In a world without free speech, everything will be acted out in symbols - or worse
A very perceptive man once said this:
He that has eyes to see and ears to hear may convince himself that no mortal can keep a secret. If his lips are silent, he chatters with his fingertips; betrayal oozes out of him at every pore.
So it is with speech codes. As John Leo notes in his excellent commentary today, speech codes about anti-semitism and the Holocaust have done Jews no good whatsoever. (Mark Steyn also raises a similar point regarding our homogenized, pasteurized, low-fat, bland war on “terror” that the politically-correct President has served up.) And yet the trend all over the globe seems to be to have even more restrictions on speech. This is not only counterproductive: it is dangerous.
As we have said several times, the emotional power of the ports issue has almost nothing to do with ports. The power comes from a broad-based distrust and suspicion of all things Arab and Muslim in the wake of the cartoon riots and like events. Similarly, the mass demonstrations in France last week had little to do with the murder of a young Jewish man, but rather were a mass reaction against the cartoon riots and the widespread Muslim violence in France last fall. In each case — the ports and the funeral — people have found politically acceptable vessels for their anger and disgust.
That people are forbidden to discuss their feelings openly obviously does not mean that the feelings disappear. They are driven underground. If this is unhealthy in a person, imagine how much unhealthier this is for society. Currently the crowds act out these feelings in nice and appropriate symbols, like a funeral or opposition to a change in owndership of a corporation. It is our view that the ceaseless repression of politically incorrect speech, particularly in Europe, is likely to produce very nasty results indeed if a critical mass of people decides that it has finally had enough.
UPDATE
Jack Kelly and Jim Geraghty share views similar to ours on the relationship of the cartoon riots to the ports issue, and show the superiority of the freer speech and more open debate of the US over Europe’s closed system.
March 5th, 2006 at 11:54 am
The view from a lonely Canadian Conservative
LAck ofFree Speech: It’s far worse in Canada. Be it in the relic media of newspapers and magazines or in our radio talk show hosts, all is censored through the narrow funnel of PCism.
Mark Steyn appears in the National Post but would never bereead anywhere else. Too controversial and honest for tender Canadian hearts.
The radio talk show hosts up here sound like gruff right wingers ( Misters Bortz, Savage, Limbaugh, O’Reilly, Hannity ) but are all liberal sheep leading all to the eventual slaughter at the hands of allah. Some are near the center but all are phoneys with a 7 second dealy- with the exception of an aging Lowell Green ( http://www.cfra.com ).
Americans are lucky to have free speech; at least on the radio and in the OpEd of the Wall Street Journal.
The Liberal Canadian Supreme Court just rules that Sikh children amy cary a kirpah in their turban; albeit sewn in their turban. They call it a kirpah. We would call it a knife; not a Crocodile Dundee knife, but still a knife. Our suicidal PC papers call it feedom of religion. Most of our papers also agree with supporting Hamas ( “They may change; we cannot give up “)
Multiculturalism was imposed upon us by the great Castro admirer, Pierre Trudeau and his liberal conmen.
Any discussion of it is tempered on the radio- they have more important thingsto discuss like who will win at the Oscars ( gay cowboys), the danger of the french language, gay marriage and higher property taxes.
Not the important things like lowering taxes, eliminating the government’s enforced laws to stifle certain topics on the radio or protecting our borders or tougher immigration laws or ridding our society of hijabs or OUR ENORMOUS DEBT ( 500 billion in US funds to support 31 million people).
I respect my country and feel lucky that my family left Eurabia generations ago but I admire yours more. Much more.
Jeff Burke ( CPA - Champagne Illinois )
Canada
Jeff Burke
I respect
March 6th, 2006 at 9:23 am
The Return of the Repressed
Freud coined the term return of the repressed to explain the existence of neurotic symptoms. He theorized that an unconscious thought/feeling (Id derived) would constantly press for access to the executive fictions of the mind in order to be discharged.