The smoke seems to have cleared over Greece, after massive anarchist/communist/"anti-fascist"/assorted ne'er-do-well mobs rampaged for nearly two weeks. And now those ever-enigmatic "youths" are at it in Malmo, Sweden. "Youths", of course, being Euro-journo-speak for poorly-integrated, marginalized, and angry Muslim immigrants. Mark Steyn weighs in:
In my "free speech" crusade up in Canada [Steyn is being prosecuted under Canada's "hate speech" laws for his writing highlighting the failure of Muslim immigrants to integrate], I'm frequently lectured by lazy cliche-recyclers that there's no freedom to shout "Fire!" in a crowded theatre. But in a burning city feel free to shout "Nothing to see here!" for another decade or three.But just remember, Best Beloved, we're the ones who are hopelessly backward. Europe should be our model. Europe is "progressive"; Europe is the future. Everything would be better if only we would be more like Europe. Well, folks, Europe is burning. Wake up.
1 comment:
Civil rights as we Americans know it are pretty terrible in Europe. Europe has severe racial/ethnic relations issues, far worse than it is here, but when I meet Europeans they seem to think that America is some cross between Mississippi Burning and Crash. Nobody makes films about a white guy that doesn't think it's abnormal to have a black female boss, but this is how far we've come in 50 years.
That being said, if you want to enjoy (what are known in America at least) 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 5th Amendment rights, America is the best place in the world, hands down. Nobody else has the exclusionary rule in their courts; nobody else has strong protections against self-incrimination, either. We have the legal right to deny the Holocaust, to assemble in organizations such as the KKK, and we are free to call Mohammad a child rapist. Granted, there may be some extra-legal consequences, but at least we don't have to worry about the police coming over those things. Except maybe to protect us from an angry mob.
But I think we can do things like adopt a German model of say, health care without necessarily adopting their speech restrictions. We can learn a bit about education policy from the Scandinavians without becoming full-on socialist. Nobody is advocating that we need to become Europe, any more than you're advocating we need to learn nothing from Europe or Canada.
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