The Redhunter

The bill makes criminal "a person who uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour". The Lords amendment took out "abusive or insulting" to make hatred of religion a crime only if it was part of a threat. That catches any attempt by the BNP to use "Muslim" as a proxy for race in stirring up hate. Words as a threat to stir hatred against anyone is already a Public Order Act offence.

Alarmingly the bill not only catches anyone who intends to stir up religious hatred. A person "reckless as to whether religious hatred would be stirred up" can also be prosecuted, a stricter catch-all test than under race laws.

What's at stake here is the right to be insulting and cause offence. Many Muslim groups think it will protect their religious sensitivities - and so it will, by shifting the cultural balance away from free speech towards a sanctimonious right to feel offended.

You can download the text of the bill here.

Fortunately it looks like the whole thing is stalled in Parliament.

Of course the radical Muslims see the Brits and others in Europe as weak when they can't even see the real problem; Muslim extemism within their own borders, not racisim. But of course the left sees all problems through the lens if white racism. Heaven forbid they recognise all this for what it is; an attempt by a bunch of Muslim radicals to intimidate governments into granting them special status.

And of course whenever an aggrieved minority screams, the first thing the government ministers do is try to muzzle free speech.

But lest you think this can't happen here in the US of A, we've got our liberals trying to bring back the so-called "fairness doctrine"

"Religon of Peace"

Back to Michelle Malkin's post

The protesters, mostly religious seminary students, chanted "Death to Tony Blair", "Death to Britain" and Death to America" while throwing hundreds of stones at the embassy buildings, smashing many windows... "Insulting the Prophet disgusts us and nuclear energy gives us dignity," the crowd of about 200 people shouted. The West suspects Iran of trying to build nuclear weapons. Cheers erupted when a petrol bomb was thrown over the high wall surrounding the embassy compound in central Tehran. Several other petrol bombs struck the wall and the embassy's main gate. Scuffles broke out between the protesters and dozens of riot police trying to prevent the crowd from surging towards the embassy gates.

Stones and firecrackers were thrown at the nearby German embassy by a smaller crowd of protesters earlier on Tuesday. "Europe, Europe this is the last warning. Mohammad is the Prophet of compassion, America is the cause of all misery," the crowd of about 50 chanted outside the German embassy.

To be sure, it's only a crowd of 50. But that's 50 too many in a country in which these things don't happen without government approval.

The Real Problem

The problem is not within the West, as Tony Blair seems to think with his "Incitement to Religious Hatred" law. Passing "speech codes" will not solve the problem, because the problem is not incitement to religious hatred.

Christians do not riot when "artists" make fun of us

If Jews were prone to rioting when someone made fun of their religion they'd get nothing else done.

No, the problem is that Islam has never been brought into the modern world. There has never been a Muslim Martin Luther. They've never had an Enlightenment, a Renaissanc,e or a Reformation. The concept of a secular society is alien to them.

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk brought the Ottoman Empire into the modern world kicking and screaming after the First World War, and in the process renamed it Turkey. Unfortunately, that model won't work in the Arab world, where it is my understanding that he is not thought of well.

Gamel Adbul Nasser tried to bring Egypt into the modern world, and with it the other Arab nations, with his pan-Arabism. It didn't work.

Various Ba'athist parties have tried it also, and all have turned their nations into miserable dictatorships.

Perhaps the only method is to do it by force, which is what we are attempting in Iraq. It's not so much a democracy we are building, although voting is certainly part of it. It's all those attitudes that we consider "modern". It's a big goal, and a huge task. The jury is still out on whether we will succeed.

In the meantime, we will face more such challenges. But as General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson reminded us so long ago

Never take council of your fears

The key word as Jackson would have explained is not "fear", for their is much to fear in this world. The key is "council", for we must not let our fears paralize our thinking, and limit our strategic options.

We can eventually put an end to these sorts of uprisings, or "intifadas", but we will not do so by passing hate crime laws. It will be by changing the face of the Middle East.