scaramouche

Sunday, 01 November 2009

Former CHRC chief calls free-speechers “freaks”; wants to retain state censorship to spare minorities’ “feelings”: The Toronto Star, a left-leaning rag which in the past has come out in favour of free speech, prints the ravings of a “human rights” geezer who’s trying to flog a book, and who wants "the media" to submit to "human rights" thinking on "free speech":

Sometimes it is useful to return to a contentious topic long after it has disappeared from the headlines, public passions have subsided and minds are perhaps more open to sober second thought.

One such subject is free speech vs. freedom from hate.

Um, when did it disappear from the headlines? Wasn’t it back in them as late as last week when a few champions of “freedom from hate”--what a deranged concept!--offered their two cents’ worth to a parliamentary committee?

A debate on it raged for months, triggered by complaints by a group of Muslims against Maclean's magazine for being allegedly anti-Islamic. But the issue was never fully resolved. Understandable, given that there's no easy answer.

Understandable, given that the complainers want sharia rules on speech to apply here is Canada, something that the clueless multicultists cannot--will not--see.

"Clearly both are desirable in any civilized society but they are often seen as being in conflict. Need this necessarily be so? Except as between unrepentant hate-mongers, on the one hand, and over-committed freedom of speech freaks, on the other, I do not see why they should be."

So writes Max Yalden, distinguished federal civil servant who spent years refereeing such competing rights while serving as Official Languages Commissioner (1977-84) and head of the Canadian Human Rights Commission ('87-96).

Over-committed freedom of speech freaks, eh? In the sage words Nile Rodgers, “Le Freak, c’est chic.” And, hey, it ain’t the over-committed censors, like Mr. Yalden and Ms. Lynch, who are going to keep the free world free.

In his just-released memoir, Transforming Rights: Reflections from the Front Lines, he is particularly critical of the media, the main trumpeters of free speech.

The media are "not entirely neutral." In fact, they have a conflict of interest that they rarely declare. "`Public interest' can sometimes get confused with what `interests the public,' i.e. what sells newspapers."

Yalden believes that the media shouldn't have any more rights or immunity than anyone else.

In fact, they don’t have “more rights”. They have the same rights as everyone else.

Free speech, yes. But there's the duty to curb hate: "We must, if we see ourselves as a civilized society, go after it as forcefully as we possibly can. Hate speech cannot be exempt from limits simply because it's been carried in the media."

We must, if we see ourselves as a civilized society, speak our minds without fear of being chastised and punished by the state. That’s what makes and keeps a society civilized. The alternative--the state decided what can and cannot be said--is a facet of totalitarian societies, not free ones.

The Supreme Court of Canada has repeatedly ruled that restrictions on hate speech "do not compromise the values of free speech."

Wrong. The Supreme Court ruled but once--a 4-3 decision in 1990--that Section 13, the “hate speech” provision of the Canadian Human Rights Act, should be retained. But as we know from the Moon Report, that ruling is way out of date since it was made at a time when there was no Internet, and is sorely in need of review and revision.

Yalden does not entirely dismiss the argument that the best defence against hate is public opprobrium (the censure-not-censor argument). But he's also "aware that editorialists who promote this line have newspapers to sell ... and are not usually members of the minorities who are subjected to abuse."

Yes, and we must do our utmost to protect “abused” minorities--even if they themselves evince clear hatred and racism, and even as Christians, who don’t fit into the category of abused minorities, are abused, harassed and scorned by state mechanisms.

Human rights issues are not well-served by the media, which "thrive on exaggeration and sensationalism, and have little regard for accuracy when it suits them not to."

The same point was made last year by the Quebec commission on reasonable accommodation, which accused some Montreal media outlets of inventing a crisis.

Far better to ignore the crisis and accommodate sharia. Keeps things so much calmer and "civilized," don’t you know.

As for the Muslim group's case against Maclean's, Yalden told me that he, too, would have dismissed it, as the federal human rights commission and the one in B.C. did, while the one in Ontario rejected it for want of jurisdiction.

But he upholds the right of people to file complaints: "Where there's a right, there must be a remedy."

Where there’s a will (to make everyone kowtow to sharia), there’s a way to make them do it, more like. What Yalden’s line means (where there’s a right, there must be a remedy for that right? come again?) is anybody’s guess.

Update: A "freak" responds:

Max Yalden claims that we need to put limits on free speech in order to protect “minorities” from having to suffer the “abuse” of “hate speech.” But that is to ignore the fact that free speech is the pre-requisite for a free, civilized society; that members of minorities can be just as “racist” and abusive as anyone else; and that most of the people who are being “abused” at the moment are Christians who are being hounded and abused by the state under the auspices of our Human Rights Commissions. If Canada hopes to remain strong and free and, yes, civilized, we need more “over-committed freedom of speech freaks,” as Yalden derisively calls them, and less state harassment conducted in the name of “human rights.”

Or, to paraphrase Pierre Elliott Trudeau, the state has no business in the minds of the nation.

Update: BCF had a post a few days ago about the Max 'n' Harpoon team (both of whom have won an Order of Canada, which speaks volumes about this here Trudeaupia).

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:04 | link | comments (5)

Comments:

#1 01 November 2009 - 11:50

Control freaks.

Anonymous

#2 01 November 2009 - 11:53

Exactly. Anal-retentive, too, I suspect.

scaramouche

#3 01 November 2009 - 14:47

Anal-Leakage seems a problem however I recommend "Can't Depends" the diaper for Adult-Censors and Cry Babies.

Anonymous

#4 02 November 2009 - 03:53

To be fair, until I read this, I had thought Max was no longer among the living...but no, he remains, zombie like, to demand the Utopia of Nice.

Personally, I like Nice. I try to be Nice. I try to be precise enough to refer to Islamofascists rather than Muslims. I shrug off being lumped in with the CJC at Stormfront as a pro-Israel shill.

Nice, however, is not the same as braindead. Nice does not mean you ignore the negative effects of mass immigration. Nor does Nice mean you never write anything which might offend. Nice was not in the contemplation of the majority in Taylor and even less in the minority.

In fact, Nice is not mentioned in s. 2 of the Charter. Freedom of Expression is. But not Nice.

Lovely as Max's sentiments are - one might be tempted to call him over-committed to Nice - the fact is our Charter contemplates vigorous, contentious, political debate. Free expression, a free media - no mention of Nice.

Sorry Max.

Anonymous

#5 02 November 2009 - 12:04

"Nice" is nice in every day encounters and personal relationships, but as a political M.O. it's suicidal.

scaramouche

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Posted by: scaramouche at 10:04 | link | comments (5)