and his impact on terrorists. "What you don't seem to understand, you f@¤#! Europeans, it's that Bush frightens terrorists, he scares them to death!"

I have never quite understood the train of thoughts that might lead to that. Let alone the idea that scaring people to death is probably what makes terrorists, let's concentrate on the evidence:

There has been only one major terrorist attack on the US (of foreign origin) in the whole history of the nation. And it happened during the Bush administration!
- I will not deduce that Bush failed because of this. No, it's just a sample value. It falls short of making a statistic.
- But no one can deduce that Bush did great work. He did the worst work of all Presidents of the US, as he was the only one to get a terrorist attack.

Finally, let me add this little thing. Killing someone is the easiest thing on Earth. Anyone can go in the street and kill people. Any day in your office, you can decide to kill a colleague and do it. So one cannot stop people from going mad. So if you vote for a President because of his words on stopping terrorism, you're just encouraging more lies.

Friday liberty blogging - Welcome back, America !

Need to celebrate a little on the election of Barack Obama.
After eight years of GW Bush, the republicans had become to the eyes of the world the party of warmongers, liars, religious extremists, creationists, gun nuts... The Americans have sent the message that they didn't want anymore of this, that this was not the Republican party at all.

Welcome back, America !

I am sorry for John McCain and Sarah Palin, who were valid candidates. I am also sorry for the Republican party, which stands for good values, very important to the strength and vitality of the US. But that's the result of eight years of GW Bush.

Good luck to president-elect Barack Obama, who will have to deal with big tasks, even more now that all the world is looking at him for a sign of hope. Welcome back, America !