Free speech is lost not only through law, but through habit—as denunciation becomes a civic virtue and opinion a matter for police.
by Theodore Dalrymple (March 2026)
Threats to free speech come from many directions, which governments can either encourage or protect against. We are not free to speak our minds just because the government says that we are, but we are not free to speak our minds unless the government says that we are—at least, not where a government exercises any kind of control over a population.
In Britain, the government has increasingly circumscribed freedom of speech, supposedly to protect vulnerable minorities or groups (who, in aggregate, now make up the majority of the population) from insult, expressions of dislike or merely disobliging remarks. We used to think that sticks and stones might break our bones but that words would never hurt us; now we, at least our rulers and their acolytes among us, believe that words are more wounding than sticks and stones, for those people who are, ex officio, victims: women, ethnic minorities (particularly some ethnic minorities), members of certain religions, the so-called neurodiverse, people with certain sexual proclivities, the disabled—who by themselves now make up a quarter of the population, according to frequently employed criteria used to encourage dependency. (The British Welfare State seems to have resulted in more disability than did the First World War.)
To be consistent, the British government would have to side with the mullahs in Iran, given a large part of the population’s recent display of Islamophobia, if reports on attacks on mosques in Iran are to be believed. Of course, Islamophobia is a fabricated catchall concept which a Labour Party document defines, inter alia, as ‘[the suggestion] that Muslims, individually or as a group in British society, pose a threat to British or European society, civilisation or values.’ This is a weaselly avoidance of very real contradictions between Islamic views of permissible expression and modern western ones.
But attachment to free speech is far from natural; it is not a default setting of the human mind, as it were. The punishment or criminalisation of opinion is much more common in human history than is the desire to let a thousand flowers bloom, to borrow the locution of that great friend of intellectual freedom, Mao Tse-Tung. It comes far more naturally to many people to tell others to shut up than to encourage them to continue. The possibility of suppressing of opinion in the name of humanity and righteousness unleashes one of the less attractive of human joys, that of the denunciation of one’s neighbour, a joy all the greater if there is the prospect of doing him real harm, and profiting thereby. Sadism in the name of virtue is more common than we like to suppose.
Recently I attended a book festival in the South of England to present a new book of mine soon to be published. The speaker immediately before me was a distinguished professor whose subject was the potential for severe social conflict and even civil war in the United Kingdom. He had analysed the factors that had led to such conflicts in the past and had come to the conclusion that they were all present in Britain (as well as in other western countries, not least the United States).
He did not claim that such conflict or civil was inevitable, only that it was highly possible and growing every day more likely. All that he said seemed to me eminently sensible (though truth and good sense are not always the same). I had had similar thoughts myself. Where people feel that they have little fundamentally in common, that they have no loyalty to anything that they share, then conflict can break out over almost anything, especially when economic conditions deteriorate. Society will then become like a carcass over the possession of which lions, hyaenas, jackals, wild dogs and vultures fight.
When large numbers of people are introduced into a society in such a way that they form a parallel society, particularly if their culture is not merely different from but often actively hostile to that of the pre-existing society, the potential for real violence is obvious. And this is precisely what has happened in Britain and France with the Muslim populations. Furthermore, with the passage of time, integration or assimilation seems to have gone into reverse: young Muslims are more ghettoised, both physically and but especially mentally, than were their grandparents. A large and growing proportion of them consider the laws of their religion higher than the laws of the land—and they are now of sufficient number to flex electoral muscles and affect policy, both domestic and foreign. Of course, expressions of opinion in surveys do not always translate into action, but at moments of crisis they are more likely to affect actual behaviour.
To deny this is to deny the obvious. Intellectuals have always been especially good at denying the obvious, but now they have two extra motives to do so: first they share the responsibility for having brought a dangerous and intractable situation about, by long denying its existence, and second because they do not know what to do about it. They therefore prefer a Pollyanna approach to multiculturalism, according to which diversity is strength and all fundamental points of view are compatible.
Of course, I cannot claim for my observations, following those of the distinguished speaker, the status of revealed truth. Apocalyptic visions are many and apocalypses few. It would not offend me in the slightest if someone disagreed with me and indeed, I should be delighted if someone showed me to be completely mistaken.
At the end of his talk, the speaker was asked whether mass immigration into Britain and France might not be considered a kind of just retribution for the sins of colonialism. This was a peculiar question, on a number of grounds. First, and most importantly, it assumed what many good people had been at considerable pains to deny: that mass immigration from Third World Countries was a curse rather than a blessing (almost no one wants borders so sealed that no immigrants at all, of any type or under any circumstances, may enter).
Second, it failed to notice that countries with little or no history of colonialism were as much affected my mass immigration (and its problems) as countries that had extensive empires. Unless those countries be considered imperialist by virtue of their cultural similarities to countries that had empires, it cannot be that mass immigration is a kind of retribution for crimes committed. Mass immigration is simply the movement of large numbers of people in search of a better life. If Britain has predominantly immigrants from the Indian subcontinent and France from the Maghreb, it is surely a matter of pre-existing familiarity as a result of where Britain and France had their empires.
The speaker asked how much retribution was deserved for the crimes of the past. Clearly, this was meant as a rhetorical question, for he did not accept the premise that the colonialist past was one of crime and nothing else. Moreover, those on whom retribution were to be wreaked were not those who had committed the crimes, but their descendants or heirs. If it were argued that they were nonetheless historical beneficiaries of the crimes, one would have then to draw up a detailed account of losses suffered by the colonised populations, but also of benefits received.
The case of the Atlantic slave trade is here instructive, because it is often (and increasingly) argued that the descendants of slaves should receive compensation. But from whom and for what? It is often forgotten that the trade was a joint European-African enterprise, because until the middle on the nineteenth century, by which time the trade was well past its apogee and was being vigorously suppressed by the British, Europeans could not travel to the interior to capture slaves: that part of the ‘work’ had to be left to the Africans, who knew what they were about. Moreover, it turns out that the surviving descendants of slaves in the United States were among the greatest long-term beneficiaries of the trade, insofar as they are now enormously better off than if their ancestors had not been enslaved but left behind in Africa. Are they, then, indebted to the slave-traders?
If any large fund for supposed compensation were established, one can well imagine what would follow. With apologies to William Shakespeare, one might say, ‘Disburse that cash/ And hark what discord follows.’
The speaker referred to the grooming gangs scandal in Britain, in which police and social workers, fully aware that sexual exploitation of young girls by gangs of taxi drivers of Pakistani descent was occurring on a large scale, did nothing, in part for fear of accusations of racism (and perhaps of fear of violence towards themselves). Was this to be counted justified retribution for colonialism, and if so, how much was enough? When was the ‘debt’ paid? How much rape, how much sexual exploitation?
The most significant thing that happened after the talk was that a middle-class lady expressed her outrage and said that the talk should never have been permitted to continue, because it was no more than a long rant against Moslems. The organisers should have intervened to stop it while it was in progress. Indeed, she was going to the police to complain that it was hate-crime: and this she did.
The idea that it is a function of the police to police opinion has entered the worldview of the bien pensant middle class in Britain (no mere plumber, carpenter or truck driver has such a worldview). By its legislation, the government has infantilised a significant section of the middle class by encouraging it to run to teacher to denounce its fellow pupils. To be an informer, a snitch, a grass: such is the new face of virtue for a small but significant portion of the population.
It is perhaps worth pointing out that the police in the county in which the book festival took place catches only 5 per cent of the perpetrators of traditional crimes, such a burglary and theft: but the lady who reported the speaker to the police thought that it should spend its time investigating and, presumably, prosecuting the speaker.
Freedom is as much a habit of the heart as a consequence of legal arrangements; but in Britain, a chilling effect on free expression has now been exerted by laws that give the impression to such as this lady that what a man says, even if it falls far short of an incitement to violence, is grounds for legal complaint. In the name of her own virtue, she became the willing instrument of the suppression of free speech: and even if nothing comes her complaint, as is likely, the mere possibility of police investigation will exert an inhibiting effect on free expression. What she was against was the freedom of others to dissent from her own views: in other words, she was against freedom. She longs for a world in which someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning.
Recent events show that these are not abstract concerns. A man, Hamit Coskun, has been prosecuted for burning a copy of the Quran during a protest in London. Blasphemy is said to have been abolished in English law, yet the courts are now asked to decide whether the public destruction of a religious text is a criminal act by virtue of the offence it gives. Whether his conviction is upheld or overturned matters less than the fact that such a prosecution was thought possible in the first place. When the law is invited to arbitrate offence to belief rather than harm to persons, blasphemy returns without having been named.
After the speaker had finished, I overheard the lady loudly proclaim him to have been guilty of Islamophobia. What, then, would she say about this post on IslamQA, a popular Islamic site which claims academic authority, with 10 million or more followers:
The apostate is not to be put to death immediately after he falls into apostasy, especially if he has doubts. Rather he should be asked to repent and be offered the opportunity to return to Islam and resolve his doubts, if any. If he persists in his apostasy after that, he is to be put to death.
Death threat as a form of mode of persuasion: what could there be for any freeborn Englishman (or enfant de la patrie) to object to in this?
Not every Moslem, thank goodness, believes this primitive and brutal doctrine, but to rush off to the police to try to punish a man for speaking his mind about evident divisions and dangers in society is indicative not only of a deep aversion to freedom—which, alas, a significant portion of the British intelligentsia shares—but of a form of intellectual cowardice, that of not seeing incompatibility where it exists.
–
–
Table of Contents
Theodore Dalrymple’s latest books are Neither Trumpets nor Violins (with Kenneth Francis and Samuel Hux) and Ramses: A Memoir from New English Review Press.
Follow NER on Twitter @NERIconoclast
8 Responses
One thing the author forgets to mention, is how much pleasure the informers garner from the act. It is not so much that they are offended (although often they are), but they have detected unorthodox thought, particularly about a “protected group”, and must rush to protect them from it (irrespective of truth), as they would a small child. They do not consider these people as equals, but as infants, which explains their passion for denunciation of ideas that are even mildly critical.
Is it yet agaínst the law to boil a Koran in pure spring water to sterilise it for readers?
Britons are not demonstrating IskamoPHOBIA. Theirs is not an irrational fear. It is a severe dislike of a violent, loud group that a spineless government has a wild to take over the British way of life.
Certain middle class men might mouth this nonsense, but only middle class women appear to believe it.
Notes: Key Events Involving Islamist-Nazi Myron Gaines (Amrou Fudl) & Carrie Prejean BollerJanuary–February 2026
January 2026 — Myron Gaines Incidents Featuring Nazi Salutes & Holocaust-Related Rhetoric
Mid-January 2026: Miami Nightclub Incident (Vendôme, Miami Beach)
Myron Gaines was filmed arriving in a limousine with far-right figures including Nick Fuentes, Andrew Tate, Tristan Tate, Sneako, Clavicular, and Justin Waller. The group chanted along to Kanye West’s 2025 song “Heil Hitler” and Gaines was recorded repeatedly performing a Nazi salute while yelling phrases such as “Jews mad!”.
The event led to employee firings, a public apology from the club, criticism from Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner, and revelations that club owners who vowed to investigate had instead partied with the same group.
Source: Page Six (Jan. 20, 2026) — Miami club owners who vowed to probe Nick Fuentes’ Nazi night out revealed to have partied with far-right revelers instead by Mara Siegler.
Additional coverage: New York Times, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Jerusalem Post (Jan. 19–20, 2026).
January 15–26, 2026: University of Michigan Campus Event (Diag Debate)
Hosted by Uncensored America, Gaines debated students on topics including the Renee Good killing, gender ideology, and the Holocaust. He questioned the scope of the Holocaust and performed a Nazi salute, after which dozens of audience members mimicked the gesture. The event included reports of an assault and sparked campus debates on free speech vs. safety and antisemitism.
Source: The Michigan Daily (Jan. 26, 2026) — Assault and Nazi salutes at Myron Gaines event spark questions about free speech and campus safety by Emma Spring.
February 2026 — Carrie Prejean Boller & Alignment with Gaines
Early February 2026: U.S. DOJ Religious Liberty Commission Hearing
At a Washington, D.C. hearing on antisemitism and religious freedom, Carrie Prejean Boller (former Miss USA runner-up, identifying as Catholic) stated: “I’m a Catholic and Catholics do not embrace Zionism.” She rejected Zionism as tied to biblical prophecy and was later removed from the panel. This contradicted statements from Popes Benedict XVI and Francis affirming Catholic support for aspects of Zionism/Israel relations.
Related X post: Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger), Feb. 13, 2026 — Carrie Prejean Boller: “Catholics do not embrace Zionism”. Pope’s Benedict and Francis: “Um yes we do”.
Mid-February 2026: Prejean Boller Reshares Myron Gaines Post
Following her removal from the panel, Myron Gaines posted on X claiming the decision was due to “their” (implying Jewish) power and control. Carrie Prejean Boller reshared the post (garnering ~100,000 views), appearing to endorse the sentiment. This drew criticism for mainstreaming antisemitism.
Source: HonestReporting (Feb. 17, 2026) — Carrie Prejean Boller: From Miss USA to Mainstreaming Antisemitism by Sharon Levy.
Image reference: Screenshot of reshared post — View image
Compiled as of March 16, 2026 • References are publicly reported sources • For documentation and research purposes.
Summary resignation of failed leaker Joe Kent and reaction
The resignation of Joe Kent as head of the National Counterterrorism Center triggered widespread political reaction centered on U.S. policy toward Iran. Administration response Donald Trump welcomed Kent’s departure, criticizing his view that Iran was not a threat and asserting the opposite. Tulsi Gabbard emphasized that the president determines national security threats and stated that Trump concluded Iran posed an imminent danger requiring action. Kent’s position and resignation Kent resigned amid disagreements with the administration’s approach to Iran, including military action. In his statements, he argued Iran was not a direct threat and suggested U.S. decisions were influenced (supposedly) by Israel. Criticism and allegations The Anti-Defamation League and (even anti-Israel) J Street said his remarks echoed antisemitic conspiracy theories. Rep. Don Bacon supported his resignation and criticized both Iran and antisemitism. Reports also pointed to Kent’s past associations with extremist racist figures and earlier controversies, including election denialism. Reactions within conservative circles Laura Loomer and others accused Kent of inconsistency, citing his prior statements that Iran had threatened Trump following the killing of Qasem Soleimani. Some allies labeled him disloyal or a leaker, with reports claiming he had been excluded from intelligence briefings before resigning. Political reactions Although Democrats had previously opposed Kent’s nomination due to his ties and views, some of them, suddenly promoted his “theories” in their overall anti Trump war. References Eric Mack, Fox News (March 17, 2026): Trump bids goodbye to intel official who resigned over Iran [link] Bill Barrow, Associated Press (via KOAT): What to know about Joe Kent’s resignation [*] Andrew Bernard, JNS (March 17, 2026): US counterterror center head resigns over Iran war [*]
Marc Rod, Jewish Insider (March 17, 2026): Democrats elevate Kent’s resignation letter [link Times of India (March 18, 2026): Tulsi Gabbard and Joe Kent controversy [link] X (Twitter) posts: @JKash000 (March 17, 2026) [link (*)] Laura Loomer (March 17, 2026) [link (*)]
Rep. Don Bacon (March 17, 2026) [link (*)] Anti-Defamation League (March 17, 2026)[link (*)] Tulsi Gabbard (March 17, 2026) [link (*)]
Missiles of Lies: Iran’s “Precision” War That Kills Civilians and Threatens Holy Sites
Based on reports as of March 21, 2026, the vast majority of Israeli deaths from Iranian strikes have been civilians. Reports indicate that 15 civilians in Israel were killed by Iranian missile attacks [1, Fondation Institut kurde de Paris]. This includes 13 Israelis, a Filipino caregiver, and a Thai national, indicating nearly 100% of reported direct fatalities are civilians.
Fondation Institut kurde de Paris
Casualty Breakdown:
Approximately 15 civilians were killed by Iranian missiles since the beginning of the conflict.
Injuries: Approximately 260+ people were injured in Israel during this period, according to Magen David Adom.
Just like in the past, the Iranian Islamofascistic regime’s recent missile barrages against Israel in March 2026 have repeatedly demonstrated reckless endangerment of civilian lives and sacred religious sites—striking or narrowly missing areas with no legitimate military value, while the mullahs in Tehran claim to target only military objectives. These attacks underscore the regime’s disregard for human life, including Palestinian civilians, and its willingness to risk catastrophic escalation around the world’s most sensitive holy places.
**March 17, 2026**: Iranian missiles were fired in the direction of Jerusalem, with reports of fire or debris landing perilously close to holy sites including the Temple Mount/Al-Aqsa compound and the Western Wall. This provocative act by the ayatollahs’ forces threatened Jews, Muslims, and Christians alike, drawing widespread condemnation for endangering sacred ground under the guise of “resistance.”
*
**March 18, 2026**: An Iranian missile—described in some accounts as cluster-style—intended for southern Israel veered off course and struck a beauty salon (housed in a converted caravan) in the Palestinian town of Beit Awwa near Hebron in the West Bank. Four innocent Arab Palestinian women were killed, with reports of 6–13 others injured (primarily women). This tragic spillover killed civilians in a non-combat area far from any Israeli military target, highlighting how the regime’s indiscriminate barrages harm the very Palestinians it falsely claims to champion.
*
**March 20, 2026 (Friday)**: Amid a larger Iranian ballistic missile salvo, Israeli defenses intercepted a projectile over/near Jerusalem. The warhead (or a large intact fragment) crashed into a parking lot in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City—roughly 400 meters (a quarter mile) from the Western Wall and the Temple Mount/Al-Aqsa compound. While damage was limited to the parking area and injuries were minor, the strike’s proximity to these irreplaceable holy sites raised grave fears of irreparable damage or mass casualties during prayers. Israeli officials and international observers rightly labeled this an outrageous endangerment of shared religious heritage by a regime that shows contempt for all faiths.
* * *
**March 21, 2026**: Iranian missiles targeted southern Israel, achieving a direct hit in the city of Arad. The impact struck a residential neighborhood home to the Gur Hasidim (Gerrer Hasidic community)—devout Ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) Jews, many of whom are non-Zionist and do not serve in the IDF. The strike caused extensive blast damage to multiple buildings, with over 100 people injured (including children, some critically), mass casualty declarations, and fears of fatalities. Hitting a civilian area populated by pious, non-combatant religious Jews further exposes the regime’s claims of precision as a sham—its missiles terrorize innocents regardless of politics or military affiliation.
These incidents reveal a pattern: the Iranian regime’s missiles repeatedly miss intended (or claimed) military targets, instead threatening or striking civilian zones, killing Palestinian women in the West Bank, endangering Jerusalem’s holy sites revered by billions, and wounding Ultra-Orthodox communities that pose no threat. Far from strategic warfare, this reflects the desperation and moral bankruptcy of a theocratic dictatorship lashing out recklessly, endangering lives across faiths and borders while achieving little beyond civilian suffering and global outrage.
### HRW’s Own Report Undermines Its “White Phosphorus” Smear — Yet Corrupted Iran Shills at Drop Site News Push Fake Iranian “Operations”.
Even **Human Rights Watch** — a longtime biased critic of Israel — can’t back up its own sensational headlines. Its recent report accuses Israel of unlawfully using white phosphorus in Lebanon, but the fine print reveals no actual evidence of prohibited incendiary use against civilians. HRW’s own documentation contradicts the propaganda blast.
This hasn’t stopped regime-adjacent outlets like **Drop Site News** from amplifying Iranian claims of successful “operations” against the Jewish state. While Iran brags, the facts tell a different story.
**Key realities the media echo chamber ignores:**
1. **Iran deliberately targets Israeli civilians.** The Islamic Republic’s missile barrages, including those with cluster munitions, have repeatedly struck civilian areas in Israel, killing innocents and endangering non-combatants. This isn’t precision warfare — it’s theocratic barbarism aimed at maximizing terror.
2. **Even biased HRW contradicts its own phosphorus propaganda.** Longtime Israel critics at Human Rights Watch routinely issue rushed condemnations, yet their reports often collapse under scrutiny. In this case, the group’s own findings fail to support the unlawful use narrative they headline.
3. **Israel is a transparent liberal democracy that polices itself.** Unlike the closed, repressive Iranian regime, Israel is an open society with a free press, independent judiciary, and vigorous self-criticism. If the mullahs had landed a serious blow, every mainstream outlet would broadcast it nonstop. The silence speaks volumes.
4. **Iran’s AI-generated “victory” clips are embarrassingly amateurish.** Many of the regime’s propaganda videos look like low-budget fan fiction — easily debunked by basic analysis. This is the quality of “resistance” from a failing dictatorship.
### Drop Site News: Funded by LA Times Heiress, Staffed by Ex-UN Officials, Echoing the Iranian Regime.
**Drop Site News** poses as fearless independent journalism. In practice, it often functions as a conveyor belt for anti-Israel, anti-American narratives — and when it comes to Iran, it parrots the regime line.
Former UN Palestinian-aid official **Jonathan Whittall** has contributed multiple articles to the outlet. Critics note that Drop Site rarely challenges claims pushed by Hamas or other terror-linked voices.
On Iranian protests, Drop Site delayed coverage, then blamed the economy almost entirely on U.S. sanctions while downplaying the regime’s corruption, mismanagement, and brutal repression. It creates false moral equivalence between regime forces killing demonstrators and any violence against security personnel, amplifies pro-regime rallies, and questions casualty figures from the crackdown.
Now the outlet has a major cash infusion: **Nika Soon-Shiong**, daughter of the LA Times owner and a vocal pro-Palestinian activist, has become its publisher. This promises even more funding to push anti-Israel propaganda from a left-wing platform already accused of meddling in coverage.
Similar patterns appear with outlets like **MintPress News**, which swap their claimed “independence” for regime-friendly reporting whenever Iranian unrest flares.
### HRW’s Selective Outrage
– Human Rights Watch condemns Israel over alleged white phosphorus while its own report fails to substantiate the charge.
– Yet the group has been far quieter on Iranian cluster munitions fired at Israeli population centers.
This is the predictable double standard from organizations that apply “human rights” selectively — harsh on liberal democracies defending themselves, soft on Islamist dictatorships that execute dissidents, oppress women, and sponsor global terrorism.
Israel has every right to defend its citizens from a regime that chants “Death to Israel” and “Death to America,” funds proxy wars, and builds toward nuclear weapons. Conservative principles recognize that evil regimes like Iran’s must be confronted, not appeased with one-sided media narratives or NGO hit pieces. The Iranian people deserve better than the mullahs — and the truth deserves better than Drop Site News-style spin.
**References:**
– Jonathan Whittall and Drop Site News: https://www.jns.org/antisemitism/former-un-palestinian-aid-official-contributing-to-outlet-that-features-hamas-content
– Drop Site News on Iranian protests and regime echo: https://honestreporting.com/human-rights-terms-and-conditions-apply-influencers-embarrassing-meltdown-over-iranian-protests/
– Nika Soon-Shiong as publisher: https://honestreporting.com/la-times-heiresss-gaza-journalist-fund-sparks-questions-over-terror-ties/
– HRW white phosphorus report contradiction: https://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2026/03/human-rights-watch-says-israel-used.html
– HRW on cluster munitions double standard: https://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2026/03/human-rights-watch-condemns-cluster.html
This version is tighter, more polemical, and better structured for sharing while preserving your original facts and links. It leans into skepticism of institutional bias and defense of Western/Israeli values without exaggeration.