Canada Needs A "Muslims With Inconvieniences Act"

Kathy wonders why Toronto muslims don't just build their own salons? They could also move to Britain where they can successfully sue hairstylists who don't accede to their demands. Can Christian men in Saudi Arabia sue barbers who refuse to give them a quality shave? Personally, I don't think think it should be so hard for a Christian to get a decent pork steak in Medina.

A Hick Response

I was contemplating commenting on this bizarre anti-Palin rant by some weirdly vindictive Canadian (well, that's not fair to Canadians, whom I can only hope aren't frothing at the mouth with this much anti-American hatred) that's been making the rounds on the blogosphere, but LILEKS has already dismantled it so thoroughly, that there's not much more to say, but a few comments:

LILEKS: "You know, at some point the contempt the author has for the hicks has to be answered in the same terms. People don’t vote for Republicans on social issues to give themselves 'self-esteem' because of their 'broken existence,' and it’s the usual stupid reductive economic-uber-alles groupthink that makes her say such stupid things. If they had better jobs, they’d support abortion, redefining marriage, and firearms restrictions! The question of 'what’s the matter with Kansas' was posed by someone who couldn’t figure out why Kansas folk weren’t asking 'What’s the matter with us?' It’s the same bitter-guns-&-God-clinger notion that dogs another candidate, and it’s contemptuous – I mean, for heaven’s sake, who the hell is she to say the people of Kansas have a 'broken existence'? It almost sounds as if she is proudly overlettered, suspicious of the non-urban, and frankly disbelieving of the 'domestic.'

It pains me, but here is the quote by Heather Mallick that LILEKS is commenting on:

"The conventioneers are nothing like the rich men who run the party, and that's the mystery of the hick vote. They'd be much better served by the Democrats. I know Thomas Frank answered this in What's the Matter with Kansas?; I know that red states vote Republican on social issues to give themselves the only self-esteem available to their broken, economically abused existence."

This is possibly my biggest problem with the intellectual left. They see lower class GOP voters as simpletons who have been bamboozled into voting Republican by GOP slight of hand with social issues like abortion and gay marriage. "You idiot, don't you know the Democrats will give you stuff for free?! If only you weren't such a homophobe, Democrats would own this country! That's the only possible reason poor, white trash, midwesterners could possibly have for not voting Democrat when we offer them so many handouts." Nothing pisses me off more than this "What's the Matter With Kansas?" line of reasoning. Did it ever occur to you that "hick midwesterners" don't vote for the party of entitlments because they have more pride than that? Maybe they don't vote for "enlightened liberals" not because they've been fooled by James Dobson into voting against their economic interests, but because they don't think its right to steal from their rich neighbor just because he's better off? Maybe they'd rather earn what they have with their ability and effort than have some Washington elite take pity on them and "graciously bestow" upon them that which is not theirs to give in the first place? Maybe they understand that in America everyone is responsible for themselves and they don't hate their neighbors for achieving more success?

How does it feel, Miss Mallick, to know that these hick Republicans you so despise are the backbone of the a country far greater than your own? How does it feel to know that you rise every morning to write your silly little column under the blanket of protection provided by young men from Kansas, not enlightened elitists from the upper west side? How does it feel to know that the opinions of a CBC hack are as inconsiquential to them as a folk music mocumentary? How does it make you feel to know that these hicks you have such contempt for wouldn't deign to spit on you with their chewing tobbacco?

I try to keep this blog relatively clean, Miss Mallick, but fuck you. You're far to stupid and ignorant to ever realize how much more integrity a poor Republican has than yourself. And if you ever manage to stop marveling at your nuanced enlightenment, you may realize how insignificant you are to them.

As Canada Goes, So Goes Massachusetts

Ezra Levant is the blogosphere's shock trooper. He takes most of the heat for us as we fight the good fight. (well actually, I'm lucky enough to live in America, where we understand that words don't hurt you unless someone is beating you with a billboard, hooray!) So help him out with a couple bucks for his legal defence (I'm feeling very pro Canada today) fund. Remember, no one cares about Canadian fascism until they invade Maine.

Barbara Hall Has Never Met A Speech That Wasn't Too Free

Barbara Hall does a drive by assault on Free Speech. Crap, did I just stereotype Italians, or slow drivers packing heat? Wait, I live in America so I'm O.K. I'm sure she'll pen a response decrying my comments and lamenting the fact that she has no jurisdiction over me or the Vatican. . . or Thomas Jefferson. Sorry Barbara, but take it from a friend, I know Che Guevara is trendy, but the beret is just not your look. Don't sweat it though girlfriend, the brown shirt and the jack boots really accent your luger nicely.

Tell Us What You Really Think

Khurrum Awan can't seem to figure out that he lives in Canada, not Zimbabwe. At a forum on free speech and the curtailment thereof at the Canadian Arab conference he called on Canadian muslims to demand a right to participate in the media. The problem is that Mr. Awan lives in a liberal western democracy. You don't just get to demand things, especially not of private companies or individuals. I guess Mr. Awan "demanded" a sick day when they taught that at law school. But it gets better, or rather, worse:

"And we have to tell them, you know what, if you're not going to allow us to do that, there will be consequences. You will be taken to the human rights commission, you will be taken to the press council, and you know what? If you manage to get rid of the human rights code provisions [on hate speech], we will then take you to the civil courts system. And you know what? Some judge out there might just think that perhaps it's time to have a tort of group defamation, and you might be liable for a few million dollars," (Awan) said.

Does Richard Warman know this kid is cutting into his racket? For a supposed lawyer, Awan is being pretty candid about shopping around for an activist judge. Then again, Awan doesn't strike me as worried about that whole "gross miscarriage of justice" thing western legal systems have been trying to avoid since the Magna Carta. I hope wider Canada is fully awake to this now. I hope America too is paying attention to recent happenings in the Great White North (oops, did I just commit a hate crime?). Our courts have a troubling habit of citing foreign cases as precedent. Thank goodness our tort system isn't prone to giving out obscene judgments on ridiculous decisions. I'm sure John Edwards wouldn't jump at the chance to represent a minority group in a class action against the rest of society for not liking them.

Thankfully - for me at least - this nonsense is still confined to the Canadian half of North America. However, if Mr. Awan and his islamist ally Mr. Elmasry succeed in revising the list of Canadian rights then Canada will have proven itself to have a European style spine and the list of potential American allies in a fight gets that much smaller. The friendly, easygoing neighbor we've taken for granted is starting to fade away. In the updated version of "Canadian Bacon" Dan Akroyd doesn't make you write all the obscenities on your truck in French, he hauls you off to Barbara Hall for summary judgment.

I make light of this and have a chuckle where one is due, but some of what Mr. Awan says is truly terrifying.

He said that the argument for limitless free speech "is really a far-right Republican argument that is being imported into this country."

So freedom of speech is just a scheme cooked up by the evil Republicans and George Bush over in the States? For what end? Just to defame muslims? I guess we'll just disregard the last thousand years or so of western history. Its unimportant that the ideals like freedom of speech that America was founded on weren't conceived on our continent. The American "experiment" was the best opportunity yet to put into action ideas that Europe had been mulling over for a few centuries. Mr. Awan doesn't seem to understand that America is a product of the enlightenment, as is the rest of the west, Canada included. He doesn't understand that the concepts of liberal democracy and freedom of speech were developed at the same moment in history, that they go hand in hand and cannot exist separately. Worse though, Mr. Awan doesn't see the need to understand this. As far as he's concerned it never happened. Its all a recent, really "far-right Republican argument". I pray that I don't live to see the day that freedom of speech is only advocated on the extreme right wing.

Its cliche to call this Orwellian, but its a perfect example. Mr. Awan is just making up the past as he goes to fit the situation. Soon Common Law will be a recent GOP invention. The whole HRC process is already an affront to western legal tradition. "Of course we can have a separate sharia law for the Umma, one law for everyone is an intolerant American notion". What will be next? Freedom of Assembly? Representative Democracy itself? I may be spouting extreme worst case scenarios, but once you throw out one supposedly universal human right, aren't the others up for debate?

What Mr. Awan truly needs to understand is why we fear him and his ilk. Its not his religion that gives me pause, its his secular views on the role and power of the State in society. Totalitarianism is totalitarianism, regardless of who you pray to. What he's really doing is hiding behind Islam and his minority status so he can claim any vitriol directed toward him is actually directed at his religion. I don't believe Mr. Awan is an islamist, terror supporter, or an anti Semite like his pal Elmasry, but I do believe he's a Statist, and to me that's just as damning.

Idiots Guide to what the Idiots are Doing

Here's a great summary of the entire Human Rights debacle in Canada.

Springtime for Elmasry

Day Three of the BCHRT vs. Maclean's, Mark Steyn, and the internet in general has passed and Andrey Vyshinsky, er, I mean Faisal Joseph has yet to call an actual aggrieved muslim from British Columbia, which supposedly is what this is all about. The plaintiffs' case hasn't even begun to be proven, in fact, I'm not even sure if Faisal Joseph knows what he's trying to prove. Yesterday he called an expert on Bollywood who has written articles on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Queen Latifa. Now unless the legions of vampires Buffy kills are metaphors for muslims and Maclean's created her, I have little understanding of what she could possibly bring to the proceedings, but of course she was allowed to testify after the Grand Inquisitors retired to chambers in order to consult season 5 of Law and Order for the proper course of action. Predictably she saw abundant stereotypes throughout the Steyn article, and of course the cover, which is a picture of actual muslims, stereotypes them. Now everyone who reads her testimony and looks at her credentials can see she'd see a stereotype in a Bin Laden tape, but there's a larger point here. Are all books - or articles even - going to be dissected by a Tribunal if a "minority" deems them offensive? Is the government going to vet everything published in Canada? What is the standard used to decide what is publishable going to be? The testimony of an expert on Bollywood? This is comically fascistic, but fascistic all the same. Its as if Canadians have become trapped in "Springtime for Hitler". Funny sure, but would you want to live there? I'm sure most Canadians don't.

BCHRT vs. Everyone

Apparently I wasn't too far off when I imagined the BCHRT might go after dead British General Sir Edmund Allenby considering they're now going after American Catholics posting on an American Catholic blog. Why don't they just get it over with and declare themselves international and make the move to the Hague? I'm sure they're just chomping at the bit for a shot at Dick Cheney, Condi Rice, and possibly posthumus indictments of Ronald Reagan and St. Peter. For that matter how about Charles Martel? The Battle of Tours has certainly belittled muslims over the years. I certainly hope Canadians start paying attention considering this post is only slightly more ridiculous than the actual actions of the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal.

A "Bizarre and Frightening Spectacle"

Ezara Levant has a very informative piece on who is sitting in judgment over Macleans at Mark Steyn's show trial. I didn't see Vasiliy Ulrikh listed, but it was only day one. The National Post has a pretty good summation of this "bizarre and frightening spectacle". It points out a fact that I at least was unaware of:

"None of the main players starring in this quasi-judicial drama actually live or work in B. C. Not Mr. Steyn, not the editors responsible for Maclean's, and not Mohamed Elmasry, a Muslim who launched a complaint to the B. C. Human Rights Tribunal on behalf of all Muslims in this province."

Apparently the British Columbian Human Rights Tribunal doesn't deal with petty technicalities like jurisdiction. I'm sure its only a matter of time before some imaginative muslim files a complaint in B.C. against Sir Edmund Allenby for the horrible insensitivity he showed when he proclaimed “today the wars of the Crusades are completed,” after drubbing the Turks (A minority in the Ottoman Empire) in 1917.

For now though the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal will have to make do with the crimes of Maclean's, and they are legion. Lawyer Faisal Joseph, representing the complainant, describes them in detail:

"The Steyn excerpt that Maclean's published in October, 2006, presented Muslims as 'a violent people' who hold traditional Canadian values 'in contempt,' he alleged. Their religion was portrayed as 'inhuman" and 'violent.'"

Not only that, but also:

"'20 other articles' that ran in Maclean's, beginning in January, 2005; these were also unkind to Muslims. . . Mr. Joseph even slammed Maclean's for publishing letters from readers praising the magazine and Mr. Steyn."

If these blatant examples of Freedom of the Press weren't enough to damn Maclean's, even

"the cover image that Maclean's chose to run with the Steyn excerpt was hauled before the inquiry. The image of two Muslim women, along with the magazine's cover line, 'could have been the picture of a horror cult movie,' declared Mr. Joseph."

Ignoring the hate crime Mr. Joseph committed by implying that a photo of two actual muslim women looks like a "horror cult movie", let's examine this new standard for the publication of photos. If publishing photos of minorities that resemble scenes from horror movies is prohibited, doesn't that rule out Holocaust photos? I can't think of anything more "horrific" than the piles of emaciated bodies awaiting incineration or mass burial. Will the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal actually put Canadians in the situation where both Holocaust denial and Holocaust proof are considered hate crimes?

Trudeaupia: Free from Demoralization

It is sad to watch Canada somewhat unknowingly approach the slippery slope of totalitarianism. Once it becomes acceptable to regulate speech deemed "inappropriate", the taboo is lifted and elements of society without the traditional democratic scruples toward censorship rush to end the debate that they've been forced to deal with since the birth of progressivism. My purpose here is not to pick on Canada. Europe is and has certainly been just as guilty. The United States has had her moments as well: The Alien and Sedition Acts of the first Adams administration, the basic suspension of the First Amendment during the Civil War, Wilson's sedition and treason laws, and FDR's stifling of dissent during the Great Depression. However, these were all put over on the public at times of crisis, and thankfully were rejected after the crises were over. I come back to Canada merely because she keeps popping up in the news.

Case in point, the National Post had a story yesterday about the York University Student Union's effort to essentially ban pro-life (in their words "anti-choice") clubs from campus.

In response to a series of controversies over abortion debates on Canadian campuses, the student government of York University in Toronto has tabled an outright ban on student clubs that are opposed to abortion.

Gilary Massa, vice-president external of the York Federation of Students, said student clubs will be free to discuss abortion in student space, as long as they do it "within a pro-choice realm," and that all clubs will be investigated to ensure compliance.

So in response to a controversial debate, they wish to stop the debate by banishing the side deemed inappropriate. Aren't Universities supposed to be forums for free discussion? Well, according to Ms. Massa, it isn't about freedom of speech.

"You have to recognize that a woman has a choice over her own body," Ms. Massa said. "We think that these pro-life, these anti-choice groups, they're sexist in nature ... The way that they speak about women who decide to have abortions is demoralizing. They call them murderers, all of them do ... Is this an issue of free speech? No, this is an issue of women's rights."

This isn't framed by the left as a free speech issue, its "women's rights". Referring to abortion as murder is "demoralizing" to women. Demoralizing? At least they accuse Mark Steyn of inciting hatred. Where exactly is the statute against demoralization? Is the right not to be demoralized now sacrosanct to feminists? What about the demoralizing effect the HRC will have on Mr. Steyn when it bans his writings from the Dominion? Or is it only leftist advocacy groups that should be free from feeling bad? When a cartoonist draws a picture of George W. Bush wearing a swastika, its free speech. When Steyn accurately quotes a Scandinavian imam, or a pro-life apologist calls abortion murder, its inciting hatred and has to be stopped before any number of so called "oppressed" groups becomes even more oppressed (or apparently, demoralized).

To their credit (and my surprise) the schools administration "condemned the decision as contrary to its academic mission". Let me be clear, I'm not trying to paint all leftist students and Canadians with the same brush. There are many liberal Canadians who recognize this for what it is: "Michael Payton, a York student who argued the pro-choice side" points out that "'When the YFS (York Federation of Students) says they believe in free speech, they believe in free speech for them, for the positions they hold, not for freedom of speech for positions they disagree with.'" But these attacks on free speech are appearing more and more in Canada and the West in general. Conservative positions aren't just being looked down upon, but outright banned - in the case of the HRC's under penalty of law. The consequences of this will be enormous, for Liberals and Conservatives. Governments with this power always abuse it. Barbara Hall and the HRC's are actually decrying the lack of HRC cases. How can they reshape society if people don't complain?

What's worse, there's an effort to take the YFS's tyranny national:

"Efforts to formalize the York ban on anti-abortion groups began in earnest last weekend, when the YFS brought a successful motion to the annual meeting in Ottawa of the Canadian Federation of Students, a national umbrella group of student unions.

'Be it resolved that member locals [of the CFS] that refuse to allow anti-choice organizations access to their resources and space be supported. And further, be it resolved that a pro-choice organization kit be created that may include materials such as a fact sheet, buttons, contact information for local pro-choice organizations and research on anti-choice organizations and the conservative think-tanks that fund them," the motion reads.'"

I have no problem with full disclosure of who is behind any organization, but notice that there is no mention of pointing out who is funding pro-abortion groups. Student governments of public universities have no business quashing a student group or club because of their political beliefs. I myself am a conservative who believes abortion to be reprehensible. However, I don't believe pro-abortion groups should be banned from campus. Universities should encourage debate, not conformity. All groups should be tolerated unless they actively advocate violence. (And not the imagined violence Mark Steyn is accused of promoting)

I know Universities have been actively leftist for a long time, and non orthodox view points have been frowned upon if not suppressed. When I was at school, a staff member of the "official" student newspaper tried to convince a business advertising in a new, independent conservative student newspaper to stop by basically comparing it to Völkischer Beobachter. Student's were also discouraged from handing out free issues at University events. But this is chillingly blatant. If students feel they can openly advocate the suppression of free speech and free assembly, what does it say about trends in Canadian society, or Western society for that matter? The last time we had such an exhaustion with Enlightenment principles, Fascism and Communism seemed fresh and attractive. I pray we're not going down that road again.

Update: Apparently Ms. Massa is a pro-abortion muslim student. Its nice to see there might actually be free thinking (if misguided) muslims in Canada, I just hope she doesn't find out the hard way what the penalty for abortion is under sharia. Its not smart to be a moderate muslim and be against freedom of speech. Otherwise in the end you'll probably be stoned.

Free British Columbia!

Do you find yourself looking for a cause, but Tibet is so far away? Well don't look so mopey, people are being oppressed right in our own back yard! That's right, the teaming masses in Canada are yearning to be free, and you can help! Better yet, you can actually do something worthwhile instead of some worthless chic gesture that does nothing to free people from Communist domination. Just check out my new "Canadian Dissidents" links. These fine people are dedicated to freeing Canada, and some are being sued or hauled off to court themselves for either being conservative or speaking the truth (like there's a difference). You can donate some of that "discretionary income" Obama's eying so greedily and donate it to their legal defense funds, because lets face it, blogging ain't easy. So instead of spending that $5.50 on posterboard for a "Free Tibet" sign that a ChiCom would probably just take from you and beat you with anyway, put it to good use and send it to outlawed Jew Ezra Levant, or women's blogging rights advocate Kathy Shaidle, (among others) and fight for a freer tomorrow!

The Sunset of Canadian Freedom

The more I read about events in Canada, the more thankful I am that some States required the promise of a Bill of Rights before agreeing to join the Union. Canada doesn't have a clear protection of public speech written into its Law. In America, Freedom of Speech is a sacred and unimpeachable right, enshrined in the First Amendment:

"Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press"

In Canada however, Freedom of Speech and now the Press have come under increasing assault. The Voltairian principle "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it" has been wholly rejected by the Canadian political elite. (In fact this is just a symptom of the general rejection of the concepts of the Enlightenment by Western Civilization in the past hundred years). Human Rights Commissions are now in operation in Canada with the power to police speech in the public sphere. These have been tolerated by Canadians because in the past they have mainly gone after Canadian Nazis (real or imagined) and homophobes (like a pastor who was uncouth enough to take out an add in a paper with quotes from the Bible condemning homosexuality and sodomy. Yep, quoting certain parts of the Bible is now a no-no in Canada.). Now however, the Human Rights Commissions have created a backlash by taking up complaints by Muslim groups trying to stifle discussion of Muslim immigration, assimilation, and terrorism.

The Canadian public has finally taken notice of the tyranny of these courts -even as much of the Canadian press has not- but I fear it’s too late. The defense of speech rights seems to already be lost. How else can one explain this defense of the Human Rights Commissions by the supposedly conservative Attorney General of Canada?

"Dr. Tsesis has developed an extensive critique of Oliver Wendell Holmes’ notion of the “marketplace of ideas,” and reaches similar conclusions: Beyond the theoretical difficulties of Holmes’ marketplace of ideas it is simply untrue that the dissemination of vitriol defuses racism, sexism, or anti-Semitism. Experience disproves the notion that falsehood is always vanquished by truth. To the contrary, history teems with examples of times when lies, distortions, and propaganda empowered groups like the Nazis to repress speech and perpetrate mass persecutions … Even when both true and false beliefs are available, persons often cling to the false to retain power. In spite of the availability in the United States of literature against slavery, that institution did not end through rational discourse but through a bloody civil war."

It is difficult to realize the sheer antipathy this line of thought has toward liberal western democratic tradition without suffering a stroke, but I'll do my best. We'll take it line by line:

"Dr. Tsesis has developed an extensive critique of Oliver Wendell Holmes’ notion of the 'marketplace of ideas,'"

Firstly, who was Oliver Wendell Holmes? Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court in the early 20th Century. Holmes stance was that the protections of the First Amendment gave citizens the right to "do harm" with their speech, i.e. insult a person, group, government, etc. unless that speech constituted a "clear and present danger" of causing harm that has been prohibited by law, i.e. injury, death, destruction of property, etc. Basically, someone can write "Eric Schimweg is an asshole" on a sign in their yard or the community newsletter. However, someone may not write "Eric Schimweg's neighbor would do the community a service by beating him to death with his own golf clubs" on a sign or in a newsletter if it provoked my neighbor to inflict bodily harm on my person.

Holmes believed that ideas should sink or swim of their own merit in a "marketplace of ideas". (Ironically he didn't believe in an economic free market). He famously defended the right to dissent during World War I when the Wilson administration passed draconian sedition and treason laws. One may think that minorities must be protected from inflammatory speech by the government, but once a society grants government the power to decide what is appropriate speech, that society can easily lose the right to speak out against said government.

"Beyond the theoretical difficulties of Holmes’ marketplace of ideas it is simply untrue that the dissemination of vitriol defuses racism, sexism, or anti-Semitism."

Holmes believed that vitriolic speech should be allowed into the marketplace of ideas so it could be debated and refuted. Let ideas see the light of day, and let them sink or swim on their own merit. To prohibit offensive speech is to prohibit its dissection and disproval in the full view of the public. Making ideas and speech taboo is to give them more power. Why do some kids carve a swastika into a bathroom stall? Its not because they believe in Nazism or Fascism, it’s because they want to shock and rebel with a forbidden symbol they know little about. As Mark Steyn -who's writing has sparked Canadian human rights complaints- has put it: "what would (Hitler) be most steamed about? That in some countries there are laws banning Nazi symbols and making Holocaust denial a crime? No, that wouldn't bother him: that would testify to the force and endurance of his ideas - that 60 years on they're still so potent the state has to suppress them. What would bug him the most is that on Broadway and in the West End Mel Brooks is peddling Nazi shtick in The Producers and audiences are howling with laughter."

As for stopping "racism, sexism, and anti-Semitism", those are worthy goals, but as Canadians are now discovering, if you create weapons to stifle speech, those weapons can be used to stop discussion on important issues and questions, like sharia law in Canada.

"Experience disproves the notion that falsehood is always vanquished by truth."

This is perhaps the most alarming part of the Attorney General's statement. If we accept the premise that falsehood must be suppressed in order to save truth, because truth can't be trusted to win out on its own, we come upon a sticky question: Who is to decide what is falsehood and what is truth? Is it what the government decides? Shall unelected Human Rights Commissions decide? Is this what we've come to in Western Civilization? The people can't be trusted to make up their own minds? The government must push and cajole them into the correct way of thinking? Does anyone really think that governments can be trusted to be the arbiters of truth? Joseph Goebbels had his own version of the truth. So did Stalin and Mussolini. The British parliament saw "the Right of the People to alter or to abolish" a government that fails to secure their rights as a falsehood. In the marketplace of ideas, some colonists agreed with them, some didn't. In the conflict that ensued, a (mostly) free Constitutional Republic was founded on the ideals of the Enlightenment. Any contradictions remaining in the system were corrected later, not under the guise of the government, but through the actions and competing ideas of free people, often contrary to the views of government. To deny a citizen the right to weigh the evidence and decide for himself is to abandon faith in reason and to reject the concept of the free man.

"To the contrary, history teems with examples of times when lies, distortions, and propaganda empowered groups like the Nazis to repress speech and perpetrate mass persecutions …"

I can't imagine the Attorney General didn't recognize the contradiction in this. We must repress speech in order to stop others from repressing speech. How long until this descends into Jacobism? Shall we establish a tyranny in order to keep others from establishing a tyranny?

This is ultimately a rejection of Democracy. The people can't be trusted. An enlightened dictatorship will protect all. (Directory anyone?) Sound far fetched? Perhaps, but is it such a reach to conclude that if the people can't be trusted to decide what to read and think, how can they be trusted to vote?

"Even when both true and false beliefs are available, persons often cling to the false to retain power."

Again, who is to decide what is true and what is false if not the people themselves? Freedoms of Speech, Press, and Religion among others are specifically designed to protect minorities from a hateful or oppressive majority. Take these away, and the government is able to create its own reality, free from dissent.

"In spite of the availability in the United States of literature against slavery, that institution did not end through rational discourse but through a bloody civil war."

Here is a perfect illustration of a government creating its own truth. The Civil War was not specifically fought to abolish slavery. That is a falsehood. The abolition movement was born in an environment of free speech, both in the United States and in the British Empire. The Civil War may have been the context for the abolition of slavery (two years into the war I might add) in the United States, but the end of the slave trade was decided on through rational discussion and discourse.

Imagine if Uncle Tom's Cabin were examined in terms of truth and falsehood. Certain depictions and stereotypes in that landmark novel are at least exaggerated if not untrue. Imagine if Harriet Beecher Stowe were sued the way Maclean's magazine in Canada is for supposedly stereotyping Muslims and inciting hatred by publishing a Mark Steyn column. Should Stowe's writing career in America have been threatened for stereotyping Southern slaveholders and black slaves the way Steyn's is in Canada? It is indeed a slippery slope.