Thought Police (Updated)

A gem of an article regarding the rise of Thought Police in Australia. Read it.

THE dark spectre of illiberalism is slowly poisoning Western liberal democracies. You won’t hear about it from much of the left-liberal press. It is part of the problem and its silence only confirms that basic liberties integral to Western liberal democracies are under threat. That is why you may not have heard about the trial of Dutch politician Geert Wilders, who is being prosecuted under hate laws in The Netherlands for his opinions about Islam. Agree or disagree with Wilders, this is the thundering march of the thought police. And don’t for a moment imagine that Australia is immune from this menace to democracy. In a trial that began last month, Wilders is being prosecuted for offending a “group of people”, for incitement and discrimination against Muslims. The summons describes scenes from his film Fitna as reason enough to put the leader of the Freedom Party in prison for up to two years.

In a sign of how twisted our Western antennae have become, the violence incited by Fitna is not against Muslims. Instead the film shows footage of Muslims preaching violence against the West. Yet Wilders is on trial for his opinions.

I’ve seen Fitna, and i liked it. Links here to part 1, and part 2. Fitna is sharply critical of Islam, and is in part a response to the fact that Muslim extremists murdered Wilders’ friend, Theo Van Gogh for making a truly beautiful movie, Submission, that reveals the brutal, misogynistic, treatment of women rampant in Islam. Link here to watch Submission.

More excerpts from the Thought Police article:

Shutting down public debates will only drive discussion underground where, away from the blowtorch of challenging views, they will fester and grow more extreme in private. And shutting down offensive debate at the request of loony objectors just encourages more thin-skinned outrage, with ever more outlandish claims to protection from free speech, and increasing censorship. If you really want to discredit bad ideas, the surest way is to expose them to free and full debate. Remember, too, that plenty of ideas that were once regarded as offensive by a group of puffed-up, moralising sophisticates have prevailed.

If these same arguments defending freedom of expression are not made each and every time someone is prosecuted for their opinions, the great danger is that these kinds of stifling prosecutions will be regarded as the norm in a society that has seemingly forgotten or forsaken its values.

By the way, here is Ezra Levant’s homepage where he blogs about his efforts to combat Canada’s thought police.

UPDATE:

More Aussie thought police, this time trying to coerce Google to censor youtube videos the Australian government deems inappropriate. Hat tip to Instapundit for this link.

Socio-Political