FrankRep
03-24-2010, 10:51 AM
Ann Coulter's free speech or freedom of speech is being stifled by Ottawa, Canada which is typically done by human rights commissions and called hate speech. by Selwyn Duke
Ann Coulter, Hate Speech and Human Rights Commissions (http://www.jbs.org/jbs-news-feed/6128-ann-coulter-hate-speech-and-human-rights-commissions)
Selwyn Duke | John Birch Society (http://www.jbs.org/)
24 March 2010
The conservative firebrand tries to hoist the speech-stifling left on its own human-rights petards.
Most of us probably remember that standard elementary-school threat, “I’m gonna tell!” which meant that an appeal to authority for redress was in the offing. The one issuing it was sometimes a tattletale, but, regardless, since children aren’t fully-formed beings, their lives often have to be micromanaged. They don’t enjoy the freedom of adulthood.
And when citizens are in the habit of “telling” on each other, it means they don’t, either. Such a situation is often associated with tyrannies such as Nazi Germany, where people had to watch their tongues around others (even their own children), lest they get a visit from the Gestapo.
Sadly, however, this situation is becoming ever more common today. Many people behave as if the right to not be offended is enshrined in the Constitution and that, when their feelings are hurt, they can petition the nanny state for redress.
I had someone “tell” on me in Ontario, Canada, some years ago. I was giving a speech at a school symposium, and something I said irked a Muslim student. After he told the administration he was “offended,” two or three school officials approached me to address the matter. They were nice enough, and I didn’t alter my presentation when I had to render the same speech a second time, but the incident spoke volumes. Here was a student, nigh on adulthood, conditioned to think that the authorities could be used to stifle expression he disliked. And, just for the record, “disliked” is the key word. In reality, very few people who claim umbrage are actually offended by your words.
They just don’t happen to like what you’re saying.
Herein lies the value of what I’ve dubbed (http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/01/the_offensiveness_of_taking_of.html) The Offensiveness Ploy: If you say, in essence, that you hate the other person’s opinion, you brand yourself as the intolerant one, as the hater. But if you accuse him of offensiveness, ah, now you can turn the tables and make him seem like the hater. And you don’t have to waste brainpower on pesky things such as trying to prove why his opinion is actually wrong or quell ego power and admit that he may actually be right.
Speaking of the right, pundit Ann Coulter is learning that the Canadian Thought Police are now cutting to the chase and admonishing speakers against offensiveness before they even utter a word. She’s on a three-city speaking tour in the Great White North, and her first stop is the University of Ottawa. Before even taking the podium, however, she received a letter from the university’s Vice-president of Academic Affairs and Provost François Houle that appears to be a thinly veiled threat. It reads (http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2710037), in part:
We have a great respect for freedom of expression in Canada, as well as on our campus, and view it as a fundamental freedom . . . .
I would, however, like to inform you, or perhaps remind you, that our domestic laws, both provincial and federal, delineate freedom of expression (or "free speech") in a manner that is somewhat different than the approach taken in the United States. I therefore encourage you to educate yourself, if need be, as to what is acceptable in Canada and to do so before your planned visit here.
You will realize that Canadian law puts reasonable limits on the freedom of expression. For example, promoting hatred against any identifiable group would not only be considered inappropriate, but could in fact lead to criminal charges. Outside of the criminal realm, Canadian defamation laws also limit freedom of expression and may differ somewhat from those to which you are accustomed.
First, let’s be clear: Limited speech is not free speech. China, North Korea and Iran also have what they consider “reasonable” limits on speech; they also allow “free speech” within certain boundaries. But it’s much like saying you will allow freedom of movement within a certain cage. In fact, a couple of the countries I mentioned outshine Canada in respect: They’re not so hypocritical. If you want to enforce a certain dogma, be honest about it — drop the pretense of “free speech.”
As for Coulter, she responded in her usual inimitable fashion.
She’s filing a hate-speech complaint against the university with a human rights commission.
Explaining her reasoning in an email to the Ottawa Citizen (http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Host+draws+firebrand+Coulter/2713913/story.html), she wrote:
Now that the provost has instructed me on the criminal speech laws he apparently believes I have a proclivity (to break), despite knowing nothing about my speech, I see that he is guilty of promoting hatred against an identifiable group: conservatives.
. . . The provost simply believes and is publicizing his belief that conservatives are more likely to commit hate crimes in their speeches. Not only does this promote hatred against conservatives, but it promotes violence against conservatives.
In part, Coulter is basing her complaint on the well-founded suspicion that only conservative speakers might receive such a warning.
It’s quite predictable that the Canadian Thought Police won’t rule in the columnist’s favor, and this action will make the point that hate-speech laws are a sham. They don’t exist to protect “identifiable” groups, just politically favored ones; they don’t punish what evokes hate, just the opinions the politically correct hate. But this is fairly obvious, and there’s something else I’d like to address here.
When Canadian journalist Ezra Levant republished the Danish Mohammed cartoons, he was compelled (http://bit.ly/d8eU6h) to answer charges of inciting hatred in front of the Alberta Human Rights Commission. When the Canadian Islamic Congress accused (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_complaints_against_Maclean%27s_magazi ne) Maclean’s magazine in 2007 of publishing “Islamophobic” articles, they filed complaints with the Canadian Human Rights Commission, the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal and the Ontario Human Rights Commission. After Canadian Hugh Owens took out a newspaper ad criticizing homosexuality, the Saskatchewan Human Rights Board of Inquiry fined him (http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=31080) $4500. And, just recently, Joseph Evers of the Encyclopedia Dramatica was sent a letter (http://www.blog.encyclopediadramatica.com/?p=84) by the Australian Human Rights Commission accusing him of racial discrimination over an article about aboriginals published at his site. Given that it’s a jailable offense, his attorney has told him he must never set foot on Australian soil again.
Now, what do all these examples have in common? Stupidity? Double standards? Sure, but something else also: The speech-stifling bureaucracies are always “human rights commissions,” although the name can vary slightly. And there is an important reason why I mention this.
They exist in the United States as well.
Most every state (if not all) has one, even conservative bastions such as Utah, Oklahoma, Texas and Alabama. Moreover, many if not most counties have them as well, as they have metastasized like an aggressive cancer.
Of course, they’re not persecuting people for unfashionable opinions — yet. But once our courts conjure up a pretext for hate-speech laws (see my piece (http://www.americanthinker.com/2006/11/how_we_will_lose_our_freedom_o.html), “How We Will Lose Our Freedom of Speech”), all bets are off. The mechanism for tyranny will already be in place.
Good governors should stop at nothing to eliminate their states’ human rights commissions. Doing so would be the difference between merely being “conservative” — which means defending our leftist status quo — and effecting change we can really believe in.
SOURCE:
http://www.jbs.org/jbs-news-feed/6128-ann-coulter-hate-speech-and-human-rights-commissions
Ann Coulter, Hate Speech and Human Rights Commissions (http://www.jbs.org/jbs-news-feed/6128-ann-coulter-hate-speech-and-human-rights-commissions)
Selwyn Duke | John Birch Society (http://www.jbs.org/)
24 March 2010
The conservative firebrand tries to hoist the speech-stifling left on its own human-rights petards.
Most of us probably remember that standard elementary-school threat, “I’m gonna tell!” which meant that an appeal to authority for redress was in the offing. The one issuing it was sometimes a tattletale, but, regardless, since children aren’t fully-formed beings, their lives often have to be micromanaged. They don’t enjoy the freedom of adulthood.
And when citizens are in the habit of “telling” on each other, it means they don’t, either. Such a situation is often associated with tyrannies such as Nazi Germany, where people had to watch their tongues around others (even their own children), lest they get a visit from the Gestapo.
Sadly, however, this situation is becoming ever more common today. Many people behave as if the right to not be offended is enshrined in the Constitution and that, when their feelings are hurt, they can petition the nanny state for redress.
I had someone “tell” on me in Ontario, Canada, some years ago. I was giving a speech at a school symposium, and something I said irked a Muslim student. After he told the administration he was “offended,” two or three school officials approached me to address the matter. They were nice enough, and I didn’t alter my presentation when I had to render the same speech a second time, but the incident spoke volumes. Here was a student, nigh on adulthood, conditioned to think that the authorities could be used to stifle expression he disliked. And, just for the record, “disliked” is the key word. In reality, very few people who claim umbrage are actually offended by your words.
They just don’t happen to like what you’re saying.
Herein lies the value of what I’ve dubbed (http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/01/the_offensiveness_of_taking_of.html) The Offensiveness Ploy: If you say, in essence, that you hate the other person’s opinion, you brand yourself as the intolerant one, as the hater. But if you accuse him of offensiveness, ah, now you can turn the tables and make him seem like the hater. And you don’t have to waste brainpower on pesky things such as trying to prove why his opinion is actually wrong or quell ego power and admit that he may actually be right.
Speaking of the right, pundit Ann Coulter is learning that the Canadian Thought Police are now cutting to the chase and admonishing speakers against offensiveness before they even utter a word. She’s on a three-city speaking tour in the Great White North, and her first stop is the University of Ottawa. Before even taking the podium, however, she received a letter from the university’s Vice-president of Academic Affairs and Provost François Houle that appears to be a thinly veiled threat. It reads (http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2710037), in part:
We have a great respect for freedom of expression in Canada, as well as on our campus, and view it as a fundamental freedom . . . .
I would, however, like to inform you, or perhaps remind you, that our domestic laws, both provincial and federal, delineate freedom of expression (or "free speech") in a manner that is somewhat different than the approach taken in the United States. I therefore encourage you to educate yourself, if need be, as to what is acceptable in Canada and to do so before your planned visit here.
You will realize that Canadian law puts reasonable limits on the freedom of expression. For example, promoting hatred against any identifiable group would not only be considered inappropriate, but could in fact lead to criminal charges. Outside of the criminal realm, Canadian defamation laws also limit freedom of expression and may differ somewhat from those to which you are accustomed.
First, let’s be clear: Limited speech is not free speech. China, North Korea and Iran also have what they consider “reasonable” limits on speech; they also allow “free speech” within certain boundaries. But it’s much like saying you will allow freedom of movement within a certain cage. In fact, a couple of the countries I mentioned outshine Canada in respect: They’re not so hypocritical. If you want to enforce a certain dogma, be honest about it — drop the pretense of “free speech.”
As for Coulter, she responded in her usual inimitable fashion.
She’s filing a hate-speech complaint against the university with a human rights commission.
Explaining her reasoning in an email to the Ottawa Citizen (http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Host+draws+firebrand+Coulter/2713913/story.html), she wrote:
Now that the provost has instructed me on the criminal speech laws he apparently believes I have a proclivity (to break), despite knowing nothing about my speech, I see that he is guilty of promoting hatred against an identifiable group: conservatives.
. . . The provost simply believes and is publicizing his belief that conservatives are more likely to commit hate crimes in their speeches. Not only does this promote hatred against conservatives, but it promotes violence against conservatives.
In part, Coulter is basing her complaint on the well-founded suspicion that only conservative speakers might receive such a warning.
It’s quite predictable that the Canadian Thought Police won’t rule in the columnist’s favor, and this action will make the point that hate-speech laws are a sham. They don’t exist to protect “identifiable” groups, just politically favored ones; they don’t punish what evokes hate, just the opinions the politically correct hate. But this is fairly obvious, and there’s something else I’d like to address here.
When Canadian journalist Ezra Levant republished the Danish Mohammed cartoons, he was compelled (http://bit.ly/d8eU6h) to answer charges of inciting hatred in front of the Alberta Human Rights Commission. When the Canadian Islamic Congress accused (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_complaints_against_Maclean%27s_magazi ne) Maclean’s magazine in 2007 of publishing “Islamophobic” articles, they filed complaints with the Canadian Human Rights Commission, the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal and the Ontario Human Rights Commission. After Canadian Hugh Owens took out a newspaper ad criticizing homosexuality, the Saskatchewan Human Rights Board of Inquiry fined him (http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=31080) $4500. And, just recently, Joseph Evers of the Encyclopedia Dramatica was sent a letter (http://www.blog.encyclopediadramatica.com/?p=84) by the Australian Human Rights Commission accusing him of racial discrimination over an article about aboriginals published at his site. Given that it’s a jailable offense, his attorney has told him he must never set foot on Australian soil again.
Now, what do all these examples have in common? Stupidity? Double standards? Sure, but something else also: The speech-stifling bureaucracies are always “human rights commissions,” although the name can vary slightly. And there is an important reason why I mention this.
They exist in the United States as well.
Most every state (if not all) has one, even conservative bastions such as Utah, Oklahoma, Texas and Alabama. Moreover, many if not most counties have them as well, as they have metastasized like an aggressive cancer.
Of course, they’re not persecuting people for unfashionable opinions — yet. But once our courts conjure up a pretext for hate-speech laws (see my piece (http://www.americanthinker.com/2006/11/how_we_will_lose_our_freedom_o.html), “How We Will Lose Our Freedom of Speech”), all bets are off. The mechanism for tyranny will already be in place.
Good governors should stop at nothing to eliminate their states’ human rights commissions. Doing so would be the difference between merely being “conservative” — which means defending our leftist status quo — and effecting change we can really believe in.
SOURCE:
http://www.jbs.org/jbs-news-feed/6128-ann-coulter-hate-speech-and-human-rights-commissions