Posted on 06/12/2008 12:32:34 AM PDT by Bushwacker777
" A couple of years ago, a Canadian magazine published an article arguing that the rise of Islam threatened Western values. The article's tone was mocking and biting, but it said nothing that conservative magazines and blogs in the United States did not say every day without fear of legal reprisal.
Things are different here. The magazine is on trial.
...
Some prominent legal scholars say the United States should reconsider its position on hate speech.
"It is not clear to me that the Europeans are mistaken," Jeremy Waldron, a legal philosopher, wrote in The New York Review of Books last month, "when they say that a liberal democracy must take affirmative responsibility for protecting the atmosphere of mutual respect against certain forms of vicious attack.""
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
I am not surprised that a lawyer wants more laws against “hate speech.” It is a direct attack on freedom of speech, which has never been a strong tradition in Europe.
A lawsuit has been served against our Canadian sister site, Free Dominion-- click the picture:
While it is primarily about the multiple lawsuits brought against our Canadian sister site, this "click the picture" post has also everything I could find about the CHRC, Levant, Steyn, and much, much more:
I think Waldron and others are just setting up straw men anyway. One has to except that what was written in Canada was hate speech in the first place. If it is indeed, Hate Speech in Canada then it is obvious that voicing an opinion is Hate Speech. That is what I got from the recent cases in Canada.
Hate Speech would be like, “Kill the Infidels”, “Slay the unbelievers where you find them”. That is hate Speech. Steyn just offered and opinion, a wake-up call to the West. It appears as thought they are still fast asleep.
I always remember a famous on-air encounter between Steve Dahl and an irate caller, back in his “Disco Demolition” heyday. He had awarded a prize to some young lass entitling her to attend a concert with Dahl and his on-air partner, Garry Meier, when the father intervened. To a background of Dahl’s chuckling, he proclaimed, “I wouldn’t let my daughter go to a concert with you or your sidekick for all the tea in China, buddy.” He then proceeded to lecture Dahl,”You know the First Amendment doesn’t give you the right to say anything you want to.”
Dahl at this point managed to reply, “I thought it did.”
“Ohhhhhh no! Ohhhhhh no!” said the irate father.
... it’s seared in my memory.
“Wonder what Obama feels about Mr. Waldron’s viewpoint.”
I can say that were Mr. Waldon’s wonderings ever to come into fruition here in the US, it would be time to turn to the words of Thomas Jefferson and bring them upon Washington, DC. Namely:
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants”
I don’t say that lightly. Matter of factly, I think it’s the first time I’ve ever said it and meant it. However, a crushing blow to freedom such as that should not be tolerated. Ever.
bkmark
“when they say that a liberal democracy must take affirmative responsibility for protecting the atmosphere of mutual respect against certain forms of vicious attack.”
He could have been more accurate, or more honest, and just said being forced to accept that which you find morally unacceptable. Mutual respect, my ass.
More ways in which multiculturalism is coming to fruition. When you pretend that all cultures are equally valid, it only follows that one cannot judge or criticize the other. The culture which created a particular society or nation cannot even critize newcomers whose beliefs are in direct contradiction with the values held by the host society.
Celebrate Diversity!
And there will be no shortage of Western fools to defend the newcomers whose values contradict the host nation’s values, and whose values could never have created the societies they chose to immigrate to.
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