Wednesday, April 13, 2016

How Did We Get Into This Mess? Charlie Hedbo, Terrorism And the Culture of "You Can't Say That"

Mark Steyn always warns us to pay very, very close attention to the SHUTUPS.

Pay close attention, he warns us, to the people who are telling us that we can't say this or that.

The SHUTUPS currently control political and intellectual discourse in the West and we have to take it back from them. Let them SHUTUP for a while.

Tell the SHUTUPS to shut up for goodnesssssssake.

What are you so afraid of?

On that line of thinking, a MUST READ from Brendan O'Neill at Reason. 

"This "philosophical line," this culture of frowning upon and sometimes even punishing criticism of Islam, is deeply entrenched in Europe. In France, as Charlie Hebdo discovered in 2007 when it was taken to court under anti-racism laws for the crime of publishing Muhammad-mocking cartoons, you can actually be arrested for ripping the piss out of Islam. More informally, the idea of "Islamophobia"—which treats everything from opposition to the burqa to discomfort with the Koran as evidence of a swirling, hate-fuelled fear of Muslims—keeps criticism of Islam in check."

"The strangling of free, open commentary on Islam—and on various other ideologies—has had an impact that is as predictable as it is dire."

"The real problem in Europe today is not so much Islamophobia, though anti-Muslim sentiment certainly exists; it’s Charliephobia, if we take this term to mean the fear of letting a magazine, or anyone else for that matter, dissent from PC orthodoxy, reject relativism, and engage in robust discussion about any worldview they choose. It’s this culture of worshipping self-censorship over freedom of thought and frankness of debate that is damaging public life and brewing communal tension and in some cases violence. Indeed, I would say that the campaign against Islamophobia has done more to foster awkwardness and bitterness in 21st-century Europe than Islamophobia has."

"So yes, a mask has slipped. The Charliephobes’ mask. Their claim to be against "punching down," to care about ordinary, vulnerable people, has been exposed as utter bunkum. In truth, they’re all about protecting a global religion, an ideology, from ridicule, and in the process they’re doing more damage to freedom and social solidarity in Europe than they could ever understand."