I’m against censorship even when the subject matter is pornography, so long as said pornography is between consenting adults.

A Florida judge disagrees.

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Methinks not, and nor does John Carpay of the Calgary Herald:

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~by Phillip Pullman

When I heard that my novel The Golden Compass (the name in the USA of Northern Lights) appeared in the top five of the American Library Association’s list of 2007’s most challenged books, my immediate and ignoble response was glee. Firstly, I had obviously annoyed a lot of censorious people, and secondly, any ban would provoke interested readers to move from the library, where they couldn’t get hold of my novel, to the bookshops, where they could. That, after all, was exactly what happened when a group called the Catholic League decided to object to the film of The Golden Compass when it was released at the end of last year. The box office suffered, but the book sales went up – a long way up, to my gratification.

Because they never learn. The inevitable result of trying to ban something – book, film, play, pop song, whatever – is that far more people want to get hold of it than would ever have done if it were left alone. Why don’t the censors realise this?

In the case of The Golden Compass, the reason the book was challenged is listed as “Religious Viewpoint”, a reason that appears in connection with only one other book in the top five, a picture book called And Tango Makes Three. This is based on the true story of a pair of male penguins in New York’s Central Park Zoo, who for a time formed a couple and hatched the egg of a mixed-sex couple who were unable to hatch two at once. This, if you can believe it, was challenged for six different reasons: “Anti-Ethnic, Sexism, Homosexuality, Anti-Family, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group.”

Religious Viewpoint? Penguins?

I hope the authors have done very well out of the increased sales they’ll have enjoyed, but this kind of thing only invites the rest of the world to consider the American public demented.

In fact, when it comes to banning books, religion is the worst reason of the lot. Religion, uncontaminated by power, can be the source of a great deal of private solace, artistic inspiration, and moral wisdom. But when it gets its hands on the levers of political or social authority, it goes rotten very quickly indeed. The rank stench of oppression wafts from every authoritarian church, chapel, temple, mosque, or synagogue – from every place of worship where the priests have the power to meddle in the social and intellectual lives of their flocks, from every presidential palace or prime ministerial office where civil leaders have to pander to religious ones.

My basic objection to religion is not that it isn’t true; I like plenty of things that aren’t true. It’s that religion grants its adherents malign, intoxicating and morally corrosive sensations. Destroying intellectual freedom is always evil, but only religion makes doing evil feel quite so good.

If nothing else, Moscow’s ban on one of my favorite cartoons, South Park, has earned them my disdain.  If you’re that afraid of a show about foul-mouthed kids that pokes fun of EVERYBODY then something is wrong.  Russia–it’s time to open up your society, not shut it down.  It’s time for free speech, not censorship; free trade, not fascism.

The Moscow Prosecutor General’s Office believes the popular animated TV show South Park could incite religious hatred, its press service said on Monday.

“It offends the honor and dignity of Christians and Muslims alike, and affronts believers, regardless of their faith,” the statement said, adding that the cartoon “could provoke ethnic conflict and spark inter-religious hatred.”

The Russian Union of Evangelical Christians said last Thursday that it had requested that Russian prosecutors open a criminal investigation into a TV channel that broadcasts the popular South Park cartoons containing “covert and overt propaganda of homosexuality and paedophilia as norms of sexual life.”

The Prosecutor’s Office has referred the case to court and has also issued a warning to the 2×2 TV Channel company that airs the show and to Rossvyazkomnadzor, Russia’s media watchdog.

Prosecutors said by showing such cartoons like The Simpsons, Stewie Griffin, Metalocalypse, Lenore, the Cute Little Dead Girl the channel is promoting “violence, brutality and pornography,” as well as suicide and antisocial behavior.

“The content of these cartoons fails to comply with laws protecting the moral and psychological development of children and their health,” the statement said adding that the cartoon breached international law and the rights of children.

The Russian adult-oriented cartoon network TV channel faced similar accusations in March 2008, when Russian Protestant leaders submitted a request to the Pro­secutor General’s Office asking for the channel’s license to be revoked, saying it “promotes immorality and violence.”

In February 2008, Ros­svyaz­okhran­kultura, a regulatory body for television in Russia, issued warnings to the channel about the ‘Happy Tree Friends’ and ‘The Adventures of Big Jeff’ cartoon series, recommending that they remove them from the air to avoid legal issues.

Thanks to But I Am A Liberal! for the sad news…

The Jewel of Medina

This is a pretty apt description of the lefties whose apologism to Islamist radicals has gotten so out of hand, that publishers, theatres, and art venues have all started pre-censoring just about anything critical of Islam from Mozart to the new book “The Jewel of Medina” by Sherry Jones.

(note: the link to Amazon above results in a dead search)

Mick Hume writes for the Times Online, and published an article recently decrying this abandonment of our freedoms.  He writes:

The threat to freedom here does not come from a few Islamic radicals, but from the invertebrate liberals of the cultural establishment who have so lost faith in themselves that they will surrender their freedoms before anybody starts a fight.

Indeed, though the Islamists are responsible for initially causing a great deal of noise about the publication of various cartoons and pictures, it is the Left that has buckled, along with corporations fearful for their profits and employees’ safety.

Hume goes on to say: “Of course, such pre-emptive grovelling only encourages any zealot with a blog to demand even more censorship.”

And this is the crux of the argument.  Had the West from the very outset been unapologetic about publishing freely as they always have, had we stood up for that freedom of speech that we hold so dear, then it is likely the Islamists would have given up, tried a new tact, perhaps gone and gotten some poor sap to blow himself up in protest.

We have been bullied by the Islamists, and now we’re being choked by the liberal fear-mongers who at

the mere suggestion of causing offence to some mob of imagined stereotypes is enough to have them scurrying for a bomb shelter, their creative imaginations blowing up small protests into the threat of a big culture war.

Hume says it all so well.  His prose is powerful, clear.  His argument is forceful.

“Who needs book burners” he asks, “if ‘offensive’ books are not allowed to be published in the first place?”

Here is the statement by Randomhouse regarding the axing of “The Jewel of Medina”

After sending out advance editions of the novel THE JEWEL OF MEDINA, we received in response, from credible and unrelated sources, cautionary advice not only that the publication of this book might be offensive to some in the Muslim community, but also that it could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment.

We felt an obligation to take these concerns very seriously.  We consulted with security experts as well as with scholars of Islam, whom we asked to review the book and offer their assessments of potential reactions.

We stand firmly by our responsibility to support our authors and the free discussion of ideas, even those that may be construed as offensive by some.  However, a publisher must weigh that responsibility against others that it also bears, and in this instance we decided, after much deliberation, to postpone publication for the safety of the author, employees of Random House, booksellers and anyone else who would be involved in distribution and sale of the novel.  The author and Ballantine subsequently agreed to terminate the agreement, with the understanding that the author would be free to publish elsewhere, if she so chose.

The statement says “we received in response, from credible and unrelated sources, cautionary advice not only that the publication of this book might be offensive to some in the Muslim community, but also that it could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment.”

Well good Lord!  Muslims may find it offensive.  Since when do Muslims get such special treatment?  Are all animals created equal, only some more equal than others?  Do we now stop publishing critiques of Christians?  Should we have never published that awful trash The Davinci Code?

Salman Rushdie was haunted for decades after his publication of The Satanic Verses.  Yet his sacrifice in the name of free speech is being burned by the cowards in the publishing industry, by the apologists in government, and by a new culture of moral relativism that will allow the radicals to take what they want, while voluntarily casting aside our own rights and freedoms.

Americans and lovers of freedom the world over need to stand up to the censors and apologists.  If we can’t stand up to them, how will we ever stand up to the violent lunatics in the Islamist movement?

[hat tip: NetWMD]

By Andrew L. Jaffee, netwmd.com

All for fear of offending Muslims, we have “a quiet wave of self-censorship and cultural cowardice sweeping Western art circles:” A novel (The Jewel of Medina by Sherry Jones) is pulled before it even got published; the “BBC has dropped a big-budget docu-drama, The London Bombers;” “the BBC hospital soap Casualty chang[ed] Muslim terrorists into animal rights activists;” and, the “Royal Court Theatre cancel[ed] an adaptation of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata.” To this sorry list, I would add all the U.S. and Canadian newspapers who refused to publish the Danish Mohammad cartoons, because the editors were cowering under their desks. I turn readers’ attention to an op-ed by Mick Hume for the Sunday Times

Just the impassioned prose of the author — the sheer quality — should be enough to scream “WAKE-UP CALL” to the West:

… The threat to freedom here does not come from a few Islamic radicals, but from the invertebrate liberals of the cultural establishment who have so lost faith in themselves that they will surrender their freedoms before anybody starts a fight. The mere suggestion of causing offence to some mob of imagined stereotypes is enough to have them scurrying for a bomb shelter, their creative imaginations blowing up small protests into the threat of a big culture war. Of course, such pre-emptive grovelling only encourages any zealot with a blog to demand even more censorship.

Who needs book burners if “offensive” books are not allowed to be published in the first place? Why bother to protest against provocative plays if the theatres will turn the lights off for you beforehand? There is no need even for a polite exchange on Points of View if the controversial programmes never get made.

The quality or lack of it in the self-censored works is not the issue here. That associate professor from Texas condemned the novel about Muhammad’s wife as “soft porn”. But so what if it was? Free expression should mean freedom for what others see as filth, too. If there are artists childishly causing offence for its own sake, feel free to ignore them, but not to gag them.

Pre-emptive grovelling, encouraged from the top down by our illiberal authorities, is bad for the arts and for society. The arts can only flourish in a climate of cultural anarchy rather than compulsion and conformity. The attempt to limit what can be said must have a chilling effect, encouraging other writers and artists to pull in their horns.

Such self-censorship is also dangerous for those who don’t much care about high culture. There is indeed a lesson from the Satanic Verses controversy, but not the one often cited. The dominant response to that clash of cultures was to try to bury it beneath worthy multicultural claptrap about celebrating difference. After more than 15 years of such attempts to suppress honest debate, the tensions festering beneath the surface exploded on the London transport system. As one female Muslim writer critical of the decision not to publish The Jewel of Medina says: “The series of events that torpedoed this novel are a window into how quickly fear stunts intelligent discourse about the Muslim world.” …

You might recollect the Danish cartoons that got the jihadists all crazy, and sparked a world-wide “Lego-burning” phenomenon. Well, I’m publishing them out of principle.

America has self-censored itself plenty, along with the rest of the world, because members of Islam are offended by cartoons. Muslims burn American and Israeli flags, and extremists incite violence and terror on the civilized world, yet the Islamic world takes offense when a Danish cartoonist draws their Prophet. They should take more offense when a suicide bomber blows himself up in the name of their religion, their prophet, and their Allah.

Can anything even come remotely close to this preposterous? I don’t mean to bash Islam–though I guess, actually, yes I do mean to bash Islam, in a sense. I mean to bash Islamism, which is the attempt by Orthodox Muslims and radicals to bring about a global Caliphate.

I’m not big on organized religion in the first place. Radical Christians scare me. There are plenty of moderate Christians, though, who can shrug off any satire of their religion. They may not like it, but they can take it with a grain of salt.

They aren’t too concerned that Jesus will be offended, using the logic that he is probably above such things, you know, being a divine entity and all….

Can’t You Take a Joke?

Muslims are so prickly when it comes to Muhammad that they threatened to behead a school teacher when she lets her class name a Teddy Bear after him. Half the Muslim world is named Muhammad but if you name a toy after the Prophet, that is obviously a crime against Allah, and punishable by lashings, imprisonment, and death.

Like Jesus, I’m pretty sure the Prophet himself wouldn’t have been too concerned with a stuffed animal sharing his name. He might have even thought of it as cute. What’s cuter than a Teddy Bear named after a Prophet? And after all, when Mr. Muhammad showed up on the Mesopotamian scene he came as a reformer.

Muslims today seem to forget this, using the inherent Orthodoxy of Islam, and the Prophet’s writings as a means to subjugate the masses, elicit violence, and justify all sorts of violence against women, members of other faiths, and innocents across the globe. You can even use the Koran to justify “wiping Israel off the map” if you try hard enough.

This is not to say that all Muslims are bad. Far from it. Many are educated and moderate.

But “many” here equates to a minority–at least in terms of the ripple effect that Islamism is having on the world, if not in actual numbers. Moderation is not accepted in this religion. Adherence to extremism, salafism, and blind orthodoxy are the status quo. Perhaps this isn’t the religion itself; perhaps Islam is undergoing its own Dark Ages.

Nevertheless, like the Catholic Crusades, the Islamism of today seeks to bring about the institution of Sharia, or Islamic Law, across the globe.

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Harry’s Place, a UK blog dedicated to promoting the ideals of freedom and democracy, is being sued by Mohammed Sawalha, the President of the British Muslim Initiative, which has been linked to Hamas and the Islamic Brotherhood, both terrorist organizations. The blog reports that Mr. Sawalha, according to the BBC…

“master minded much of Hamas’ political and military strategy” and in London “is alleged to have directed funds, both for Hamas’ armed wing, and for spreading its missionary dawah”.

In their revelation of the impending lawsuit against them leveled by Mohammed Sawalha, they write:

Mr Sawalha claims that we have “chosen a malevolent interpretation of a meaningless word”. In fact, we did no more than translate a phrase which appeared in an Al Jazeera report of Mr Sawalha’s speech. When Al Jazeera changed that phrase from “Evil Jew” to “Jewish Lobby”, we reported that fact, along with the statement that it had been a typographical error.

Mr Sawalha has been the prime mover in a number of Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood associated projects. He is President of the British Muslim Initiative. He is the past President of the Muslim Association of Britain. He was the founder of IslamExpo, and is registered as the holder of the IslamExpo domain name. He is also a trustee of the Finsbury Park Mosque….

…Mr Sawalha says that the attribution of the phrase “Evil Jew” to him implies that he is “anti-semitic and hateful”. Notably, he does not take issue with our reporting of the revelation, made in a Panorama documentary in 2006, that he is a senior activist in the clerical fascist terrorist organisation, Hamas.

It looks like Harry’s Place is going up against some pretty top-notch lawyers on this one, and they’ve got guts, but as the post goes on to say:

If Mr Sawalha persists in attempting to silence us with this desperate legal suit, we will need your help.

We won’t be able to stand up to them alone.

This is why we’ve started this blogburst, to get the word out that we won’t let members of Hamas or any radical terrorist group censor us or any of our fellow bloggers.

If you’d like to add your site to the blogroll, simply email us at admin @ neoconstant . com, and include your site’s URL.

Then copy and paste this (or write your own) entry into one of your posts. Future posts will be emailed to you. Thanks, and don’t forget to head over to Harry’s Place to show your support of their freedom of speech!


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Part 1

Part 2

Geert Wilders’ film about Islamic Radicalism and the spread of Islam in Europe and America (above) has caused a bit of a stir across the globe.

Network Solutions has pulled the filmmakers web site.

If you go there you’ll find this message:

This site has been suspended while Network Solutions is investigating whether the site’s content is in violation of the Network Solutions Acceptable Use Policy. Network Solutions has received a number of complaints regarding this site that are under investigation. For more information about Network Solutions Acceptable Use Policy visit the following URL: http://www.networksolutions.com/legal/aup.jsp

What a joke. Wilders, who is a member of the Dutch Parliament and a fierce Nationalist, wrote a commentary in a Dutch newspaper on Saturday, defending his movie.

The film is not so much about Muslims as about the Koran and Islam. The Islamic ideology has as its utmost goal the destruction of what is most dear to us, our freedom.

he wrote in De Volkskrant.

Network Solutions said the film may have crossed the lines by violating some of the following:

material that is obscene, defamatory, libelous, unlawful, harassing, abusive… hate propaganda” and “profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable material of any kind or nature

So far, at least, Google hasn’t pulled videos from YouTube, so the move by Network Solutions is a moot point. Perhaps the web hosting company thought they might become subject to the same sort of violence you see in the film….

I personally will never use Network Solutions to host or register any domain ever again, and I urge all of you who are against censorship to do the same.

NPR interviewed Christiaan Mark Johan Kroner, the long-named, long-winded ambassador from the Netherlands to the United States, who said something along the lines (I don’t have the transcript) of:

You have the right to free speech, and you have the right to a Religion, but you don’t have the right to insult people.

He’s going after Wilders’ film with gusto, as are many other Dutch appeasers. So you don’t have the right to insult people, but you have the right to free speech?

Well, I’ll exercise my right to both: You’re an idiot, Mr. Kroner. Plain and simple. You should shut your stupid mouth…but you don’t have to, because you have the right to free speech. And you can offer up a retort, because you have a right to insult people, too.

What you don’t have a right to do, is kill people and try to take over the world, which is all that Mr. Wilders was saying in his little film.

The apologists continue to rant against Fitna, stating ironically that Islam is not equated with violence, and that this is a racist assertion. Of course, they also closed off the area around Parliament for fear of…well…violence from Muslims.