Montreal renews its claim to be the centre of a free Canada

Freedom is Indivisible: It's good to see a Canadian newspaper, The Suburban, that grasps this essential point. Freedom of speech cannot be qualified by any kind of bureaucratic mediation, or speech is no longer free but dependent on the political winds that blow through government:

We are now in the midst of a grievous struggle against an implacable Islamist foe whose demands hearken back to the hegemony of the theocratic tyrannies of the Middle Ages. The line in the sand must be drawn.

All our voices need to be raised whenever freedom's indivisibility is compromised. Particularly when it occurs in our own backyards, and precisely when what we are defending is the sovereignty of individual conscience. For this, more than anything, is the object lesson in the difference between liberty and tyranny.
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A free society cannot be one that stifles expression because some group would be “exposed” to hatred or contempt, or some person thinks a comment is outrageous. That’s the free battleground of ideas.

Freedom is indivisible. If we want to enjoy it we must be prepared to extend it to everyone, whether they agree with us or not. This standard cannot be carried lightly, and the burden of it has fallen from many hands throughout history. Each generation must be vigilant that it not slip from its grip.

Hate laws are a two-edged sword. No one questions the noble intentions of those dozen or so nations who have made it a crime to deny the Holocaust for example. Neither do we doubt the malignant nature of those men and women who would put in doubt the reality of the greatest crime in the history of man. However, if that orgy of blood is to have any meaning as living testimony, it is that no person shall ever again be persecuted, or prosecuted, for their beliefs, so long as those beliefs do not clearly and specifically call for violence against any person or group.

In trying to imbue political correctness into our laws in order to satisfy every group, all we do is encourage the perversion of our most sacred trusts by appeasing every special interest that threatens and uses violence. We are mirroring that which we seek to destroy. And as Churchill reminded us, "An appeaser is someone who feeds the crocodile hoping he will eat him last." But eaten we will be.

Exactly my sentiments! Lincoln lives, on the West Island! (HT: Catfur)