Mike Powell Fanclub

Good post. Wasn’t my point, but otherwise a good read. W

Canada is a parasitic growth on the land just below. Small surprise anyone of any talent heads that direction, leaving pale clingers to the bureaucratic teat like you. I ‘m old enough to remember when Canada was a virile nation with a military and navy able to protect it. Now it’s a wallflower — pansy, now that you ask — in the big ballroom where the countries that count do the power waltz. Remember when Canadians could say they “punch above our weight”? No more, pal. Enjoy your pacificism and socialism. And if something seriously wrong with you proves beyond your nationalized medicine, make the trek south like so many of your sick people do.

What appeared in Macleans was not an “article” by Mark Steyn but an excerpt fom his New York Times best selling book “America Alone”, which was also a Canadian best seller. You are clearly a young, uninformed intellectual pigmy who has a strong attraction to slimy little bureaucratic fascists in the so-called Human Rights Commission. Perhaps you are attracted by black, silver braded uniforms? Do you have a surppressed desire to be an Obergruppenfuhrer, of the type your grandfather fought against in WW II? Get a life. slimebag!

[...] ~ OH DEAR, OH D-D-DEAR! “Steyn and Levant..? Steyn’s article was a waste of paper… That both are getting attention is dangerous.” …. (mikepowell.ca) [...]

This is a “history lesson?” Were Levant lobotomized and Steyn decapitated, the Levansteynian remains could maunder off a more erudite history lesson than this ridiculous display of childishness.

No doubt there is virtue in being able to prevent the actual incitement of physical harm and abuse of others. But any attempt by government to intrude upon the “free market of ideas” must be held with the utmost skepticism. As I think was well put by Keith Martin in one article I read about his motion is that while people certainly have a right to be protected from harm, they do not have a right to be protected from being offended.

It is a fine line, but I have always believed that “restricting” speech, even with the best intentions, is an ultimately futile effort anyway. The government could not ever completely stop hate speech because the state can not control the thoughts of an individual (much as many have tried throughout history). The only real tonic is for those with a more enlightened ideal to make their voices heard louder, to debate more persuasively, and to win over the hearts of their fellow citizens - not attempt to bludgeoned those in opposition into conformity through instruments of law.

A complaint to a HRC is adequate proof that someone has been offended — the truth of the public statements made being no defense — which is why no one has ever been found not guilty of a complaint to an HRC. This Kafka-esque institution has the potential to mushroom into something truly horrible. Remember, you do not believe in free speech unless you’re willing to defend speech you find loathsome. Freedom from feeling offended? Rediculous!

One thing that troubles me greatly is the loose definition of what constitutess “hate speech”. Like many repressive legal instruments the phrase is dangerously underspecified about what exact behaviour constitutes the offence. Worse, there seems to be a deliberate confusion on the part of many of its proponents between the following 3 meanings:

1. Incitement to violence against a person?
2. incitement to hate or dislike a person?
3. causing offense in a person

A classical liberal or libertarian would only seek to outlaw the third meaning.

The second meaning, if followed leads to all manner of ridiculous legal and moral inconsistency when one has to explain why one cannot hate (or incite hatred off) members of a religion but not other social self-determined groups such as political opponents, chess club members etc. At the very least it encourages all parties to incorporate one’s favourite political dogma under the guise of religion in order to claim protected the legal status and threaten suit against one’s enemies. The impoverishment of public debate could only be imagined, were it not already visible on many college campuses.

If the liberal conscience remains unmoved at this; it might also be worth appealing against a prima face double standard. If you are willing to “protect muslims from hatred” under this law, how about christians, mormons, scientologists, atheists? Or does the law protect only some groups and not others? If so it remains unstated, at least in a legal sense.

The third meaning, of course, leads directly to totalitarianism, as any statement, whoever innocuous, truthful, or well-meaning can be arbitarily deemed offensive by someone and its speaker silenced. You diagree with this argument? Then I find your disagreement hateful and offensive to my most deeply held moral beliefs . Please report to your nearest HCR for re-education…

Yes, yes; you’d never be found guilty; despite identical legal circumstances* of your statement and my offense. But that’s just the point; a court which finds not on the law as written but the political preferences of the judges, or the strength in numbers or firepower of one faction, is no court at all. And one no longer has a government of laws but a tyranny of men. As Locke would say ;

“the end whereof [law] being to protect and redress the innocent, by an unbiassed application of it, to all who are under it; wherever that is not bona fide done, war is made upon the sufferers”

It remains a tragedy that liberal thought has abandoned great enlightenment thinkers like Locke, Mill and Voltaire. Free speech that cannot give offense, or stir opinion is not free**.

*and before anyone points that the HCR are not proper courts; I know; the argument above concerns philosophy of law, not law itself.
**just to be quite clear about what the real liberal limits are: you can’t incite violence, or attempt fraud. Anything else goes. Got that?

Imagine the potential for abuse.

Religion but not say, members of a political party, chess club, or sa, socialists or

Oops, made a typo there: comes of not proof-reading while making dinner! Obviously it should read:

“a classical liberal or libertarian would seek to outlaw only the first meaning”

You probably all spotted that jarring disconnect already!

[...] ~ DEAR JASON.. An Important Lesson in History …. (mikepowell.ca) [...]

I agree with Prairie Fire. I don’t object to Ezra Levant having the right to publish insulting cartoons, or Mark Steyn having the right to tell Canadian women to spend more time pregnant in order to fight the brown tide.

I don’t object, so long as no one objects to my right to call them both idiots.

Mike Powell - no idea who you are or what your fanclub is about but you seem like a total douche.

“Steyn probably should be fined for abusing his thesaurus in describing the awesomeness of Conrad Black, but that’s another story. That both are getting attention is dangerous not because they are specious complaints, but because it undermines the important and good work that HRC’s and hate crime restrictions do.”

Fortunately for me, the United States has not yet formally created a “Right to not be offended” as Canada seemingly has. Unless it causes an immediate danger to the public, any speech must be free in a free society. So how much does it cost in Canada to “abuse a thesaurus”? From what I have read, it seems Canada is following the concepts of Torquemada in the Spanish Inquisition.