Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Criminalizing Thought
Criminalizing Thought
Oct 7, 2024 5:26 PM

For those of us who cherish liberty and the freedom we enjoy in the west to engage in spirited debate, stories like this are very disturbing:

Up north, the Canadian Islamic Congress announced the other day that at least two of Canada’s “Human Rights Commissions” – one federal, one provincial – had agreed to hear plaints that their “human rights” had been breached by this “flagrantly Islamophobic” excerpt from my book, as published in the country’s bestselling news magazine, Maclean’s.

Here’s hoping that this one gets tossed out of court quickly. And remember – eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Explaining Interest Rates to Bernie Sanders
The day after Christmas, presidential candidate Bernie Sanders asked on Twitter: “You have families out there paying 6, 8, 10 percent on student debt but you can refinance your homes at 3 percent. What sense is that?” My snarky tweet in response was, “Because you can foreclose on a house but you can’t repossess an MFA in creative writing.” A more thorough (and thoughtful) explanation is provided by Megan McArdle. She explains why loans secured (such a by a house)...
How Tocqueville Schooled Bernie Sanders 200 Years Ago
Bernie Sanders appears to think all we need to be happy is more money,” says Samuel Gregg, Acton’s director of research, but Alexis de Tocqueville dismantled that idea two centuries ago. Tocqueville’s first reproach was that socialism—whatever its expression—has an inherently materialistic understanding of humans. “The first characteristic of all socialist ideologies is,” Tocqueville insisted, “an incessant, vigorous and extreme appeal to the material passions of man.” Tocqueville may have wrestled with religious questions for much of his life. Nevertheless,...
Keeping Watch over Their Flock at Night
For this week’s Acton Commentary, we have a Christmas meditation by the Dutch statesman and theologian Abraham Kuyper. If we should ever be envious, shouldn’t we envy the shepherds out in Bethlehem’s fields? Those men singled out for their exceptionally glorious privilege! The ones awestruck on that holy night by the flood of heavenly glory that no one else had ever seen! Those who saw God’s heavenly hosts swooping and glistening above the fields! The men whose ears were ringing...
Alexis de Tocqueville Vs. Bernie Sanders
Self-described democratic socialist, Sen. Bernie Sanders is doing relatively well in the race for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. He recently polled at 34 percent (an increase from 30 percent in November) and, anecdotally, I passed several “Bernie” bumper-stickered cars on fairly empty roads this morning. Despite Sander’s and democratic socialism’s fashionableness these days, a Frenchman born in 1805 already warned against and explained the dangers of this kind of socialism. Writing for The Federalist, Acton’s Director of Research Samuel...
Discussion Question: What Makes Insider Trading Wrong?
For most of my life, much of what I’ve learned about the world came from watching movies. This was especially true in 1983, when I was in junior high. That was the year I learned about astronauts (The Right Stuff), thermonuclear war (War Games), and ewoks (Return of the Jedi). I also learned about financial crimes—specifically insider trading— from the Eddie Murphy/Dan edy, Trading Places. If you’ve forgotten the plot, here’s a brief summary by Gary Gensler, the former Chairperson...
Hot Fries and the End of Work
“There can never be a world without work,” says James Bruce in this week’s Acton Commentary. “We are made to work. We flourish when we do, and we suffer when we don’t.” Now, if we think about work’s purpose or goal, we will realize that work can never end. Philosophically, rational agents have specific conditions for genuine flourishing, one of which is work. The sociological data certainly support the claims that we are made for work, and that we suffer...
There is No Free Lunch—or Free Red Tape
It was once mon practice of saloons in America to provide a “free lunch” to patrons who had purchased at least one drink. Many foods on offer were high in salt (ham, cheese, salted crackers, etc.), so those who ate them naturally ended up buying a lot of beer. In his 1966 sci-fi novel, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, Robert Heinlein used this practice in a saloon on the moon to highlight an economic principle: “It was when you...
5 Facts About Christmas
Christmas is the most widely observed cultural holiday in the world. Here are five factsyou should know about the memoration of the birth of Jesus: 1. No one knows what day or month Jesus was born (though some scholars speculate that it was in September). The earliest evidence for the observance of December 25 as the birthday of Christappears in the Philocalian posed in Rome in 336. 2. Despite the impression given by many nativity plays and Christmas carols, the...
Why Does the New York Times Want to Hurt the Poor?
While it may be difficult to imagine, there was once an era when the New York Times was concerned about the poor. Consider, for example,a 1987editorial they ran with the headline, “The Right Minimum Wage: $0.00.” As the editors noted at the time, [Raising the minimum wage] would increase unemployment: Raise the legal minimum price of labor above the productivity of the least skilled workers and fewer will be hired. If a higher minimum means fewer jobs, why does it...
Christmas Greetings from Rev. Robert A. Sirico
With Christmas just around the corner, we at the Acton Institute would like to pause and share with all of you our warmest wishes for a blessed Christmas and a peaceful and prosperous new year to all of our friends and supporters. Acton Institute President Rev. Robert A. Sirico recorded thispersonal Christmas greeting, and we’re pleased to share it with you now. ...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2024 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved