London's Muslim mayor wants to suppress legitimate criticism of Islam

Jeffry Ludwig:

Sadiq Khan, the first Muslim mayor of London, will be speaking at a conference of technology executives in Austin, Texas. The gist of his remarks has been announced. It is a speech advocating a troika of control, condemnation, and confiscation. The control he requests is that the masters of the internet bar anti-Islamic comments and threats. His condemnation is of President Donald Trump for his tweets (especially those in support of Britain First), which have proven to be an encouragement to those with an anti-Islamic agenda. And he suggests that the big technology firms be taxed not on the basis of profits, but on the basis of revenue if the anti-Islamic messages continue on the internet, thus threatening confiscation if his "advice" is not taken. He has expressed delight at Germany's hate speech laws, advocated and advanced by Angela Merkel.

Mr. Khan comes out of a cultural mindset that does not understand the idea of the marketplace of ideas, independent thought, individualism, and the Anglo-American tradition of liberty within the context of law. You see, there are hundreds of millions, if not billions of people who want to be told what to say and even what to think. Thinking is a burden for them. It's not just a matter of wanting to "go along to get along." No. The exercise of thinking for themselves, and having fewer pressures and controls on their speech, behavior, and especially mentality, is too much pressure for them. It's a level of responsibility they cannot cope with. Why can't they cope? Here is where metaphysics hits practical day-by-day exigencies.

To exercise one's freedom responsibly, one needs the grace of God and the enlightenment from on high that one finds in the Holy Scripture (Old and New Testaments). In our culture, although not all persons were evangelical, Protestant Christians nonetheless cultivated that norm of free thinking from the time when the central influence on the colonies and the United States was God-centered. Thus, certain patterns and habits of respect and thinking became engrained among even the non-Bible-believing population. Even the non-Christian Aristotle, living in 4th-century B.C. Greece, knew about the importance of habit and about the importance of forming virtuous habits by the proper use of reason. He advocated a balanced approach ("hexis") and implied that our freedom (and happiness) lies in our balanced use of reason. Thus, the Christian implication of a divinely based freedom was written into our Declaration of Independence ("endowed by our Creator") along with the rationalistic, virtue-oriented "pursuit of happiness," which was the purpose of life ("telos") for Aristotle.
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There is more.

Khan comes from a totalitarian mindset that is hostile to criticism of any kind of Islam.  He just does not fit in the Western Culture of exchange of ideas.  But the lack of criticism is one of the problems with Islam and why so many countries that practice it are so backward.  Why the citizens of London voted for him is a mystery.