Redstate

Posted at 11:13am on Jun. 14, 2008 Betraying Free Speech.

By Paul J Cella

Canada persecutes Mark Steyn for writing that Islam is a threat to the West. The New York Times, having ignored that drama for months, takes the opportunity to dilate tendentiously on the uniqueness of American tolerance for Free Speech, implicitly comparing Steyn to Nazis, and naturally burying his response in the last two paragraphs of a long article. The few European politicians and thinkers with the guts to stand up to creeping Islamization, find themselves betrayed and denounced in America, and likewise compared to Nazis and fascists, by prominent bloggers. Readers will recall the pitifully tepid response from the West to the beleaguered Danes during the Cartoon Jihad.

And now we have this, as reported by Josh Trevino: In Kuala Lumpar, at the Third International Conference on the Muslim World, three prominent Muslim leaders called on the West to renounce Free Speech in order to accommodate Islamic sensibilities; and the three Westerns who spoke uttered not a word of protest.

Read on.

Posted in Anti-Free Speech Liberals | Archived | free speech | Islam | Liberals | Mark Steyn | the Jihad — Comments (12)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 10:45am on Jun. 13, 2008 The New York Times on the First Amendment

A Case From Canada Presents Some Sticky Wickets

By blackhedd

If you haven’t read anything by Canadian journalist and author Mark Steyn, your life is the poorer for it. He’s marvelously witty and fun to read. He’s also one of the loudest proponents of the view that Western cultures, particularly in Europe, are allowing themselves to be slowly extinguished through a refusal to confront Islamization.

Steyn is a disciplined and careful reporter. Everything he writes is backed up by research and reasoned argument. He doesn’t commit libel.

But that’s not good enough in Canada anymore. Two years ago, he published an article in Maclean’s which recapitulated themes from his book America Alone. But it’s against the law in British Columbia to say things that Muslims don’t want to hear, regardless of how objectively truthful, well-supported and reasonable they are.

So Steyn is now personally facing criminal jeopardy.

But of course, this is of no interest to America’s arbiters of taste in the mainstream press. However, they’re extremely interested in another aspect of the story.

Keep reading…

Posted in Culture | First Amendment | free speech | Macleans | Mark Steyn — Comments (9)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 8:52am on May 21, 2008 The drama continues.

By Paul J Cella

Under pressure from the fanaticism and treachery of the Jihad, which is abetted by the peculiar manias of Liberalism, Free Speech is perishing. In Canada a sordid drama continues, with Mark Steyn actually managing to maneuver his accusers into a public confrontation — which naturally did not turn out well for these individuals [the confrontation begins about two-thirds of the way into the video].

But it probably doesn’t matter: On June 2, Mr. Steyn and the magazine that published him are compelled to answer to the charge of “flagrant Islamophobia” before another Human Rights Commission, this time in British Columbia. More trials may follow, including a federal tribunal which is said to boast a 100% conviction rate on hate speech cases.

The thing is, under the tyranny of these human rights tribunals, there really can be no defense. Steyn quotes a Canadian Justice Department summary of the situation: “The defences of truth and fair comment remain available to torts such as defamation and seditious libel, regardless of the medium in which they occur. However, … defences that may be available in tort actions are not available in cases of hate propaganda because the prohibition is concerned with adverse effects, not with intent.” Steyn comments:

The government rarely expresses it that brazenly. Especially the justice minister of a supposedly Conservative government. By the way, by “adverse effects,” they mean not anything that’s actually happened but something that might potentially theoretically hypothetically happen maybe a decade or four down the road. If you create a justice regime predicated as a point of principle on disdain for objective reality, it’s no big surprise to find perpetually aggrieved Muslim lobby groups eager to avail themselves of it — big time.

Now my view of Free Speech, admittedly, is somewhat ambivalent. As a general proposition concerning political speech, I endorse it; as an absolute proposition, with compass over anything remotely associated with human expression, I decline to endorse it, and indeed stand ready to oppose it where absolutism threatens to conjure anarchy.

The particular insanity of our day is that Liberals who tend toward the absolutist position are, it seems, sufficiently blind to the obliteration of Free Speech augured by human rights tribunals that they cannot see the flat contradiction that stares them in the face. Islam and grievance-mongering will destroy one of their most cherished principles, and our dear dear Liberals may not even notice.

Posted in free speech | Islam | the Jihad | War — Comments (11)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 9:32am on May 20, 2008 Hard truths in the NY Daily News.

By Paul J Cella

Now this is impressive. Writing in the New York Daily News, a former Jihadist by the name of Tawfik Hamid proclaims some hard truths:

The real way to strengthen moderate Muslims in their fight against the radicals is to spotlight radical teachings and flush out those who believe in them. [. . .]

This is especially true in war: define your enemy correctly, and you will rally legitimate allies to your side. Blur what a battle is about and, stuck in the muddle, you are bound to lose.

Yes, the word "jihad" has several, including some peaceful, meanings — but that doesn't change the fact that most authoritative Islamic texts and systems of jurisprudence maintain that its primary meaning is "warfare to subjugate the world to Islam." Closely allied with this predominant concept of jihad is the threefold choice given to infidels: conversion, submission and tribute or death. And it is simply a fact that jihad, as taught by Sunni Islam's four schools of jurisprudence, is either a war to defend Muslims or to impose Islam on non-Muslims.

It may be uncomfortable to admit these facts — and doing so may run certain risks. But it is true, and the costs of ignoring reality are far higher than the benefits of glossing over it.

Amen to all that, and read on.

Posted in free speech | the Jihad | War — Comments (7)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 11:06am on May 15, 2008 Islam and Free Speech: Canadian version.

By Paul J Cella

The wisest thing in the world is to cry out before you are hurt. It is no good to cry out after you are hurt; especially after you are mortally hurt. People talk about the impatience of the populace; but sound historians know that most tyrannies have been possible because men moved too late. It is often essential to resist a tyranny before it exists. It is no answer to say, with a distant optimism, that the scheme is only in the air. A blow from a hatchet can only be parried while it is in the air.
— G. K. Chesterton.

Any reader involved in our long-running debate (recapitulated just last week) on Islam and Free Speech, should sit down a read this remarkable statement carefully. It concerns a complaint brought before the Ontario Human Rights Commission against Mcleans magazine, which reprinted a portion of Mark Steyn’s book America Alone. The complaint alleged that Mcleans and Steyn violated the Ontario Human Rights Code by unfairly “targeting Muslims.”

Read the statement, and then read on.

Posted in Canada | free speech | Mark Steyn | sedition | the Jihad | War — Comments (11)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 10:00am on May 8, 2008 Free Speech and Islam.

By Paul J Cella

We must allow for the possibility that Islam as such is a threat to this country. Even more bluntly: The question of the character of Islamic doctrine — whether it can be tolerated without fatal exposure to its war-making titles — must remain an open question if we are to remain a free people.

Here is the enigma with this whole business. Most Americans, Right and Left, will profess belief in a very robust principle of Free Speech. Thus the idea of curbing discussion on an important topic will arouse their repugnance. I have argued in the past for legislation embracing certain aspects of Islamic doctrine — the dogmas, specifically, of Holy War (jihad), Holy Subjugation (dhimma) and perhaps Sharia law itself — into our current sedition law: in other words, outlawing the promulgation of these dogmas. Even among people favorably deposed toward an aggressive posture vis-à-vis Islam, this is met with suspicion and hostility.

Fair enough — but why abandon this Free Speech principle when it comes to the character of the Islamic religion? There is the perplexity and the frustration. People jealous to preserve a “marketplace of ideas,” where true ideas will “out-compete” false ones in the end, while understandably hostile toward my proposal to proscribe certain forms of Islamic speech, yet exhibit an apparent insouciance about proposals (less overt than mine, to be sure) to proscribe certain forms of speech about Islam.

Read on.

Posted in free speech | sedition | the Jihad | War — Comments (214)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 10:11am on Jan. 29, 2008 URGENT ACTION ALERT: CMU to hold expulsion hearing on conservative student

By RightMichigan.com

Bumped up top and promoted by Erick. This expulsion hearing happens tomorrow at 8:00 a.m. You can contact Professor Peter Koper at peter.t.koper@cmich.edu or (989) 774-3128 and ask him to support free speech by dropping the charges. -- Erick

Cross-posted on Right Michigan at www.RightMichigan.com.

It wouldn't be a new semester if Central Michigan University weren't attempting to censor free speech and political thought on campus.  Wait, that's not entirely true.  They don't have a problem with free speech and political thought from the left.  It's just the conservatives they have a problem with.

By now we all know the story of Dennis Lennox.  There's not much I can add that hasn't been more eloquently stated by Mike Volpe and Chet Zarko in recent days.  The kid has almost single-handedly raised the Gary Peters issue to national prominence.  But just because Dennis thinks that Peters should choose between campus and Congress (in a District hundreds of miles away while violating federal campaign laws that prohibit public employees from pursuing office) doesn't mean the nut-job administrators at Central agree with him.  

Quite the contrary.  They're waging a very personal war against an outspoken conservative student because he dares have opinions different from theirs.  

The school has targeted Lennox by banning videotaping, ignored a dean who assaulted him, directed faculty and staff to avoid the use of CMU e-mail when discussing Gary Peters because it could be released under FOIA, accused the kid of suffering from mental illness because he holds conservative political views and has an interesting haircut.  They went as far as to call him the next Virginia Tech-style school shooter.

And that was all them playing nice.  Well they've decided to take the gloves off and we're going to have to do the same.  

Read on . . .

Posted in ACLU | Breaking News | CMU | Congress | Constitution | Dennis Lennox | free speech | Gary Peters | Michigan | student — Comments (32) / Email this page » / Read More »