If speech is suppressed, bullets may replace it

I think that is one lesson that should be learned from the Norway massacre. Public opinion polls in Norway reveal a great deal of dissatisfaction with the country's aggressive Muslim minority. But, outside the anonymity of a poll, you had better not say so.

Norway's penal code (Straffeloven, section 135 a) prohibits "hate speech" and defines it as publicly making statements that threaten or ridicule someone or that incite hatred, persecution or contempt for someone due to their skin colour, ethnic origin, homosexual life style or orientation or, religion or philosophy of life. So criticism of Muslims is illegal in Norway.

America's founding fathers gave Americans the First Amendment, which would have invalidated such a law in the USA, but there is no First Amendment in Norway and Norway's socialists have not been as wise as America's founding fathers.

So Anders Behring Breivik shot over 80 of the children of the Norwegian Leftist elite who passed the restrictive law concerned. See here.

It's a tragic day when bullets replace words but those who muzzle the words have to take some share of the blame. Trying to hold down discontent by suppressing expression of it is plain dumb -- but very Leftist.