NATO politics, Turkey

Erdoğan is using the issue of bringing Sweden and Finland into NATO to attack freedom of expression in those countries.

I disapprove of burning books, as a general matter, but if there are millions of copies of a book then burning one that you own is no great loss. Perhaps it should be a crime to intentionally destroy a rare book — if you don't want it, you must sell it to someone who does or give it to a museum.

It is outrageous to demand that some religion's "sacred" book receive a higher legal status that any other book — such as, for instance, my own book, Free Software, Free Society . I think the moral ideas in that book are wise, but you have the right to buy a copy and burn it if you think the opposite.

The Turkish government argues that burning a Qur'an was a hate crime. This shows that the concept of "hate crimes" as it is understood in some European countries is a threat to human rights.