Say Anything Blog

Mark Steyn has long been one of my favorite columnists and authors.  He’s almost always right in his analysis, and he writes in a smart manner that is also so funny and entertaining that you almost don’t even notice that you’re reading about boring old politics.

Recently he wrote a book called America Alone in which he accuses western society of succumbing to the will of Islamic fascists.  Now Canada is busying itself trying to prove his point by allowing charges filed against him by some modern day book burners to work their way through its court system.

December 16, 2007 — Celebrated author Mark Steyn has been summoned to appear before two Canadian judicial panels on charges linked to his book “America Alone.”

The book, a No. 1 bestseller in Canada, argues that Western nations are succumbing to an Islamist imperialist threat. The fact that charges based on it are proceeding apace proves his point.

Steyn, who won the 2006 Eric Breindel Journalism Award (co-sponsored by The Post and its parent, News Corp), writes for dozens of publications on several continents. After the Canadian general-interest magazine Maclean’s reprinted a chapter from the book, five Muslim law-school students, acting through the auspices of the Canadian Islamic Congress, demanded that the magazine be punished for spreading “hatred and contempt” for Muslims.

The plaintiffs allege that Maclean’s advocated, among other things, the notion that Islamic culture is incompatible with Canada’s liberalized, Western civilization. They insist such a notion is untrue and, in effect, want opinions like that banned from publication.

Even if Steyn’s book was full of hatred and contempt for Muslims (it isn’t), so what?  Why should that be illegal?  Does the word “freedom” not imply the right to be hateful and bigoted just as much as it implies the right to be compassionate and caring?

I detest racism, but I’d go to bat for a racist’s freedom of speech.  Because if we start letting the powers that be define what sort of speech is and is not acceptable we’re well on the road to totalitarianism.

Steyn’s case in Canada is an important one, both for Canadians and western society.  Will we stand up for freedom, or will bow to those who would use our own legal system to take away our freedoms?