Letters to the Editor
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Somebody said...
Maybe the difference between Canadian and American views on our anti-hate laws lies not as much in our concern for personal liberty and more in the level of trust in our respective governments.
I don't trust government. I tolerate it because it is necessary but it must be limited in power and intrusiveness.
"Size" of government is really a meaningless metric that some radical or ultra-conservatives like to prattle on about. They also want to drown government in a bathtub, like Grover Norquist or that other fellow, who is currently running for president, that would have been put in prison for his Newsletter if he published it today in Canada. I don't think that's necessary. I do think it precludes him from holding the office of the POTUS. The Texans in his district, well, that's between him and them.
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Ezra Levant...
is a Hummer driving retard who can't do anything positive for the world. He is no saint to people that live in Alberta. I'm so glad that the Weekly Standard and its predecessor, Alberta Report, are gone. Their outdated views on just about everything from women to the environment made me so embarrassed to be an Albertan. Here's some local articles about him - http://www.ffwdweekly.com/search/?keyword=ezra+levant
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"fighting words doctrine" and "imminent danger test"
Anybody in the US who believes that his or her right to free speech is an absolute one should read up on the "Fighting Words Doctrine" and the "Imminent Danger Test".
The situation in the US considering hate speech is far more opaque than in Canada or Europe, it seems to me. Such a situation can lead to self-censorship.
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@RMP
Good for you for being a patriot, out there, protesting.
I was once part of a group of people detained by the NYPD for several hours (and we weren't allowed to make a phone call). During that time, they tried and tried to find something to book us for. We'd been walking around with picket signs. But we were peaceable, and we followed all the requests from the NYPD (including marching ourselves into the police station), so, in the end, they couldn't find any way to book us, and they let us go.
Your police and prosecutors in Illinois are just smarter and harder working than the NYPD was, so they figured out a way to book those dirty hippies (while pretending that it wasn't for their views).
Then again, my experience was long ago, before Giuliani and Bloomberg. Nowadays, would the NYPD and the prosecutors have found some way to charge me?
I wonder if my personal experience made me (more of) a free speech "absolutist". Getting detained in a police station for no good reason certainly sharpened my feeling about all this, even though, as I said, I was released uncharged.
I prefer to flatter myself and think that I have enough imagination that my own experience wasn't a necessary ingredient for my position.
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Dolores Umbridge in Alberta
Having slogged through nearly all of 34 pages of posts, I apologize if I'm late to the discussion and don't observe decorum by quoting and attributing appropriately. I don't have enough caches in my Clipboard to handle all of you.
Although some of the Canadian posters may not believe this, there are Americans who are thoroughly familiar with Canadian customs and politics. I've lived most of my life in Detroit and Seattle where the CBC has always been available to me. I've spent weeks in Vancouver and Toronto and have travelled to all ten provinces. I work with a lot of Canadians, and have read widely in Canadian politics and culture. I think I "get" Canadians as well as it's possible for an American who has never lived there permanently to do.
Yes, we too have commissions to deal with discrimination in housing and the like. What we don't have is a commission whose brief is so wide that it could let a complaint like this get through. There are two reasons for this. The first is that in order to make a complaint under American antidisrimination laws you would have to show, in your complaint, how the discrimination against you damaged not your psyche, but some protected interest such as a right to employment or housing or participation in a government program. Publishing these cartoons would not come close, so the complaint would be dismissed out of hand without an answer being required. Second, though, even if such damage were alleged, the free speech rights of the speaker would be balanced against the allegations and they would still be dismissed.
This is why everytime posters have made the distinction between "fines" and "compensation", I've gotten more and more confused. What is the compensation alleged to be for? I find it hard to see how cartoons published in an obscure, failing magazine could damage anyone pecuniarily. Particularly when the cartoons are of the Prophet Muhammad whom, as others have pointed out, has been dead for some centuries. Particularly since these are merely reprints of cartoons published in Denmark to some serious international controversy, and thus their publication by the failing Canadian magazine could only have minimal additional impact.
In short, it's hard for me to see why the Alberta commission didn't merely send the complainants a note saying, "sorry, nice try" (good Canadian expressions) instead of allowing both sides to play their little flame wars.
Having to answer the complaint was the problem for me. I watched the video and the officious investigator taking her notes reminded me of Dolores Umbridge more than anyone. I kept expecting her to say "hem hem." The point Rowling was making with Umbridge was that officious bureaucrats adminstering bad laws in a facially neutral way can create great harm. I don't think this case is all that different.
Finally, to the gentlemen posting about zionist "war crimes" which he took to be a "fact," I am a fourth generation Zionist, I don't like a majority of the policies of the current Israeli adminstration, but war crimes are never a "fact" when you are merely alleging them.
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H.R. 1955 and Freedom of Speech
@ondalette:
"Actually, you've added more than emphasis, no? Those words in brackets are not in the language of the bill. What is a group that advocates the use of "mental force or violence"? Does that mean telekinesis? Was I supposed to notice this buried in the rather clear text of that clause? Are you warning me darkly that grave injustices will happen if anyone studies a group which promotes the ideological use of "mental violence"? Do you have a, maybe 1 or 2 paragraph concise definition of what mental violence, as a protected form of free speech, is? As a matter of fact, do I dare ask if this is your first attempt to justify your concerns using the language of the bill?"
I was obviously mistaken in thinking you'd be familiar with the convention of using brackets to denote insertions not in the text being quoted.
I was also apparently mistaken in thinking you might be aware that Salon's software limits individual posts to 1,000 words or less.
Before I resume and expand my attempt to explain to you in a new post within the parameters of Salon's software what in its language is of concern to me and to others regarding the "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act,"(the very name of which sounds like something the Soviet Politburo could have come up with) will you share with me your position regarding free speech?
Knowing that, I'll be better able to focus my efforts to explain the concerns regarding the McCarthyite legislation under discussion. For all I know at present, you may have a very narrow view of the First Amendment.
I have some other matters to attend to that will take me away from my computer for a while, but I'll be more than happy to resume our discussion when I get back.
KR