So let it be written...
I'm getting the strong impression that our federal government is populated with Liberal MPs who are not very bright.
Their so-called anti-Islamaphobia motion is no doubt well-intentioned despite its simpleminded terminology and blunt execution.
Isn't this political donnybrook in Ottawa all about the intended result of protecting Muslim people from hate and danger?
Well, no — at least not the way the Liberals' motion is worded.
A motion truly designed to protect Muslim Canadians from harm would read Muslimphobia, would it not?
Islam, on the other hand, is a monotheistic religion, a belief system, a constellation of ideas. Religions are based on ideas. So are laws, scientific theorems, manifestos, the Magna Carta, Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms…
Ideas must be challenged. This is how they are honed; how the indefensible is exposed as indefensible, and the defensible is championed. How good ideas are separated from bad.
In a world where ideas are not exposed to rigorous debate, and where people don't have the freedom to challenge concepts, would we not still believe the earth is flat?
Would slavery have been abolished in America if people failed to challenge the proposition that it is not morally reprehensible to own other people?
And what of universal suffrage, or feminism? Darwin, and John Stuart Mill?
Had the free world not challenged Hitler's Nazi belief system, where would we be today? Freedom demands that all ideas be subject to scrutiny. The new, the old, the good, bad and ugly.
Let's revisit the concept of Muslimphobia as opposed to Islamaphobia, in context with the adherents of other faiths.
Let's call these concepts Christianphobia, Jewphobia, Sikhphobia, Hinduphobia, Buddhistphobia, whatever.
These terms, dear Liberals, as does Muslimphobia, reference PEOPLE, whereas Christianityphobia, Judaismphobia, Sikhismphobia, Hinduismphobia, Buddhismphobia, and yes, Islamaphobia, reference IDEAS.
Ideas must be wrestled with, tested by logic and reason, in the honest quest for truth. This is how we progress, how we grow, how we decide for ourselves what ideas we as individuals will chose to embrace or reject.
Failing to do so, we lurch toward becoming something like an idiocracy where deficient intellectual scrutiny of the words and concepts from which parliamentary motions and bills are designed can only result in deficient lawmaking.
If ideas are off limits for scrutiny, my dear Liberal friends, well, you might as well start burning books. I mean, what's the difference?
The Liberals' so-called anti-Islamaphobia motion as it stands is no doubt well-intentioned but it is certainly not well-wrought.
So let it be done...