Letters to the Editor
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Surprise
Glenn, I did not expect this post. I agree with you completely, of course, although I am not sure everyone on the left who posts here does. So it might be an interesting discussion.
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Why make em hide?
I've always felt the danger with suppressing hate speech is that you force these people underground where they fester and their rage grows. Nothing is more likely to defuse some future act of violence than to let a whackaloon have their say.
Personally I feel 'hate' is just as valid an emotion as any other human emotion and when you attempt to legislate 'hate' you're really outlawing humanity. And again nothing is going to make a hater devolve into rage more than being told that they are wrong for feeling the way they feel. That their fundamental beliefs and emotions are illegal.
We should be focused on violent action not provocative speech.
My philosophy is hate me all you like, just don't touch me. (unless I've paid you to)
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Minority of One
In the early 1960's I took a course on political philosophy in the philosophy department. The text was a series of readings, "Communism, Fashism and Democracy."
One of the short pieces I recall was an essay "The Minority of One." It made the point that the strength of a democracy was that if one person was right, he would not be supressed, and the truth could win out. This is an argument for free speech.
Glenn's piece reminds us that we have to know what it means to stand for freedom and be able to take a stand whenever it has been violated. Our culture, which is informed by a vapid media, has allowed us to slide far from our constutional heritage and that needs to be fought with battles such as blocking the telcom immunity law in the next few months.
Some of the characters along the way are not our favorite people, but we trust in adult dialogue, openness, analysis, and the other tools of reason to be able to work through these issues. For all too long we have not dealt with the hard problems of governance.
Good governance is about creating the framework to work out good solutions over time.
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While I agree that hate speech laws are pernicious..
And have no place in a free society.
I have to ask; how many people are imprisoned in Canada as a result of these laws?
Given that the incarceration rate in Canada is about one seventh what it is in the USA I would have to guess that the number is either zero or very close to zero.
Compare and contrast with the United States, where we have literally hundreds of thousands of people locked in cages for the "crime" of possessing a common weed.
Hate speech laws and drug laws are both destructive of freedom but really, in practice which is doing more real damage to society?
And I can demonstrate quite easily how political expression can lead to harassment from the forces of the law in the USA.. Put a bumper sticker on your vehicle advocating the legalization of "drugs" and see how long it takes to get pulled over and your car ransacked.
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Update I
{snark}How many times do I have to tell you people, defending the right to express a viewpoint does not contitute endorsement for that viewpoint?
And I have not yet endorsed Mark Steyn's presidential bid. {/snark}
This has always been one of the things that I admire about you. Ideas will rise and fall on their own merit but your adherence to the notion of Freedom of Expression over the particulars of any idealogical litmus test, does indeed set you apart among commenters in today's environment.
Thank you.
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What criminal sanctions?
Glenn, I'm not sure about your assertion that under Canada's hate speech laws, "the Government is empowered to punish as criminals citizens who express offensive or otherwise prohibited political views."
I agree with your assessment of hate speech laws, including Canada's. But the odious Alberta Human Rights Commission proceeding you've linked to is *not* a criminal proceeding, and the Commission does not have any jurisdiction over criminal laws or the ability to impose criminal sanctions.
Again, I think you're right about hate speech laws, including Alberta's. But you're being misleading when you characterize these laws as criminal laws and imply that breaches of these laws could expose citizens to criminal penalties such as incarceration. These distinctions are important. There is a serious difference between getting a criminal record and going to prison, on the one hand, and having to suffer through a demeaning and inappropriate farce of a proceeding in which there is literally no question of criminal sanction, let alone incarceration.
Again, for emphasis: none of these considerations justifies Canadian hate speech laws -- they're horrible and ought to be repealed. But in considering the state of political freedom in Canada, it's important to flesh out the facts as they actually are, not as we'd like them to be for maximum rhetorical effect. And one of those facts is that Levant marched into the government's offices, told the government to F-itself, and faces absolutely no risk of incarceration or criminal penalty for it.
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Baby on Board!
Remember those ubiquitous, cutsie "Baby on Board" signs, made to resemble a highway hazard sign, that were stuck with suction cups on car windows during the 1980s?
It was one of those innovations that seemed like a really nice idea-- until one thought about it for more than five seconds. It is farfetched indeed, to put it mildly, to believe that informing, or reminding, drivers that other cars contain fragile human life would have much of an effect on homicidally careless or inept driving.
I assign most hate crime legislation to this category. Like the well-intentioned but misguided victim's rights advocates, it is superficially attractive-- a method of reducing or eliminating bad manners, bigoted beliefs, and reprehensible, malicious criminal behavior originating in such broadly unacceptable beliefs.
Who can argue with that, any more than one can argue with a "Baby on Board" sign? But, as Glenn's comment notes, once the gummint gets into the business of enforcing standards of expression, it's promulgating the concept of "thoughtcrime".
And, as the video proves, it places accused citizens at the mercy of a Kafkaesque, self-righteous Thought Police. Unlike the "Baby on Board" signs, which presumably didn't cause more accidents, the thoughtcrime apparatus is self-inflating and self-perpetuating.
It doesn't seem so terrible at first blush that the gummint exercises power and authority in a good cause, by putting its thumb on the scale to ostensibly guarantee and promote basic civility and conviviality. But the devil's in the details, and the down side isn't always readily apparent until you are the one hauled before the Star Chamber.