SansPretense

“ Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

This is the Big One. It’s at the core of what motivated me to finally get semi-serious about blogging, and it is the idea behind the name of this blog. And it is one of the central questions at the heart of an ideological struggle going on throughout Western Civilization. The culmination of thousands of years of struggle led to the Founding Fathers of the United States to enshrine the fundamental Freedom of all humans to think and speak their minds into writing, in an effort to protect future generations from the censorship of government that was a key part of what they fought against.

American’s share the Protection of Free Speech from government censor at a level unfamiliar to other peoples around the world, including in Europe and Canada. This came as a shock to me when I first learned of it. We always hear how China and Middle Eastern countries among others exercise a level of authoritatian censor over their citizens, but Europe and Canada? Isn’t European principles at the heart of American principles? Didn’t the American Revolution help solidify these principles in Europe through struggles such as the French Revolution? At no point in my history classes did I ever hear that the Rights I, and most Americans, take for granted are still not shared by our closest friends? Not even the Canadians?

The people in the US …(click below for more)that are fighting a bitter battle to get the courts and Congress to back censorship laws have actually succeeded in other Western nations - at least those on the political Left have succeeded. Freedom of Speech is under attack from BOTH sides of the political aisle, but it’s the Left that have succeeded for the most part. Conservatives promoting the Flag Burning amendment and obscenity/decency censorship should take note that the travesties of justice going on in Canada via the “Human Rights Tribunals” are proof of the slippery slope that censorship leads a country down. But for now, let’s focus on the Left, since they seem to be winning this battle.

Hate speech and hate crime laws are a popular thing nowadays, it seems. Let’s review some cases, and please keep in mind these are just a small sampling. In Britain, Christian preachers were ordered to stop handling out leaflets in a predominantly Muslim neighborhood because it’s considered a “hate crime.” In Canada, in two separate cases, a Catholic priest, Fr Alphonse de Valk, is being charged with “hate speech” for upholding the Catholic teaching that homosexual behavior is sinful, while evangelical minister Rev. Stephen Boissoin has been convicted for teaching the same thing. Not only has he been ordered to stop teaching what Christians have been teaching for 2000 years (and not only Christians), according to Catholic Light, he’s prohibited from publicly criticizing the process that convicted him. Did you hear that? He was ordered not to protest and criticize the government tribunal that found him guilty. Is that hate speech too?:

For those who have been following Canada’s human rights tribunals and their decisions against Christians who express moral opposition to homosexual activism and same-sex marriage, the name Stephen Boissoin should be familiar to you. I won’t go into the whole history of his case, however, the Alberta Human Rights Tribunal recently ordered him to stop talking about homosexuality from the perspective of his evangelical Christian faith. Moreover, the government tribunal ordered him to apologize for his previous expressions on this topic as a Christian, and has prohibited him from criticizing the government process to which he had been subjected.

Here’s an excerpt from the letter that Boissoin is convicted of; does it sound like hate speech to you? (taken from Ezra Levant’s site, who has the whole letter:

The following is not intended for those who are suffering from an unwanted sexual identity crisis. For you, I have understanding, care, compassion and tolerance. I sympathize with you and offer you my love and fellowship. I prayerfully beseech you to seek help, and I assure you that your present enslavement to homosexuality can be remedied. Many outspoken, former homosexuals are free today.

Instead, this is aimed precisely at every individual that in any way supports the homosexual machine that has been mercilessly gaining ground in our society since the 1960s. I cannot pity you any longer and remain inactive. You have caused far too much damage.
…

From kindergarten class on, our children, your grandchildren are being strategically targeted, psychologically abused and brainwashed by homosexual and pro-homosexual educators.

Our children are being victimized by repugnant and premeditated strategies, aimed at desensitizing and eventually recruiting our young into their camps. Think about it, children as young as five and six years of age are being subjected to psychologically and physiologically damaging pro-homosexual literature and guidance in the public school system; all under the fraudulent guise of equal rights.

Your children are being warped into believing that same-sex families are acceptable; that men kissing men is appropriate.
…
Don’t allow yourself to be deceived any longer. These activists are not morally upright citizens, concerned about the best interests of our society. They are perverse, self-centered and morally deprived individuals who are spreading their psychological disease into every area of our lives. Homosexual rights activists and those that defend them, are just as immoral as the pedophiles, drug dealers and pimps that plague our communities.
…

I won’t bother to go dig up the stories of grade schoolers in the US being taught about homosexuality against their parents’ wishes, or quotes from activists stating that the bolded statement above is their goal. The Reverend at no point in his letter attacks homosexuals directly, only their lifestyle, nor does he ever state anything condoning violence or discrimination against those persons. The letter was mostly aimed at the Heterosexual community. This is NOT hate speech. It’s his opinion, agree with it or not.

What about this article, titled “The Future Belongs to Islam” by Mark Steynfrom one of the most popular magazines in Canada, Maclean’s?:

In a few years, as millions of Muslim teenagers are entering their voting booths, some European countries will not be living formally under sharia, but — as much as parts of Nigeria, they will have reached an accommodation with their radicalized Islamic compatriots, who like many intolerant types are expert at exploiting the “tolerance” of pluralist societies. In other Continental countries, things are likely to play out in more traditional fashion, though without a significantly different ending. Wherever one’s sympathies lie on Islam’s multiple battle fronts the fact is the jihad has held out a long time against very tough enemies. If you’re not shy about taking on the Israelis and Russians, why wouldn’t you fancy your chances against the Belgians and Spaniards?
“We’re the ones who will change you,” the Norwegian imam Mullah Krekar told the Oslo newspaper Dagbladet in 2006. “Just look at the development within Europe, where the number of Muslims is expanding like mosquitoes. Every Western woman in the EU is producing an average of 1.4 children. Every Muslim woman in the same countries is producing 3.5 children.” As he summed it up: “Our way of thinking will prove more powerful than yours.”

You really should read the whole thing and judge for yourself, but the article makes the case that the West is committing suicide and that Muslims will naturally (not by some conspiracy) take over and impose sharia law. Commentators of the Macleans’ case are everywhere (just google Mark Steyn, or go to his website or FreeMarkSteyn.com), but notably, this is from the New York Times’ response:

Some prominent legal scholars say the United States should reconsider its position on hate speech.

“It is not clear to me that the Europeans are mistaken,” Jeremy Waldron, a legal philosopher, wrote in The New York Review of Books last month, “when they say that a liberal democracy must take affirmative responsibility for protecting the atmosphere of mutual respect against certain forms of vicious attack.”

Professor Waldron was reviewing “Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment” by Anthony Lewis, the former New York Times columnist. Mr. Lewis has been critical of efforts to use the law to limit hate speech.

But even Mr. Lewis, a liberal, wrote in his book that he was inclined to relax some of the most stringent First Amendment protections “in an age when words have inspired acts of mass murder and terrorism.” In particular, he called for a re-examination of the Supreme Court’s insistence that there is only one justification for making incitement a criminal offense: the likelihood of imminent violence.
…
In his opening statement in the Canadian magazine case, a lawyer representing the Muslim plaintiffs aggrieved by the Maclean’s article pleaded with a three-member panel of the tribunal to declare that the article subjected his clients to “hatred and ridicule” and to force the magazine to publish a response.

“You are the only thing between racist, hateful, contemptuous Islamophobic and irresponsible journalism, and law-abiding Canadian citizens,” the lawyer, Faisal Joseph, told the tribunal.
…

Jason Gratl, a lawyer for the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association and the Canadian Association of Journalists, which have intervened in the case in support of the magazine, was measured in his criticism of the law.

“Canadians do not have a cast-iron stomach for offensive speech,” Mr. Gratl said in a telephone interview. “We don’t subscribe to a marketplace of ideas. Americans as a whole are more tough-minded and more prepared for verbal combat.”

Many foreign courts have respectfully considered the American approach — and then rejected it.
…
Chief Justice Dickson said “there is much to be learned from First Amendment jurisprudence.” But he concluded that “the international commitment to eradicate hate propaganda and, most importantly, the special role given equality and multiculturalism in the Canadian Constitution necessitate a departure from the view, reasonably prevalent in America at present, that the suppression of hate propaganda is incompatible with the guarantee of free expression.”

The United States’ distinctive approach to free speech, legal scholars say, has many causes. It is partly rooted in an individualistic view of the world. Fear of allowing the government to decide what speech is acceptable plays a role. So does history.

“It would be really hard to criticize Israel, Austria, Germany and South Africa, given their histories,” for laws banning hate speech, Professor Schauer said in an interview.

In Canada, however, laws banning hate speech seem to stem from a desire to promote societal harmony. While the Ontario Human Rights Commission dismissed a complaint against Maclean’s, it still condemned the article.

“In Canada, the right to freedom of expression is not absolute, nor should it be,” the commission’s statement said. “By portraying Muslims as all sharing the same negative characteristics, including being a threat to ‘the West,’ this explicit expression of Islamophobia further perpetuates and promotes prejudice toward Muslims and others.”

A separate federal complaint against Maclean’s is pending.

Mr. Steyn, the author of the article, said the Canadian proceedings had illustrated some important distinctions. “The problem with so-called hate speech laws is that they’re not about facts,” he said in a telephone interview. “They’re about feelings.”

“What we’re learning here is really the bedrock difference between the United States and the countries that are in a broad sense its legal cousins,” Mr. Steyn added. “Western governments are becoming increasingly comfortable with the regulation of opinion. The First Amendment really does distinguish the U.S., not just from Canada but from the rest of the Western world.”

My emphasized quotes above really hit at the heart of the issue. Western nations other than the US are trying to censor opinions in order to promote “social harmony.” In other words, they’re trying to police the way people think. The end result, instead of having the debate in the open marketplace of ideas where eventually bad ideas die out (unless some judges decides to overrule the people’s opinion on the matter), the “victims” are dragging those who disagree with them in front of a judge and asking the judge to condemn the bad idea without the need for the “victim” to defend the idea. Steyn’s opinion is NOT that Muslims are a threat to Western Civilization, but that socialism, demographics, and apathy on the part of citizens of the West are a threat to our way of life. The Radical Islamicists are just taking advantage of our weaknesses. Of course, if one censors the article instead of reading it and debating it in public, then one never has to acknowledge that aspect of it. It’s Steyn’s opinion and thought process that is under attack, NOT Islam.

Is there any wonder that Americans with their “hard stomachs for verbal combat” have led the world in the last century on combatting communism and fascism? Unfortunately, we have only defeated the national entity of the Soviet Union, NOT the Marxist ideology that made the 20th century one of the bloodiest in modern times.

The battle has also come to the US, as many support similar laws here to censor “hate speech.” On University campuses, where Freedom of Expression is a hallmark, conservative groups are often censored or banned (Prolife especially).

Censorship doesn’t work. It only represses the ideas and drives it underground, where they fester. Making Freedom of Speech absolute is the only way to prevent opinions contrary to the politicians’ in power from being censored.

As someone I don’t know remember once remarked: If you’re willing to censor any speech that you find offensive, then you do not stand for Freedom of Speech. If you’re willing to censor only certain kinds of offensive speech, you’re again missing the point of Freedom of Speech. It’s very easy to stand up for Freedom of Speech when you agree with the person doing the speaking. But if you really believe in the concept, then you better be willing to stand up for Freedom of Speech for those who you not only disagree with, but find morally disgusting on the deepest of levels…like , or the defendents in this case and the judge presiding over it, or this racist preacher, or these fucking hippy idiots who ignorantly and ironically wave a Che poster around while protesting the Iraq War and burning a flag, or this bigot asshole, or…well, you get the point. All of these people are offensive to one group or another. Isn’t it really great that we live in a country where they can make fools of themselves and offend people without fear of being thrown in jail?

If we lived in a country like Canada or one of the European hellholes (like France), then I would be willing to be that extremely powerful but offensive movie clips like the one I’m about to post will eventually be banned - or at least Hollywood would fear making them. This clip is what I believe to be one of the most powerful and best scenes in movie history, and the ending of it is magnificent. Yes, it’s offensive, but in the end, all the racists, bigots, and even the “victims” who bring their own victims in front of a tribunal charging hate speech can learn something: look in the mirror and stop blaming everyone else for your problems.

Just grow a pair for Heaven’s sake - before it’s too late.

From the movie 25th Hour.

Let’s not give up our Freedom’s all in the name of some fictional social utopia rooted in the idea that the government can make people better for the purpose of “social harmony.”

****I need to give a hat tip to Five Feet of Fury for many of the links. Kathy Shaidle, who owns the blog, is also has also been accused of hate speech, but instread of being dragged in front of a Human Rights Tribunal, her and 5 other defendents are being dragged through a “real court” in a more serious lawsuit that threatens bloggers’ rights everywhere.