Shut up and play nice: How the Western world is limiting free speech

The examples in the piece seem to me to be so colored so as to confuse the whole issue. Actual limiting of rights occurs due to a power structure. The right to offend an unpopular minority or foreign group is usually easy to exercise and it doesn't take much guts to defend it. Rights are usually curtailed by the powers that be.

The article seems to imply that a monolithic "Western World" has been a fountain head of free expression until the problematic Muslims and a few left-liberals came along. So Jews in the last few centuries, or blacks during Jim Crow had wonderful free expression rights that an un-sullied European civilization had always cherished?

Fast forwarding to this time, quite a few people are in jail within the Western world for espousing extremely un-popular political views.

> what's next? threatening farmers who sell pork?

No, threatening shop owners who sell alcohol. It's already happening in some regions of Russia that have large Muslim populations, like Dagestan.

Typically they'd send you a "flash card" with photos of your wife and kids. Then you're on the hook to pay money to Muslim militants, or your family suffers. Going to the authorities won't work, since many government officials are on the same hook.

Here's an article about these "flash cards" on a militant website: http://guraba.info/2011-02-27-17-49-46/28-facty/1344-2012-06... It's in Russian, you'll need a translator.

There is another aspect to this. A ban on blasphemy, in a wide sense of the world is very natural to us. We are used to living under these restrictions. They are imposed by religion, law & taboo/culture almost everywhere including the west.

The blatant simple versions are religious laws often absorbed into law about denying the truth of a religion, worshiping other gods, etc. There are often also similar restrictions on criticism/denial of monarchs. When these get stronger and more elaborate, we tend to call these "State Religions" (eg north korea) hinting at how closely we associate religions with blasphemy/heresy laws.

A more modern "light" varient has cultural pressures at the core. It is considered bad form almost everywhere to openly criticize someone's "beliefs." Beliefs must be mutually respected. They cannot be held against someone. They are treated as a part of one's ethnicity. As far as I can tell this has two sources. The original religious law one (Dawkins has fascinating memetic explanation for this) and a sort of cultural compromise reached enough times following religious wars that it has become deeply ingrained in cultures.

We are predisposed to respecting blasphemy and heresy laws.

What concerns me especially in Britain is the amount of times the police are getting involved in what appear to be free speech cases.

In Britain 2 police officers were killed. The same day a guy wrote on his t-shirt something to the effect of "kill pigs for fun hahahaah." This is a stupid thing to do. I would have thought the police might confiscate his t-shirt. Nope, that wouldn't have been sufficient. He got 4 months in prison.

After any major crime you hear that someone has been arrested because they have set up a fan page or wrote some stupid comments online praising the person who did it. I would have thought Facebook moderation would be sufficient.

Most recently.. a girl went missing. Some muppet on Facebook wrote how he "woke up" next to her. Not all of his comments were posted but these appear to be on his Facebook wall. He wasn't trolling the family or abusing memorial pages. He is now spending 3 months in prison...

You then have the frustrated traveler who said he would blow an air port "sky high". He was arrested, found guilty and fined. It took a year or two to finally win an appeal.

I am not defending these people. They have done stupid things. Some should be warned by police. However, there appears to be a crackdown going on quietly if you cause even the slightest offense. As a citizen of a western country this worries my greatly.

I think it is not real limitation per se. OK, there are real limitations, like the BBC censorship of comments on their website (they call it moderation). But mostly it is orwellian double-thinking occupying the mind of the average Westerner. Examples? Even after this photo - http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/msss/00065/mhli/0065... a rare Westerner will allow himself to think there is no rover on Mars. It is self-censorship at almost pre-conscious level what horrifies me in the Western world.