Is the United States the only free country left?
I remember once during my freshman year in college, when a politically conservative professor (yes, we had them at River Forest) started waxing eloquent about how wonderful our country is. While nothing he said was at all inaccurate, I thought he was going just a tad overboard when he rhetorically asked, "Name one country on the face of this earth where people are as free as they are in the United States!"
To which I (ever the wise guy) replied, "Er....Canada?"
In 1968, might have been right. But not any more.This month's National Review contains two items which caught my eye. The first is somewhat whimsical; the second is deadly serious. But as it happens, they're closely related.
First, it seems that a bunch of guys in Brooklyn who call themselves The Unemployed Philosphers Guild have come up with a line of novelty breath mints for various groups in the population. Aging baby boomers such as Yours Truly can now avail themselves of Retire Mints. Good Christians have Atone Mints (not vicarious; you actually have to suck on them to get the benefit). Aging hippies have Anti-Estabish Mints. And for the American electorate, the group has a brand with President Obama's picture on the tin, called Disappoint Mints.
It seems that a Democratic state legislator saw the latter in the University of Tennesee bookstore, and forced their removal. The Unemployed Philosophers Guild responded with a new product with that legislator's picture on it, called First Amend Mints.
Good for the Unemployed Philosophers!. Just don't try to take those First Amend Mints (or anything like them) into Canada. Or England. Or Australia. Or Holland. Or Germany. Or France. Or any of the other countries which give lip service to the same rights guaranteed by our First Amendment, but in practice deny their citizens those rights.
Regrettablly, as Mark Steyn writes in the second article, the institutions of freedom have fallen on hard times in the countries Americans tend to assume share our values and our dedication to freedom. Alas, given the staus of free speech under their current laws, Canada, England, Australia and the rest cannot truthfully be called anything but partly free countries.
Those inclined to see England, for example, as more than partly free should reflect on this incident, which, Steyn relates in the NR article:
Dale McAlpine, a practicing (wait for it) Christian, was handing out leaflets in the English town of Workington and chit-chatting with shoppers when he was arrested on a "Public Order" charge by Constable Adams, a gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community-outreach officer. Mr. McAlpine had been overheard by the officer to observe that homosexuality is a sin. "I'm gay," said Constable Adams. Well, it's still a sin, said Mr. McAlpine. So Constable Adams arrested him for causing distress to Constable Adams.
Thereby, of course, Constable Adams trampled upon any reasonable concept not only of free speech, but of freedom of religion.
In Canada, freedom of the press is under attack as well. Steyn himself, who was born north of the border, was put on trial there for "flagrant Islamophobia." The penalty, upon conviction? A lifetime ban on anything writen by Steyn on any subject related to "Islam Europe, terrorism, demography, wellfare, multiculturalism and various related subjects" in Maclean's and- presumably- any other Canadian publication!
Apparently Canada's political establishment sees nothing remarkable in this, despite Canada's claim to be a free country. It's perfectly true, of course, that European democracies have never been completely clear on the concept of individual liberties. Laws in Germany and France establishing criminal penalties for insulting public officials are part of a long tradition. In Holland, it is considered perfectly acceptable for the current government to put members of Parliament on trial for their opposition to controversial government positions. In France, Steyn observes, authors can be tried for the opinions of the fictional characters they create! In Denmark, Lars Hedegaard, head of the Danish Free Press Society, was indicted, acquitted, had his acquittal overturned (a possibility which constitutes another affront to the institutions of any truly free society), and convicted, as it were, "on the rebound" for "racism-" because he criticized the treatment of women under Islam!
Nobody would question that in cases of slander, libel, or genuine defamation civil recourse should be available to those who have been victimized. But in such actions, truth is a defense. This is not the case under European and Canadian political correctness laws. And- irony of ironies- I read an article last night in the Union Jack- an English newspaper written for ex-pats here in the States- which referred to the current semi-totalitarian situation regarding free speech in the UK as, of all things, "the human rights culture!"
It is not true, as a Canadian official once smugly informed Ann Coulter, that in Canada they have a "different concept" of free speech than we do in the United States. The law in Canada effectively does away with free speech on any topic on which what one has to say might offend someone else. It does not matter whether the offense is reasonable. It does not even matter whether the statement is actually true. Steyn points out that, by precident, the undeniable statement "Islam disapproves of homosexuality" could get a Muslim arrested upon complaint by a homosexual- or a homosexual arrested on complaint by a Muslim!
All that matters is that somebody is offended. It could be anybody- for pretty much any reason.
Jefferson said that people should not be penalized for their religious beliefs, since "...it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." Constable Adams, on the other hand, says, "If you disapprove of my behavior on religious grounds and publicly says so, you go to jail." How, pray tell, is Constable Adams injured by Mr. McAlpine's opinion that his behavior is a sin, or even by Mr. McAlpine's public expression of that opinion? Should abolitionists have been imprisoned for expressing similar sentiments about slavery? The British model bears an incomfortable resemblance to that which obtained in the antebellum South, where publicly expressing the view that slavery was immoral could get you not merely arrested, but even lynched! Should social reformers have been arrested for decrying child labor? Is there any social wrong in the entire history of the Western world whose opponents could not have been jailed under current Canadian or in English or Australian law for hurting the feelings of those responsible for it?
Voltaire made a statement which virtually defines true tolerance and the spirit of freedom: "I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Canada, Australia and the European democracies, on the other hand, say, "We disagree with what you say, so we're going to send you to jail."
This is not freedom. Nor is it somehow merely a "concept" of freedom which happens to differ from ours. It is, in fact, nothing more or less than the negation of freedom.
I think that it would be appropriate for those of us in the United States who value our freedoms make our disapproval of the fact that they are denied the citizens of our closest allies quite clear. It's the least we can do for fellow democrats struggling for freedom in less free places- like Canada, England, and Australia, for example.
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