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Canadian Hate-Speech Law Violates Charter of Rights
MrKevvy writes "The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal has found that federal hate-speech legislation violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the equivalent of the US Constitution's Bill of Rights. This decision exonerates Marc Lemire, webmaster of FreedomSite.org, but may have farther-reaching consequences and serve as precedent for future complaints of hate-speech."
It is a very slippery slope when defining what is hate-speech, and what is just parlance/slang. Even though my above statements could be construed as ignorant or hurtful, they can only be classified as hate-speech if they are delivered with the intent to hurt.
What the fuck is so harmful about speech delivered with the "intent to hurt"? Are people really so thin-skinned that they need protection from being called bad names? Please tell me that I'm not the only one that's sick of this politically correct nonsense.
Call me all the bad names you want. If you want to go the racial route you can call me a kike, kraut, polack, limey or mutt (probably your best bet). If you want to go the non-racial route you can call me fatty, geek, pimple-head, etc. None of those things are going to make me run crying to the police for protection from you.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
>>>Hate speech, especially published hate speech, serves no purpose other than to degrade, criminalize or deter a particular person, race, or gender.
Oh really? During the 1790s several Americans who criticized the John Adam's presidency were called a "hate speakers". Well they didn't have that term then, preferring to call it "seditious speech", but it was the equivalent - they labeled those criticisms as having no purpose and therefore people were jailed for exercising their opinions, including Benjamin's Franklin's grandson.
If you give government power to stop hate speech (or seditious speech), then you give government the power to stop ANY speech that they don't like - such as saying Bush's War is bogus (hello jail) or Obama's Healthcare is monopoly (hello jail again). The Democratic Party was born when Jefferson and others decided to take power and reverse the Sedition Act.
I find it ironic that the same party is now trying to restore the Sedition Act - a different name but still the same effect.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
AC as I modded some. Just got a year suspension for using the word mentally retarded in class and then arguing with a couple of ignorant classmates who said I could not say the words mentally retarded. In a Human Services class dealing with case management, and the 4th chapter of our textbook is titled, "The Mentally Retarded". Go figure that one out, because I sure fucking can't.
If people are trying to have a civil conversation at a townhall or a speaking event, and someone attempts to drown out views they don't like through screaming, then the police should remove them. If the police won't remove them, then the police are morally responsible for any violence that the other people there visit on the censorious assholes who want to shut down others' comments.
The people who do this sort of thing (shouting down different points of view) are a significantly greater enemy to civilization and freedom than anyone who clocks them upside the head for being an asshole. People like that are just bourgeois brownshirts.
"you made your post in English."
You say that like it's a good thing. Let us all be grateful for these linguistic abortions:
1) The bandage was wound around the wound.
2) The farm was used to produce produce .
3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse ..
4) We must polish the Polish furniture.
5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time
to present the present.
8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13) They were too close to the door to close it.
14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br