Democracy Is No Polite Tea Party

The Los Angeles Time ^ | Salmon Rushdie

[Smogger]

I recently returned from a trip to Britain, where I discovered, to my consternation, that the government is proposing a law to ban what it is calling "incitement to religious hatred." This measure, much beloved by liberals, is apparently designed to protect people "targeted" because of their religious beliefs.

But I see nothing to applaud. To me it is merely further evidence that in Britain, just as in the United States, we may need to fight the battle for the Enlightenment all over again.

-snip-

In the end, a fundamental decision needs to be made: Do we want to live in a free society or not? Democracy is not a tea party where people sit around making polite conversation. In democracies, people get extremely upset with each other. They argue vehemently against each other's positions. (But they don't shoot.)

At Cambridge I was taught a laudable method of argument: You never personalize, but you have absolutely no respect for people's opinions. You are never rude to the person, but you can be savagely rude about what the person thinks. That seems to me a crucial distinction: People must be protected from discrimination by virtue of their race, but you cannot ring-fence their ideas. The moment you say that any idea system is sacred, whether it's a belief system or a secular ideology, the moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism, satire, derision or contempt, freedom of thought becomes impossible.

-snip-

What this kind of attitude ultimately does, and what the law would do, is undermine a principle of free expression that affects everyone in Britain, religious or not. If we cannot have open discourse about the ideas by which we live, then we are straitjacketing ourselves.

[Smogger]

Looks like I learned to argue in the Cambridge tradition.

[Smogger]

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[Unam Sanctam]

But I see nothing to applaud. To me it is merely further evidence that in Britain, just as in the United States, we may need to fight the battle for the Enlightenment all over again.

What's with the "just as in the United States" slur? Bush and the Republicans support our Enlightenment-era Constitution and the liberties it enshrines. It is the Democrats who want to outlaw speech they don't like.

[sure_fine]

At Cambridge I was taught a laudable method of argument: You never personalize, but you have absolutely no respect for people's opinions. You are never rude to the person, but you can be savagely rude about what the person thinks. That seems to me a crucial distinction: People must be protected from discrimination by virtue of their race, but you cannot ring-fence their ideas.

thats too much trouble, I'd just shoot'em