I’ve been contemplating two positions that I currently hold that seem to be at odds with one another. We have free speech, and the right to offend anyone we please at any time. As Ezra Levant said, our reasons are irrelevant and we can say what we want “because it’s [our] bloody right to do so.” I believe that.
What if that sparks, as in the case of the MoToons or the false reporting of the flushed Quran, riots in which people die? We can still speak, and indeed, I’ve claimed that we have the obligation to do so . If deaths are the result, well, those deaths are caused by the lack of temperance and tolerance of Islamists who demand that people of other faiths – or no faith – comply with their religious mandates.
To some extent, I want to provoke those people, because they have got to learn to tolerate it and the only way that will happen is if they are made to tolerate it. Their expectation that we comply with the religious mandates of a faith we do not practice is unreasonable. No Jew has ever required me to light candles at Hanukah, no Jehovah’s Witness has dragged me door to door, no Baptist has forced me to gossip, no Catholic has made me play bingo, and no Methodist has ever demanded I bake a casserole. I’m not going to comply with the practices, traditions, or customs of Islam, either.
What of the free speech that anti-war activists enjoy? Well, they still have it. But I did assert, yesterday, that if they use it in a way that indirectly causes the troops to be killed, that they are unpatriotic. My opinion neither taxes them nor takes away their citizenship. My opinion together with a buck fifty will get you a cafe au lait, in fact. But I did suggest that they express their anti-war sentiments in ways less likely to cause harm. I think they should avoid that particular method of free speech and express themselves in other ways.
How do I reconcile that? I don’t, not completely. On the one hand I’m saying it’s good and yes, patriotic, to exercise our right to free speech – even if that results in deaths. On the other, I’m saying that it’s wrong and unpatriotic to use free speech – because it results in deaths of troops in a war zone. It’s not an apples to apples correlation – one makes a war zone more dangerous because whether or not it is the goal, it does serve to aid and comfort the enemy. The other free speech – opposing Islam – ALSO incites the enemy to fight against us because we’re not complying with his wishes. In both cases I defend the right of the person to engage in free speech, but one, I call unpatriotic and wish they would stop. So what’s the difference?
The difference is that one furthers the enemy’s propaganda goals (“The media represents two-thirds of the battle” – Ayman al-Zawahiri and at the moment we are very successful on that front), and the other effectively opposes it. Free speech is not free of consequences, and before we exercise our rights, we should consider carefully what our goals are and how best to further them.
Added: and the whole conversation about the Iraq war would change if people really understood Rusty Shackelford’s assertion that the people who want to “end the war in Iraq” miss the point entirely. It’s a different war now, and one we cannot afford to lose. Understanding this concept would unite most of the country; it’s a real paradigm shift.
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