Last week in the state of Victoria, Australia, two Christian ministers were hit with heavy fines and various forms of public humiliation in the first convictions under the state's contemptible "Racial and Religious Tolerance Act". Their offence: to read some of the racier passages of the Koran to a meeting of their sympathizers. The Judge was particularly offended that some present had laughed.

Note: no suggestion that violence was advocated.

The same week, reports the Oz Conservative blog

"ASIO [The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation]had raided the homes of several Melbourne Muslims in order to break up a terror cell which had conducted training camps in the countryside...

Then yesterday came the Herald Sun report "Muslim books of hate sold". It seems that a bookshop attached to a Melbourne mosque has been selling literature which tells Muslims that they should "hate and take as enemies" non-Muslims, that they should learn to hate in order to properly love Allah, that they should learn military tactics and that if a person speaks ill of Islam it's acceptable to kill them."

Of course, this makes these Hate Speech laws look ridiculous. But they are not ridiculous: they are an evil attempt to rob citizens of rights traditional in English-speaking countries (and almost nowhere else) for centuries.

The theft is underway in the UK too

And don't be too sure it can't happen here: I can well remember when conservatives were confident Affirmative Action would be ruled unconstitutional. And of course just this week, the Kelo eminent domain decision is time-warping us back to pre Magna Carta days.