EXPOSED: Foreign Policy‘s Pro-Censorship Propaganda: No, it’s Not a Serious Question

In ‘The Self-Fulfilling Prophet Drawing Competition’, David Francis and Elias Grol join the chorus of elite journalists siding with the the gunmen and blaming the victims.

In describing Geert Wilders and Pamela Geller, David Francis and Elias Groll do get one thing right. They accurately describe the look of Geert Wilders’ hair.

“He’s a silver-haired politician who warns about the threat of what he calls totalitarian Islam to Europe.”

David Francis and Elias Groll have apparently paid little attention to the murderous Christian and Jew-hating supremacist ideology that’s flourishing, quite comfortably, under the flag of official Islam, and yes, spoken in prayers every single day, all over the globe.

More loaded adjectives to describe Pamela Geller. (though they neglected to discuss her hair)

“She’s a preening ideologue who thinks Muslims use their daily prayers to curse Jews and Christians.”

FP Writers David Francis and Elias Groll are really upset and offended by the free speech provocations of figures like Geert Wilders and Pamela Geller. That is a very good thing.

Labeling Geert Wilders and Pamela Geller the “odd couple of the global ‘anti-Islam’ movement“:

“They are provocateurs trading in explosive, often racist anti-Muslim rhetoric, and they are now on the front lines of a roiling debate about whether Western notions of free speech ought to take into consideration Muslim sensitivities about images of the Prophet Mohammed.”

“Ought to take into consideration Muslim sensitivities”? Really?

On the popular habit of using the Southern Poverty Law Center as a ‘credible’ source:

 “She is also the president of the American Freedom Defense Initiative, a group that the Southern Poverty Law Center lists as a ‘hate group.'”

Note: The Southern Poverty Law Center thinks any organization that doesn’t conform to contemporary left-wing orthodoxy is a “hate group”. The Southern Poverty Law Center would label a ham sandwich and a bag of potato chips a “hate group”. Is Foreign Policy magazine a “hate group”? (Sure, why not?)

Geller has the good sense to ignore the smear merchants “journalists” at Foreign Policy, and accurately reveals the magazine’s ideological bias, calling it a “citadel of leftist power and influence”.

“Geller did not answer a list of questions emailed to her by Foreign Policy. In the past she has referred to FP as a ‘citadel of leftist power and influence’.”

Exactly.

Former State Department counterterrorism director Daniel Benjamin weighs in:

“If you wanted to conduct a science experiment to show you could elicit jihadist violence, this was the perfect setup. Extremists have shown they are eager to avenge any perception of blasphemy.”

And western apologists continue to appease them, and endeavor to not offend them.

Why does Foreign Policy have this peculiar, almost erotic obsession with Geert Wilders hair?

“Unmistakable with his mane of silver hair, Wilders has tried to cloak his intense dislike of Islam behind a veil of advocating on behalf of liberal values.”

The authors promote a fiction that there’s a “line” between free speech and “hate speech” that must be observed, and “balanced”. It’s a false distinction, often used by those who misunderstand (or want to “raise questions” about) the first amendment. The constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech recognizes no such distinction. In fact, the only kind of speech that the the first amendment was designed to protect is offensive, hateful speech. What protection does inoffensive speech need?

When somebody tells you there’s a “line” that “must be balanced”, they are lying. They are advocating censorship.

The ‘Social Value’ Argument

“Benjamin, the former State Department official who is now a scholar at Dartmouth, said the United States must now balance the right to free speech with speech like the kind used by Wilders and Geller in their advocacy against Islam.”

If Daniel Benjamin is advocating self-restraint, then this is a legitimate expression of concern, aimed preserving nonviolence in a pluralistic society. If, however, he is advocating limiting free expression in order to achieve that goal, he should drop the ambiguous diplomatic double-talk and say what he means.  Read the rest of this entry »