Free Speech: Where’s the Outrage?

*I reviewed Mark Steyn’s America Alone here: http://rantsand.blogspot.com/2006/12/review-america-alone.html

If you go to Mark steyn’s web site here: http://www.marksteyn.com/ you’ll see that he, and MACLEAN’S, a Canadian mag he publishes in, are in a spot of legal bother.

Steyn says:

The Canadian Islamic Congress and a handful of Osgoode Hall law students have complained about the article in Maclean’s to (at last count) three of Canada’s many “human rights” commissions, two of which have agreed to hear the “case.” It would be nice to report that the third sent the plaintiffs away with a flea in their ears saying that in a free society it’s no business of the state to regulate the content of privately owned magazines. Alas, I gather it’s only bureaucratic torpor that has temporarily delayed the province of Ontario’s en­­thusiastic leap upon the bandwagon. These students are not cited in the offending article. Canadian Muslims are not the subject of the piece. Indeed, Canada is not mentioned at all, except en passant. Yet Canada’s “human rights” commissions have accepted the premise of the Canadian Islamic Congress–that the article potentially breaches these students’ “human rights.”

Since the CIC launched its complaint, I’ve been asked by various correspondents what my defence is. My defence is I shouldn’t have to have a defence. The “plaintiffs” are not complaining that the article is false, or libellous, or seditious, for all of which there would be appropriate legal remedy. Their complaint is essentially emotional: it “offended” them. And as offensiveness is in the eye of the of­­fended, there’s not a lot I can do about that. (Emphasis added.)

In case it matters, and it shouldn’t, what the CIC found offensive was a remark that “The number of Muslims is expanding like mosquitoes” – which was in fact a quote from prominent Scandinavian Muslim, Mullah Krekar, in an interview with a Norwegian newspaper.

In context, what Mullah Krekar said was, “We’re the ones who will change you . . . Just look at the development within Europe, where the number of Muslims is expanding like mosquitoes. Every western woman in the EU is producing an average of 1.4 children. Every Muslim woman in the same countries is producing 3.5 children.”

I haven’t seen the CIC’s side of the argument – I don’t think there is one. Plain and simple, the Canadian Islamic Congress is trying to surpress the free speech of Canadian citizens because they find what they say to be inconvenient for their agenda.

There way of thinking justifies this, ours considers it in no way justified. There can be no argument or compromise in this, opinion is either free, or it isn’t.

The fact that a Canadian government body has even agreed to hear this case is a sign that they are on the defensive.

Now what I’m wondering about is, where’s the outrage?

I don’t mean to sound conspiratorial about this, I’m honestly puzzled.

Of course the Multi-culti Left part of the media is prone to downplay such things, but this isn’t getting much attention among conservatives and libertarians either. So far I’ve only found it on National Review Online and Steyn’s own site.

Why isn’t Bill O’Reilly screaming his his head off about it, and why aren’t the libertarians?