Here's a nasty little sound-bite from Daniel, over at Crooked Timber:
If anyone is proposing a quick sing-song outside the gates of 10 Downing Street singing “Glory Glory O Bin Laden” I think I am probably up for it.
Any questions?
Of course, this vile sentiment exists within a context... and there's plenty of irony to be found there, without really having to look too hard. Just don't expect our poorly-prioritized friend Daniel to appreciate it.
Some of the responses, though--at issue, BTW, is new speech-related legislation in the UK--are utterly priceless. Here's my favorite:
Where’s the outrage? It was stifled over the last 20 years by the entire PC speech movement (i.e. a left-wing movement). The harsh fact is that for at least a generation it has been known that rote conformity is required-REQUIRED- in order to be a professor in the West. In the US, mere expressions of opposition to affirmative action would lose you a job in any university you care to teach at-I’m sure its similar in the UK (feminism, anti-Western, liberal, you know the list). In the US (in Kentucky), the ACLU is suing parents, and students, of a public school, obligating them-OBLIGATING THEM- to attend gay rights teaching that they don’t want to attend.
So where’s the outrage? You’ve nicked and nickelled and dimed and trivially picked at the very concept of freedom of speech, and freedom of thought, for twenty years. With the intelligensia willing to, and actively, shrilly dictating to the hoi polloi how to speak and how to think, it should come as no surprise that threats of violence, followed by bus bombings, qualify for limitations just as much as opposition to feminism or disagreement with Edward Said. Let’s face it, nothing is absolute (relativism-another liberal concept, n’est pas?)-not even freedom of speech. I suspect this is an awful, Orwellian, oppressive, odious law. But you reap what you sow.
Steve
Amen, brother!