More news from the inclusion, understanding and mutual respect front:
- A Canadian human rights tribunal reaffirms that when you say something that might lead to discrimination, truth is definitely no defense.
- Bill Maher announces religion is simply a disorder. That’s not just the view of one entertainer, I think, it seems to be jelling as the received interpretation of 9/11. So it’s coming down to messianic Islam on one side and messianic secular liberalism on the other. God help us.
a comment on each observation
– Non-Canadian readers may not know that Ernst Zundel was recently in fact deported from Canada back to Germany, where he has been arrested. Indeed, as per Mr. Kalb’s observation, based on the Ambler’s link to the “human rights” tribunal’s interim report from 1998 on the case, truth is no defense, and in the newspaper op/eds which I’ve read, no-one even wanted to argue for the right of Mr. Zundel to hold his views and share them; the sentiment was simply, “Good riddance…” No tolerance, indeed – none of that Voltairian “not believe what you do, but defend your right to do so, to death if necessary”, yada yada. We’ve evidently “evolved” past that…
– Indeed, Bill Maher’s views seem to be the norm today amongst both celebrities and liberal media pundits, a real desire to draw a false moral equivalence between Islamic fanaticism and the fanaticism of some self-identified Christians who’ve committed acts such as bombing of abortion clinics, etc. (And thus, to promote messianic secular liberalism as the only viable alternative to either.) “The West Wing” scrambled quickly, after 9/11, to have one of its characters say something like “Islamic terrorism is to Islam, as the KKK is to Christianity”. No-one on the left wants anyone to draw the obvious distinction between a religion which encouraged warfare and blood-shed from the get-go (and whose fanatics are simply devout followers of their faith, and hence entirely in contrast to the KKK or Timothy McVeigh, to name another figure increasingly upheld as an example of “white, Christian” terrorism), and that established by the Prince of Peace.