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CoS Bigwig Likens Wikipedia Ban to Nazis' Yellow Star Decree
We mentioned on Thursday that Wikipedia has banned edits originating from certain IP addresses belonging to the Church of Scientology; reader newtley writes now that Scientology leader (CEO and Chairman of the Board of the linked, but legally separate, Religious Technology Center) David Miscavige calls the ban "a 'despicable hate crime,' and asks, 'What's next, will Scientologists have to wear yellow, six-pointed stars on our clothing?' During World War II, Hitler forced Jewish men, women and children to wear a a yellow cloth star bearing the word Jude to brand them in the streets of Europe, and in the Nazi death camps."
I remember saying very close to the same thing quite a number of times to various people when I was... 10?
So when does he think that the Wikipedia stormtroopers will march up to the scientology homes and round them all up to labour camps that have a Work is Freedom banner at the front gate? Honestly, it's the first time I've ever seen a conversation Godwin itself from the original argument. Reduction Nazium indeed.
The CO$ got banned because they systematically abused the PRIVILEGE (not a right) to do edits on Wikipedia because they were doing so to silence criticism.
If they'd made edits to correct factual errors instead of their own (since they have already violated Godwin's Law) NAZI like internet tactics this never would have happened.
Now I wish Wikipedia would start banning other corporate abusers, such as Sony, who also notoriously edits out any criticism of them and their ethics. Go look at all the edits on the Star Wars Galaxies article and SOE liar in chief John "Smed" Smedley.
Corporatism != Free Market
Just because you hate what happened doesn't make it a hate crime.
Absolutely. Talk about lacking a sense of proportion - any member of any 'banned IP' group - be they MPAAers looking for torrenters or the Scientologists - can just nip round to the local cyber café or wifi hotspot. Not an option for the people Hitler and his cronies persecuted and slaughtered.
will Scientologists have to wear yellow, six-pointed stars on our clothing?
Actually I was thinking they should be marked with something like a scarlet letter on their foreheads.
Perhaps a big "I" for Idiot.
It would certainly make them easier to spot.
Beta sux! Join the Slashcott! http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4760465&cid=46173047
I'm all for Scientologists wearing something we can easily identify them by, so we can avoid their ignorance.
Comparing your 'religion' to Judaism is ridiculous. I won't go into detail as to why I think so, because I think all religions are absurd, but it's like comparing pop tarts to a t-bone steak. One company, running a website, decided to block all IPs linked to Scientology. You are not being 'persecuted'. No death marches, no concentration camps, no shootings in the street. But we can all hope for that! Just kidding.
And did he just godwin himself?
The Reg article really oversimplified the Wikipedia ArbCom ruling, making it sound more one-sided than it was. If you actually read it, you'll see that it recognizes both pro- and anti-Scientologists as troublemakers, and includes sanctions for some hardcore Scientology critics as well.
This is actually a relief to me, as anti-Scientologists can get as wacked out as the Scientologists themselves. Wikipedia ArbCom has made some bone-headed decisions in the past; it's good that they were level-headed in this case.
Next thing you know Jimbo will be rounding up Scientologists,forcing them into camps near active volcanos, and then blowing them all up with H-bombs.
No kidding. It isn't like Jimmy Wales is sending out his WikiGestapoForces to round them up and send them to Auschwitz if they run down to corner espresso bar and fire up their wifi.
Besides, Wikipedia is private non-profit organization. It's their servers, it's their site, and they are fully within their rights to say who is and who is not welcome to use them. It's no different when the Church of Scientology comes knocking on your door passing out their pamphlets and you slam the door in their face and tell them to get lost. Private property is private property.
My blog
Don't forget that part of their goal is expelling the souls of dead aliens from our bodies. Which is, of course, the true definition of sanity, not having dead alien souls in you.
No portion of this post may be rebroadcast without the express, written consent of Major League Baseball.
Persecuted?
From Webster's dictionary:
" to cause to suffer because of belief"
I'm not sure how lack of Wikipedia access is comparable to being thrown in a death camp, but perhaps someone with more perspective can tell me.
The analogy is horribly flawed: The stars identified Jews so they would be discriminated against by other people as well as by the state (e.g. employers, benches, certain events, buildings etc.)
Filtering IPs from the CoS prevents them from contributing or skewing an already established work: it doesn't attach an indelible mark with which others can identify them with (and use against them) and it doesn't promote wide-spread "We hate you" feelings - it's just saying "We don't want your 'contributions'"
Is that like the chewbacca defense with a Jewish twist?
1) It's clear you are a COS member
2) I can go back 15 generations in my family tree because the Nazi's had a habit of being thorough and making sure people were in now way "jewish", even if they were christian for 10 generations, they had to be christian for at least 15. I have a hard time believing they would hire anyone jewish as a soldier or a member of the police.
Jews are from this planet!
I argue because it's the internet....and I can.
"There is nothing wrong with his analogy" says a user with the name BadAnalogyGuy.
Too perfect.
Your argument is hilarious. What does the existence of Jews willing to slaughter other Jews have to do with anything--or even defend the analogy!
Your deflection of the errant analogy with some sort of pointless note of some Jews working for Nazis during the Holocaust is borderline antisemitic in my book.
Grow up. They can't edit an online encyclopedia! How do you compare that with stripping an innocent of their right to live?
My work here is dung.
or six.
*rimshot*
The Church of Scientology can access Wikipedia just fine, they just can't edit it. So this is basically analogous to having your story submits summarily rejected by a newspaper because you've submitted so much crap in the past.
And no, that's not really equivalent to being sent to a death camp, but then again, scientologists aren't exactly known for their sanity or truthfulness, that being one of the reasons why they're being banned.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
It's not even that bad is it? They still have access, they just can't edit... from IP addresses belonging to CoS... from home IPs is fine.
So yes, obviously Mr Miscavige is being repellantly disingenuous here.
If any block of IPs - regardless of who owns it - is routinely responsible for sabotaging the encyclopedia then it seems appropriate that the admins should ban that block of IPs.
OMG!!! Ponies!!!
Hell, if this analogy works then we should all disable our Spam filters and cower in shame for our prejudice, after all, these guys believe in us seeing the best Pr0n on the internet as well as giving us the opportunity to enhance our manhoods.
www.meneguzzi.eu/felipe
Through their complicity, these Jews were responsible for the millions that were slaughtered in the camps.
Oh dear, it was the fault of the Jews all along, was it...who'd have guessed it!
So there you are, surrounded by all your technology and information - and still...
Maybe you should try our free personality test...?
Only one I can think of is Apple
So, I actually clicked through to RTFA, and was stunned by the article. I'm pretty sure it's a fake. Just to quote it - "There is so much nonsense on the internet about Scientology, all of which was written by anti-religion extremists in the employ of the Psychiatric-Pharmaceutical industry. Many are also being paid by certain depraved, degenerate factions within the German government. You can't believe any of it. If these scumbags had their way, all children would be psych-drugged into oblivion, most eventually becoming high school gunmen; vicious de-programmers would constantly be leaping out from shadowy corners; there would be all-night electroshock parlors on the high street of every village, town and city; and anyone who tried to live an ethical life would quickly receive an icepick lobotomy."
That scans more like Burroughs than anything else. Kind of a satirical send-up of the scientologists, you know? If it *is* real, I think this guy should write more press releases.
If losing editing rights (on Wikipedia) from CoS IPs is akin to Nazi prosecution of Jews then I wonder what they say about "The Norwegian Ministry of Health and Care Services is considering prosecuting and banning some Scientology practices, in particular the use of the Scientology personality test to sell courses. State Secretary Rigmor Aasrud said that the activities in question might be prosecuted as fraud or as violations of existing healthcare regulations." Or for that matter the trials against them in France.
If just losing editing rights is as bad as Nazi prosecution then by comparison other forms of prosecution must be like killing kittens with sledgehammers.
The Long Now Foundation
So the church of Scientology actually recognises the Holocaust now? Ah well :)
So this is basically analogous to having your story submits summarily rejected by a newspaper because you've submitted so much crap in the past.
Well.... they should come on down to Slashdot, let Kdawson show em' how it's done!
"When you see a unixer brainwashed beyond saving, kick him out of the door." - Xah Lee
I hate seeing this argument pop up again and again. Wikipedia has a lot of de facto power. We gave them this power by using the service and promoting it among our acquaintances. We didn't give Jimmy Wales this power so that he could use it to advance a personal agenda of changing social perceptions or silencing arbitrary voices. There's a certain amount of accountability here.
But the decision to ban Scientology's IP's was perfectly in line with a reasonable prior policy. That's what makes this is OK, not the fact that Wikipedia is private property.
And their members can, in fact, edit Wikipedia from other locations. But this wasn't "members" editing. This was the cult's own staff doing a planned campaign to distort and eliminate the postings of others.
Remember, few "members" are permitted to deal with skeptical outsiders. That's a task reserved for the "Office of Special Affairs", their group that took on dealing with reporters and former members, after the "Guardian's Office" had its leadership convicted of planting bomb threats to discredit the author Susan Meister and convicted of a large array of other crimes. Look it up: this is _precisely_ the material that these astro-turfing censors wanted to eliminate from Wikipedia. Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Special_Affairs, it's fascinating what this cult has done historically to harass writers and former members.
The subject lines are fine, perhaps you are overrun by eyeball thetans that are blocking your ability to see them. Only Scientology can restore your ability to see Slashdot subject lines!!
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
There is no obligation to religion/superstition by private groups. It is time anti-religionists went on the offensive to assert ourselves (legally) against superstition.
We don't have to give religionists anything we are not obliged to in law, and we do NOT owe respect to superstition. Scientology in my opinion is a blatant con game, and hence worthy of (legal) denial of support. Supporters should be exposed so those of us who oppose Scientology can (legally) choose the manner of our interaction with them.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Wait, did you just impy that killing kittens is worse than killing people?!?
Scientology is an elective class of people, on the whole. It is not an ethnic grouping of some historical standing, with traditional relations - good and bad - with the broader community.
CoS shared some characteristics with Israeli intelligence and guerilla information warfare outfits. Beyond this, the analogy that refers to this effort by the "Church" to control its public perception to the Nazi program to decimate European Jewry is disgusting.
"Calling 4Chan!"
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Well, are the kittens Scientologists? Or at least L Ron Hubbard's kittens? What about the people? I think that answers that.
People don't realize that Crowley was crazy like a fox. He played the religion game the same as the Scientologists do: mix in some common sense advice with some absolutely crazy BS. Crowley says to do things like meditate, exercise, and do yoga, but it's all mixed in with nonsense. His stuff was designed to appeal to a certain kind of English spiritual dilettante, and in some ways can be considered a huge joke at their expense.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
If just losing editing rights is as bad as Nazi prosecution then by comparison other forms of prosecution must be like killing kittens with sledgehammers.
Didn't you know? Scientologists perform a semi-annual rite in which they kill kittens with sledgehammers and then inject their blood with the contents of the kittens' brain stems. I read it on Wikipedia before the Scientologists edited the article to hide these facts.
State Secretary Rigmor Aasrud said that the activities in question might be prosecuted as fraud or as violations of existing healthcare regulations.
Whoa, wait a second. That's actually an excellent point. Are personality tests the domain of psychologists, particularly when used to render a diagnosis (even as simple as "you're depressed") unless clearly being used to entertainment value? If so, then it would seem that Scientology is either:
I can't see how they could avoid being subject to HIPAA if they're presenting their tests as legitimate, informative procedures. If HIPAA does govern them, then I can imagine about 1,000 ways they've violated it based on headlines over the years.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
The Church, which is located only meters from Ballo's dormitory, states that the results had shown Ballo was "depressed, irresponsible, hyper-critical and lacking in harmony."
Family blames Scientology for daughter's death
Apparently she suffered from periods of depressions; the critical and negative response she received from CoS pushed her a bit too far. She was twenty years old.
This particular case combined with other reports have caused the Norwegian Government to take a stern look at the practices of CoS; and try to evaluate if their practices comply with the law.
The Long Now Foundation
They had loads of fun in Canada, too. You see, Health Canada investigated their "auditing" and found them to be, in fact, pedaling "Alternative Healing" but doing so in a fraudulent manner, and they published this report. There was also a Canadian couple that quit Scientology and was telling their story. Now, fast forward a bit, and the Church of Scientology has infiltrated the US government almost to the top. There is a huge raid on their offices, which uncovers a lot of interesting information. First, it had information all about their undercover ops in the US and Canada. It also had information about how they bound and held prisoner Michael Miesner. For whatever reason, those charges in the USA got themselves vanished, but not before the FBI forwarded this information to Canada! Now Canada finds here in their cabinets, confidential government of Ontario and RCMP memos! They find they have agents infiltrating the hospital where the doctor who wrote that scathing report on their psychic healing works! They find they have guys in Canada Revenue looking for dirt on the couple I mentioned before, anything to bring them down! Not willing to bring charges on that alone, the RCMP sent two undercover agents into the Toronto branch. Using information they gathered, warrants were issued and all kinds of files and audiotapes were seized. They had all the evidence they needed for these break ins and thefts and assorted other crimes. They had also broken into many Toronto office buildings to steal corporate information, too, anything to potentially in the future be used against their enemies (who are legion). In the end, 14 people plus the Church itself were all summonsed. The Church tried to get the warrants invalidated. They failed. They tried to blackmail the judge, they failed. They tried to plea bargain, "we'll donate millions to any charity you want if you drop the charges against the church, you can have our members, fine, but not the church." It was declined. They tried to get all of their files detailing their undercover ops and breakins and criminal harassment ruled as confessional material, and inadmissible in court due to priest-parishioner confidentiality. That failed too. Then they tried a massive smear campaign against the Crown prosecutor. THAT stunt got the church itself a $1.6 million dollar judgment. And since their lawyer was spewing it too in press releases, he himself got a $400,000 judgment. (never libel nor slander a LAWYER). In the end, all of the criminals working for the Church were convicted (some cases are still ongoing I believe, 20 years later). The church is still trying to appeal its own convictions and judgments. Their fine for libel though, and their lawyer's, those have been upheld all the way to the Supreme Court, so that's done, no more appeals, only took 10 years! They repeated their slander every step of the way, too, in press releases and in court, and in every appeal they maintained its truth even though most of it was provably false. I would have thought that continuing to repeat the same lies after a judgment for doing so would be contempt of court, and get their lawyer hauled before the judge in irons, but I guess the Canadian legal system doesn't work like the American versions do on TV? ;)
And yes, the Church called the Ontario government Nazis. The church has its own fake "tolerance" watchdog organization. According to their brochures, they stand up against all intolerance, though in practice only if it is against the CoS. It condemned the government for persecuting a poor religion, when all the religion did was slander, libel, and order criminal acts against Canadians and their government. I believe the argument went, "Members of the church give all their worldly possessions to us, and we support them. So fining the church directly punishes all of our members! You have a slippery slope that says a church is responsible for the actions of its members, and you can punish all members of the church for the actions of one
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
Actually if the author had looked it up in Wikipedia he would have found that Scientologists would not wear the Star of David.
More accurately;
If they were a religion they would wear a purple triangle
-or-
If they were mentally ill or an "asocial element" they would wear a black triangle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_concentration_camp_badges
Tisha Hayes
You have a slippery slope that says a church is responsible for the actions of its members, and you can punish all members of the church for the actions of one.
See Scientology v. Cult Awareness Network in the US.
Essentially, Cult Awareness Network works to spread information gathered about cults. One woman at a CAN meeting wants help to get her son out of a cult. Another person volunteering for the group (but not acting on behalf of the group) recommends a cult deprogrammer.
They pick up the son and try to deprogram him. Sadly, the son is over the age of 18, which makes what the deprogrammer did tantamount to kidnapping and illegal imprisonment.
$cientology funds the sons resulting lawsuit against CAN, alleging that CAN was responsible for the actions of its volunteer, even though the action was not taken by the group, but an individual outside the actions of the group.
CAN is bankrupted by the legal bills. In the bankruptcy auction, a $cientologist buys up CANs assets, including name, logo, trademarks, and phone number.
Now, when you call the Cult Awareness Network (New CAN), you're calling a scientologist. If you think you're going to get help, you're not.