One of the hardest things for most people to grasp in the War On Terror is that we are dealing with a very clever, very adaptive enemy. No one strategy or plan is guaranteed to work, because they’ll simply find a way around it. Victory will come not with the magic plan, but with us simply outlasting them and coming up with more plans than they can counter.
And here’s a bad sign: they’re learning how to challenge us on our home turf, in ways that have proven they can defeat us before.
And they’re learning because we’re teaching them.
Last week, the amazingly-Orwellian-named “United Nations Human Rights Council” passed a resolution that called for — let me let the news account sum it up:
The resolution “urges states to take actions to prohibit the dissemination … of racist and xenophobic ideas” and material that would incite to religious hatred. It also urges states to adopt laws that would protect against hatred and discrimination stemming from religious defamation.
Yet the only religion that is mentioned by name is Islam, which gets eight shout-outs.
This is nothing less than an assault on free speech. It is an attempt to silence critics — those who are not cowed by threats of beheading or death in other forms, or even prior murders like that of Theo Van Gogh. It is an attempt to coerce Western governments to enforce the demands of the savages who find they can’t cut off everyone’s heads that they wish to, so they’re going to try to co-opt our own governments to silence us.
And just where did they get this idea? Why, we gave it to them.
The theme behind this new approach is that “offensive speech is not protected free speech.” Never mind the centuries of Western tradition that the only speech worth defending is the offensive speech, because it’s the only speech that anyone feels like attacking. If someone is offended, if someone’s feelings are hurt, if someone’s self-esteem is damaged, then the speech is “hateful” and “oppressive” and must be suppressed — for the greater good, you understand.
If this sounds familiar, it’s because the Islamists are trying to turn the whole Western world into one big liberal college campus.
Compare the arguments behind this resolution with a typical college “speech code” or other example of speech suppression — say, this one from Winona State University in Minnesota. (Hat tip: Murdoc)
Here, the “offended” party doesn’t even have to identify himself or herself. The mere fact that someone allegedly found the poster offensive is enough to cause the college to set aside its own rules governing the posting of public notices and the all-too-Western respect for free speech and the like.
Yes, the Islamists have managed to terrorize LiveLeak into not hosting the anti-Islamist film “Fitna” by threatening the employees with death. Thuggery prevails yet again, and I respect LiveLeak for their honesty:
Following threats to our staff of a very serious nature, and some ill informed reports from certain corners of the British media that could directly lead to the harm of some of our staff, Liveleak.com has been left with no other choice but to remove Fitna from our servers.
This is a sad day for freedom of speech on the net but we have to place the safety and well being of our staff above all else. We would like to thank the thousands of people, from all backgrounds and religions, who gave us their support. They realised LiveLeak.com is a vehicle for many opinions and not just for the support of one.
Perhaps there is still hope that this situation may produce a discussion that could benefit and educate all of us as to how we can accept one anothers culture.
We stood for what we believe in, the ability to be heard, but in the end the price was too high.
The Jihadists aren’t putting all their eggs in one basket. If they can’t threaten people with death to get their way, they’ll use the tried-and-true tactics found on your average Western college campuses to achieve the same results.
And those results? The loss of our freedoms to speak out against them. And if we can’t speak out against them, if we cave on this crucial point, where will we try to draw the line?
More importantly, how?
This is not a good sign, folks.
