CHOCOLATE JESUS CANCELLED: FREE SPEECH WINS!
There is no contradiction in my post title.
In a free society-EVERYONE-has the right to free speech.
That means the artist. That means the people complaining to the artist.
No one said they had to take it down. No laws were passed against the exhibit. They just couldn't handle the heat.
Oh, they thought the Catholics would just sit down and take it like they did with "Virgin Mary in Cow Dung" and "Piss Christ".
C'est la vie.
As to the
"death threats"...Did they file police complaints?
Is there an on-going investigation?
Are emails being collected, phones being traced and wires being tapped?
When this happens I'll believe there were genuine death threats and not just the hysterical rantings of leftists who couldn't handle the controversy. Even The Dixie Chicks showed more
cojones than this.
Hey, I've gotten death threats sent to my private email before with the author telling me he would come to my home and saw my head off.
Deal. Life goes on.
A victory for speech happened today, and I for one am glad.
"HOW MODERN LIBERALS THINK" by former Bill Maher Writer, Evan Sayet
Here is a You Tube link via the Drudge Report of a speech by Evan Sayet entitled, "How Modern Liberals Think".Sayet was a former headwriter for both Arsenio Hall and Bill Maher who, after years in Hollywood, realized something different after Sept 11 and went on a journey.
This speech is about 30 minutes long with a Q& A afterwards and it is quite frankly one of the best I have recently seen on dissecting Classical Liberalism from the New Left and the importance of changing the culture.
He hits on all of the topics that I have written about, such as the importance of changing academia, the influence of Hollywood on modern thought and the utopian or cultural Marxist goals of the New Left/Modern Liberal.
This is a serious speech and not one filled with zingers and one-liners but Sayet is an engaging speaker and you could do a lot worse than spending 47 minutes watching him.
Enjoy.
LIBERALS=NEW COKE
Others may say things more profound or insightful on this topic, but the fact that Quebec has just given 41 seats to a right-wing party in its provincial legislature is quite an accomplishment.
There has been a growing conservatism growing in French culture for some time now; indications of this are in many places...from the Quebec documentary filmmakers who took socialism to task to (even in France) the potential for Nicolas Sarkozy to become the new French President.
Obviously, massive cultural changes occur on a very long time-line and this is now only two elections where we can see growth in French-Canadian culture, but it seems to be more than a passing fad.
41 seats is not just a protest vote. Especially when it is for a party which stands for things that are usually diametrically opposed to what Quebecers are supposed to stand for.
Given that I have some business dealings in Quebec as of late, I find this very encouraging.
Maybe the first Western culture to explore pure secular-aethism is now prone to seeing its flaws.
It also is a testament to the fact that the Liberal brand is increasingly not what it used to be.
Perhaps more and more people will begin to see it as New Coke.
IT'S THE CULTURE, STUPID!
Obviously I have noticed the response from both the left and the right about the new budget. For the left, it is not nearly socialist enough, for the right, it is far to socialist.
One of the reasons I started blogging was to try to emphasize to conservatives the importance of culture in fighting political battles. Culture influences politics, politics does not influence culture.
It is the movies you watch, the books you read, the music you listen to, the news you consume. I think far too many conservatives expected a cultual revolution overnight when Stephen Harper won. Now they are in despair.
The cry and moan...
HARPER HAS GONE GREEN!
HARPER GAVE UP THE FIGHT ON SSM!
HARPER IS SPENDING LIKE A LIBERAL!
Stephen Harper can only do what the culture will allow him to do in a minority situation. Canadian culture is overwhelmingly liberal. If you want to change that...
Make a movie...
Write a book...
Don't patronize culture that mocks you...
Tell your children to become laywers...
Educate your children to become that which you hate most...journalists and artists with a more enlightened conservative outlook to life.
Until you do that, the cultural center will keep shifting more left.
Today, I just read that a bunch of Toronto Law students and their professor are banding together to set up a Charter challenge to legalize prostitution.I would say that they
will win, but the truth is...they have
already won. These cultural battles are fought in academe and legal circles far before they make it to public consumption and until conservatives get that, you will get in name only Conservative governments that govern as though they are left of center.
And no amount of bitching and moaning in the blogosphere will change that.
10, 000 anti-Al Gore blogs cannot even begin to have the impact of a hit movie like
An Inconvenient Truth. I know you do not want to hear it...but that one movie made all the difference.
Cyberspace may make you feel stronger...but it doesn't amount to all that much.
