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June 29, 2009

The Impact of Islam on Free Speech in America


Diana West at The Brussels Journal believes that Americans are voluntarily giving up their First Amendment rights.
"Soon, the president was giving up other words, other pieces of our culture. Operation Infinite Justice, the Pentagon name for the assault on the Taliban, for example, was changed after Muslims complained that they believed only Allah dispenses infinite justice."
Americans are proud, and rightly so, of the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights, which, among other things, protects speech from government control. The Amendment says in part: “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”

Increasingly, however, Americans seem content to regard the First Amendment not as the fundamental working tool of democracy, but as a national heirloom, a kind of antique to admire rather than put to use. I don’t think many of my countrymen perceive how profoundly their attitude toward free speech has changed. But there is a difference between having freedom of speech and exercising freedom of speech, one that has become glaringly and distressingly obvious to me since September 11, 2001. So, while it is true that the US government is not Constitutionally empowered to make laws that censor Americans, it is also true, I believe, that Americans have come to censor themselves. But why?

I speak today in regard to the effect of Islam on speech in America - Islam as it has entered our national discussion and debate – and, I must add, lack of national discussion and debate - since the heinous Islamic attacks on the US nearly 8 years ago. (More...)

16 comments:

Timeshare Jake said...

Diane West needs to realize Americans are starting to wake up and we aren't looking at the First Amendment as an antiqe but a rallying cry.

Anonymous said...

Bill, I like the way you said that. Thank you.

Northman said...

Americans starting to wake up and enough Americans awake are two completely different things. I have little faith they'll wake in time to save us... It's progressing faster in Europe and American Liberals look up to them. They voted a retard to the presidency and half of them only did because he was black. They'll swear Islam is a religion of peace and yet 9/10 of them have never read the Qur'an. They run California and it's going to be one of the first down the shitter. They're not only unconcerned with our freedom of speech, they're unconcerned with all of our freedoms. These are people who approve of socialist/communist ways. The only thing they aren't smart enough to see is that once they they equalize the perceived inequality and empower the minority, this particular minority is not going to stop and be equal they are going to do everything in their power to stamp us out or at very least to forcibly rule us under Sharia law. We are a spoiled nation of self entitled pussies who never had to earn anything and are sure that the world would be a wonderful place if we just say nice things and send lots of care packages.

Anonymous said...

The free speech aspect of the First Amendment is pointless without rationalism. That is, without a reasoning, virtuous, alert public, comprehended speech has no meaning; if it expresses ideas which few either understand or care about, it's simply noise.

Not even the Anti-Federalists could have predicted the morbid complacency spread by post-Enlightenment liberalism. They worried about the concentration of coercive power in centralized government, against the WILL of the people. It never dawned on them that pacified and stupid populations would demand it, as we see today.

Liberty of the kind Goomba, and everyone else here, reveres and would die for is the historical exception. We've made the moral and intellectual choice to risk everything if the time comes to do it. We take rights seriously; we know they aren't self-generating, that life is worthless without them, and the default is slavery.

That is, the Bill of Rights still means something because we have the proper state of mind and understand the language. There are fewer of us every day.

Thanks for the space, Nickie.

Rhod

Opus #6 said...

Rhod, amazing comment, I only hope that some are wandering around the internet, talk radio and fox news who become educated in time to rescue this great Republic. Reagan won by a landslide, after the media ridiculed him for making chimp movies. It can be done.

Anonymous said...

Opie, Americans reacted to the humiliation experienced under the misguided hand of Jimmy Carter. I suspect that this nation's greater humiliation is right around the corner.

Anonymous said...

Dillinger, stop beating around the bush. How do you really feel?

Seriously, it is fury and insight like yours that will fuel the next revolution.

Anonymous said...

Rhod... "An alert public"?
"Post-Enlightenment liberalism"?
"The Bill of Rights"?

In Obama's America you might as well be tweeting in Ket. This ship will not be quickly turned about.

~Leslie said...

The First Amendment is very much under attack. The problem with many people is fear. Political correctness has been a tool used to make Americans hinder their own freedom of speech.

I do think people are finally starting to wake up, but we need more to and we need more people to take an active roll in protecting their freedoms...before they all disappear.

~Leslie

~Thanks for the follow.

Anonymous said...

Leslie, you are so right. Many have been clubbed into submission by the High Church of political correctness.

And, may our freedoms never disappear 'cause it'll be a long and bloody battle to get them back.

Anonymous said...

Political correctness is insidious because it's the enforcement of fashion. It's a form of snobbery, an end run around "politics", by the elites, which is why social climbers and wannabes feed on it so enthusiastically.

You can't talk about political correctness without sounding like a Marxist, because it has everything to do with class systems, influence and the arbitration of taste.

Rhod

Anonymous said...

Dammit, Rhod. That's what you've gotta call your new blog... THE ENFORCEMENT OF FASHION.

That is genius.

Opus #6 said...

Fashion? Did somebody say fashion?

Rhod said...

Thanks, Nico. My first campaign is for Nehru jackets with Mao Tse Tung (Mousie Dung?)hats cocked at a jaunty angle.

Anonymous said...

At this blog I will always defer to you, Opie, for fashion guidance.

Rhod is well-intentioned, but his idea of high fashion is getting his garters re-elasticized every Spring.

Anonymous said...

If I don't, my socks work down into my Weejuns and you can see my spider veins.