Category Archives: Free Speech

Arrested For Reciting Churchill, In Today’s England

Britain, Canada, Constitution, Free Speech, Individual Rights, Islam, Law, Liberty

How dare Europeans call themselves free citizens! The UK and, for the matter, France, Germany and the rest of EU controlled Europe, have no right to claim their societies are free. (Or that elections are in furtherance of freedom, which they lack and don’t seem eager to rediscover.)

“[Paul] Weston, a candidate for English member of the European Parliament, was arrested [three] years ago for reading aloud a passage” from a novel, The River War (1899), by Winston Churchill. These are the words that can get you arrested in Europe:

How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. (“Churchill in Africa,” APRIL 6, 2017, Chronicles magazine.)

Canada is similar.

Berkley is an intellectual cesspool. Defund it. Definitely privatize it. Sack it, for all I care. But if Berkley is anything to go by, the US is inching toward the criminalization of so-called offensive speech. Academics enforce speech codes they invent. Police refuse to uphold the rights of speakers to speak unmolested. It’s coming. (See “The Battle Of Berkeley 4: Peace And Another Victory For The Deplorables.”)

Perhaps A President Marine Le Pen Will Shame POTUS Into Keeping His Promises

Elections, Europe, Free Speech, IMMIGRATION, Islam, Terrorism

Hopefully for the French, Marine Le Pen will become their next president, will keep all her promises, and shame President Donald Trump into keeping his.

If a President Marine Le Pen’s Front National keeps the promise to withdraw from the EU and the euro, perhaps the POTUS will be shamed into revisiting his promises about NATO. Remember those?

If a President Marine Le Pen’s Front National keeps the promise to end mass immigration; perhaps the POTUS will be reminded to keep his promises about the defining issue of our time: mass immigration.

Here’s hoping. After all, POTUS doesn’t like to be upstaged.

“I will protect you,” Le Pen vowed April 18. “‘My first measure as president will be to reinstate France’s borders,’ Le Pen said to wide applause and cheers from the crowd of about 5,000, prompting the Front National’s (FN) traditional ‘This is our home!’ chant.”

If she wins, Le Pen should certainly abolish France’s anti-speech laws, which saw her prosecuted for comparing Muslim street prayers to the Nazi occupation of France.

UPDATE IV (2/26): Julie Borowski’s Wrong: Judge Andrew Napolitano Is NO Rightist Libertarian

Ethics, Free Speech, libertarianism, Old Right, Paleolibertarianism, Political Philosophy, Private Property

I call Judge Andrew Napolitano a left-libertarian. I prove it. Have done so over years.

Consistency is the touchstone of truth. If you keep changing your philosophical orientation as evinced by your changing positions, you’re more of a creedal politician, than a principled thinker.

Julie Borowski, on the other hand, asserts that Judge Andrew Napolitano is a bona fide rightist libertarian.

Ms. Borowski, do some digging. A search on Barely A Blog is a start. Here’s some of the yield:

Andrew Napolitano: Some Libertarian

Ann Coulter Offers A Corrective To Judge Andrew Napolitano

Judge Napolitano’s Left-Libertarian Confusion

Fighting Words From Left-Libertarian Egalitarians

Napolitano-Koch Connection? (Sixth Sense)

The Neoconservative & Left-Libertarian Positions: Liberty Is Universal

14th Amendment Jurisprudence For Dummies

She is “speaking” (I wish I could do that baby-doll voice) in response to Richard Spencer crashing the Students for Liberty Conference, a bit of performance art that brought out the leftist in the apoplectic attendees. (Yes, free speech belongs to the person who paid for the event. Still, don’t be so rude.)

I’ve tracked the Judge for a while. Unless a recent political conversion makes you a creedal rightist, then he isn’t one. A LOT of libertarians have suddenly found their inner rightist recently, when they crashed into the reality of Trump Nation. I respect the likes of Julie Borowski more. She sticks with her left-libertarian positions.

So, do opportunistic libertarian converts who, say, were open-borders until Trump, count as principled, creedal rightists? What CRAP. Actually, a good percentage of Fox News commentators were Never Trumpsters. For example, the Schlapp couple now riding high:

Much like neocons or liberals, libertarians move in tribes (although I have yet to be invited to join any of their intramural gatherings). Certain groups position themselves as top dogs. They enjoy donor and think-tank backing, and can reinvent themselves the way a slut like Madonna does (although, to her credit, Madonna is consistent philosophically. It’s her face that keeps mutating).

Many of those dubbed Right libertarians flirted with open borders and other abominations (as has the Judge), until recently. At the same time, these libertarians have ostracized me for a consistent, restricted immigration position, and a support, since time immemorial, of Israel’s rights in the land (as against those of the MOPE, Most Oppressed People Ever, etc). Our reformed libertarians (many of whom fell out with me over Israel), now make their new-found case for Israel, ponderously, by citing obscure Israeli/Jewish teens. It’s amusing, and certainly leftist. Cultural leftists love “authoritative” kids. Maybe arguing with and citing kids is an intellectual cop-out (like Bill O’Reilly who feels more comfortable with a 22-year-old blondie on his show than with Ann Coulter).

To this hard rightist, there is no kid worth listening to (except for Milo , seriously). To quote Florence King: “… children have no business expressing opinions on anything except, ‘Do you have enough room in the toes?’ More on being culturally rightist in “THE IMPORTANCE OF BOUNDARIES.”

In any event, Judge Nap is certainly not Right, although he’s smart enough to so position himself, since the Trump tsunami.

As for Jeffery Tucker. Yes, he has moved left. But, as a personal matter, Jeff has always been respectful and decent to me. (I know him as a good man.) When allowed, he also published my work (“Democratic Despotism,” for example). There is a saying in Hebrew, I remember you the grace of youth or beginnings …

UPDATE I (2/26): Love him, just don’t mislabel Judge Nap as a rightist libertarian:

UPDATE II: Facebook Thread.

UPDATE III: “Napolitano-Koch Connection? (Sixth Sense)”

UPDATE IV (2/27): Jack Kerwick has chronicled this phenomenon of Hollywood of the punditry like no other. Have fame, will travel. No matter what you say or promote, you get to redefine yourself anytime, anywhere.

UPDATE V (3/27): Civil Rights.

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Should A Vocal, Veteran Critic Of Islam ‘Conference’ In Turkey?

Free Speech, Freedom of Religion, Ilana Mercer, Islam, libertarianism, Liberty, Private Property

First, in order of importance, forgive the verbing of the noun “conference.” Bad form.

Next: Young Keir Martland, of The Libertarian Alliance (my British home, and where you can find my weekly column), describes an exhilarating conference at the Property & Freedom Society, hosted by the fabulous Hans-Hermann Hoppe whom I know and admire, and his wife, Dr. Guelcin Imre Hoppe.

Place: The majestic Hotel Karia Princess in Bodrum, Turkey.

In the past, Dr. Hoppe had graciously extended an invitation to me. But let’s be frank. Turkey is not safe for anyone with a long and known record as a vocal critic of the religion of peace—and I here finesse my stance on Islam. Nor have I been a wallflower about the campaign waged by the Turkish government against Kurdish separatists. I don’t see how libertarians can countenance the Turks in this dispute.

It’s true that the US is also unsafe for critics of Islam (read my analysis of the attempt on the life of free-speech Jewish activist Pamela Geller), but Turkey even less so. The last is not a point of debate. “Bad things could happen anywhere, these days” won’t wash to dismiss the illiberal political and religious direction taken by the Turkish State.

In the US, we still have more rights to defend our prime real estate—OURSELVES—than elsewhere in the world (although I’m eyeing Hungary and Poland, which don’t admit refugees). The rest of the world is slowly becoming Dar al-Islam (House of Islam). In other words, it’s being made safe for Islam, but not its critics.

A whimsical, “Oh, plenty Jews attended and were safe at the Property & Freedom Society is also bogus, as none, as far as I know, has beat up on Islam systematically, in writing, for a very long time.

If anything, “Those Cartoons: A Reply To Walter Block,” critiqued attendee Dr. Block for asserting, in 2006, “under the rubric of a libertarian analysis, that libertarians would view [Muhammad-mocking] cartoons as immoral and that ‘from the libertarian perspective, both sets of acts—’drawing [forbidden] pictures of Muhammad’ and offending ‘western sensibilities’—are ‘improper.” I wrote:

… If a radical proponent of freedom such as Dr. Block can dub mild satire immoral, inadvertently tainting innocent, non-aggressive satirists, then it’s imperative to address the substance of the speech being debated, lest innocent polemicists and illustrators be maligned. What is Dr. Block’s premise for asserting these things are immoral? Other than that they offend Muslims, I see none. And to give offense is not always immoral. It is certainly not immoral to lampoon the connection between Muhammad, author of Islam, and the savagery and atavism that grip the Muslim world today. …

Nah. I don’t think Turkey is the place for my opinion, although Dr. Block is safe with his.

Dr. Block’s original article was removed. In a corrected version of “Those Cartoons: A Libertarian Analysis linked here, Walter said he offered some correction to his original apologia. I couldn’t see it (which could be my shortfall).

In any event, my point obtains. As a longtime, public critic of Islam, I would not “conference” in Turkey, not even for Hans Hoppe.

Perhaps I should have titled the post, “The Islam In the Room.”

Turkey: