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Deafening Silence (Mark Steyn and and others being prosecuted for their opinions)
Real Clear Politics ^ | 06/12/2008 | David Warren

Posted on 06/12/2008 4:59:08 AM PDT by Earthdweller

The pen is reputed to be mightier than the sword -- and probably is, over the longer stretches of history. Over the shorter stretches, the sword is definitive; or, as that great Leftist sage, Mao Tse-Tung, expressed it: "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." With its monopoly on power, the State is equipped to suppress the truth. And yet the truth will not die, no matter how many people are punished for expressing it. They may die -- or be imprisoned, fined, compelled to publicly recant, or otherwise silenced and humiliated -- but the truth will survive.

*snip*

(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...


TOPICS: Canada; Constitution/Conservatism; Editorial
KEYWORDS: canada; constitution; freespeech; homosexualagenda; humanrights; marksteyn; steyn
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As free speech disappears in Canada, one looks for instance not at the more celebrated cases of Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant, but at the much less publicized fate of e.g. Rev. Stephen Boisson, convicted by an Alberta kangaroo court ("human rights tribunal") last November for publicly expressing the Christian and Biblical view of homosexuality, on the say-so of an anti-Christian activist from his home town.

Rev. Boisson has now been ordered to desist from communicating his views on this subject "in newspapers, by email, on the radio, in public speeches, or on the Internet" so long as he should live. He has been ordered to pay compensation to Darren Lund, the anti-Christian activist in question, and further to make a public recantation of beliefs he still holds.

Meanwhile, Fr Alphonse de Valk, editor of the magazine Catholic Insight, is being prosecuted by a gay rights activist in Edmonton, for having upheld both sides of the Catholic teaching on homosexuality in the pages of his magazine over more than a decade: that homosexual behaviour is sinful, but that we are nevertheless to love the sinner.

*snip*

1 posted on 06/12/2008 4:59:09 AM PDT by Earthdweller
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To: Earthdweller

What the heck is going on in the Great White North? Instead of hassling folks over their free speech, concentrate on finding a block of ice for thos poor polar bears, eh!


2 posted on 06/12/2008 5:10:55 AM PDT by texson66 ("Tyranny is yielding to the lust of the governing." - Lord Moulton)
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To: Earthdweller
Among the spookiest aspects of these cases is the silence over, and indifference to them, on the part of journalists whose predecessors imagined themselves vigilant in the cause of freedom. As I've learned first-hand through email, many Canadian journalists today take the view that, "I don't like these people, therefore I don't care what happens to them."

......"and when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out."

3 posted on 06/12/2008 5:21:33 AM PDT by workerbee (Ladies do not start fights, but they can finish them.)
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To: Earthdweller
Darren E. Lund, PhD, dlund@ucalgary.ca is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Calgary, where his research examines social justice activism in schools and communities. Darren formed the award-winning Students and Teachers Opposing Prejudice (STOP) program as a high school teacher in Red Deer, AB.

Born and raised in Calgary, he has published numerous articles and book chapters, and is creator of the popular on-line Diversity Toolkit. Darren has been recognized with a number of honours, including being named a Killam Resident Fellow, Exemplary Multicultural Educator of the Year, and a Reader’s Digest National Leader in Education.

I hope he has a happy social life wherever it is that people like him gather to meet. I can't imagine any real men who would associate with such a person, nor can I imagine that a woman would talk with him or that he would have any interest in women for that matter.

4 posted on 06/12/2008 5:40:29 AM PDT by RogerD (Educaiton Profesionul)
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To: Earthdweller
"Fr de Valk has written a lead editorial in the June number of Catholic Insight that should be read not only from the pulpit to every practising Catholic in Canada, but by every concerned Canadian regardless of his religious or political affiliations. It is entitled, "Fascism has come to Canada," and mentions several other major cases in which Christians have been hauled before the country's "human rights" tribunals, and ordered to abandon their beliefs, pay out to complainants, stage public recantations, submit to indoctrination, etc. -- with little to no media coverage."
5 posted on 06/12/2008 5:51:53 AM PDT by kidd
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To: workerbee

[I]t was a Canadian who pointed out to me that while the United States is famously dedicated to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”, the equivalent Canadian goals, expressed in the North America Act of 1867, are the less exciting trinity of “peace, order and good government”. It sums something up about Canada, he laughed.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2006/jan/07/conservatives.uk

Title of article where I found the quote:
Let me tell you about Canada. No, really, it’s very interesting

#####

I lived in Canada for twenty years, and this distinction accurately illustrates the docile nature of Canadians - who constantly ‘go along’ with ever more restrictions on their freedom.

<<< Peace Order and Good Government >>>

unless

they are leftwing activists who use this slogan to increase government control over others.


6 posted on 06/12/2008 5:57:28 AM PDT by maica (Peace is the Aftermath of Victory)
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion

Ping the list for no media coverage...


7 posted on 06/12/2008 5:58:10 AM PDT by Earthdweller
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To: kidd; All
Fascism has come to Canada

In September 2008, the Department of Education in British Columbia intends to introduce the mandatory teaching of SSM [same-sex marriage] from Kindergarten to Grade 12 in provincial schools. It is a first for a province in Canada to claim the right to determine moral teaching in schools when the vast majority of its citizens reject it as unscientific and contrary to the common good.

8 posted on 06/12/2008 6:18:06 AM PDT by workerbee (Ladies do not start fights, but they can finish them.)
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To: Earthdweller

bump


9 posted on 06/12/2008 6:20:31 AM PDT by VOA
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To: Earthdweller

Not so many years ago, people were warning of the domino effect, or the slippery slope, with regard to scrapping laws against abortion; they were dismissed as crackpots when they said the state would soon legitimize abortion for gender, abortion without parental consent, abortion of full term babies, infanticide, and euthanasia.

And with regard to scrapping laws against sexual perversion; people scoffed at predictions that the day would come when homosexuals could adopt children and marry one another.

Hate speech legislation was never going to result in priests recanting or going to jail, and certainly journalists would never have anything to worry about.

Once, a long, long time ago, income tax wasn’t supposed to take anything you could really feel being torn out of your pockets.

Does anyone think there are enough people in this country today who will kick up a serious fuss if free speech is smothered by “hate crime law” or “rights commissions?” If gun ownership is slowly strangled until one day (very soon) it becomes everywhere illegal? If mandatory civil service for high school diploma becomes more “fair” and everyone is required to serve the state, whether or not they want a diploma or already have one they didn’t serve for? If energy companies are nationalized?

There is no going back from here. Not enough people know what they’re missing. Not enough people know what America originally was. And too many people are getting government handouts.

2A is not going to save 1A. The firearms will soon have no ammunition. And thanks to public education, free speech is already very deficient in ammunition.

2A won’t save it, conservatism hasn’t the numbers, capitalism is crawling on its belly, and there are more traitors than patriots in the media, the schools and the legislatures.

It’s just a matter of time now.


10 posted on 06/12/2008 6:25:59 AM PDT by 668 - Neighbor of the Beast (Vote McCain-Feingold. For all the difference it will make.)
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To: texson66
It's the same with the so-called feminists.

When and where are they speaking out against the chattel-like status of Muslim women?

When and where are they speaking out against the rape trees that dot the landscape from Mexico to the U.S. where illegal immigrant women are forced to submit as part of the price of coming here?

11 posted on 06/12/2008 6:26:45 AM PDT by Lizavetta
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To: Earthdweller; Obadiah; Mind-numbed Robot; A.Hun; johnny7; The Spirit Of Allegiance; ...
Ping the list for no media coverage...
I agree.

12 posted on 06/12/2008 6:32:49 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (The conceit of journalistic objectivity is profoundly subversive of democratic principle.)
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To: Earthdweller
This is not a stable situation; freedom of speech and broadcasting in the US must inevitably be either eroded in the same way by the Fairness Doctrine, or else Canada must inevitably either backtrack, or become hostile to us.

13 posted on 06/12/2008 6:35:24 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (The conceit of journalistic objectivity is profoundly subversive of democratic principle.)
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion

Absolutely agree. They haven’t killed any journalists or commentators as the terrorists have in Brussels but they are silencing them none the less. It’s totalitarian.


14 posted on 06/12/2008 6:43:09 AM PDT by Earthdweller
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To: 668 - Neighbor of the Beast
"It’s just a matter of time now."

Self-fulfilled prophet you are. I'm a pre-rapture millennialist. We are more optimistic. I'll bet we have fewer heart attacks as well. LOL.

15 posted on 06/12/2008 7:03:18 AM PDT by Earthdweller
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To: maica
[I]t was a Canadian who pointed out to me that while the United States is famously dedicated to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”, the equivalent Canadian goals, expressed in the North America Act of 1867, are the less exciting trinity of “peace, order and good government”. It sums something up about Canada, he laughed.

That's one I'll remember for a long time.

16 posted on 06/12/2008 11:45:26 AM PDT by steve86 (Acerbic by nature, not nurture™)
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To: maica; conservatism_IS_compassion
It's my understanding that within the Anglosphere only America enjoys constitutionally protected Freedom of Speech. OTOH speech within British Commonwealth nations only occurs at the pleasure of, and remains subject to, the capricious whims of government officials.

Low born American cowboys using military force to appropriate Freedom of Speech for themselves seems to generally rub misanthropic monarchists the wrong way.
17 posted on 06/12/2008 12:12:21 PM PDT by Milhous (Gn 22:17 your descendants shall take possession of the gates of their enemies)
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion

BTTT


18 posted on 06/12/2008 12:24:41 PM PDT by E.G.C. (To read a freeper's FR postings, click on his or her screen name and then "In Forum".)
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To: kidd
Christians have been hauled before the country's "human rights" tribunals, and ordered to abandon their beliefs, pay out to complainants, stage public recantations, submit to indoctrination,

Wow. Sounds like the USSR was replanted in Canada.

19 posted on 06/12/2008 12:32:51 PM PDT by MarMema (kosovo will always be Serbian)
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To: kidd; eleni121; Kolokotronis
...the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) ordered Christian Horizons, a large Christian-evangelical service organization for the disabled (1,400 persons in 180 homes with 2,500 employees) to abandon its religious mission by dropping its Christian moral code and accepting new training for all its employees ‘to bring its employment practices into line with the human rights code’ (i.e., accept state indoctrination that the homosexual lifestyle is normal and to be honoured). The chairman of this government body, Michael Gottheil, simply dismissed Christian Horizons’ “ministry.” No attempt was made to “accommodate” it as required. No mainline press, radio or TV editor protested the ruling. This silence speaks loudly.

Wow again. From the article online that your post mentioned.

20 posted on 06/12/2008 12:36:12 PM PDT by MarMema (kosovo will always be Serbian)
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