As a follow-up to my last post on threats to free speech from the left, it may be instructive to look at some very disturbing trends going on in our neighbor to the north. Canada has increasingly squashed free speech in the name of protecting minorities from offense. For instance, it is now illegal in Canada to make any statement in opposition to homosexuality. Just last week, a Quebec man was fined $1000 for telling one man that his traveling companion was a "fifi", a French slang term for gay. The man filed a complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission, saying that the comments made him feel "dehumanized, humiliated and degraded." And under Canadian law, that's all it takes. Guilty as charged and free speech be damned. Nor is this at all unusual these days in Canada. As John Leo reports:
A recent flurry of cases has mostly gone against free expression. The Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission ruled that a newspaper ad listing biblical passages that oppose homosexuality was a human-rights offense. The commission ordered the paper and Hugh Owens, the man who placed the ad, to pay $1,500 each to three gay men who objected to it. In another case, a British Columbia court upheld the one-month suspension, without pay, of a high school teacher who wrote letters to a local paper arguing that homosexuality is not a fixed orientation but a condition that can and should be treated. The teacher, Chris Kempling, was not accused of discrimination, merely of expressing thoughts that the state defines as improper.
Now I'm as pro-gay as one can be, as my readers obviously know, but this kind of legal coercion is simply an outrageous violation of free speech, something for which there is little protection in the Canadian constitution. If we give to government the power to punish speech that other find offensive, regardless of the reason they do so, we are quickly going to find ourselves with no freedom at all to speak our minds. Listen to what David Bernstein, a Volokh Conspiracy contributor and George Mason law professor, had to say about what is going on in 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."
So what happens when we give this power to government? A conservative government might punish the expression of Islamic ideas as "hateful and offensive", or any speech they think is overly sexual (or sexual at all), or speech that advocates abortion or paganism. If they are replaced by a more liberal government, all of those things might be allowed but suddenly it would be a punishable offense to insult anyone, or even say anything they perceive as offensive, who belongs to what they view as an oppressed minority (gays, blacks, women, etc). And again, the example of Canada is instructive. While there have been many cases of invoking those laws against anti-gay speech, the same laws have also been used to seize shipments of homosexual books and magazines in their zeal to squelch "obscenity".
Can this happen here in America? I'd say it already is, on a much smaller level. Sadly, some of the groups that could traditionally be counted upon to fight these encroachments are missing in action. Many of the same organizations that can be counted on to immediately counter attempts to censor from the right fall strangely silent when it comes to hate speech codes, for instance. For far too many on the left the issue gets framed as a dispute between civil rights and individual rights, with civil rights having the trump card. But that is a false idea from the start. There is no "civil right" not to be offended by anyone. In fact, there are no group rights at all. All rights are individual in nature, and there simply is no right to be protected from the speech of others. We must remain vigilant that what is going on in Canada doesn't happen here, and we must go further and begin dismantling the coercive laws and rules that have built up here already, especially on college campuses. In my view, you are either a civil libertarian or you are not. You can't be a civil libertarian....but not when it involves speech you find offensive.
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HAPPY BIRTHDAY ED! ..
Just last week, a Quebec man was fined $1000 for telling one man that his traveling companion was a "fifi"
This teeters on the line of inciting violence, I think. Is it really legal in america to say things like this? Can a person just yell "nigger" at someone else without so much as a fine? I'm on the fence with this one.
Can a person just yell "nigger" at someone else without so much as a fine?
Yeah, otherwise, we'd have to fine you right now.
Americans believe they have freedom of speech and the press, as was supposedly guaranteed by their 1st amendment. They really do believe that. They are sadly mistaken.
Relative to those incidents in Canada, we have very free speech. This week I watched a South Park where cartman, dressed like Hitler, led a parade of people saying This is the Time of the Reich in german. That kind of thing would be illegal in Canada, I presume. The main 'brickyard preacher' at NCSU, Gary, has spent hours every day for years standing in front of the library hollering about the evils of lesbians and blacks and more or less everyone. He's never been punished.
Though ironically, there are plenty of lefties at the school who would gladly prohibit, fine, or arrest him, given the chance.
(Disclaimer: I'm liberal, in fact a card-carrying member of the ACLU, but some of these leftists are totalitarian shitheads)
Oh my, this would be a very persuasive argument, if I hadn't decided 40 years ago not to go to Canada because they didn't seem as 'free' as we are. Comparing myself today with an American friend who emigrated 8 years ago, mine was a bad decision. Life in America today is like the movies about Germany I saw as a child- police checkpoints, lists of names, and above all, watch your tongue- you don't know who's listening.
Frankly, I'm sick of it.
Raised as a Unitarian, I've heard all the talk about "your freedom ends at the tip of my nose", "shouting fire in a crowded theatre" etc etc. And now, near the end of the day, I'm supposed to be concerned if people can't use their accustomed racial epithets in public.
Spare me. Earn your spurs by taking on real autocracies like the FDA or the war industries. If, after 10 or 20 years of that, you still think Canadians are the people who need a lesson in free speech, get a soapbox and tell us about it.
We'll try to give it full deliberation.
A few points.
First, from the post
"Just last week, a Quebec man was fined $1000 for telling one man that his traveling companion was a "fifi", a French slang term for gay.
According to the story that was linked to, "fifi" is a french word that equates to "fag". There's a bit of a difference. Nonetheless, I tend to believe it was a silly case. Frankly, the customers should have merely reported the salesman to his manager, and indicate that they would do business elsewhere.
Second, regarding John Leo's "report," much of what he "reports" should be taken with a grain of salt--if not an entire salt mine. From the quoted excerpt:
"A recent flurry of cases has mostly gone against free expression. The Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission ruled that a newspaper ad listing biblical passages that oppose homosexuality was a human-rights offense. The commission ordered the paper and Hugh Owens, the man who placed the ad, to pay $1,500 each to three gay men who objected to it."
In point of fact the ad did not just consist of a listing of biblical passages that oppose homosexuality. And the basis for the decision was not just that the ad contained biblical passages. An excerpt from an article about the case from a fairly conservative christian web site:
"The advertisement displayed references to four Bible passages: Romans 1, Leviticus 18:22, Leviticus 20:13 and 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, on the left side. An equal sign (=) was situated in the middle, with a symbol on the right side. The symbol was comprised of two males holding hands with the universal symbol of a red circle with a diagonal bar superimposed over top.
"Justice J. Barclay rejected the appeal ruling: "In my view, the Board was correct in concluding that the advertisement can objectively be seen as exposing homosexuals to hatred or ridicule. When the use of the circle and slash is combined with the passages of the Bible, it exposes homosexuals to detestation, vilification and disgrace. In other words, the Biblical passage (sic) which suggest that if a man lies with a man they must be put to death exposes homosexuals to hatred.""
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2003/feb/03021001.html
Moreover, I tend to believe that Justice Barclay was being a bit too kind to the defendant. It is not unreasonable to believe that the circle and slash could have been viewed by readers as advocating killing homosexuals--regardless of whether that was the defendant's intent. It can hardly be denied that more than a few gay people have been attacked and killed by people who believe that "the Bible tells me so." http://www.indegayforum.org/authors/varnell/varnell13.html
I also have problems with Leo's complaint regarding the suspension of the teacher, but I'll pass on that for now. The point should be obvious: don't believe everything that John Leo writes just because he has published it. I can't comment on that case that Bernstein mentions, since he apparently didn't link to a report of the case.
On a more general note regarding the point of the post, apparently more than a few countries have laws regulating speech and the press to some degree. Germany certainly does--it's referred to as a law against Volksverhetzung--at least in part in reaction to its Nazi past. The US also regulates speech and the press, as illustrated in the Supreme Court cases such as U.S. v. Schenck and U.S. v. Frohwerk as well as Beauharnais v. Illinois (opinions all available on Findlaw.com). The whole licensure scheme for broadcast spectrum and cable is clearly a regulation of speech and press.
Finally, while I generally agree with civil libertarianism, it strikes me as evident that government can establish "reasonable" time, place and manner limitations on speech, as long as those limitations are content neutral. Content neutrality was the primary basis for the 1st Circuit's affirming the Massachusetts law regarding access to womens' health/abortion clinics (to be content neutral). That's all well and good.
On the other hand, let me ask you a question, and this regards your "hate speech" issue. The law in most states currently requires children up to, say, age 16 to attend school (or otherwise get some form of instruction, for those parents who want to home school). A few years ago, a school district somewhere in north central Pennsylvania (I don't recall exactly where) wanted to issue a regulation against harassment while on school property. "Harassment was fairly broadly defined, and included harassment based on sexual orientation. A conservative christian father sued to get the regulation overturned, because, as was reported, he wanted his child to be able to tell school kids who are gay or who are perceived to be gay that they are sinners and going to hell (I'm exaggerating, but not by much) on school property and during school hours--at least between periods or while at lunch. And he claimed it was his and his child's free speech right (as well as free exercise of religion right) to do that. And he got the regulation overturned for that reason. Now, that strikes me as next to preposterous. His child has a right to harass another child by telling him that he's a sinner and going to hell? As often as his child wants to? In a school that he may be required to attend? I'm sorry, Ed, but the idea that that should be permitted is idiotic in the extreme.
According to the story that was linked to, "fifi" is a french word that equates to "fag". There's a bit of a difference. Nonetheless, I tend to believe it was a silly case. Frankly, the customers should have merely reported the salesman to his manager, and indicate that they would do business elsewhere.
A bit of irrelevant difference. Even if the guy had stood up and said, "I hate fags, I wish they'd all die", the government should have no authority to punish him for it. Yes, he's an asshole, but it's not against the law to be an asshole (except in Canada for SOME assholes), nor should it be.
Second, regarding John Leo's "report," much of what he "reports" should be taken with a grain of salt--if not an entire salt mine. From the quoted excerpt:
"A recent flurry of cases has mostly gone against free expression. The Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission ruled that a newspaper ad listing biblical passages that oppose homosexuality was a human-rights offense. The commission ordered the paper and Hugh Owens, the man who placed the ad, to pay $1,500 each to three gay men who objected to it."
In point of fact the ad did not just consist of a listing of biblical passages that oppose homosexuality. And the basis for the decision was not just that the ad contained biblical passages. An excerpt from an article about the case from a fairly conservative christian web site:
"The advertisement displayed references to four Bible passages: Romans 1, Leviticus 18:22, Leviticus 20:13 and 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, on the left side. An equal sign (=) was situated in the middle, with a symbol on the right side. The symbol was comprised of two males holding hands with the universal symbol of a red circle with a diagonal bar superimposed over top.
"Justice J. Barclay rejected the appeal ruling: "In my view, the Board was correct in concluding that the advertisement can objectively be seen as exposing homosexuals to hatred or ridicule. When the use of the circle and slash is combined with the passages of the Bible, it exposes homosexuals to detestation, vilification and disgrace. In other words, the Biblical passage (sic) which suggest that if a man lies with a man they must be put to death exposes homosexuals to hatred.""
And this one distinction means we should take it with a salt mine? Again, an utterly irrelevant point. Are you going to argue that it's illegitimate to punish someone for posting a bible verse saying gays should be put to death, but not illegitimate if they also have a "no gays" symbol on the page? That's absurd. Either way, the government has no legitimate authority to punish someone for that.
If the standard that determines when someone can be punished by the government is as vague as "subjecting an identifiable group to hatred and ridicule", there is virtually no limit to the free speech abuses that could result. If those same gay people who were offended by the ad said, "Those fundamentalist Christians are bigoted and horrible people", they would violate the exact same law in reverse. Unless of course the law is only going to say you can't offend some groups and not others, in which case you don't have equal protection. Either way, such laws are absurd and a clear violation of the principle of free speech.
On a more general note regarding the point of the post, apparently more than a few countries have laws regulating speech and the press to some degree. Germany certainly does--it's referred to as a law against Volksverhetzung--at least in part in reaction to its Nazi past.
Yes, Germany does it to a high degree, which I would make the same arguments against for the same reasons. It's an overreach of government and it is impossible to enforce consistently and without intruding the government into all sorts of personal situations in which it does not belong. Do you really want the government stepping in every time one person calls another person a jerk?
The US also regulates speech and the press, as illustrated in the Supreme Court cases such as U.S. v. Schenck and U.S. v. Frohwerk as well as Beauharnais v. Illinois (opinions all available on Findlaw.com). The whole licensure scheme for broadcast spectrum and cable is clearly a regulation of speech and press.
But none of the examples offered have anything to do with controlling the press (even in the newspaper ad example, it wasn't the newspaper that was punished, it was the individual who took out the ad). Adn there is a difference between having some degree of control over what can be broadcast on publicly owned airwaves and what can be said between individuals in different circumstances.
Finally, while I generally agree with civil libertarianism, it strikes me as evident that government can establish "reasonable" time, place and manner limitations on speech, as long as those limitations are content neutral.
But none of the situations discussed have been content neutral. All have been situations where it is the content itself that is seen as grounds for punishment.
On the other hand, let me ask you a question, and this regards your "hate speech" issue. The law in most states currently requires children up to, say, age 16 to attend school (or otherwise get some form of instruction, for those parents who want to home school). A few years ago, a school district somewhere in north central Pennsylvania (I don't recall exactly where) wanted to issue a regulation against harassment while on school property. "Harassment was fairly broadly defined, and included harassment based on sexual orientation. A conservative christian father sued to get the regulation overturned, because, as was reported, he wanted his child to be able to tell school kids who are gay or who are perceived to be gay that they are sinners and going to hell (I'm exaggerating, but not by much) on school property and during school hours--at least between periods or while at lunch. And he claimed it was his and his child's free speech right (as well as free exercise of religion right) to do that. And he got the regulation overturned for that reason. Now, that strikes me as next to preposterous. His child has a right to harass another child by telling him that he's a sinner and going to hell? As often as his child wants to? In a school that he may be required to attend? I'm sorry, Ed, but the idea that that should be permitted is idiotic in the extreme.
First, there is a different legal standard for what is allowed in a school with underage students and what is allowed between adults. The legal standard that would have to be met for a school to initiate disciplinary proceedings would be lower than the standard a judge would have to meet to initiate criminal punishment against an adult when the issue is purely a matter of speech. The problem with such harrassment rules is that they are often far too vague, and hence are open to abuse.