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But the Tories proposed legislation does not put any specific limit on what constitutes terrorist propaganda. It simply gives the government the ability to censor literature that it deems to “promote” or “advocate” terrorism. This is a very scary thought.

When author Mark Steyn spoke to the National Post on his recent trip to Toronto, he said that “free speech has to include the right to insult Islam” — “not because necessarily anyone approves of insulting Islam, but simply because free speech by definition is for the stuff you don’t approve of.” He’s right. But if people have the right to insult Islam, they must also have the right to support Islamism — even when the rest of us don’t.

It is often argued that we should not impose prohibitions on defending terrorism because one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. Some will argue that Islamic extremists are fighting for a more oppressive society, and therefore cannot be seen as freedom fighters under any definition (although the law doesn’t distinguish between Islamic terrorism and other types). But none of this should matter: The whole point of free speech is that we don’t have some bureaucrat deciding what opinions are legitimate and which ones are too dangerous to be published.

Instead, we allow everyone to voice their opinion and oppose those we don’t like with more speech, rather than government force. We allow people to make their own decisions, based on all the information available, so we don’t risk muzzling the last voice of truth and reason when the rest of the world has gone completely mad.

It is always easy to support free speech when we agree with what other people are saying. It takes courage to stand up to prohibitions on speech we detest. In the weeks to come, we will see if Canadians have the fortitude to speak out against a law that could pose a serious threat to free speech; or if they will politely shrug and watch their cherished liberties fade into the sunset.

National Post

jkline@nationalpost.com

Twitter.com/accessd