VDH on Europe and Free Expression

It's been a while since I've linked to the work of Dr. Victor Davis Hanson. His latest essay for National Review Online, however, demands a link. Dr. Hanson properly and uncompromisingly excoriates those in Europe who choose to appease the Islamists by abandoning their time honored traditions of free thought and expression:

What would a Socrates, Galileo, Descartes, or Locke believe of the present decay in Europe — that all their bold and courageous thinking, won at such a great cost, would have devolved into such cheap surrender to fanaticism?

Just think: Put on an opera in today’s Germany, and have it shut down, not by Nazis, Communists, or kings, but by the simple fear of Islamic fanatics.

Write a novel deemed critical of the Prophet Mohammed, as did Salman Rushdie, and face years of ostracism and death threats — in the heart of Europe no less.

Compose a film, as did Theo Van Gogh, and find your throat cut in “liberal” Holland.

Or better yet, sketch a cartoon in postmodern Denmark, and then go into hiding.

Quote an ancient treatise, as did the pope, and learn your entire Church may come under assault, and the magnificent stones of the Vatican offer no refuge.


Definitely read it all:

Traitors to the Enlightenment