The Discerning Texan

Don Surber has some very cogent thoughts on the ways in which Political Islamists are attempting to impose their will on the rights of others to speak freely; especially when that speech involves their religion.

Imagine such a restriction in this country, e.g. which forbade the "criticism" of say... Catholics. Would such a restriction not ring of draconian measures such as those which Henry XIII and other English kings/queens imposed in the name of their State religion of the day? This is precisely the sort of religious repression which eventually led to many thousands of refugees deciding to cross the Atlantic to a New World--and to our own Constitutional prohibitions against the abridgement of the freedom of speech or religion.

So...now the Leftist Thought Police in Canada want to reverse all that? :

Restrictions on speech show that liberal democracy is an oxymoron.

Novelist Ian McEwan made a splash in Britain by telling Italian newspapers:

“A dear friend [Martin Amis] had been called a racist.

“As soon as a writer expresses an opinion against Islamism, immediately someone on the left leaps to his feet and claims that because the majority of Muslims are dark-skinned, he who criticizes it is racist.

“This is logically absurd and morally unacceptable. Martin is not a racist.

“And I myself despise Islamism, because it wants to create a society that I detest, based on religious belief, on a text, on lack of freedom for women, intolerance toward homosexuality and so on – we know it well.”

Those are powerful words told by a man who knows words well. That Other Daily Mail has a full report.

Disagree with him. It seems that only a few people want to have a caliphate. But please note that nothing he says is aimed at any person or people. He attacks the idea.

If he said those things in Canada, he would be before a tribunal that could punish him for expressing himself. Toronto Star columnist Haroon Siddiqui is OK with that: “Despite the jurisdictional inconsistencies, gray legal zones and the difficulty of balancing free speech and hate, the system has worked reasonably well.”

Well, it works if one accepts the absurdity that silencing critics is freedom. There is a difference between telling someone that you think he ought not say something and actually making such speech illegal. Canadian journalists are taught that

From Siddiqui’s column: “Karim Karim, chair of Carleton University’s School of Journalism, says journalists are ‘fixated on their own right and privileges. What about the rights of people to be free of discriminatory and hateful speech? Journalists talk about one principle, and not the other.”

What discrimination?

It seems to me that some Muslims are gaming the system in Canada, a system that needs to be shelved and replaced by actual, God-given free speech.

And about that fixation on the rights of journalists. Siddiqui’s newspaper exposed that Muslims are practicing polygamy in Canada, a series that some ar now contending is hate speech.

America’s founding fathers were wise when they said “Congress shall make no law.” In doing so, they not only protected the people, but spared Congress a slew of headaches and commissions.

Canada might wish to adopt it.

You got that right. Fortunately the US Constitution does not guarantee anyone the right not to have their tender and fragile sensibilities offended by the speech of another (otherwise I would have one hell of a good civil case against Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barack Obama...), nor does it grant one religion the "right" to impose its own notions of "hate" onto everyone else, so that practicioners of that religion can avoid feeling offended to the exclusion of everyone else. The very thought of such a thing offends me (so where's my lawyer?...).

The extent to which Canada is now sliding down this slippery slope is the extent to which the people of Canada no longer live in freedom.