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“The thought police would get him just the same. He had committed–would have committed, even if he had never set pen to paper–the essential crime that contained all others in itself. Thoughtcrime, they called it. Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed forever. You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they were bound to get you.”

- George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 1

Ann Coulter was forced to cancel her scheduled speech at the University of Ottawa two days ago because she is on record as suggesting that the U.S. put all Muslims on the no fly list. This, said the geniuses that run the school, is hate speech and will not be tolerated on the publicly funded premises of the UO.

Ann Coulter is intelligent, witty and clever. She also happens to say outrageous things that are designed to foment virulent debate, which, thanks to our fragile and easily offended liberal friends, she habitually succeeds in doing.

But it’s a trap into which our intellectually elites repeatedly fall.

Would any reasonable person dispute that more attention has been given to Ann Coulter’s allegedly insidious, dangerous and hateful speech because of the left’s attempt to censor it than would have been given had there been no attempt to censor it?

This is the primary reason Ms. Coulter - like her fellow flamethrowers Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann - is giggling all the way to her bailed out bank.

Left Wing Thought Control

Putting aside the fact that Ms. Coulter luxuriates in and greatly benefits from the self-defeating efforts of nutroots to censor her, a great principle happens to be at stake here: The right to express oneself in the marketplace of ideas.

Without language, thought is socially meaningless. Consequently, stopping people from expressing an idea is no different than stopping them from thinking that idea. The founders of the United States knew this and were wise enough to codify it in the first amendment.

All censorship, then, is thought control.

But controlling what people think is precisely what many on the left want to do. Think about it. If you forbid me to express a particular idea, than that idea will die out when I die, no one else having been allowed to hear it.

Hate Speech is Speech I Don’t Like

As is the case with most self-righteous moralists, the University of Ottawa has proven to be a hypocrite on the issue of hate speech.

For example, radical feminist Catherine McKinnon holds an honorary doctorate degree from the University. She has said some of the most hateful, bigoted and vulgar things about men (or any other class of individuals, for that matter) in recorded history.

Here’s one of my favorites:

Men who are in prison for rape think it’s the dumbest thing that ever happened… they were put in jail for something very little different from what most men do most of the time and call it sex. The only difference is they got caught.

Now, do you really think that Ann Coulter’s jesting comment about Muslim terrorists and the no fly zone ¹ are really more hateful than that?

I submit that the reason Ms. McKinnon’s bigoted comments are not considered hate speech and Ms. Coulter’s are is that the University brass and its ideologically indoctrinated students generally agree with Mizz McKinnon and violently disagree with Miss Coulter.

If the McKinnon example isn’t proof enough of the University of Ottawa’s institutionalized hypocrisy, add to it the fact that the school has entire courses dedicated to the demonization of white, European males. You know the courses I’m talking about. They’re based on the irrebuttable presumption that white men are irredeemable racists unless and until they acknowledge and agree to relinquish their inherent white, male privilege.²

So, in practice, if not in theory, stereotyping a class of individuals is perfectly acceptable at the University of Ottawa as long as you are stereotyping the right class of individuals. Usually, this means white, male, Christians.

Footnotes:

¹  The point Ann is trying to make here, of course, is that we shouldn’t be playing politically correct games with our nation’s security. In other words, given the fact that Homeland Security has limited resources, it should focus it’s attention on Arabs and people of the Muslim faith rather than doing full body scans of little, old, wheelchair bound Norwegian ladies.

²  I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll agree to relinquish my inborn skin-color advantage when Lebron James relinquishes his inborn height advantage, Albert Pujols relinquishes his inborn eye-hand coordination advantage and Venus and Serena Williams relinquish their inborn high-twitch fiber advantage. And while where discussing the subject of the inequity of unearned advantage, I would suggest that our President show some leadership by ponying-up and surrendering some of his natural eloquence and innate intelligence.

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