Author Salman Rushdie has a great article on Open Democracy, responding to Britain’s latest attempt at enforcing thought-crime laws: Defend the right to be Offended. Here’s a sample:
“Offence and insult are part of everyday life for people in Britain. All you have to do is open a daily paper and there’s plenty to offend. Or you can walk into the religious books section of a bookshop and discover you’re damned to various kinds of eternal hellfire, which is certainly insulting, not to say overheated.
The idea that any kind of free society can be constructed in which people will never be offended or insulted is absurd. So too is the notion that people should have the right to call on the law to defend them against being offended or insulted. 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…”
It’s good, good stuff; check it out.
(Thanks to The Revealer for the link)