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the ACLU stridently defending the rights of the little band of brownshirts who wanted only to breathe free and stage a little walk through downtown Skokie, Illinois, and, okay, maybe denounce Jews and blacks and the ACLU while they were at it , I will now stridently defend Ann Coulter and her free-speech rights.

Way to go, Canada! You've achieved the nearly-impossible, and made Ann Coulter a nearly sympathetic figure. And you've got me defending the tiresome freak. First, some functionary from one of your universities actually threatened that if she wasn't nice when she showed up in your country for her scheduled speaking engagements this week, that she could be prosecuted for her ideas, and then when your idiot mob gathered at the University of Ottawa last night and threatened violence (I must say, Canadian and violence are two words that you normally don't think of together), the local constabulary succumbed to mob justice and shut 'er down. Free speech sucks, huh, Canada?

You know, it's funny: If you hadn't as a country lost your shit last night, and the corrosive harridan had been allowed to freely speak at the academic institution which invited her to speak, you would have in turn been allowed to mock her and laugh at her and put her "ideas" in the garbage where they belong. She would have gotten back across the border to make our lives miserable again, and it would have almost been as if her speech had never happened. She and her little comedy routine would have been appropriately marginalized. That's how the transaction goes in a free marketplace of ideas. That's how a sensible people processes ideas, good and bad. Instead, you frothed at her idiot provocation and you suppressed her speech and by doing so you have now made her ideas seem — to a certain cohort — much more potent and perhaps even important than they ever ought to be regarded. By your suppression, you have exalted Ann Coulter, of all people. You have made her manifest. You have made her a free-speech martyr. She does not deserve this status — nor any status, really. And you have given the unholy operation at Fox News a legitimate issue to weaponize and use against the reasonable people of the world. If her schtick had long since lost its luster — which it certainly had, Canada — you have renewed her significance as a cultural and political figure.

Way to goddamn go, Canada!

A request: We have a lot of hateful creeps who make a living saying stupid and offensive things. If it's all the same to you, Canada, please don't invite them to speak at one of your fine institutions of higher learning, and then cancel their engagements abruptly when you get all jittery. For instance, David Duke is in serious need of some career rehab. I beg you, don't invite David Duke to speak in your country any time soon. Leave them alone and they will eventually just go away. Got it? Thanks.

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