The Right to Debate, Ridicule, and Insult

Phew! For a minute there I thought my blog was about to be transformed from a small forum for lively discussion to an outlawed institution of hate-speech. But thankfully British MP's killed Tony Blair's wildly over-reaching religious hate law proposal so we are all free to hurl invectives at religious and non-religious people alike. Yippee!Blair's unbelievably stupid idea was a misguided attempt to curb Muslim fanatics who use the Koran to inspire dipshits to violence against infidels. But the law as he proposed it would have actually outlawed most religious jokes. Imagine life without "so a priest, a minister, and a rabbi walk into a bar..." It's unthinkable.I don't understand this lust for crushing free speech and civil liberties in the name of fighting Islamic wackjobs who hate free speech and civil liberties. Isn't it enough to ban incitement to violence? Why does the law even have to bring religion into it? I mean if you encourage someone to kill someone--whether it be for religious reasons or because you're in a bad mood--that's the crime. End of story.But no. In Blair's Orwellian worldview (borrowed no doubt form GWB's) we have to increase the scope of government so it can prevent the baddies from saying boo boo words that might influence the dummies to commit boo boo acts. No thanks, Tony. Didn't you learn anything at the playground?Sticks and stones may break my bonesbut names will never hurt me.We can handle the names, Tony. Worry about the sticks and stones.