The End of Free Speech As We Know It
I keep writing about Mark Steyn and his case before the Canadian Human Rights Commission because I just can’t bear to look away. I don’t want to move into the future, a future less free than the present, a future in which the right to give offense is no longer protected, in which offensive speech is a crime.
How has it come to this?
In her May 21, 2008 article titled “Mark Steyn vs. the ‘Sock Puppets', Kathy Shaidle writes:
On June 2, Steyn and Maclean’s magazine — the nation’s oldest newsweekly — are obliged to defend themselves against charges of “flagrant Islamophobia” at a British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal….
…. Canadian Human Rights Tribunals have a 100% conviction rate on “hate speech” charges. According to the BC Human Rights Code, decisions brought down by that province’s Human Rights Tribunals have “the same force and effect” as “a judgment of the Supreme Court.”
So, “when the British Columbia ‘Human Rights’ Tribunal finds us guilty,” writes Steyn, “they are statutorily obligated to issue a cease-and-desist order that will have the effect of preventing Maclean’s running any writing on Islam by me or anybody of a similar bent — even though the plaintiffs have not challenged the accuracy of a single fact or statistic or quotation.”
Referring to his accusers, Mark Steyn says:
“It’s not about who wins the argument. They’re the future of this country, and that’s that.”
This is the end of free speech as we know it, and I am heartsick.
Patty
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Reader Comments (4)
It's the thought police in action. Orwell was right.
What I really object to are the non-islamic fellow-travellers who aid and abet this attack on free speech, denying both their culture and their history in the process.
You're correct, Peter. It's the facilitators from within our institutions who assist islam who are the greatest threat to our way of life. In the UK, this would include Cherie Blair and much of the 'human rights' industry. It's perverse that the 'human rights' industry has little or no interest in islamic countries where human rights really are abused.
Patty.
I absolutely share your feeling about Mark Steyn and the position he has found himself in.
I have a great liking for him. His blog is immensely humorous, informative and intelligent.
He must feel eviscerated after all he has written in his book America Alone, only to find that the threat he warned about has impinged itself on him personally, and the magazine he writes for.
I bought his T shirt to show solidarity. Not much else one can do. Canada looks utterly crippled by pc, and is way ahead of the US and UK in the self-destruct stakes.
It is awful, and today's news has another example (from the UK):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/wear/7413347.stm
what's frightening over here is not necessarily a change in the law, but how the police can intervene to impose what effectively becomes the law.