"That a putatively free person so readily accepted the prospect of being jailed for holding ugly opinions should provide some insight into the contemporary state of intellectual liberty in Britain. Presgrave is without doubt a fool, and her views are morally repugnant. But that is the business neither of Her Majesty’s government nor of those under who operate beneath its carapace. There were no threats made here; there was no imminent danger or incitement to law-breaking; no conspiracies were uncovered. Instead, a person of below-average intellect and questionable ethical calibration issued an abstract opinion that both the majority and the chattering classes found abhorrent. In a country whose people are at liberty, this cannot be a crime. To the contrary: Toleration of precisely this sort of culturally egregious expression is what distinguishes free nations from tyrannies."
2 comments:
"Bad as they are in and of themselves, the charges leveled against Presgrave are rendered all the more grievous when one observes that the opinion for which she was disciplined is both culturally normal and legally protected in Britain. Under that country’s laws, mothers who are expecting children with Down’s syndrome and other disabilities are permitted to abort right up to the moment of birth — months after the statutory limitation on termination have kicked in elsewhere. There is no reasonable way to comprehend this legal distinction other than as a reflection of the belief that disabled children are often better off dead — the very contention, in other words, that landed Presgrave in court. Judging by its behavior, we have no choice but to conclude that the British government considers not only that words can hurt as much as sticks and stones, but that they can hurt more. Under the current rules, the doctor who kills an unborn child a week before his due date is worthy of praise and legal immunity, while the minor celebrity who exalts the use of euthanasia a few days later in the cycle is deserving of incarceration. How’s that for a rabbit hole?"
Had this exact quote not been handily included in the article, I would have written words to approximately the same effect.
I will add only that Presgrave's real crime appears to be endangering the mask of some absolute distinction between euthanizing a child shortly before rather than shortly after exiting the womb. She is not guilty of holding or expressing an abhorrent opinion, but of putting it too bluntly and honestly. Those who have previously been sent to jails for being just as honest about but less approving of this use of abortion can attest that it is the honesty, not the approval, which is the crime.
The government forbids us to speak honestly of what we all know is occurring in the hope that, being constrained against honesty, we will deceive ourselves into believing their lies.
And many do.
That is a curious wording - "a person of below-average intellect and questionable ethical calibration issued an abstract opinion that both the majority and the chattering classes found abhorrent."
Perhaps a more accurate version would be "because a person issued an abstract opinion that both the majority and the chattering classes found abhorrent, they concluded that the person must be of below-average intellect and questionable ethical calibration."
Certainly, if that person agreed with the majority and the chattering classes then that would be a person of above-average intellect and unquestionable ethical calibration.
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