Letters to the Editor
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@RMP
Thanks for helping those folks. A soldier's work is never done.
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The eternal tension
What this issue brings out is the perpetual balancing of the various freedoms, rights, and comforts of individuals that the collective authority seeks to find some resolution to. It's always tricky, it can't be turned into a formula of one size fits all, it always involves murky areas that are petulantly unwilling to be boiled down to the simple.
The best policy is to not even attempt, because as we have seen, "reasonable" efforts to deal with hate speech can very easily be transformed into something far different was intended. Again, classical unintended (but forseeable) consequences. In the long term, hate speech laws do more damage than their targets could have alone.
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Hate writing, too
I'm writing this on the fly, and apologize in advance for the vagueness. But there's a use people can make of British law, whereby someone from outside the country who objects to something published in Britain, can sue the writer for defamation in British court. The law doesn't address hate speech, but is being used just as these hate speech laws are being used. Right now, somebody with deep, oil-lubricated pockets took exception to a work criticizing Islam, and is suing the writer for defamation. I'd love to see Glenn's sharp legal wit trained on this issue.
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@LWM - re: Slitting
That's compelling idea, but I've already been depressed enough. Been there, done that, fer sure; but I remain very wary about any proposition to distort or re-frame my speech and make it subversive.
I want to help get bop published, so I'll smile away the days and chip in for his new computer.
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Bucky
On the other hand, you claimed that you were busted for 'intent to distribute' and we call that being a dealer here in Florida.
-- bucky1
Well, here in California, as I would assume in Florida also, we call that legalistic bullshit. Why do you want to expose yourself as a deceitful moron again and again?
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@gherstein
So let me serve your rhetoric back to you: Technology changes things. Are you, L.W.M., prepared to deny this? If not, then how is my analogy a stretch?
I'm about to take my nap.
As Arthur C. Clarke said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
But that makes man the magician. He could make himself disappear, I suppose. It's a risk we take. If we go where you are going, I think we get the Unabomber and Luddites.
Short version: Law and technology are always playing a game of catch up. Law is an extension of the human mind, just like technology or other sciences. Progress. I trust it.
And I'm out. *Poof*
Poof. Get it?
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Hate speech in Canada : preliminary notes
One (or perhaps two) very quick points of general interest to anyone who isn't familiar with Canada, its governmental institutions and its politics - (I'll have more to say about hate speech the Canadian Constitution and how it's a very different animal than the US one later).
Suffice to mention that:
a) Alberta has a Conservative government and is, in fact, the most right wing and American in both attitude and economics of our provinces; the government there would NEVER have brought Levant up on any kind of charges, these actions were taken by:
b) The Alberta HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION - a quasi-judicial body that is NOT under the day to day direction and or control of the government.
The Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission is an independent commission of the Government of Alberta reporting through the Ministry of Tourism, Parks, Recreation and Culture. They are charged legislatively to "foster equality and reduce discrimination." Their stated goal is to "provide public information and education programs, and help Albertans resolve human rights complaints."
In the extant case, that is what the commission was attempting to do. As for the free speech aspect of this matter, please check the dates of Levant's publication of the Danish cartoons - the idea that he was - at a very late stage in this whole unfortunate affair - interested in advancing the quality and nature of public debate is absurd.
He was, plain and simple, stirring the pot - not least because his magazine (which has since gone under) was failing.
None of this means I don't agree with your general thesis Glenn, but I do think an understanding of the case requires considerably more knowledge than your essay seems to indicate you have.
Jim King, Victoria, BC.
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Newspapers in Canada
not only the newspapers in Canada but 99% of the english-language media is aggregated under the control of right-wing zionists, the Asper family.
I am against hate-speech laws not merely because of the chilling effect they have on freedom of speech, but also because it makes it possible for people to silence you for merely speaking the simple truth. e.g. when Ignatieff, the current deputy leader of the Liberal party, called Israel's actions in Lebanon a "war crime", he was instantly whipped for merely stating a simple fact. Silenced by the usual hints that he may be an anti-semite. Mentioning that jews (--ghasp!) could possibly be committing war-crimes instantly initiates a whole spin-machine to silence you, with not only the hint that you could be an anti-semite for calling Israel's actions what they obviously were. This happens in every public forum not only in Canada, but in the States. Thankfully, the Internet is (more) free of this sort of thing, mainly because even most jews are not pro-war and are certainly more sympathetic to palestinians than racial-supremacist occupiers.
Those hate laws were mainly written for the purpose of protecting the rights of zionists to spew forth their war-mongering, occupation-apologetics and self-righteous bile upon the rest of us without challenge. This case illustrates how it appears to have back-fired against them, because, in fact, the daily barrage of anti-Iran propaganda that we have been exposed to in the National Post (where they do about as much story vetting as Fox News before publishing stuff like how Iran has been forcing their jews to wear yellow ribbons). It's deliciously ironic that that guy had to go before such a pencil-pusher, now he knows how we all feel that our entire political discourse is held ransom by a select few ultra-zionists who own and control our media. It's not an exaggeration either. Seek and ye shall find.