Posted on 06/13/2008 7:05:04 AM PDT by The Pack Knight
VANCOUVER, British Columbia — 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 do not say every day without fear of legal reprisal.
The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal will soon rule on whether the cover story of the October 23, 2006, issue of Maclean’s magazine violated a provincial hate speech law.
"The First Amendment is a gift, like the article says, that nobody else has. Once you start making exceptions, it will never stop."
Things are different here. The magazine is on trial.
Two members of the Canadian Islamic Congress say the magazine, Maclean’s, Canada’s leading newsweekly, violated a provincial hate speech law by stirring up hatred against Muslims. They say the magazine should be forbidden from saying similar things, forced to publish a rebuttal and made to compensate Muslims for injuring their “dignity, feelings and self-respect.”
The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal, which held five days of hearings on those questions here last week, will soon rule on whether Maclean’s violated the law. As spectators lined up for the afternoon session last week, an argument broke out.
“It’s hate speech!” yelled one man.
“It’s free speech!” yelled another.
In the United States, that debate has been settled. Under the First Amendment, newspapers and magazines can say what they like about minorities and religions — even false, provocative or hateful things — without legal consequence.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
In this entry, he examines how speech which is criminalized as "hate speech" in most of the West is protected by the First Amendment in the United States. Now, I'll leave it to you, the reader, to determine which model the author, as well as the NY Times editorial board, prefers. Suffice it to say, however, that when the NY Times contrasts the US with Western Europe and Canada on an issue, it's typically not meant as a compliment to the US.
Perhaps not so ironically, the article which McLeans was being prosecuted for is an excerpt from "America Alone" by Mark Steyn.
I guess there is a difference between being a subject and a citizen.
Related threads:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2030546/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2030546/posts
The article first appeared in the Intl. Herald Tribune (yesterday), which is the overseas print of the NYT.
Sorry - posted the same thread twice.
Here’s the other:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2029833/posts
There is not much left of the US Constitution or the Amendments.
Very Sad!
If we lose the Bill of Rights, we all mind as well pack it up and go home. Totalitarianism is the next step and it will happen very quickly!
JoMa
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