Freedom or Speech?

"First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me."

- Martin Niemoller

In the wake of the recent bombings in the UK, the government of Tony Blair is formulating legislation to restrict speech which incites, promotes or endorses terrorism.
In the US meanwhile, the Senate is considering a bill to wind back some of the more repressive sections of that country's ironically named "Patriot Act".
In Australia, the Attorney General, Philip Ruddock has stated that the hardline islamic group "Hizb ut-Tahrir" - recently banned in the UK - will remain legal as they have not broken the law. Apparently, not-advocating violence and never having aided or abetted terrorists or affiliated groups is a good enough reason to stay out of jail. But that's OK because our pro-active leaders have left open the possibility of "strengthening" the legal code in order to ban the group in the future. Phew! That was close.

Who are these people kidding? "Strengthening" the legal code? In my book, arbitrarily changing the law such that that thoroughly legal speech which does not advocate or endorse violent means, all of a sudden becomes retrospectively illegal - ain't no strengthening. However in the Orwellian times in which we're living, governments in the West are out to convince us that the best way of safeguarding our freedom, our way of life, is by subverting those very freedoms which define our way of life. Yep, the terrorists hate us laid-back, happy freedom lovers so much that they want to bomb the crap out of us. And of course our government's response is to limit our freedoms, and inch ever-closer to the totalitarian regimes which we proscribe.
This is the modern version of "we had to destroy the village in order to save the village".

Brilliant. It reminds me of Baldrick's "cunning plans" in the TV show "Black Adder".
"My Lord, I have a cunning plan. Since the terrorists hate our way of life - especially the freedoms we flaunt in their faces, we could just abolish all our freedoms and deny them a legitimate target! That'd stick it up'em my Lord!"
At this point, the freedom-loving electorate should emulate Lord Black Adder in responding "Shut up Baldrick."