The hunt for heresy.

I followed the link you posted to Jeremy Malcolm's article and read it with a wide-eyed stupefaction. I sort of knew this stuff existed but I never paid it much attention -- probably a mistake. The sifting of opinions for the slightest signs of heresy is not a new phenomenon -- in fact, it's an age old one. You can find it in the history of any religion or political cult: Calvin's Geneva, the Office of the Inquisition, China's Cultural Revolution, the show trials under Stalin. Have these people never read 1984 or Darkness at Noon? I suppose I can see where you're going with this -- that if we can somehow get ourselves attacked by the "right" people then we can beg for protection from the Jeremy Malcolms of the world - or tie them into knots or whatever. I don't think it's going to work and it would be a disaster if it did -- kind of like an exercise in trying to figure out how we can make things worse than they already are. What a world... SR