It is so obvious...

...when you're not defending the bullshit.

Turkish Parliament softens law restricting free speech

"Turkey's Parliament approved a government-backed proposal early Wednesday to soften a law restricting free speech that has been used to prosecute many intellectuals, including Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk.

The legislators voted 250-65 in favor of the amendment to Article 301 of the penal code, which many critics say is one of the biggest restraints on freedom of speech.

The ruling party, which dominates the 550-seat Parliament with 340 lawmakers, was the only party that voted in favor of the amendment while opposition parties voted against it. The amendment has to be approved by the president before it can go into effect.

The older version of Aricle 301 bars insults to "Turkishness," a vague term used by many prosecutors to clamp down on some dissident voices.

The European Union has been pressing Turkey to abolish or overhaul the law as part of Turkey's campaign for EU membership...

...Fatma Kurtulan, a pro-Kurdish party lawmaker, said it was "illusory" to believe that the amendment would advance free speech, saying it was designed to please the EU without making substantial changes.

'What needs to be done is to abolish (Article) 301 altogether,' said Kurtulan.

The change cuts the maximum sentence for denigrating Turkish identity or institutions from three years in prison to two, possibly suspended for first-time offenders. The justice minister will have to approve investigations of possible violations of the law."

Fatma Kurtulan understands the problem.

Not only did EU pressure not create the free speech guarantess necessary in Turkey, but the Turkish government used their "soft power" to make sure that they look good while still repressing free expression and debate on this question of whether there was an Armenian genocide, which is one of the primary targets of this law.

Like most problems we face, today, this is not a problem, fundamentally, of securing enough pressure to force changes that we want to see forced. This is, fundamentally, an issue of free speech and a commitment by a government to not impose their sensibilities on that question.

It's really not that complicated when you are not defending force as a governing philosophy.

It is only complicated when you are rationalizing power. And that is what most people around the world, liberal and illiberal, are doing, right now, that is responsible for this repressive and regressive period in history.

It is the rationalization of power that is undermining reasonable, empirical, open, undistorted, honest, and free discussions about important public and private issues that matter to all of us.

It is all the power in this equation and in our lives that distorts our outlooks and understandings of the world and the free, open, and honest communication to create stronger understanding.

It is driven by our fear. And, ironically, it makes us far less safe. An honest and clear-eyed comparison of liberal and illiberal cultures and countries today and for the entire length of human history would make that eminently clear.

But we are driven by our own fears and our egos in a direction and in a logic that make very little sense, honestly and realistically, that the denial begins to look more and more like something more honest, even when it very clearly is not.

It's so obvious when you are not defending the bullshit that you have a really hard time understanding why everyone else is so lost in the bullshit.

Except, as George Orwell, Lord Acton, Mark Twain, H.L. Mencken, and a million other brilliant people deduced long before me, when power, when force, is the way we relate with one another, it is all bullshit. That is why power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Because it scares all of us into lying to ourselves and to one another so frequently and so thoroughly that we forget we are lying, after awhile.

And it is only when we get honest with ourselves and with one another that our problems and mistakes get addressed more openly and honestly.

It is so obvious when you are not defending the bullshit.

I realized last night and today that this is the sadness that sits on my heart. That as long as we refuse to give it up, we are all stuck with this ugly, foolish, stupid, dishonest mess, all of us, even those of us who want to be more honest about the mess, for as long as we refuse to face it honestly.

But maybe some honest discussion just might make a difference.

I can only hope.