Creeping Self-Censorship

I have no doubt I’d be repulsed by the play, "My Name Is Rachel Corrie," but I cannot help being dismayed that its scheduled production in New York has been postponed because of pressure from the local Jewish community. Similarly, I am repulsed by the statements of London Mayor Ken Livingstone. But it’s also dismaying when he is somehow suspended from his job for politically incorrect speech. Obviously there is a difference, a vast difference, between threatening violence against offensive speech, and merely using social, cultural and political pressure to silence people. But our silences are growing, through fear and intimidation of violent and non-violent forms. And that is never a good thing in a free society.