Free Speech Watch: Gagging in Britain
The lights are going out all over Europe. One by one, European countries are devising more ways of restricting freedom of speech.
Earlier this month, Britain banned sixteen controversial people from entering the United Kingdom. Besides those seemingly falling into the “terrorist” category, there are some Christian and Muslim preachers and activists, and conservative American talk show host Michael Savage.
The newspaper The Independent reported on Home Secretary Jacqui Smith’s reasons for this entry ban. "If people have so clearly overstepped the mark in terms of the way not just that they are talking but the sort of attitudes that they are expressing to the extent that we think that this is likely to cause or have the potential to cause violence or inter-community tension in this country, then actually I think the right thing is not to let them into the country in the first place. Not to open the stable door then try to close it later," Ms Smith said.
Protecting your society from tension? Afraid that your society can’t handle some disagreement? This is not liberalism. This is tyranny.
This British politician is obviously ignorant of the very purpose of protecting free speech. The value of free speech lies precisely in arousing social tension – the sort of tension that makes people think and maybe act.
Linking speech with violence is the censor’s tactic, because the public might trade freedom for safety. All dictators know that ideas and speech can cause unwanted violence. That is why all dictators gag free speech, and get away with it, after they have made the people afraid. As Stalin observed, “Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas.”
Fundamentalist Islam also criminalizes all criticism of the Faith, explaining that God’s true society must be protected from unbelievers.
In America, we criminalize the actual violence, not the idea. We don’t try to control thoughts, but we punish for harming others. A free society has citizens able to control both their own minds and their own conduct. A tyrannical society tries to control citizens’ conduct by controlling their minds. A society that treats the mind as an enemy is evil. The good society earns the confidence of every free mind.
A democracy confirms its strength by permitting free speech. A tyranny confirms its weakness by gagging free speech.
Congratulation, Britain. Not only are you making ideas into enemies, you have echoed Stalin and confirmed fundamentalist Islam’s logic of repression.
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