Hitchens on Yale

Christopher Hitchens has a good column on the disgraceful cowardice of Yale University Press. His point is that not only have deliberately censored themselves, but have said that they would have been culpable for any violence resulting from their publication of Danish cartoons:

But now the rot has gone a serious degree further into the fabric. Now we have to say that the mayhem we fear is also our fault, if not indeed our direct responsibility. This is the worst sort of masochism and it subverts our language as well as our concept of moral responsibility. ...

What a cause of shame that the campus of American hero Nathan Hale should have pre-emptively run up the white flag and then cringingly taken the blood guilt of potential assassins and tyrants on itself.

This craven behaviour is eating away at freedom. If you are not prepared to stand up for your rights you don't deserve them.

Toben Martyred

Frederick Toben has now been jailed following an unsuccessful appeal against his conviction for contempt of court perpetrated by Toben not taking down anti-semitic statements from his website in accordance with a court order.

Some may say that his jailing is for contempt rather than for exercising his right to say what he pleases. This shallow analysis ignores the fact that it was precisely his continued publication of the offensive speech which constituted the contempt. This is merely a difference in legal terminology, not a difference in impugned conduct.

Sadly we live among the dying embers of the enlightenment, when hard-won freedoms are being rolled back by priggish PC censors. Now society is being made to conform to a new religion, a new set of irrational beliefs inflicted on us to protect the sensitivities of the liberal elite.

This is much more sickening than anything Toben said.

Crypto Fascists

Apparently privilege against self-incrimination only goes so far. In the UK you can be jailed for up to five years for not letting people view your documents:

Two people have been successfully prosecuted for refusing to provide authorities with their encryption keys, resulting in landmark convictions that may have carried jail sentences of up to five years.

The legal system is spiralling towards insanity. There have been calls for such legislation in Australia.

Utterly Gutless

Now it seems a prestigious university is too scared to publish a book about the Danish cartoon controversy which actually shows the cartoons themselves, or any other representation of Muhammad. Apparently the editor didn't want blood on his hands.

If there was any blood, it would not be on his hands, but on the hands of the murderous fanatics bent on dictating to speech laws to the rest of the world. Whatever their religion is, it is not a religion of peace.

Freedom Slipping Away

The Attorney-General, Robert McLelland, is continuing the process of diminishing civil liberties in Australia.

He said:

While I will not attempt to outline in detail all the measures contained in the Discussion Paper, there are a number of key measures that are proposed, including:

• expanding the definition of a ‘terrorist act’ in the Criminal Code to include psychological, as well as physical harm;
• providing police with new emergency powers to enter and search premises without a warrant where it is suspected, on reasonable grounds, that there is material relevant to a terrorism offence and there is a threat to public health or safety;
• extending the time available for police to re-enter a premises under a search warrant from one hour to 12 hours in emergency circumstances;
• introducing a new ‘terrorism hoax offence’, punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment, for those that seek to create a false belief that a terrorist act is occurring, or will likely occur;
• establishing a maximum seven day limit on the amount of time that can be specified by a magistrate and disregarded from the investigation period in relation to an alleged terrorism offence;
• inserting a right of appeal for both the prosecution and the defendant against bail decisions in terrorism and national security matters, including a power to stay a bail order where an appeal is planned;
• creating an offence of inciting violence against an individual on the basis of race, religion, nationality, national origin or political opinion to supplement the existing Commonwealth offence of inciting violence against a group;
• extending the expiration period of regulations proscribing a terrorist organisation from two to three years;
• amending the National Security Information (Criminal and Civil Proceedings) Act 2004 so that national security and counter-terrorism court proceedings may be expedited;
• establishing a Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement to extend parliamentary oversight to include the Australian Federal Police (AFP) in addition to the Australian Crime Commission (ACC); and
• renaming the offence of sedition to ‘urging violence’ and expanding its provisions to include urging force or violence against an individual, not just a group, and including ‘national origin’, as well as race, religion, nationality or political opinion as a reason for urging violence.

Warrantless searches! Terrorism equals psychological harm!

Unbelievable. Philip Ruddock never dreamed he could get away with this nonsense. This will do lasting damage to freedom in this country. It will be applied first to terrorists, then to bikies then to anyone who looks to be guilty of anything at all.

Keysar Trad

Free speech allows bigots to spread their malicious beliefs. It also allows them to be called out for what they are. You can see how this works in the recent Keysar Trad case:

Keysar Trad's defamation case against a Sydney radio station has collapsed, with a Supreme Court justice saying Trad did in fact make remarks that were ‘‘offensive", "racist" and ‘‘condoned violence".

Note that Trad is not on trial here. He is free to say what he will. The reason he is in court is that he bought a case to penalise people criticising his ridiculous views. The details are in the judgement.

Trad is a someone who often seems to be trying to foster good relations between the islamic community and other Australians. Yet he also seems to be playing a double game, at the same time defending pathetically primitive aspects of Islam. To understand this you need to understand taqqiya.

Trad also seems to have a few supporters among the local muslim community:

Every time I have heard or read what Mr Trad says I have felt that his opinions and views were valid

So there you have it. Trad is free to say what he likes, commentators are free to point out that he his a bigoted buffoon, and his mindless followers can at their two cents worth as well.