Foreign desk: Europe Caves to Bullies on Speech

Twenty years ago, notes Jacob Mchangama at Persuasion, a Danish newspaper started a “global firestorm” when it printed cartoons depicting Muhammad. Today, “European democracies” have turned away from “defending” the “principle” of free speech and “are increasingly choosing appeasement.” In London, a Turk was fined for committing a “religiously aggravated public order offence” by burning a Koran, while the man who attacked him with a knife was not punished. “Western governments and human rights groups” increasingly give “credence” to a “narrative” that “defamation of religion” ought to be criminalized. Violence has “filled the gap” to “silence dissent” as seen in the 2015 Charlie Hebdo murders and the 2020 killing of a French teacher by “a radicalized teenager.”

Tech watch: Yes, Wikipedia Can Be Fixed

“I launched Wikipedia on January 15, 2001,” but in the years since, “the standards that inspired the company have been sacrificed in favor of ideology,” laments Larry Sanger at The Free Press. To fix this, the website should “create an open, identifiable editorial committee” that settles controversies by vote. Today’s Wikipedia has a “systemic bias” that’s “globalist, academic, secular, and progressive,” so “to better record the chorus of worldwide voices, Wikipedia should permit multiple, competing articles per topic” and allow pages to “be externally rated” by users. And the website needs to get rid of its “so-called ‘Reliable sources/Perennial sources’” list, which “favors left-wing media sources and hamstrings right-wing and religious media sources.” In order to ratify changes like these, “Wikipedia needs an editorial legislature chosen by fair elections.”

Liberal: Ditch the Two-Party System Now

“Somehow,” even with “a world of unbridled” freedom, “America still only offers people two viable political parties to choose from every election,” fumes the Liberal Patriot’s John Halpin. “You get Democrats or Republicans. That’s it!” Yet “recent CNN/SSRS polling shows the depth of Americans’ displeasure with two-party politics.” The poll reveals that 44% of adults now “self-identify as independent” compared to just 28% Republican and 27% Democrat. Independents say “they vote ‘on the issues’ or ‘for candidates’ rather than for party lines.” But changes in the system won’t happen “unless and until voters demand real electoral law reforms.” Americans must declare their independence and “embrace” their “liberation from partisan insanity!” Voters’ “choices have been limited to two worn-out, increasingly extremist” and “incompetent political parties” whose demise “can’t come soon enough.”

Libertarian: Blame Randi & Co. — Not ‘Fascists’

Randi Weingarten, “the nation’s top teacher,” just “wrote a book implicitly referring to her opponents as fascists,” roars an incredulous Robby Soave at The Hill. “Perhaps Weingarten is just trying to distract” from the fact that Americans are “profoundly dissatisfied with the state of public education in this country.” She portrays “herself and the teachers she represents as the opposition” to “an attempted fascist takeover of the U.S. education system.” Yet that’s not the “experience of most Americans.” They know the union is a “powerful, relevant decision-maker” whose “fingerprints are all over these failing policies!” “That doesn’t make them fascists,” but — like Weingarten — they’re “responsible for the mess we’re dealing with now.”

Gotham journal: Waymo’s Coming, Like It or Not

“In late August, Waymo quietly unleashed eight vehicles onto New York City streets” and was met with protests from Uber, Lyft and taxi drivers, reports Pirate Wires’ Harris Sockel. “If history is any guide, we’ll see more of these protests, and ever more creative arguments against” Waymo’s presence. “Already, I’ve heard that New York City just ‘isn’t built’ for self-driving cars,” and, of course, autonomous vehicles “will kill us. All of which is to say: Waymo’s rise in NY will be long, and clownish, and turbulent.” But it will come because — despite arson attacks in other cities, an accident in which a Waymo hit a cyclist and several incidents of sensor sabotage — Waymo keeps expanding across America. “Waymo nationalism is coming, New York. Might as well accept your fate.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board