08/10/2014
Tony Abbott’s Australian government has made real progress in combating the problem of Muslim immigration, despite the wailing and gnashing of teeth of the usual suspects. However, to some extent the horse has already left the barn, and Australia is now enriched by a surly and resentful population of foreigners that will pose a permanent terrorist threat.For the first time since taking office, Tony Abbott’s government has made a shameful surrender to the forces that seek to destroy Australia. Abbott had promised to abolish Section 18C, the equivalent to Canada’s "hate speech" law which criminalizes saying truthful things about the consequences of mass immigration. Now, however, he has backed down, because he believes that restoring free speech to Australia would make it less likely for the "Muslim" community to assist in anti-terrorism efforts.
Of course, the fact that the Muslim "community" can only be bribed to not kill Australians by muzzling all criticism of their them is solid proof that the country has nothing to gain by admitting a vast Muslim population. But, we can’t say that in Australia anymore can we?
Mark Steyn, who has become increasingly focused on destructive impact of mass immigration, comments,
In other words, pandering to the professional identity-group grievance-mongers will ensure their cooperation in fingering would-be head-hackers with Aussie passports. In fact, the opposite is true. A culture in which you can be hauled into court for "offending" persons of designated groups is one in which everyone quickly becomes adept at reflexive self-censoring. This is where we came in, 13 years ago — Portland airport in Maine at five in the morning on a Tuesday morning in September, as Mohammed Atta checks in for his flight:Atta’s demeanor and the pair’s first-class, one-way tickets to Los Angeles made [US Airways ticket agent Michael] Tuohey think twice about them.
"I said to myself, 'If this guy doesn’t look like an Arab terrorist, then nothing does.' Then I gave myself a mental slap, because in this day and age, it’s not nice to say things like this," Tuohey told the Maine Sunday Telegram. "You've checked in hundreds of Arabs and Hindus and Sikhs, and you've never done that. I felt kind of embarrassed."
So he let Mr Atta board the plane. And, if he felt "kind of embarrassed" after thousands of people died in New York a couple of hours later, on balance it’s probably less embarrassing than if he'd stopped him and been consigned to sensitive-training hell by US Airways for six months. Laws like 18C are part of the sustaining culture of constraint in which anyone tempted to exercise human judgment quickly "gives himself a mental slap". If you really want to identify the excitable young lads itching to behead Iraqi Christians and Yazidi, then you have to be able to talk honestly about Islam — and everything else.
[The "Needless Complication of Free Speech," by Mark Steyn, SteynOnline, August 9, 2014]
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.