Be Careful What You Say on Facebook...

Or you might end up in jail...

Isn't it great living in a country with free speech?

Nuts to Them...

So says Mark Steyn, on the occasion of a particularly galling ruling by the Canadian Supreme Court.  Mr. Steyn has a short piece on the ruling, with this conclusion:

...In Canada, the law denies "the right to say his piece" to the likes of Bill Whatcott, a man who believes that homosexuals are sinners and in need of God's grace and forgiveness, but it has no objection to those who think homosexuals are evil and should be put to death. Mr. Philips need never fear the scrutiny of the "human rights" commission, or the cost of ten-year legal battles.

No homosexual needs the state's protection from Bill Whatcott. But all of us need protection from nitwit jurists blithely sacrificing core Western liberties to ideological compliance. It's not about Left vs. Right, gay vs. straight, religious vs. secular; it's about free vs. unfree. And on that most profound question, Canada's supreme court is on the wrong side. Nuts to them.

But do go read the whole thing...

Quote of the Day...

From Mark Steyn:

...in Britain, in Canada, in Australia (which is to say in some of the oldest free societies on earth and among the very few developed nations that did not succumb to the mid-20th century totalitarian fevers), it is now received wisdom that state power is required to “balance” free speech with competing societal interests as determined by regulatory bureaucrats.

Scary stuff, especially when it's easy to see that this trend has already started here (most especially in our universities)...

Steyn on Free Speech...

Mark Steyn's opinions frequently clash with those of Andrew Bolt (aka Bolta), the Australian newspaper columnist.  But there's one thing they share: they've both been sued for something they said.  Here Mark defends Andrew's right of free speech, despite their differences in beliefs – which is, after all, the very point of free speech.

Ground Zero Mosque...

Several readers have written me, wondering why I'm not weighing in on this.  Basically it's because I have little to contribute to the discussion – it seems pretty clear to me.  The WSJ has an editorial today that's very close to my position, which I can sum up like this:

1. The developer (Feisal Abdul Rauf) has every legal right to develop the property that he owns, so long as he obeys all the relevant regulation.  From everything that I've read, Cordoba House would obey all existing regulations.
   
   
2. Developing that mosque right next to 9/11 Ground Zero would be a very insensitive and obnoxious thing to do.  We're still free to do that in America, though in the name of political correctness those rights are eroding every day.  As others have often pointed out, freedom of speech (which placing the mosque at Ground Zero is a form of) implies that you're going to offend someone – otherwise it wouldn't need to be protected at all.

So while I really hate the idea of that mosque going up, even more I hate the idea of the government curtailing our freedoms.

And I think Gret Gutfield has the right idea.  Now that's an American idea for dealing with the issue!

On Free Speech...

Neo-neocon has a thoughtful, don't-miss post on freedom of speech (using the recent Harvard kerfuffle as an example).

I'm often amazed at the apparent inability of lefties to see the huge conflict between freedom of speech on the one hand, and the political correctness and zero tolerance movements currently sweeping our schools on the other hand.  Many times earnest lefties have told me straight out that there is no conflict at all, when it's perfectly obvious that there is (as Neo-neocon points out). 

In Europe especially this has for a decade or so assumed almost farcical dimensions, such as the unfortunately frequent cases where homeowners are prosecuted and imprisoned because they defended their family and property from a burglar – with the punishment doled out to the homeowner being far worse than the punishment (if any!) received by the burglar.

Now we have a generate of kids entering adulthood who were indoctrinated by our school system in the ways of political correctness and zero tolerance.  This is precisely what happened in Europe some 20 years ago, so it doesn't seem too far a leap to predict that we're headed toward an America that's as intolerant of free speech as is most of Europe today.  To this American, that's a frightening thought.

The emergence of the tea party movement, though, is a move in the opposite direction – toward free speech, and away from political correctness.  A small move, to be sure – and arguably unintentional and accidental – but a move nonetheless.  Let's hope that snowballs into a full-throated intolerance of politcal correctness and zero tolerance!

Whither Free Speech?

Jeff Goldstein is one very edgy writer, and a strong advocate of our freedom of speech.  Amongst the many people he studied under is a creative writing professor named Brian Kiteley (at the University of Denver).  To Jeff's great surprise and dismay, Kiteley objects to his writing, and doesn't want the world to know that Jeff studied under him.

The creative writing professor apparently doesn't want it known that one of his students is, err, a creative writer.  And he wants to censor Jeff.  WTF?

Read Jeff tear him a new one...

Free Speech Forecast...

England is a few years ahead of the U.S. in the multi-cultural movement. Here's a peek at what we're likely to be dealing with a few years from now:

In February this year, Christian evangelists Arthur Cunningham and Joseph Abraham were doing what Christian evangelists do: handing out Bible extracts. They were stopped by a representative of the law, threatened with arrest if they carried on preaching in “a Muslim area,” and warned that they might get beaten up if they came back.

Where did this incident take place? Saudi Arabia, Iran, or Pakistan, where Christian preaching is forbidden and apostates persecuted? No, this “Muslim area” was in Alum Rock, Birmingham, England. That’s right — England, cradle of free speech; England, a country with an established, if enfeebled, Church, and where seventy-five percent of citizens (at the 2001 census) describe themselves as Christian. The man who stopped the evangelists, calling their preaching a “hate crime,” was Naeem Naguthney, a police community support officer (PCSO), and a Muslim. Granted, a PCSO is not a full police officer, and has only limited powers of law enforcement. But which law was he enforcing? It looks suspiciously like Sharia.

I'm no fan of Christian evangelists – I run them off my property at every opportunity, as I would a Muslim or Jewish or Hindu proselytizer. But I am a big fan of free speech in public places, and that's what this is all about. We see it starting to happen here in the U.S. already, especially on college campuses, where a “right to not be offended” is being invented...