In Human Events today I discuss the latest bad news in the Obama Administration's ongoing quiet war against free speech:
The Obama Administration has now actually co-sponsored an anti-free speech resolution at the United Nations. Approved by the U.N. Human Rights Council last Friday, the resolution, cosponsored by the U.S. and Egypt, calls on states to condemn and criminalize "any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence."
What could be wrong with that? Plenty.
First of all, there's that little matter of the First Amendment, which preserves Americans' right to free speech and freedom of the press, which are obviously mutually inclusive.
"Incitement" and "hatred" are in the eye of the beholder -- or more precisely, in the eye of those who make such determinations. The powerful can decide to silence the powerless by classifying their views as "hate speech." The Founding Fathers knew that the freedom of speech was an essential safeguard against tyranny: the ability to dissent, freely and publicly and without fear of imprisonment or other reprisal, is a cornerstone of any genuine republic. If some ideas cannot be heard and are proscribed from above, the ones in control are tyrants, however benevolent they may be.
Now no less distinguished a personage than the President of the United States has given his imprimatur to this tyranny; the implications are grave. The resolution also condemns "negative stereotyping of religions and racial groups," which is of course an oblique reference to accurate reporting about the jihad doctrine and Islamic supremacism -- for that, not actual negative stereotyping or hateful language, is always the focus of whining by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and allied groups. They never say anything when people like Osama bin Laden and Khaled Sheikh Mohammed issue detailed Koranic expositions justifying violence and hatred; but when people like Geert Wilders and others report about such expositions, that's "negative stereotyping."
But we still have the First Amendment, right? Legal expert Eugene Volokh, in an excellent analysis of the resolution, explains why it isn't that easy to dismiss this. "If the U.S. backs a resolution that urges the suppression of some speech," he explains, "presumably we are taking the view that all countries -- including the U.S. -- should adhere to this resolution. If we are constitutionally barred from adhering to it by our domestic constitution, then we're implicitly criticizing that constitution, and committing ourselves to do what we can to change it." He adds that in order to be consistent, "the Administration would presumably have to take what steps it can to ensure that supposed 'hate speech' that incites hostility will indeed be punished. It would presumably be committed to filing amicus briefs supporting changes in First Amendment law to allow such punishment, and in principle perhaps the appointment of Justices who would endorse such changes (or even the proposal of express constitutional amendments that would work such changes)."
Last year the Secretary General of the OIC chief Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu issued a warning: "We sent a clear message to the West regarding the red lines that should not be crossed" regarding free speech about Islam and terrorism. And he reported success: "The official West and its public opinion are all now well-aware of the sensitivities of these issues. They have also started to look seriously into the question of freedom of expression from the perspective of its inherent responsibility, which should not be overlooked."
For the first time, an American President has bowed to the OIC's demands and taken cognizance of that "responsibility" -- after years in which George W. Bush resisted such initiatives at the UN.
In October 2008, I wrote this in Human Events about early signs that Barack Obama had no great love for the freedom of speech: "If candidate Obama is willing to have people arrested when they say things about him that he doesn't like, will President Obama have the vision or courage or understanding to stand up against the OIC when it demands restrictions on freedom of speech at precisely the same time that he wants to build bridges to the Islamic world and demonstrate his power to restore hope and bring change to old stalemated conflicts?"
The answer is in. The answer is no.
Free speech includes the right to be offensive.
Islam is HIGHLY offensive to non-Muslims.
We do not like being called pigs and apes, we do not like and will not tolerate subjugation.
Go ahead Muslims and O, try to shut the site below down, I dare you.
No, I double dare you.
Free Speech Lives at CrazyIslam
The 1st Amendment and 2nd Amendment are 1st and 2nd for a reason.
If The 1st Amendment is taken, well...... I'm just sayin'.
Kenny Solomon
Senior Expediter
The 72 Virgins Club Travel Agency
Bacon-wrapped rounds a specialty.
So, if I said that Michelle Obama's ginormous butt and Obama's jug-ears were a threat to Western civilisation, would that constitute "national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence"?
How about if I said Mohammed was a violent, murderous, liar, pedophile, bandit and false prophet, and probably the worst man ever to walk the earth?
Told you, America; you and all the rest of us are in deep, deep trouble.
President Obama has shown an inclination towards authoritarian regimes, such as Russia, China, Iran, Egypt, et al. On the other hand, countries that are sympathetic to the United States are either treated poorly or actually abandoned, such as Israel, Poland, The Czech Republic, Ukraine, and Georgia. President Obama, platitudes to the contrary, does not consider himself to be the President of all the people. He has little patience or sympathy for people who are not on his side or close to it. It is really not surprising that he would be attracted to such a ghastly U.N. resolution, since President Obama has boundless confidence in his own abilities(real or imagined).
I think we can see the future here:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2009/10/07/school_kids_sing_for_health_care_reform_on_set_of_cnn.html
Again we see that the former President, despite his failings, stands head and shoulders above the present Chief Executive. We now have a narcissist in the White House, one who is full of bad ideas, including most menacingly the idea that free speech should be curbed. Hard not to think with each passing month that those who voted for Obama did America no favor. None at all. Yep, thanks for nothing.
So, if I said that Michelle Obama's ginormous butt and Obama's jug-ears were a threat to Western civilisation, would that constitute ....incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence"?
Yep. And that's only the beginning.
Soon saying loud "gentlemen prefer blondes" will get you arrested
President Obama seems to really have a strong fascination with authoritarian regimes.
When this crap happens it sure makes you yearn for those "Bush years"eh. with all the failings people flayed on Bush, he took any critism and turned the other cheek. With Obama
not only will there be a lose of free speech, but even on "Talk Radio' and the Internet. where is the UCLA on this matter and those pesky liberals always protesting when Bush was president about loss of liberties.
This resolution only calls on UN member states to enact this kind of legislation. In other words, it's only a suggestion. A suggestion I would bet the Obama administration knows will be roundly rejected by the courts of almost every democratic nation including the US.
Worry01 replied to comment from Wellington | October 8, 2009 4:31 AM | Reply
President Obama seems to really have a strong fascination with authoritarian regimes.
Envy, perhaps?
The very fact that someone is not a Muslim constitutes religious hatred within Islamic theology because non-Muslims have rejected Islam and Mohammed. Talk about chasing your tail!
Ive said it before and ill say it again.
Its not about proof, its all about the spin.
Theres a fly in my soup that was put there by the waiter.
I dont know about you, but Obama is a traitor!
Ba, dum, dum, dum.
:-D
Mobamad
While charges of incitement of hatred against the "filthy kufr" will never be made against dirtbags that make a living out of it, like for example Yusuf al-Clownradawi and Andjem Choudary, they would certainly be used endlessly by the likes of Ekmeleddin Insane-Glou-Glou against anyone criticizing its (not his) beloved inbred bedouin savage desert cult.
But, all in all, however Rev. Jeremiah Wrong's apprentice Buraq Arafat Saddam Hussein Osama might want to screw with the First Amendment for the sake of appeasing mahoundians and surrendering to them, I doubt he'll be able to do that. While that is certainly his wish, changing the US Constitution to fit his view of how things ought to be and make it UN-compliant (or sharia-compliant, it's all the same) would probably produce mass-protests that would make the Tea Parties look like backyard barbecues in terms of the number of people participating in them. Americans might still be ignorant of what mahoundianism is all about in large numbers, but they're not ignorant of the importance of the Constitution as one of the cornerstones of their country. Does Buraq Hussein, that mahoundian-loving fool, knows what he's getting into? I'm sure that there would be popular initiatives with overwhelming support demanding that he be impeached if he actually tries to mess with the Constitution.
Given how weak he has become over the first months of his presidency, such a move could turn out to be the last nail in his administration's coffin. And a well-deserved one.
"I swear to uphold and defend the constitution of the United States of America". - Barack H Obama.
Who is this man? No one knows...
Islam is not a race! But what the hell is it?
Possible Question and Answer session with smart children with enquiring minds.
Q: Is it a religion?
A: No! They call it a religion but if you look at the qualifications for a religion it doesn’t really add up.
Q: Is it a cult?
A: Well, yes, it has all cult qualifications.
Q: But people who criticize Islam are called racists. Why is that?
A: I suppose because it originatied in the Saudi Arabian penninsula so people associate it with the Arabs even though Muslims come in all stripes, even converts living in the west. So as you can see it isn’t just Arabian, but multicultural. So no, you cannot be called a racist for criticizing Islam.
Q: I have also heard them refer to us as xenophobes. What does that mean?
A: Well a xenophobe by according to Websters definition is this:
xen·o·phobe (zěn’ə-fōb’, zē’nə-)
n. A person unduly fearful or contemptuous of that which is foreign, especially of strangers or foreign peoples.
xen’o·pho’bi·a n., xen’o·pho’bic adj.
Q:But, by definition, isn’t that a racist?
A: I suppose it does, and actually the Muslims are the ones who are “xenophobes”.
Q: Why would you say that?
A: Because Islamic peoples refuse to integrate into our western societies for the most part.
Q: Why?
A: Because it is against their religion and they fear that by integrating into our western society and values they will lose sight of their God. For example; They call him Allah but he is actually the same God as that of the Jews and Chistians but they seem to refuse to accept the Jewish Christian god as well and even tax those religions that don't convert. Islam, in Arabic, means “Submit” thus, in actuality Muhammadanism is actually submission to Muhammad.
Q: Should I be afraid of that cult Islam.
A: Well you shouldn't be afraid of confronting it, no. But then they'll call you an Islamophobe.
Q: No! Wouldn’t that just make me“Cultophobic”? Because I’m afraid of the Jehovah Witnesses, the Mormons, the Church of Scientology and any other cult that tries to usurp people who have become weakened by social pressures by using deceptive practises?
A: That sounds better, but you shouldn’t be afraid of these ideological cults. You should just confront their membership with the truth about their cult.
Q: But then they’ll call me a xenophobe and a racist when I confront them with the truth, and I read that President Obama, along with the Egyptian representative, just tabled new UN Human Rights legislation that makes criticism of Islam a crime.
A: I give up!
Q: No don’t give up! I need the truth!
A: Just watch this movie and maybe that will help
I'd seriously like to see them arrest people for this ... won't happen not while we are armed. If someone tried to arrest me for speech violations I'd feel sorry for my children, and the families of those associated with the persons trying to make the arrest is all I can say. They would have to arrest a corpse.
I'd seriously like to see them arrest people for this ... won't happen not while we are armed. If someone tried to arrest me for speech violations I'd feel sorry for my children, and the families of those associated with the persons trying to make the arrest is all I can say. They would have to arrest my corpse.
The American people voted blindly for a president who is not only beholden to the leftwing but is in fact an enabler of Muslims and a part of that hate America ideology. The evidence was clearly there from his connections to William Ayers,and 20 years in a Church that its Reverand Jeremiah Wright bashed America numerous times. Of course Barack Hussein Obama never heard any of this (I have a bridge for sale). But sadly the American people where not really looking carefully at this charismatic speech maker who used a teleprompter everywhere he went. The evidence was there and it was quite overwhelming and yet they did not pay it heed. Now many Americans are beginning to realize their folly as they watch a man who is not espousing traditional American values that most of them grew up with.
It is a difficult task to educate the West and America,particularly after 9-11.--Still way to many fail to recognize the obvious clash of ideologies that is occurring right under their noses between Islam and Western Cultures.
America is undergoing a political war between leftwing liberals and conservatives not seen since the Carter Administration. American Conservatives where bashed repeatedly by liberal democrats during the Bush Administration and now for some reason they feel they are being unfairly bashed by the right---"What goes around comes around".
Sounds to me like someone is afraid that the administration will, how has it often been put here...Call a duck a duck?
"Incitement" and "hatred" are in the eye of the beholder -- or more precisely, in the eye of those who make such determinations. The powerful can decide to silence the powerless by classifying their views as "hate speech."
One casual browse of this web page will lead any neutral observer to only one obvious conclusion.
The bitter fruit is at the end of the bitter vine...time will tell....
Peace
Abdullah
Obama is on the other side.
"Any law that infringed on speech at all...would be unconstitional."
Robert -- That is not true, and since I know, since we have discussed before, the current status of Free Speech in the United States, according to the most recent Supreme Court cases, I know this must be some kind of slip, and could not poassibly have been written by you, unless you were nodding off.
For the sentence quoted above would mean that the last century of Constitutional litigation over this or that regulation of free speech was entirely unnecessary, was all a silly waste of time.
What then of Mr. Justice Holmes and the Clear and Present Danger test, as first adumbrated in a dissent (in Abrams, I think), and then by both Holmes and Brandeis, elaborated upon in a series of cases. What of the Time, Place, Manner Restrictions that have been examined, and some upheld as perfectly sensible, regulations? What of the most recent formulation of the test applied by the Court, that which comes out of the decision in Brandenburg, where the Court said, applying strict scrutiny (as it does whenever the most important rights are the objects of regulation), said that regulation, or infringement, of speech, could be constitutional if there were a danger of "imminent lawless violence."
I know you know this so please do remove that sentence above. It does not reflect my understanding, or your understanding, or the understanding of all the lawyers in this country who in school had to study Constitutional Law.
Ladies and gentlemen - I hope you all noticed the not-so-veiled threat in the posting by 'Abdullah Mikail', above.
I think he is hoping to be able to charge Mr Spencer with 'hate speech' and shut down this website; largely, I assume, on the basis of we commenters' untrammelled, sometimes rowdy (and, indeed, too, fiercely scathing) critique, questioning and at times ridicule of the ideology of Islam, of much of sharia, and of the clearly sharia-influenced Quranically-compliant actions and declared intentions of many denizens of dar al Islam, actions that to decent Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jews and to rational nonbelievers, appear as obviously evil...and (in the case of the intentions) as directly threatening to our life, freedom and happiness.
GMcCal reminded us of something important when s/he said: "The very fact that someone is not a Muslim constitutes religious hatred within Islamic theology because non-Muslims have rejected Islam and Mohammed."
Let us bear in mind that even if nobody in this forum ever said anything except in tones of the utmost rational detachment, with all statements of fact documented in triplicate, so long as what we said still contained *any* kind of critique or questioning of Islam, so long as we continued to identify ourselves as non-Muslims who have no intention of ever becoming Muslims, so long as we declare our intention of resisting any attempted islamification of our lands, we would be 'haters'.
Well said as usual, dda. AM doesn't get a lot of things, including the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, this amendment being in spirit and in law about as polar opposite from Islamic ideology as one could find. And, of course, the veiled threat is obvious and loathsome but typical of Muslimthink, which disallows any criticism of the Model Man or Islmaic tenets which your last paragraph so aptly noted.
So, AM, if someone in America wants to openly assert that Mohammed was a psychopath and Islam is spiritual totalitarianism, would you be on record maintaining that such speech is not protected by the First Amendment?
I am not so sure about that. BO believes in a living constitution and he now appoints judges who line up with his philosophy. What business does BO have even suggesting this? He is suppose to protect and defend the constitution. By placing the prestige of the office of the POTUS behind this suggestion is an Orwellian nightmare.
The problem here is that BO is suppose to defend the Constitution of the United States, not undermine it in the UN by suggesting that this be adopted, when it so obviously violates the very document he is empowered to protect and defend.
Slave,
I think a much clearer case for incitement can be found in your dirtly little book of terror.
"The Obama Administration has now actually co-sponsored an anti-free speech resolution at the United Nations. Approved by the U.N. Human Rights Council last Friday, the resolution, cosponsored by the U.S. and Egypt, calls on states to condemn and criminalize "any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence."
"Last year the Secretary General of the OIC chief Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu issued a warning: "We sent a clear message to the West regarding the red lines that should not be crossed" regarding free speech about Islam and terrorism. And he reported success: "The official West and its public opinion are all now well-aware of the sensitivities of these issues. They have also started to look seriously into the question of freedom of expression from the perspective of its inherent responsibility, which should not be overlooked.""
This is interesting and frightening.
"to condemn and criminalize "any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence."
Incitement to discrimination and hostility:
What exactly does that mean? In the USA such things are already illegal. My religion or lack thereof is no ones business. It is already illegal for me to be discriminated or treated with hostility publicly or on the job. If my neighbor decides to incite others to attack me because they do not approve or like my race or religion, they go to jail.
Now let me take this a step further.
My religion/political ideology is of the classical liberal freedom, that I have natural rights to life, liberty, property, and freedom of religion.
Islam dogmatically is an ideology based on the military exploits of its inventor Mohamed. It is violent from its very foundation, the spread of Islam is historically one that was spread "by the sword".
Muslims demonstrate on a daily basis especially in areas the umma are numerous,like Egypt, and Pakistan,"any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence." which is something the Copts and Christians suffer on a daily basis.
The Hagia Sophia a Christian cathedral, where Christians are banned from having services. Saudi Arabia bans all other religious practices and materials, and prosecutes violators. Now THAT is discrimination in my opinion.
I could go on. How would this be enforced? Will Copts suddenly walk without fear and ring their church bells if this resolution is adopted in Muslim dominated countries? Or is this all about the over sensitive Muslims?
I am against all state censorship including speech, press,and all forms of expression. Freedom of speech is about the right of DISSENT and criticism.
No Ideology, religious or political, no people, no culture,should ever be above criticism.
One in a civilized world would expect people who are criticized would NOT react violently. The problem is the reaction and behavior of Muslims when Islam is criticized. THEY are the ones who behave violently. The problem is the behavior of Muslims NOT those who exercise their right to free speech.
I refuse to curtail or change my speech because Islamic idiots react violently to it. I am not the problem here Islam is.
This whole thing can be summed up very simply using an equation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piss_Christ = compatible with free speech = no constitutional crisis = no incitement to violence = compatible with western civilisation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyllands-Posten_Muhammad_cartoons_controversy = not compatible with free speech = big constitutional crisis = incitement to violence = not compatible with western civilization.
Clearly we are being forced to choose between our constitution and Islam/Muslims being integrated into our society. Seems like a simple choice to me. I would take the constitution, personally.
The President of the World is just getting his ducks in order that's all. No need for concern, all will be will just as soon as everyone (the rest of the people of the world) understand this.
If you listen to his speeches and watch how he conducts himself when around foreign leaders. He bows and scraps and just wants to be part of the gang. He is in full agreement with their POV when it comes to the actions of the US over the last 50+ years. The US has had the rest of the nations under its heel for long enough and he his going to change all of that.
Little does he know the nations of this world treat each other like grade school kids on the play ground. The bulls are going to make life badfor him and us. You can take the analogy as far as you want it fits pretty good.
The image of Islam has a VERY negative history not to mention how it is now..It's basically a "pain in the ass" religion, with a ton of baggage and way too many absurd ideosyncracies to boot.So why should we embrace it? So far we've done quite well without it, thank you very much.
The powerful are only as powerful as "the people" wish them to be in a free society. Obama and Islam are being dissected and scrutinised for what their eventual worth will be,which is quickly proving to add up to a big 0. Fancy that, a big fat Arabic numeral.
P.S. The fruit is bitter because there's tincture of iodine called Islam in it. Qu'ack!