A couple of years ago, a Canadian magazine published an article arguing that the rise of Islam threatened Western values. The article’s tone was mocking and biting, but it said nothing that conservative magazines and blogs in the United States did not say every day without fear of legal reprisal.
Things are different here. The magazine is on trial.
Under Canadian law, there is a serious argument that the article contained hate speech and that its publisher, Maclean’s magazine, the nation’s leading newsweekly, should be forbidden from saying similar things, forced to publish a rebuttal and made to compensate Muslims for injuring their “dignity, feelings and self respect.”
In the United States, that debate has been settled. Under the First Amendment, newspapers and magazines can say what they like about minority groups and religions – even false, provocative or hateful things – without legal consequence.
The Maclean’s article, “The Future Belongs to Islam,” was an excerpt from a book by Mark Steyn called “America Alone.” The title was fitting: The United States, in its treatment of hate speech, as in so many areas of the law, takes a distinctive legal path.
The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal, which held five days of hearings on those questions in Vancouver last week, will soon rule on whether Maclean’s violated a provincial hate speech law by stirring up animosity toward Muslims.
As spectators lined up for the afternoon session last week, an argument broke out.
“It’s hate speech!” yelled one man.
“It’s free speech!” yelled another.
Hate speech and hate crimes mean the death of freedom. Both criminalize thought and give great powers of coersion to the state. One need only look at them in practice in Europe, the UK and Canada.
Stating the obvious is now a crime, or at a minimum will get one branded a bigot or a ‘hater.’
This article soft pedals what is going on in Canada. Leftists, such as Richard Warman, and Muslims are using so-called Human Rights Commissions and threats of legal action to censor and/or punish conservatives.
The article says: [blockquote] “Western governments are becoming increasingly comfortable with the regulation of opinion.”[/blockquote] And therein lie the seeds of totalitarianism. In claiming to by controlling the speech and activities of its citizens “to protect one group or another†the state becomes supreme. And the state has killed more of its citizens than any other entity. One needs hardly point out the the great genocides have been perpetrated by governments.
Indeed it was to prevent such things that the 2nd Amendment was added to the Constitution. With the militia being the largest armed force, comprised of by all the citizens and furnishing their own arms the founders attempted to ensure that government would forever remain under the control of the governed. Of course we have effectively dismantled that protection and are actually arguing that the purpose of the 2nd Amendment is to allow the government to have arms. A far cry from its original intent.
Likewise hate crimes and hate speech gut the 1st Amendment and allow the government to exercise power to control thought and opinion with which there is official disagreement. We are embarking down a dangerous road.
[blockquote] but it said nothing that conservative magazines and blogs in the United States did not say every day [b] without fear of legal reprisal.[/b]
[/blockquote]
And how long will that remain if it is not already endangered.
[url=http://ezralevant.com/2008/06/what-could-mark-steyns-punishm.html]Here[/url] is just one outrage up North in the Shiny Happy Gulag.
Governments are always comfortable with regulating things. It’s what they know. The citizenry needs to be alert to protect itself from such encroachments on civil liberties.
What I’m finding dispiriting is the complaisance of the Canadian press to l’affaire Mark Steyn. One would think that the media would be quite vocal in standing up for freedom of speech and freedom of the press, but one would be quite mistaken.
The vast majority of journalists are Grover Dill wannabe’s.
Working on being my own hate crime
It might well be both. But, of course it should be permitted. It’s completely stupid to do otherwise. If the `banned’ speech is false, when somebody says something hateful, or stupid, then everyone can see his folly and know what he’s thinking. If it is true, then by banning it you suppress the truth and society will regress.
Proverbs 27:28 has the right idea
But what service is rendered to society by trying to force a fool to be deemed intelligent?
Not by any means that I am trying to say that Mark Steyn’s views are foolish. I’m just saying that, on general principles, it is better to allow both the fools and the wise to speak out and make themselves known than to try to enforce folly by law. And there is a possibility — given the track record of governments that have tried to reduce these freedoms a very high probability — that any regulation that limits free speech, given the fallibility of those who constructed it, might be promoting folly.
Just ask Bridget Bardot.
I might add that anti-discrimination laws are now being used to force people to choose between their jobs and their religion. The plain unpalatible fact is that Christians are undergoing real persecution in the West and it will only get worse.
So how about charging the Fr. Jakes of the blog world with hate speech for referring to conservative and orthodox Christians as homophobes, haters etc? Why isn’t it hate speech to refer to Nigerian Anglicans or PB Venables as thieves, etc? I feel degraded, threatened and subjected to public ridicule as a result of such public statements. Will the human rights tribunal not protect my thin skin?
Yes, it will get worse. And why are we so suprised? This is all foretold in scripture. After living off and on 12 years in the Middle East, I can tell you it is getting worse every day. Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. Come, Lord Jesus.
Candaians are about as spineless as the Brits and rest of the Western Europeans have become over the last 60 years or so. Too willing to hand over their freedoms to an increasingly assertive nanny state. Disgusting and a shameful betrayal of their patronomy.
Make that “Canadians”. Sorry.
We already are getting close to Canada’s model – what about the photographers in New Mexico that were fined $6,600 for refusing to photograph a same-sex blessing because of their Christian beliefs? They were not found guilty in a court of law – as in Canada, they were found guilty by a Human Rights Commission, in this case the New Mexico Human Rights Commission. Bet you don’t think you have something like that in your state – but you might!
Freedom of Speech in Canada? WHAT “Freedom of Speech?” What’s that?
There’s an article on VOL today that one of those Human Rights Commissions fined a fellow $7,000 and demanded a public apology because he wrote a letter to an editor stating that homosexual activity was evil and sinful and that homosexuals were not born that way. And there is no appeal from these commissions rulings. If NM has this, then we are all in trouble, as it will spread into every state run by liberals and into the Federal government.
17, that’s right. We are now fighting for basic liberties.
Want to stop this? Write or call…….DON’T email……..your Congressmen and Senators! They don’t see your emails, but they sure do notice the phone calls and the mail piling up! And keep at ’em!
Keep after your congressmen and senators. Make sure they know how you feel!
Suppression causes hate.
Tje central problem with “hate speech” is that is focuses on the motive, not the action. It assumes and makes a judgment about motive; t he motive becomes the crime. Since motive can rarely ever be perfectly clear, and since motives come mixed instead of simple, punishing the motive leaves the established power enormous freedom to punish what it merely disapproves of. Because of this, hate speech against conservative voices are never charged. LM
#22 Larry,
While I’m as uncomfortable as you about so-called “hate crimes” laws, we already had laws that judged motivations. The difference between 1st degree, 2nd degree and manslaughter is partly a matter of the killer’s motivation.
Quite right #23. I am aware. The mens res is crucial and this is a declaration that the mind of the killer must be known. But this is NOT the case with hate crimes because the laws we have are sufficient to deal with such criminal actions. At the same time, hate is behind many crimes, from murder to arson, but the broad range of hate-driven crimes are never punished as such. For constitutional reasons, hate is to vague for the laws to specify. Don’t you think so? Larry
Larry,
I do think the laws were sufficient without the additional penalties circumscribed by the hate crime statutes. I’m sympathetic to the laws’ aims and I think their existence is a reflection of how most of the populace felt about violent crimes committed because of the race, national origin, etc of the victim. While I detest these kinds of crimes as much as anyone, I think the last thing we need is MORE laws. Maybe stronger sentencing guidelines for such crimes?
Chris, it’s been a while since I have studied criminal law, but are you not confusing intent with motive? If you recklessly commit manslaughter the law doesn’t care why you acted recklessly only that you did so and someone was killed. Maybe some one who is more up on criminal law can answer.
Of course state laws differ, but it is my recollection that when you have different degrees of criminal laws the differences relate to intent, not motive.
Looking back, it probably would have been better to ignore Saddam and instead consider our retarded neighbour to the north and launched “Operation Canuck Freedom”. The logistics problems would be less, the language would be smaller, and hey! the Canadian insurgency could be challenged to a playoff game. I wonder how many Canadians would actually welcome release from the Socialist overlords?
Stefano,
Rent or buy [url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109370/]Canadian Bacon[/url], the only decent movie Michael Moore [i]ever[/i] made.