A timely blast from the past

Colby Cosh wrote in 2006:

If you merely advocate genocide against a “political entity,” you are entitled to the protections of free speech, and to full deference to your intellectual dignity.

But to criticize a religious creed–well, that’s just hateful.

This is, of course, a spectacular subversion of the postliberal ethos of programmed “free expression”. Western societies like Canada were encouraged to adopt laws against “hate” in order to protect people from violence and discrimination on the basis of their inalterable, inherent characteristics, most significantly race.

But perhaps Bonnie Marie Shahin’s view represents our future. “Political entities”, including racial groups, will be regarded as fair game–but discussion of the demerits of any belief system, whether Islam, Mormonism, logical positivism, or New Math, will be proscribed. This amounts to a universal ban on reasoned discourse, but then why should mere philosophy be allowed to interfere with the entertaining struggle of rival “cultures” for political power?

My own view is that if we’re not free to say fuck Islam, then we’re not free, period. My apologies to any Canadian diplomats abroad whose lives and property may be endangered by a simple statement of the essential credo of liberalism.