Libertarian writer establishes principle of a new form of oppression

In response to my entry about the attack by Michael Moynihan of Reason magazine on Mark Krikorian because Krikorian gave a hat tip to VFR for the transcript of Sarah Palin’s interview on immigration, VFR’s Canadian leftist reader Ken Hechtman made this comment:

In a free country I expect to be called to answer for what I write. I do not expect to be called to answer for what I read.

Mr. Hechtman’s comment opens a window on a new and amazing possibility which is perhaps not that far off.

In Canada, with its human rights commissions, and in cases like Mark Steyn’s and Ezra Levant’s, people are being routinely called before government bodies—bodies with the power to sue them—to give an accounting of what they have written and published. Even some leftist Canadian politicians are starting to be disturbed that their PC regime has gone so far.

But it can go much farther. Under the regime implied in Michael Moynihan’s attack on Mark Krikorian, people could be called before the bar of public opinion, or even before a government body, to give an accounting of what they have read.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 25, 2008 01:20 AM | Send