185. Title & Author: Lights Out: Islam, Free Speech, and the Twilight of the West by Mark Steyn (322 pages)Genre: Nonfiction—Politics & Current Affairs
Completed: 12 May 2011
Summary & Review:
In 2007, the Canadian Islamic Congress brought complaints against author Mark Steyn and the Canadian news weekly Maclean’s in three different “Human Rights” Commissions in Canada. In this book, Steyn unflinchingly takes on the smear of “Islamophobia” that has been leveled against him. In the first portion of the book, Steyn addresses the suits taken against him by presenting the “offending” articles followed by the itemized complaints against those articles, and finally his rebuttals to those complaints. Along with presenting his case in a such a format and documenting the circus of being brought before those kangaroo courts, the remainder of the book contains essays of Steyn’s dealing with such critical issues as Islam and the West, free speech, multiculturalism, and individual liberty.
First of all, a reader is hard pressed to find a political commentator more erudite, witty, and humorous than Steyn. He has quickly become one of my favorite pundits and this book is full of his essays that show why I, and so many others, find Steyn so readable. Rather than droning on about the existential philosophy behind free speech, Steyn uses powerful examples from his experiences with various Canadian “Human Rights” Commissions to show the dangers of soft tyranny and the problems that arise when the state tries to regulate speech, expression, private enterprise, and even thought.
I’ll put up an “Arguments Summed Up” post in a couple of weeks with more details of Steyn’s arguments included in this excellent collection of his writings.
Rating: 9.0
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