Pass the courage, please
Would that Americans - the land of free, mind you - had the kind of courage Mark Steyn demonstrates in this column.
A slow-burn bonfire of liberties
"The other day, upholding the sacking of a black Christian for declining to provide 'sex therapy lessons' to gay couples, Lord Justice Laws ruled that 'law for the protection of a position held purely on religious grounds is irrational, divisive, capricious, arbitrary.' Actually it’s the law of Lord Justice Laws that is increasingly 'irrational, divisive, capricious, arbitrary.' Or as George Orwell, in Animal Farm, formulated it: all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. In the land of Laws, a gay is more equal than a Christian. A Muslim is more equal than anybody. A black man is more equal than a white man, unless the white man is gay and the black man a Christian. An eco-zealot is more equal than an Anglican. Not long before Lord Justice Laws’ decision on the 'irrationality' of legal protection for Christianity, Tim Nicholson, a 'Head of Sustainability' fired for questioning his property management group’s environmental policies, sued for wrongful dismissal under 'Employment Equality (Religion And Beliefs) Regulations.' He wound up with the best part of one hundred thousand pounds after Mr. Justice Burton ruled that Mr. Nicholson’s faith in anthropogenic global warming was a 'philosophical belief' on a par with religion. So the Employment Equality (Religion And Beliefs) Law protects belief in apocalyptic 'climate change' but not in Jesus...
...As for Muslims, in December Tohseef Shah sprayed the words 'KILL GORDON BROWN,' 'OSAMA IS ON HIS WAY' and 'ISLAM WILL DOMINATE THE WORLD' on the war memorial at Burton-upon-Trent. But the Crown Prosecution Service decided his words were not 'religiously motivated.' Phew! Thank goodness for that, eh? So a week or so back he walked out of court a free man, except for £500 in compensation to the municipal council for cleaning off his non-religiously motivated 'ISLAM WILL DOMINATE THE WORLD' graffito.
I am currently slogging my way through a rather stodgy 650-page tome called Extreme Speech And Democracy. On the back is a question from Christopher McCrudden, professor of human rights law at Oxford: 'What are the appropriate limits to freedom of expression in societies that wish to be democratic, multicultural, and committed to the human rights of all?'
Whether or not you regard that as a legitimate query, it’s certainly an irrelevant one. Because whatever you decide are the 'appropriate' limits, by the time they percolate down to the transgendered liaison officer patrolling Workington shopping centre they’ll be reliably inappropriate. As I always point out in retailing the latest idiocy from Canada’s 'human rights' fanatics, none of the above are 'right-wing' in any sense that Steyn or Rumsfeld or Cheney would recognize the term. Mrs. Duffy is a lifelong Labour voter; Mr. Newman is one of those pox-on-all-their-houses types; the property company that fired Mr. Nicholson is so wretchedly politically correct it employed him as 'Head of Sustainability,' a title of near parodic bogusness. Yet all fell afoul of Lord Justice Laws’ 'irrational, divisive, capricious, arbitrary' laws. Because it’s hard not to. Because once you establish the principle that the state has the right to police ideas, sooner or later one of yours will catch their eye. I say 'principle,' but that’s not really the word. The spirit is more aptly caught by a new joint initiative by the Canadian 'Human Rights' Commission, the Manitoba 'Human Rights' Commission and the Treaty Relations Commission of Manitoba to “promote and enhance the learning experience relative to human and treaty rights for all people living in Canada and around the world.' No idea what that means, but, as the CHRC press release says, this is the first time that these three useless taxpayer-funded sinecures have come together to 'further their cause.' Since when do government agencies have ideological 'causes'? And what happens if you disagree with their 'cause'?
As for the 'balancing act' that Professor McCrudden urges between individual rights and broader responsibilities, only a truly free people have the incentive even to seek it. The more you haul nobodies off to the cells for putting up a poster or quoting the Bible, the more a timid conformist populace will keep its head down, mind its own business, and avoid broader social engagement—or at any rate non-alcohol-fuelled engagement. Big Government is dismantling civic identity, and the slow-burn bonfire of liberties in Europe and North America will eventually consume us all."
He's right. The home of the brave, and really the homes of all free peoples, has been cowered into the home of the timid and their frightened little schoolyard bullies.
Fuck that shit, I say.
These colors don't run, bitch. Find somebody else to push around, dicks.
Freedom isn't free, baby.
Pass the courage, please.
