“You Can’t Say That”: Canadian thought police on the march.

National Review ^ | December 2, 2003 | David E. Bernstein

[gcruse]

The American Heritage ® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

fas·cist
n.

1. often Fascist An advocate or adherent of fascism.
2. A reactionary or dictatorial person.

re·ac·tion·ar·y

Characterized by reaction, especially opposition to progress or liberalism; extremely conservative.

[Protagoras]

Hellooooooooooo Canada . . . Are yous guys waking up YET???

Like we don't have enough sleeping people down here to wake up.

[headsonpikes]

Fascism = Extremely conservative

That settles it - you can always trust the dictionary!

LOL!!!

[gcruse]

I've been googling around looking at the various manifestations of 'fascist.' I've come to believe
the murky word is thrown around all too casually.
In the course of googling, I came across a compelling
piece from the Laissez-Faire Electronic Times but was
unable to post it as an article on FR because someone
doesn't like Orlin Grabbe (I guess). So I posted it on
my blog. You might enjoy it. That's http://gcruse.typepad.com/

[headsonpikes]

'Under the Axe of Fascism' by a marxist, Gaetano Salvemini, provides some wonderful vignettes of socially progressive Italian Fascist day-care centers, etc. The author appears to be outraged that the Fascists did their dirty deeds under the cover of 'progressivism'. It makes me smile! ;^)

The Hildebeast would have fit like a glove into the vanguard of Il Duce's state apparatus!

[gcruse]

I saw an article here the other day about today's Italian government ordering crucifixes to be removed from public school classrooms. They were originally ordered placed there by Mussolini's fascist government.

I don't think fascism plots well on the liberal/conservative spectrum. But it does fit on a line that starts at liberty and ends at authoritarian.

[vladog]

The best parts of Communism have never died, they seem to have been reborn as something called 'hate speech'. Soon it will be against the law to say, "I hate cabbage", the cabbage growers will sue and win!

[gcruse]

. Soon it will be against the law to say, "I hate cabbage"

Been there, done that.

AMARILLO, Texas (CNN) -- A former government expert on mad cow disease testified at Oprah Winfrey's trial Tuesday that he was "ambushed" on her show.

Testifying for a group of Texas cattlemen in their $10.3 million-plus beef-defamation case against Winfrey, William Hueston said, "I was dismayed by the show. ... It created a lynch mob mentality."

_______________________________________________________

A District of Columbia court and the Supreme Court both rejected a suit by the apple growers against CBS, claiming that Alar was not a threat to health. The Columbia Journalism Review reported these events in its September-October, 1996, issue.

[Old Professer]

Yeah, well I don't care if your mother does wear combat boots, my mothers are Gay, beat that!!

[Old Professer]

So you support a PC characterization by using a PC dictionary? Proves that progressive isn't necessarily good.

[gcruse]

I didn't know dictionarys had gone PC. I just use an online one that is convenient. I think the epithet 'fascist' is tossed around too easily, and can be applied to conservatives as well as liberals in their different spheres of grasping for control. I see liberty on one extreme and authoritariansim on the other. Fascism comes near authoritarian. It can be found in both liberal and conservative actions, however.

[Old Professer]

Let me recommend a book:

Three Faces of Facism by Ernst Nolte, circa 1966 Holt Rinehart and Winston Inc.

True fascism is a political movement and not random, disparate actions.

Modern dictionaries are expurgated, sometimes thoroughly; I don't trust them.

[gcruse]

I might suggest, for your reading pleasure, the article I posted entitled 'You might be a fascist" on my blog. See my tagline for the URL. If you don't find any examples of conservative fascism, then it doesn't matter what kind of dictionary we use -- we aren't speaking the same language.

[Bilbo Baggins]

Ok, you are getting close to a $1000 fine and 30 days in jail.

Either that or my mom's boot up your butt!

[gcruse]

Oh, and if, as data is not the plural of anecdote, actions are not the indicator of fascism but rather isolated thingies best judged on their own, it makes my point. Fascist has become an epithet adding nothing to discussion and is little more than an insult. Calling the left or the right fascist is juvenalia operating at the adult level.

[austingirl]

IMHO that definition is one that has arisen in popular usage from the left to denigrate the right. I maintain my firm belief that the left are the real fascists. ;-)

[Reactionary]

"Characterized by reaction, especially opposition to progress or liberalism; extremely conservative."

Hey. Thanks. :)

[gcruse]

Heh. I should've called you in on this...

[Old Professer]

Lincoln said you can call a tail a leg, but that doesn't make it a leg.

[ConservativeStLouisGuy]

"You Can’t Say That": Canadian Thought Police On The March - David E. Bernstein

I've had the good fortune of spending this past month on the road promoting my new book about how anti-discrimination laws are eroding civil liberties. At the end of a recent talk about the book, an audience member asked whether I believe that freedom of expression is really at risk in the United States from laws meant to aid women and minorities. The heart of my response is, "Look at what's happening in Canada. If we don't watch out, we're next."

The decline of freedom of expression in Canada began with seemingly minor and understandable speech restrictions. In 1990, the Canadian supreme court upheld the conviction of James Keegstra, a public-high-school teacher, for propagating Holocaust denial and anti-Semitic views to his public high-school students, despite repeated warnings from his superiors to stop. Keegstra was convicted of the crime of "willfully promoting hatred against an identifiable group," which carries a penalty of up to two years in jail. Criminalizing hate speech, the court stated, was a "reasonable" restriction on expression, and it therefore passed constitutional muster.

Two years later, the same court held that obscenity laws are unconstitutional to the extent they criminalize material based on sexual content alone. However, any "degrading or dehumanizing" depiction of sexual activity — including material that the First Amendment would protect in the United States — was deprived of constitutional protection to protect women from discrimination.

Even the most zealous advocates of freedom of expression often feel uncomfortable defending the right to engage in Holocaust denial or to propagate degrading pornography. But, not surprisingly, the inevitable result of allowing these initial speech restrictions has been the gradual but significant growth of censorship and suppression of civil liberties across Canada.

In many cases, the speech that is suppressed conflicts with the Canadian government's official multiculturalist agenda, or is otherwise politically incorrect. For example, the Canadian supreme court recently turned down an appeal by a Christian minister convicted of inciting hatred against Muslims. An Ontario appellate court had found that the minister did not intentionally incite hatred, but was properly convicted for being willfully blind to the effects of his actions. This decision led Robert Martin, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Western Ontario, to comment that he increasingly thinks "Canada now is a totalitarian theocracy. I see this as a country ruled today by what I would describe as a secular state religion [of political correctness]. Anything that is regarded as heresy or blasphemy is not tolerated."

Indeed, it has apparently become illegal in Canada to advocate traditional Christian opposition to homosexual sex. For example, the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission ordered the Saskatoon Star Phoenix and Hugh Owens to each pay $1,500 to each of three gay activists as damages for publication of an advertisement, placed by Owens, which conveyed the message that the Bible condemns homosexual acts.

In another incident, after Toronto print-shop owner Scott Brockie refused on religious grounds to print letterhead for a gay-activist group, the local human-rights commission ordered him to pay the group $5,000, print the requested material, and apologize to the group's leaders. Brockie, who always accepted print jobs from individual gay customers, and even did pro-bono work for a local AIDS group, is fighting the decision on religious-freedom grounds.

Any gains the gay-rights movement has received from the crackdown on speech in Canada have been pyrrhic because as part of the Canadian government's suppression of obscene material, Canadian customs frequently target books with homosexual content. Police raids searching for obscene materials have disproportionately targeted gay organizations and bookstores.

Moreover, left-wing academics are beginning to learn firsthand what it's like to have their own censorship vehicles used against them. For example, University of British Columbia Prof. Sunera Thobani, a native of Tanzania, faced a hate-crimes investigation after she launched into a vicious diatribe against American foreign policy. Thobani, a Marxist feminist and multiculturalism activist, had remarked that Americans are "bloodthirsty, vengeful and calling for blood." The Canadian hate-crimes law was created to protect minority groups from hate speech. But in this case, it was invoked to protect Americans.

A great deal more censorship in Canada seems inevitable. For example, British Columbia's extremely broad hate-speech law prohibits the publication of any statement that "indicates" discrimination or that is "likely" to expose a person or group or class of persons to hatred or contempt. The Canadian thought police are on the march. Hopefully, it is not too late to stop them.

___________________________________________

A GREAT article worthy of a full post....I find all of this to be SO TRUE -- living here in Toronto....it's almost like one has to walk on eggshells -- for fear that they might "impose their beliefs" on someone....meanwhile, the inmates DO run the asylum (here)...

- ConservativeStLouisGuy