[goldstategop]

Being able to give and take offense is what distinguishes a free society from a totalitarian one. The Multicultural Sensitivity Crowd has obliterated the distinction to such an extent its hard to tell how really different we are from the Sudan. When you object to Santas saying ho ho ho in Australia because it offends women you have very little ground to oppose grievance mongering Muslims offended over naming a teddy bear Mohammed. The point is being able to tolerate genuine differences is the very essence of freedom. A point both the Left in Western societies and Islamofascists in the Muslim World appear determined to extinguish in the name of multicultural sensitivity. Let's not go there.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[Jeff Chandler]

I take offense at the tone of this article, and I’m not taking it lying down. I’m revolting!

[AZLiberty]

Before we allow the Sudanese to kill this British woman for allowing her students to name a teddy bear “Mohammed”, I suggest we similarly punish all the parents who named their children “Mohammed”.

[phs3]

ping

[wildbill]

The ACLU has supported numerous lawsuits about having crosses on Federal property.

I wonder if any ACLU lawyer has ever visited a Veteran’s cemetary, filled with white crosses and stars of David, and given a second’s thought about the reason those symbols are there—those lives were given to protect the ACLU’s right to behave badly.

[maine-iac7]

[Cacique]

btt

[MrB]

I’m sure you know that “multiculturalism” isn’t about tolerance of other cultures,

it’s about the destruction of ours.

[phs3]

I was just in an Ace Hardware store, and couldn’t find one decoration for sale that read “Merry Christmas”

[Albion Wilde]

"The ability to give and take offense is what separates free societies from Sudan."

[Billthedrill]

But the point is that the right not to be offended is now the most sacred right in the world. The right to freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of movement, all are as nothing compared with the universal right to freedom from offense.

The magic phrase in all of this is "freedom from." "Freedom of" means that the individual possessing that freedom may exercise it. "Freedom from" means that the individual possessing that freedom may dictate the behavior of others in accordance with it. It is, obviously, two very different things in a deliberately similar package.

"Freedom from fear" once led perfectly serious feminists to insist that a woman's freedom from fear meant that should she enter an elevator any males inside were obliged to leave it immediately lest she be afraid of - what, physical violence? Rape? Well, just afraid.

One can see how difficult this doctrine can become in practice. Freedom from offense means not only that one may dictate others' actions in accordance with whatever may offend one at the moment but that but that the ultimate repository of political power is arbitrary and relative only to the point of view of the potentially offended. This always turns out to be an oppressed class of some sort, and indeed, "hate speech" laws are designed specifically with respect to such oppressed classes.

That's bad news for anyone not entitled to claim membership in such a class, and it's intended to be. Such things as freedom from offense and hate speech laws are extensions of that malignant sociological construct that is class warfare, always and exclusively. They are "social justice" that is neither social nor just and they've no place in a free society.

[Zionist Conspirator]

Last week, Gillian Gibbons, a British schoolteacher working in Khartoum, one of the crumbiest basket-case dumps on the planet – whoops, I mean one of the most lively and vibrant strands in the rich tapestry of our multicultural world –

That is hilarious! The whole article's worth reading just for that one line!

I'd disagree with Mark on one thing: not everyone has the right not to be offended. Only the Left's pet "oppressed peoples" (ie, the Hegelian "thesis" of history) has this right. The "oppressors" (ie, the antithesis) not only can, but must be offended constantly.

The Left's hatred of the "west" is truly bizarre considering that Marxism/Leftism is perhaps the world's most "western" ideology. In fact, one could say that the Third World factions the western Left supports aren't "left" at all but more like WWII-era Japanese rightwingers. Hence the "blood and soil" racialism of Third World nationalist groups, the celebration of the superstitions of the "noble savages" (while Biblical religion is critiqued by science), and the United States apologizing for overthrowing a monarch in Hawaii.