...born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad

The Saviour as silencer: Quick, somebody get Michael Coren a big glass of that hopey-changey Kool-Aid. He’s under the misapprehension that the Saviour’s election isn’t the dawn of a brand new rainbowy day, and that it may, in fact, signal the end of free speech in America. (Coren--an equal-opportunity curmudgeon--has some harsh words for the other side, too):

A young student friend e-mailed my on Tuesday night.

"Have locked myself in my room because the place is full of little idiots -- who cannot spell Barack Obama's name and could not name one of his foreign or domestic policies -- running around screaming obscenities about George Bush, conservatives and how Sarah Palin is a bitch. I love democracy!"

Even so, the people spoke. A victory for the hysterical Oprah Winfrey, the mad racist preacher Jeremiah Wright, the mainstream media who abandoned any sense of objectivity long ago, Europeans who despise America largely because they depend on her, comics who claim to be dangerous and fearless but would not dare attack genuinely powerful special interest groups. A victory for Obama-worshippers everywhere.

A victory for the cult of the cult. A man who has done little with his life but has written about his achievements as if he had found the cure for cancer in between winning a marathon and building a nuclear reactor with his teeth. Victory for style over substance, hyperbole over history, rabble-raising over reality.

A victory for Hollywood, the most dysfunctional community in the world. Victory for Streisand, Spielberg, Soros and Sarandon.

Victory for those who prefer welfare to will and interference to independence. For those who settle for group think and herd mentality rather than those who fight for individual initiative and the right to be out of step with meagre political fashion.

Victory for a man who is no friend of freedom. He and his people have already stated that media has to be controlled so as to be balanced, without realizing the extraordinary irony within that statement. Like most liberal zealots, the Obama worshippers constantly speak of Fox and Limbaugh, when the vast bulk of television stations and newspapers are drastically liberal and anti-conservative.

Senior Democrat Chuck Schumer said that just as pornography should be censored, so should talk radio. In other words, one of the few free and open means of popular expression may well be cornered and beaten by bullies who even in triumph cannot tolerate any criticism and opposition…

Those who love freedom and have faith in the individual believe in fighting bad speech with good speech. Those who pay lip service to freedom and put their faith in big government and its factotums, believe in fighting bad speech (speech that is genuinely bad—i.e. racist and hateful—as well as speech that they have deemed bad simply because it’s out of synch with their way of thinking) with censorship. It appears that the Obama bunch subscribe to the latter, alas.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:10 | link | comments

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