EDWARD CLINE: FREEDOM OF SPEECH…GO TO HELL
http://ruleofreason.blogspot.com/2014/11/freedom-of-speech-go-to-hell.html
Are Britons ready to be “disrupted”? Prepared to submit to Theresa May’s totalitarian impulse? The Home Secretary has proposed even more stringent controls on the freedom of speech.
We’ve all seen in the newspapers and on blog sites those cardboard signs carried by maddened, sweaty, screaming Muslims in London and elsewhere on which are scrawled, Freedom of Speech Go to Hell. But now that same sign is being brandished by a political milquetoast, Theresa May, Britain’s Home Secretary. John Bingham’s report in The Telegraph of October 31st, “Sharia law or gay marriage critics would be branded ‘extremists’ under Tory plans, atheists and Christians warn,” is disturbing, to say the least.
Anyone who criticizes Sharia law or gay marriage could be branded an “extremist” under sweeping new powers planned by the Conservatives to combat terrorism, an alliance of leading atheists and Christians fear. Theresa May, the Home Secretary, unveiled plans last month for so-called Extremism Disruption Orders, which would allow judges to ban people deemed extremists from broadcasting, protesting in certain places or even posting messages on Facebook or Twitter without permission…..
But George Osborne, the Chancellor, has made clear in a letter to constituents that the aim of the orders would be to “eliminate extremism in all its forms” and that they would be used to curtail the activities of those who “spread hate but do not break laws”. He explained that that the new orders, which will be in the Conservative election manifesto, would extend to any activities that “justify hatred” against people on the grounds of religion, sexual orientation, gender or disability.
This particular milquetoast – let us dub her Mother Theresa – is proposing out-and-out, blanket censorship which she would enforce with the heavy hand of the police, the courts, and the slimy accusations of informants and those whose “feelings” have been hurt. “I want” figures prominently in her speech. She delivered her speech, in contrast to the chanting and ranting of Muslims who also inform us that Sharia will dominate Britain (and the West), at a Conservative/Tory Party conference in typical wallflower style, from a printed text at the podium (well, at least she didn’t use a teleprompter), with less charisma than Barbara “Let’s go walkies!” Woodhouse giving advice on how to train one’s dogs. Here she condemned “extremists” of all breeds as possibly infected with rabies and she let it be known that they should all “sit” and “heel” and “stay” in their own speech lest they be served with the blackjack of an “Extremism Disruption Order” (EDO) and isolated in a kennel.
Surely the coiner of that awkward, euphemistic nomenclature for “preemptive censorship” could have come up with something a little less depersonalized and antiseptic. Like “Taser”? The purpose of such political tasers, wielded by police or the courts, would be “to prevent conflict, protect life and resolve disputes with personal safety equipment that makes communities safe….” And surely that description is copasetic with Mother Theresa’s agenda of preventing conflicts and resolving disputes, especially if the conflicts concern Muslims, gays, trannies, and other odd bodkins.
I’ll bet not many Britons ever expected to be accosted, manhandled, cuffed, and tossed into a cell by an aggressive milquetoast with a little help from the bully boys for having indulged in their freedom of speech, or for what they might have said. But, there you are. If you’re on her “no barking” list of “extremists,” you’d better confine yourself to whining, whimpering, or pouting. You may be seen, but not heard.
A court, however, could not forbid an “extremist” to speak or broadcast or even “tweet” on Twitter unless his name was on a Vatican-like Index of Prohibited Books. Let us call it instead Index Librorum Prohibitorum Novissimarum Orator, or the Index of Prohibited Extremist Speakers. One must first be a known and red-flagged “extremist” speaker to earn a place on that list.
That’s quite a job for a government practiced in police-state surveillance as Britain’s already is. It even monitors what trash is put in wheelie bins. We have the NSA. Britain has Mother Theresa and her minions. They’re fighting the “war on terror” by promising “extremists” a night in the box. They will be watched, monitored, and even “disrupted.” I think there was a science fiction TV series that featured “disrupter” ray guns. How appropriate a choice of words.
After congratulating herself on fighting crime and dousing the fires of “extremism” with the current tools at hand, Mother Theresa went on:
But we must continue to do more. Soon, we will make Prevent a statutory duty for all public sector organizations. I want to see new banning orders for extremist groups that fall short of the existing laws relating to terrorism. I want to see new civil powers to target extremists who stay just within the law but still spread poisonous hatred. So both policies – Banning Orders and Extremism Disruption Orders – will be in the next Conservative manifesto.
Emma West was put through the judicial wringer for expressing her anger about what was happening to Britain. Paul Weston was arrested for quoting Churchill in public, the quotations expressing Churchill’s estimate of Muslims and Islam. Robert Spencer, Pamela Geller, and Geert Wilders were banned from Britain because they’re famous (or notorious) for their anti-Islamic “hate speech.”
So, what is “extremism”?
For one thing, it’s the “extreme” dhimmitude displayed by Mother Theresa throughout her speech. Several times she stated emphatically that ISIS, the al Nusra Front, Boko Haram in Nigeria, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen, like-minded groups in Libya, Al Shabaab in East Africa, the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan all have nothing to do with Islam. Just as the salute, Sieg Heil!, has nothing whatsoever to do with Nazism, Allahu Akbar! has nothing to do with flying planes into skyscrapers or the mass executions of non-Muslims and rival Muslims.
Or so Mother Theresa would have you believe. This is a species of denial bordering on psychosis. For example:
This hateful ideology has nothing to do with Islam itself. And it is rejected by the overwhelming majority of Muslims in Britain and around the world….
Well, no, they don’t reject it. They’re merely the “silent majority” who have no opinion about what their “violent” brethren do in the way of acting out the violent verses in the Koran (about 164 of them, at last count; see Answering Islam’s extensive list of them here). Or they don’t dare frown upon “violent” Islam lest they be subject to violence themselves. After all, it’s all in their “good book,” the Koran, and who are they to question its contents? Those non-participatory, “silent” Muslims have a ho-hum attitude about Islamic terrorism: “Oh, well, there’s another train blown up, more filthy infidels killed in a shopping mall. What’s the latest soccer score?” Some 80% of London Muslims don’t mind the violence one iota.
Mother Theresa conspicuously identifies that what she claims isn’t Islam is also a “hateful” ideology, which proves that some synapses are crackling in her brain. But then a politically correct circuit breaker kicks in, and the current stops flowing. What has nothing to do with Islam is, at the same time, a “radical ideology” or an “extremist” ideology. Can she answer the question: If it is “radical” or “extremist,” what ideology is it a “radical” or “extremist” version of? Has it an identity? What is the thing? Does it have a name? If she saw a half-assembled table, would she object to its completion because she could forecast that at one point it would become an “extremist” table and not a carburetor?
Of course she knows what it is and what it will be. But because the subject is Islam, denying Islam’s essential identity helps her (and fellow dhimmi David Cameron) “prevent” the ruffling of Muslim feathers. Muslim values are now British values.
“Radical Islam,” “Fundamentalist Islam,” “Extremist Islam,” and “Violent Islam” are all exercises in redundancy.
The terrorists who murdered David Haines like to call themselves the Islamic State. But I will tell you the truth: They are not Islamic. And they are not a state. Their actions have absolutely no basis in anything written in the Quran. What they believe has no resemblance whatsoever to the beliefs of more than a billion Muslims all over the world…..
Chancellor George Osborne was more succinct in his description of the means and ends of Bannings and EDOs. Bingham writes:
…George Osborne, the Chancellor, has made clear in a letter to constituents that the aim of the orders would be to “eliminate extremism in all its forms” and that they would be used to curtail the activities of those who “spread hate but do not break laws”. He explained that that the new orders, which will be in the Conservative election manifesto, would extend to any activities that “justify hatred” against people on the grounds of religion, sexual orientation, gender or disability.
He also disclosed that anyone seeking to challenge such an order would have to go the High Court, appealing on a point of law rather than fact.
So, all forms of “extremist” speech must be eliminated, and those suspected of harboring “extremist” thoughts or sentiments must be curtailed, especially if they don’t cross the threshold of statutory crime. Hovering close to a “speech crime” will not be tolerated, either.
It’s significant that Mother Theresa made extra-special points about Islam and Muslims. It’s as though Baptists and Seventh Day Adventists didn’t merit protection from “extremist” defamation or mockery or criticism of their creeds, but British Muslims do. Atheists would be effectively and “preemptively” silenced on the subject of Muslims and Islam because to them, all the various religions and creeds occupy one big crockery shop.
However, the “peaceful” jihad that Mother Theresa has had nail-gunned to her mind has as little to do with Islam as contemplating one’s navel or performing yoga. It’s not self-disciplining fitna, which she must mistake for a dietary regimen. Perhaps she has observed Muslims practicing Chi-Gong to rid their bodies of its toxins. But, I rather think they enjoy those ideological toxins; it’s their kind of homicidal adrenaline.
“Extremism” is what novelist/philosopher Ayn Rand would call an anti-concept intended to suppress discussion of fundamental principles in order to prevent conflict or open dissension. It is an essentially meaningless term that stands for what she called “blank-outs.” It is anti-mind, an act of deliberate evasion of facts, of reality. Mother Theresa, like Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and many others, has fried mental circuit breakers that have permanently stopped any recognition of facts and reality regarding Islam. It is a refusal to think.
At first reading, towards the end of her relativist and moral equivalence spiel at the Conference, it is difficult to identify the subject:
All British people – including British Muslims – are free to practice their faith, and wear whatever clothes they choose. They are free to establish their own faith schools and give their children – including their girls – the best education possible. They are free to build their own churches, temples and mosques and worship freely. These are the benefits of living in a pluralistic society. But the whole point of living in such a society is that there are not just rights but responsibilities too. You don’t just get the freedom to live how you choose to live. You have to respect other people’s right to do so too. And you have to respect British values and institutions. The rule of law. Democracy. Equality. Free speech. And respect for minorities. These are the values that make our country what it is. These are our values. There is no place for extremism here.
There will, I’m sure, be some who say politicians shouldn’t get involved in these matters. But to live in a modern liberal state is not to live in a moral vacuum. We have to stand up for our values as a nation. There will, I know, be some who say that what I describe as extremism is merely social conservatism. But if others described a woman’s intellect as “deficient”, denounced people on the basis of their religious beliefs, or rejected the democratic process, we would quite rightly condemn their bigotry. And there will be others who say I am wrong to link these kinds of beliefs with the violent extremism we agree we must confront. To them I say, yes, not all extremism leads to violence. And not all extremists are violent.
Of whom is she speaking? The English Defense League? The UKIP? Muslim clerics? Muslim vigilante patrols? No-go Muslim ghettos within British cities?
But the damage extremists cause to our society is reason enough to act. And there is, undoubtedly, a thread that binds the kind of extremism that promotes intolerance, hatred and a sense of superiority over others to the actions of those who want to impose their values on us through violence.
Yes, that thread belongs to an ideology, the ideology of Islamic conquest. But, to Mother Theresa, Islam is a “religion of peace” and isn’t an ideology at all. And if the evidence of the daily claims of Islamic superiority over and intolerance for all other faiths or styles of living boasted by Muslim “extremists” both in Britain and from abroad aren’t enough to open her mental circuit breakers, then nothing will. She chooses to blank out.
And if you don’t reciprocate and blank out, as well, but insist on speaking your peace, then you will be criminalized by Mother Theresa as an “extremist.” You, and not the Muslims who are free to exercise their freedom of speech by carrying cardboard signs that say, Behead Those Who Insult Islam.
Theresa May, Home Secretary, you see, is a humanitarian, one of the most dangerous and implacable people in civil society. There is no use in offering her evidence, facts, or reasoned arguments. She has immunized herself against them. Like Winston Smith’s inquisitor O’Brien in George3 Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, she succumbed to the totalitarian mentality. “They got me a long time ago,” O’Brien tells Winston Smith.
Theresa May should confess the same conquest. But won’t. Freedom of speech can go to hell.
* * 30 * *
Edward Cline
Williamsburg, VA
November 2014
Links:
Telegraph on Extremism Disruption Orders censorship:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/11202290/Sharia-law-or-gay-marriage-critics-would-be-branded-extremists-under-Tory-plans-atheists-and-Christians-warn.html
Freedom of Speech go to hell pictures:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/feb/03/religion.uk
Text of May speech on EDO’s at party conference:
http://press.conservatives.com/post/98799073410/theresa-may-speech-to-conservative-party-conference
ITV of May giving speech on EDO’s:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Imnu9L1XCqw
Churchill feeding the crocodile quotation Telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9696402/Why-Winston-Churchill-will-always-be-the-last-word-in-political-wit.html
Paul Weston Briton arrested for quoting Churchill about Islam:
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/04/28/UK-Cops-Arrest-Man-for-Quoting-Churchill
Index of Prohibited Books:
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/indexlibrorum.asp
Taser quotation:
http://www.taser.com/
A night in the box:
Violent verses in Koran (at least 164):
http://www.answering-islam.org/Quran/Themes/jihad_passages.html
Woodhouse video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGjHf5-vQ6k
Britain’s hate speech laws a summary:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/hatespuk.htm
Majority of London Muslims endorse ISIS Greenfield:
http://tundratabloids.com/2014/10/daniel-greenfield-80-of-london-muslim-support-islamic-state.html
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