Letters to the Editor
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LWM
influence the conduct or activities of a branch or agency of the federal government, the state, or a political subdivision of the state.
Hmm.. Isn't that what the definition of politics is?
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Speaking as a Canadian:
I may be obsessed with American politics, but I'm a Canadian, living in Canada. I love Canada and I never want to live anywhere else, ever. And the reason I love Canada beyond all reason? IT'S SO BORING! Seriously, the stereotypes are true. We are a polite reasonable, affable collection of diverse people. We know how to get along with each other (generally), and with other countries. Glenn, you can raise the alarm about some investigation in Alberta, but in the end reason and good sense will out. Up here, it always does. We are in no danger of becoming like our fascinating neighbor to the south, I promise.
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Then you obviously have no idea what Glenn is about...
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.
-- Mike Sulzer
along with a lot of the rest of us.
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you nailed it
right on, glenn. 100% on the money. steyn et al are asshats, but these proceedings are a travesty. what makes them even more abhorrent is the unstated underlying assumption that the complainants somehow speak for all muslims in canada.
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Red Snapper:
We know how to get along with each other (generally), and with other countries. Glenn, you can raise the alarm about some investigation in Alberta, but in the end reason and good sense will out. Up here, it always does. We are in no danger of becoming like our fascinating neighbor to the south, I promise.
I'd be willing to bet that you wouldn't be so dismissive of the injustice here if it was you who were being hauled before the Government due to comments you made on this blog, forced to hire a lawyer, and faced the prospect of government fines and other punsihments for what you wrote.
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Shannonr
Look, Glenn, I'm a fan. But that little "comeback" is just, well, not even wrong. I said no such thing. You've completely missed what I was saying. By miles.
I didn't make any comment about what you wrote. I asked you a question about where your reasoning extends. Why can't you just answer it?
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For the record
When it comes to free speech, I'm every bit the absolutist that Glenn is. People who try to ban it in the name of civility will inevitably wind up the worse for their piety, much as the good folks did who thought it'd be a swell thing to ban alcohol, or -- pace Aycharaych -- the other recreational drugs of our era.
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Free Speech: All or Nothing?
Aren't we applying the American take on free speech to other countries here? It's a fairly all or nothing argument. Other countries might conclude that that some limits on speech do not necessarily leads to an erosion of free speech in general.
Sort of like the absurd argument that if we ban guns, then we will eventually ban knives, then on to forks, etc.
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@Mike Sulzer, Red Snapper
Mike,
This post is nothing new to UT readers. Salon readers may think it's a change up pitch. We've been over this ground a few times at the old UT and invariably one of our good neighbors to the north drops by to comment just like Red Snapper has.
Red Snapper,
I love Canada, too. And I could live there under these laws, now. But suppose some other party or political movement or faction comes to power in Canada some day in the near future. You might be the oppressed minority then.
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Hell freezes over
I agree with everything Greenwald says in this case (except the bits dissing some of my favorite right wingers).
Good on Erza Levant for taking this private bit of political theatre and making it public.
One has to feel a little sorry for the prosaic functionary though, who obviously has no idea.
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Hate Is Porn...
...in that you know it when you experience it, and both objectify humans for their own selfish and destructive ends. It doesn't require overt and express threats of physical violence to be hate. It simply needs to instill fear in targets.
Empowering the State to proscribe and punish speech is not only the most dangerous step a society can take -- though it is that -- it's also the most senseless. It never achieves its intended effect of suppressing or eliminating a particular view. If anything, it has the opposite effect, by driving it underground, thus preventing debate and exposure. Worse, it converts its advocates into martyrs -- as one sees from the hero-worship now surrounding people like Levant and Steyn, who now become self-glorifying symbols of individual liberty rather than what they are: hateful purveyors of a bitter, destructive, authoritarian ideology.
Hate speech, OTOH, is best left alone, and it's most vulnerable when it is exposed to the sunlight of public display. It is much more powerful to know and to understand the roots, shoots and leaves of the poisonous hate tree. Then it can be starved of nutrients and allowed to wither.
But it's when the hate speech goes underground that its strangling vine strengthens, festers and bears nettlesome leaves and thistle down seeds. It goes everywhere, and there isn't a well-defined and single tap root to dislodge.
The weapons of hate are logic, reason, rhetoric, compassion, empathy and generosity. Are these taught in our public schools? Do we as a society demonstrate them and enact them?
If there is any group which is most qualified to speak to this issue, methinks it might be the librarians. They have done the most to protect us from invasions of our privacy and to protect our free speech.
SShhh. They're advocating for us.
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shifting responsibility
I might prefer a world without noise pollution. Racist, homophobic, misogynistic, xenophobic, jingoistic [...] speech stimulates my amygdala in unpleasant ways. But, it should not the government's job to purify my auditory 'air' for all the reasons Glenn identified. I can find various trolls maddening, and I admit I make reference to Mona's articles of 12 step programs. But, I'm also appreciative of those folks who are willing to take those trolls on point-by-bloody-point.
For the government to accept the responsibility to police speech, is to relieve me the odious job of confronting that speech, personally. And, it could be said that I am free riding on the efforts of others here when they confront the more noxious trolls on my behalf.
The communal thought space is a communal responsibility maintained by the individuals who inhabit that space. There are resources available to individuals within the communal space to sanction racist, homophobic, misogynistic, xenophobic, jingoistic [...] speech; reason, mockery, shunning are effective weapons. And, we see them routinely deployed over an array of message boards.
Short of prohibiting someone from yelling FIRE in a crowed theater - when there is NO fire - the government should not have the right to relieve me of my responsibilities to participate in a communal dialog. And, it should not have that right, simply because I could find myself on the 'wrong' side of the thought police, regardless of the object (religion, politics, or whatever) for those thoughts.
My behavior, which I might want to claim is in response to someone's speech, is also my responsibility, as it arises from within my own stimulus-response apparatus. The government is quite correct to limit my behavioral reach to the end of someone's nose. To assume that someone's speech will automatically incite me to throw a punch (or, riot), is to infantalize me. If I am insufficiently in control of my stimulus-response apparatus to speech, there is little limit to what the government can assume I am also incapable of managing.