As is pretty much always the case, Mark Twain got it right.

Here is what he said in his highly cynical What Is Man?:

"...when you know the man's religious complexion, you know what sort of religious books he reads when he wants some more light, and what sort of books he avoids, lest by accident he get more light than he wants."

Given that the presently dominant religion in the West is multiculturalism, and its twin prophets are the Western governments and the press, the mainstream-media-consuming masses tend to be enveloped in the pleasantly dimmed lights of multicultural orthodoxy, and seldom get a chance of getting "too much light" of  the opposing ideology -- for a simple reason that this opposing side lacks the platform from which to speak.

Which may very well have been the reason for the Oslo atrocity. If politically incorrect views -- like those opposing Moslem immigration to Europe -- are to be denied the mainstream platform for fear they would shed "too much light" on the state of the body politic and move it in the wrong direction, then those who carry those views may well get frustrated as being denied a fair chance to participate in the public debate, and to define the direction of the public policy. They are, after all, tax-paying citizens, presumably enjoying the rights to free speech and to the press, yet unable to fully utilize those rights via an open, honest, mainstream, free-for-all give-and-take with a fair chance of changing their society in the way that seems right to them. May be, that's part of the reason why one of them so terribly blew off.

And the press' and the Norwegian government's reaction to the Oslo tragedy only confirms the paranoid desire of the powers that be to keep the other side away from the debate.

Consider the American press, which reflects the same multiculturalist worldview rampant in Norwegian government and media circles. Two post-tragedy stories that I ran into, one in the New York Times and another on NPR, lament the fact that the "extremist" views opposing Moslem immigration to Europe are gradually becoming "mainstream." But why not? Why even notice the fact?  Why can't that particular view be part of the civic discussion?  

Or take the Norwegian government's reaction. What was the purpose of blocking the press from the perpetrator's court appearance? Millions read Dostoyevsky's  Crime and Punishment for its insight into a murderer's mind.  Yet Dostoyevsky's work is merely fiction, while in Oslo a real murderer was willing to open up to the public -- but was prevented from doing so. Why, but to guard the innocent, multiculturalist citizen from "too much light?"

I do not know whether the real, free-for-all free speech would have prevented the Oslo atrocity by making it unnecessary for the perpetrator to seek such bloody platform from which to speak.  But I do know for a fact (and I do know what I am talking about, as I have a going First amendment lawsuit against the government) that we have precious little "free speech" -- and I strongly suspect that Norwegians have no more of it than we do.

And, whether the ability to speak on par with anyone else would have prevented the perpetrator of the Oslo massacre from going off, or not, the fact that we in the West still do not have free speech is lamentable, and it hurts us very much -- in Oslo, and in a thousand other places.

Being too rigid in anything -- religion included, whether that of multiculturalism or of any other kind -- does one no good.  In debating issues that confront the society, there should be no limits imposed on the intensity of light that is being shed on any subject, or on the direction from which it is being shed. But knowing our press, it is hard to expect that this will ever happen.

It is admirable that Mark Twain would always get it right. And it is so very sad that it should be so.