This guy probably used to write for Pravda.
Glad I don’t live in Canada. But, come to think of it, many state - and, yes, federal - legislators have recently declared war on our First Amendment as well. :-(
I have a great difficulty when “loaded” terminology forms part of Statute. Concepts like “Hate” and “Discrimination” for instance.
Is “Hate” aways wrong? No, but it is almost always trivialized into meaning “strongly dislike” or “disapprove” before it gets codified into Law.
I don’t “hate” broccoli or cauliflower: I will go to great lengths to ensure I don’t ingest any because I strongly dislike them. “Hate” is a far more corrosive emotion: I “Hate” the Nazis, for example, and will crawl over broken glass to ensure that they never get into power again. In that sense, “Hate” can be a very constructive and positive emotion, not to be trivialized by passing laws against it.
Similarly, “Discrimination”. Discrimination is a good thing: you discriminate every time you buy a Chevrolet over a Honda, or choose Vanilla ice cream over Chocolate. or decide not to have anchovies on your pizza. Everyone discriminates and it is a good thing that we do.
Discrimination is another more powerful word for “choice”. The Law has no business deciding your choices for you: providing they are not harmful to other folk.
“Racism” and “Sexism” are both illogical and irrational reasons to exercise one’s right to discriminate, and you would be very justified in questioning the judgment and intelligence of anyone who used these as decision-making parameters as they are foolish. But it should not be against the law to be a fool: the real world has better ways of punishing fools — more effective ways than the Law can ever produce.
Similarly most of the -phobias: some of them are proper psychological issues (in which case, treat them if they are getting in the way of healthy living) and some of them are dam’ned sensible ways to live. None of them make sound basis for Laws to be passed.
So it is sad to see that our Western civilization is stooping toward passing Laws that really have no sound basis: in this case, “Hate” laws.
“Haroon Siddiqui”
I could just stop right there.
Haroon Siddiqui is the favorite “colored Muslim friend” of the sociopaths that run the Toronto Star. Siddiqui is such a nutjob he has spawned a group of websites specifically devoted to debunking his crap.
So with that in mind, Haroon Siddiqui might have gone a bridge too far in attacking the freedom of speech that the rest of the Toronto Star organization has come out strongly for in the MacLeans case. Otherwise he is what he has always been, a Muslim sideshow mouthpiece the Star editorial board uses to spew their illiberal anti-Canadian, anti-American venom.
Wouldn’t be surprised if at least one Toronto Star employee calls him out for his lies through omission in this article, or his unfettered acceptance without criticism of the statistical quote he used in the piece. That quote needs to be redacted. It’s a out and out blatant falsehood.
Reasonable Limits is how we got “Campaign Finance Reform”.
Political speech is what the founders had in mind when the First Amendment was drafted.
What does Reasonable mean when we are talking about Free Speech Rights?
Well when it is your ox that is being gored as it seems to be with Mr. Haroon Siddiqui a more restrictive speech code would seem appropriate.
How ever I would be very surprised indeed if Mr. Siddigui would be in favor of monitors of hate speech entering a Mosque to see what kind of hate was flowing from the mouths of Imams and then hauling the Imams before a human rights commission.
While I agree the government via the citizens has a responsibility to protect kids from trash that people say it is no justification for laws putting people in jeopardy of jail or fines for saying what they want.
Want to talk racial hatred...you will be exposed and the community will reveal you for what you are...a pig who deserves to be an outcast. However, using the force of the state to stop it violates their constitutional command to protect it.
Whats the right mix with that kind of problem?
Fixed it.
Not really, hate laws are a sign that the government has so far exceeded it's boundaries that it must be immediately dismantled by any available means possible.
Hey Haroon (rhymes with moron), “reasonable limits on free speech” is an oxymoron.
Yeah...it's funny how people defend their own rights against arbitrary rule.
"What about the rights of people to be free of discriminatory and hateful speech? Journalists talk about one principle, and not the other."
This is where the notion of positive rights leads - always to the subjugation of the rights of others.
Haroon Siddiqi preaches fascism. Raw fascism. What he writes would dovetail nicely with anything ever said by Paul Joseph Goebbels.
Or by any mullah, BTW.
HAROON SIDDIQUI
drip, drip, drip...another parasite slithers it’s way into Western civilization.
I like these foreign born maggots that move to Canada and start interpreting their laws for them
Well Commies never had any use for Religious Expression, so it is no wonder they consider the outlawing of Christianity as ‘reasonable’.
No one should ever be able to take away anyone's freedom to speak their mind openly no matter how rude, crude, or unacceptable socially it may be!
Hate crimes are the begining of totalitatianism and dictatorships!
That is the part Canada doesn’t get about free speech. It’s got to be free. As long as it doesn’t incite a riot, it’s ok.
The only people who would oppose freedom of speech are the one's who are afraid of the truth--including the possibility that what they love saying is not the truth.
It is a waste of government resources to ban something as subjective and elastic as “incitement to hatred”. Only direct incitement to violence should be banned.
If I hate you then I hate you. If you prevent me from hating you with my words I will hate you with my actions.