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The Twilight of Freedom of Speech

Onkar Ghate | 28.03.2006 15:22

To fathom our government's contemptible treatment of a handful of unbowed journalists, you must see the roots of that treatment in the moral ideal Christianity bequeathed the West.

In the face of the intimidation and murder of European authors, film makers and politicians by Islamic militants, a few European newspapers have the courage to defend their freedom of speech: they publish twelve cartoons to test whether it's still possible to criticize Islam. They discover it isn't. Muslims riot, burn embassies, and demand the censorship and death of infidels. The Danish cartoonists go into hiding; if they weren’t afraid to speak before, they are now.

How do our leaders respond? Do they declare that an individual's freedom of speech is inviolable, no matter who screams offense at his ideas? No. Do they defend our right to life and pledge to hunt down anyone, anywhere, who abets the murder of a Westerner for having had the effrontery to speak? No--as they did not when the fatwa against Rushdie was issued or his translators were attacked and murdered.

Instead, the U.S. government announces that although free speech is important, the government shares "the offense that Muslims have taken at these images," and even hints that it is disrespectful to publish them.
Why does a Muslim have a moral right to his dogmas, but we don't to our rational principles? Why, when journalists uphold free speech and Muslims respond with death threats, does the State Department single out the journalists for moral censure? Why the vicious double standard? Why admonish the good to mollify evil?

The answer lies in the West’s conception of morality.

Morality, we are told incessantly, by secularists and religionists, the left and the right, means sacrifice; give up your values in selfless service to others. "Serve in a cause larger than your wants, larger than yourself," Bush proclaims to a believing nation.

But when you surrender your values, are you to give them up for men you admire, for those you think have earned and deserve them? Obviously not--otherwise yours would be an act of trade, of justice, of self-assertiveness, not self-sacrifice.

You must give to that which you don't admire, to that which you judge to be unworthy, undeserving, irrational. An employee, for instance, must give up his job for a competitor he deems inferior; a businessman must contribute to ideological causes he opposes; a taxpayer must fund modern, unemployed "artists" whose feces-covered works he loathes; the United States must finance the UN, which it knows to be a pack of America-hating dictatorships.

To uphold your rational convictions is the most selfish of acts. To renounce them, to surrender the world to that which you judge to be irrational and evil, is the epitome of sacrifice. When Jesus, the great preacher of self-sacrifice, commanded "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you," he knew whereof he spoke.

In the left's adaptation of this perverse ideal, selfless surrender to evil translates into a foreign policy of self-loathing and "sensitivity," of spitting in America and the West's face while showing respect for the barbarisms of every gang.

Bill Clinton, for instance, certainly no radical leftist, jumped into the recent fray to castigate us: "None of us are totally free of stereotypes about people of different races, different ethnic groups, and different religions...there was this appalling example in...Denmark...these totally outrageous cartoons against Islam."

In the right’s version, selfless surrender to evil translates into a foreign policy of self-effacing service.

Our duty, Bush declares, is to bring the vote to Iraqis and Palestinians, but we dare not tell them what constitution to adopt, or ban the killers they want to vote for. We have no right to assert our principles, because they are rational and good. But the Iraqis and Palestinians have a right to enact their tribal and terrorist beliefs at our expense, because their beliefs are irrational and evil. In the present crisis, the State Department will not defend free speech, because this principle is rationally defensible; to unequivocally assert this value would be selfish. But the Department will suggest that we respectfully refrain from publishing cartoons that upset the mental lethargy of self-made slaves to authority; Muslims have a right to their mystical taboos, precisely because the beliefs are mystical.

Tonight, when you turn on the news and see hatred-seething hordes burning the West's flags and torching its embassies, remember that this is the enemy your morality commands you to love and serve--and remember the lonely Danes hiding in fear for their lives.

And then, in the ultimate act of self-assertiveness, pledge to renounce the morality of sacrifice and learn its opposite: the morality of rational self-interest.

Though the West's twilight has begun, the darkness of suicide has not yet engulfed us. We still have a chance.


Onkar Ghate

Additions

closer

29.03.2006 21:51


Just as a kind of side issue, the threat to freedom of speech is much closer to home than most realise. How many know that SOCPA 132 gets to encompass new areas starting from this saturday? How many know that there is a Serious Organised Crime Agency being set up? How many even know what SOCPA is?

SOCPA is the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act - it makes it illegal to express your political views within 1KM of parliament without asking permission. It is very scary and very real and is a big immediate threat that needs tacking.

Picnic/Protest every sunday to keep the pressure on about this  http://www.peopleincommon.org/




sean


Comments

Hide the following 6 comments

Nice try at some pro-right psy-ops

28.03.2006 16:30

Sorry mate, unrestrained global capitalism is the enemy, not some Muslims angry at being caricatured as bombers while our governments, erm, bomb the shit out of their countries.

Have you tried posting this on a BNP site instead where it might get a more positive reaction?

Sim1


The night is a child

28.03.2006 16:43

The day of Freedom of Speech is dawning.

As much as the dark night deepens we approach the light.

Yah


Stand up for David Irvine

28.03.2006 17:45

The West did defend the publication of these cartoons although I have yet to discover what substantial argument about Islam that the cartoons were making and that deserved being aired. Perhaps, it was: all Muslims are bast****.

But, of course, when David Irvine wants to make out that Hitler didn't mind Jews at all, he gets locked up. And where are the defenders of free speech? Why aren't they outraged about Irvine being jailed? So, freedom of speech is about insulting Muslims and locking up people who insult Jews.

insidejob


Irving ...

28.03.2006 18:37

was not locked up for saying rude things about Jews; he was locked up for denying that several million people had been deliberately killed in a production line fashion by the German nazis. On the other hand, I don't think he should have been locked up. Nor should the Danish cartoonists have had to go into hiding. Both represent freedom of expression, which we should support, because if it's taken away from one of us, it could be taken away from all of us.

sceptic


Amazing times

28.03.2006 21:57

Dear God! sceptic has written something sensible – Hurray at last

Haidar


Amazing comments

29.03.2006 12:31

>We have no right to assert our principles, because they are rational and good. But the Iraqis and Palestinians have a right to enact their tribal and terrorist beliefs at our expense, because their beliefs are irrational and evil. In the present crisis, the State Department will not defend free speech, because this principle is rationally defensible

A racist diatribe is posted and only sim1 has the decency to criticise it. Is the ratio of fascists to anarchists really 4:1 even on Indymedia ? Can you folk really not find any non-fascists free speech cases to march for ? What about the kid who was arrested for wearing a 'fuck bush' tshirt ? Where the fuck was Peter Tatchell and the other fakers when Austin Sherman was imprisoned for publishing black bloc tactics ?

When David Irving gets out I am going to kill him just to piss you lot off.

Dan