H/T One Old Vet

For no good reason it has been quite some time since we linked to The Irish Savant, in my opinion one of the sharpest blades in the blogosphere drawer. Almost the last occasion was The Irish Savant Asks Key Romney Question. Patrick Cleburne Proposes Answer in 2012. I am happy to see the silly Blogger caution about visiting the site has been dropped.

Today Savant has posted a powerful piece The freedom-loving West ridiculing the hypocrisy of European politicians about the Charlie Hebdo atrocity. Referring to the widely used photograph of these Critters linking arms in a childish street demonstration IS comments

Of course we now know that this was just - yet another - photo op facilitated by the supine mainstream media…

And just like the editors at Charlie Hebdo the countries those leaders represent have the same approach to free speech.  All for it as long as it adheres to our doctrines…

consider the following examples from the freedom-loving West.

Amongst the examples Savant cites -

Canada seizes Ernst Zundel from the USA, jails him and then extradites him to Germany where he's jailed again for the same offence. And for good measure they threw his lawyer Sylvia Stoltz in jail as well.  Their offence?  Disagreeing with some aspects of the way the Holocau$t story was presented. Canada also heavily fined Christian pastors who quoted Biblical verses against homosexuality.

Australian authorities jailed Brendan O'Connell for three years for a video he made which was critical of Israeli actions against Palestinians and currently two Christians are under prosecution for articles critical of the Religion Of Peace.  Note that neither O'Connell nor the Christians had promoted violence, let alone engaged in it.

…in Britain Simon Shepherd has been jailed no fewer than four times.  To assess his offence let's go to the ultra politically correct Wiki: 'His main website contains many articles about women, the multiracial society and Jews, stating that these have negative effects on Western society and White males in particular'.  Meanwhile student Liam Stacey was jailed for unsympathetic tweets after a black footballer got a heart attack.

Acknowledging there are a myriad of similar cases Savant concludes

…suffice to say that under 'hate crime' legislation throughout the West you can and will face jail time for merely upsetting the delicate feelings of some 'protected' group… the whole purpose is to close down non-conformist views.  And truth is no defence.

The Irish Savant then makes a crucial observation which needs to be taken to heart by patriotic Americans

Access.  All of us on this site know that it's virtually impossible to get anything onto the MSM that runs contrary to the Prescribed Narrative. Even a letter to the editor. Or to get a book published or a film produced. Just like in the USSR. Or Saudi Arabia.  You know, the people who 'hate us for our freedoms'.

But there is one big difference between the West and countries like the USSR and Saudi Arabia. They know (or knew) that there was/is no freedom of expression, that the media are  utterly biased and truth is revealed only by filtering and reconfiguring the propaganda dished out to you. But in the West the general public has widely bought into the fantasy of a free press and thus are a lot more vulnerable to manipulation.

(My emphasis)

I think this is a critical matter. Of course we at VDARE.com are very conscious of this, having experienced many examples ranging from the (largely successful) campaign to keep us off Talk Radio to the squalid censoring of a VDARE.com link from the RedState comment thread a few weeks ago. But The Irish Savant is probably right that most people are blissfully ignorant.

Think American freedoms are protected by the Constitution? The same Constitution which prevents Obama ruling by decree?

That is a delusion. As the Agema/American Renaissance hysteria or the Richwine scandal demonstrates, America too is a Police State, with Cultural Marxist Vigilantes every bit as powerful as the law enforcement arm elsewhere.

I tend to focus of the influence of current corruption on the American political process but fundamentally the influence of deliberate repression of news might in the long run have been more significant.

Perhaps my favorite Irish Savant blog – which also speaks to MSM repression - was discussed in Irwin Stelzer Sees The Light– A Decade Late