Friday, June 28, 2013
Canada Takes a Baby Step Toward Free Speech -- only at the Federal level
Provincial laws still have versions of Section 13 alive and well in them
"It is a discriminatory practice for a person or a group of persons acting in concert to communicate telephonically or to cause to be so communicated, repeatedly, in whole or in part by means of the facilities of a telecommunication undertaking within the legislative authority of Parliament, any matter that is likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt by reason of the fact that person or those persons are identifiable on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination."[1] -Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act
Now that Parliament has repealed Section 13 of the Canadian (federal) Human Rights Act-amended in 2001 to ban "hate speech" on the Internet, too-Canadians can speak a little more freely. But only a little.
Controversial since its inception in 1977, Section 13 has been used repeatedly to club Christians, conservatives, and non-political individuals who said or published anything objected to by homosexuals, Muslims, atheists, and other groups favored by the government. It has never been used to punish anyone for saying hateful things about Christians.
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8 comments:
Apparently, "hate" is in the eyes of the beholder, isn't it. Is so-called "hate speech" something harmful, or is it simply something someone else disagrees with? Of course, it all depends on who, or what, that "someone else" is. That is (not) equality under the law.
This is a perfect example of what people mean when they say political correctness is as corrosive to freedom and liberty as cancer is to health.
"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law,' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual."
-Thomas Jefferson
"Freedom had been hunted round the globe; reason was considered as rebellion; and the slavery of fear had made men afraid to think. But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing."
-Thomas Paine, Rights of Man
"The populist authoritarianism that is the downside of political correctness means that anyone, sometimes it seems like everyone, can proclaim their grief and have it acknowledged. The victim culture, every sufferer grasping for their own Holocaust, ensures that anyone who feels offended can call for moderation, for dilution, and in the end, as is all too often the case, for censorship. And censorship, that by-product of fear - stemming as it does not from some positive agenda, but from the desire to escape our own terrors and superstitions by imposing them on others - must surely be resisted."
~Jonathon Green
"When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know, the end result is tyranny and oppression no matter how holy the motives."
- Robert Heinlein
"If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter."
George Washington
Seems to be a deep quote-mine here!
Those who seek to deceive others will always feign offence, indignation and wail 'hatred' as a first tier defensive action against those who would suggest that the Truth is somewhat different to that described by the 'offended'.
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