KERI,

On the whole I have to agree with you.

I do not know what are Malik's intentions. But until she commits an overt act or until she conspires actively with another it seems she is being convicted of thought crime.

And I agree that if we applied the same principle to rappers – nice one that – we would have a lot of people in prison.

Yes, giving the likes of Malik free reign to continue producing this filth does increase the chances of a body count. People COULD die or be maimed.

Yet the giving the state powers to censor our thoughts seems to me to be the GREATER RISK.

In the end it may be easier to get rid of the terrorists than to dial back the powers of a police state.

JACK THE LAD

There is a limit to police resources. Right now more people die from traffic accidents than from terrorist attacks so police doing traffic duty is not necessarily a misuse of those resources.

On the other hand I think we should have a traffic police separate from the main police force.

Just BTW the number of people who died as a result of 9 / 11 was roughly the same as the number killed EVERY MONTH in traffic accidents in the US.

The number who died in Britain's 7 / 7 bombing are the equivalent of roughly ONE WEEK'S worth of traffic fatalities in the UK.

Thank you for a thought-provoking post.

However repugnant this person’s views, I don’t think she has done anything that can or should be deemed a crime. And to make thought into crime is a serious erosion of our freedom, as well as the start of a scary slippery slope.

To live in a free society is risky. People will hold and express offensive and even dangerous opinions. Where citizens’ every action is not controlled or watched by the state, there may be more opportunities to overstep the bounds of what is legal and permissible. But I’d far rather live in a free society and run its risks than seek the false security of coerced conformity, which so often turns against not just the dangerous and criminal citizens but also the unpopular, free-thinking or simply odd ones.

Anyway, as you say, our perception of the risk of terrorism are disproportionate. Governments of course encourage this, as seems to justify the removal of our freedoms in response to terrorism.

Yes - this is a thought provoking thread. On balance, I find myself in agreement with Steven for a pleasant change :)

If we lock people up for what they think and write, we've lost it.

CJ Morgan,

I wonder whether you really do agree with me.

Freedom of speech for Samina Malik is also freedom of speech for a skinhead who rhapsodises about "mowing down" Muslims with a machine gun outside Lakemba Mosque.

It is freedom of speech for the pervert who publishes on the internet his fanatasies about raping four year old children.

It is freedom of speech for Professor Andrew Fraser of Macquarie University who advocates a return to the White Australia Policy.

CJ Morgan,

You may want to view this youtube clip. (Link originally posted by Boaz)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbIosTmXXQo&feature=related

I happen to think that the risks of censorship outweigh, by far, the risks of allowing skinheads or racists their say. But I shall not pretend free speech is risk free. It isn't people can die as a result of free speech. People's lives can be ruined.

But censorship also kills and on a far grander scale

What a good post. For my contribution I would like to agree with the author.

We are all guilty of thought crime. Sometimes I would love to neutralise my boss. But the rational and unemotional part of my thought processes prohibits me from doing something which I believe is morally and legally wrong. I might even express a desire to commit an act knowing that I had not the ability to effect my purpose.

For another person, who does not know me, to judge that I am not going to regulate my own behaviour sounds frightening to me. Thought policing.

Option 3 is disturbingly the safer option for our society as a whole.