Censorship

[August1991]

Warren Kinsella is back blogging about this:

A couple of conservative bloggers - who claim they favour free speech, but generally only when it comes to defaming minorities - want to know my opinion about Ezra Levant's valiant struggle to defend those infamous anti-Islam cartoons. I've written about Ezra's inconsistent approach to limitations on the speech in the recent past. (Others, too. And here.)

So here's my take on the cartoons controversy, based on something I wrote back in February 2006, as I sat in the stands at one of my daughter's hockey games, watching little girls from every conceivable ethnicity play (well).

[see above.]

I say that as someone who is a member of the board of the Canada Israel Committee, an organization never hesitant to oppose hateful expression emanating from Muslims and Christians (there are many, and they stretch back centuries).

I say that, too, as the same guy who used a Barney doll and a joke - the "Flintstones is not a documentary" line - during the 2000 Canadian election campaign. (I did so because Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day had repeatedly stated that his religious beliefs had, and would, inform his political beliefs. And because Canadian voters were therefore entitled, at that moment, to fully consider the ramifications of faith-based politics, as Day was then seeking the highest political office in the land. I note, without irony, that the Barney stunt has led to calls for me to be excommunicated and/or sued - in Ezra's former publication, the Western Standard.)

After that campaign, conservative writer Claire Hoy had written something about me, so I invited him to lunch. He showed up, and we had a great lunch and a great debate about censorship. Hoy told me he objected to hate laws, which is something a lot of conservatives apparently believe.

So I asked Claire this: "Don't you think there is a difference between a young guy painting a happy face on his school wall - and a skinhead who paints a swastika, and the words 'DEATH TO THE JEWS' on the front of a synagogue? Isn't there a qualitative difference between one action, and the other? Hate laws are designed to address that difference, aren't they?"

There is indeed a difference between an act of mischief, and an expression of hatred. And that's my point, here. Certain words and images can cause actual fear and pain and hate.

In early 2006, at a band practice, we were talking about another Toronto punk group, called - and I'm not making this up - Tit Fuck Me Jesus.

I'm a church-going Catholic, and that band's name doesn't offend me in the slightest. Nor the stuff found on the covers of Black Flag records, nor the songs by my beloved Bad Religion.

But that's just me. And I can certainly see how someone else could be offended - really and truly hurt - by something like a band called Tit Fuck Me Jesus. And, just because I'm okay with that, doesn't mean that someone else has to be.

That's pretty much where I end up on the cartoons that depict Islam's prophet as a murderer. You might not find such things hateful or even hurtful, but many others do. Deeply, truly, honestly.

And, when all is said and done, what Muslims seek from the rest of us is not anything we do not already seek from them. Which is, mainly, a modicum of respect for the things they hold closest to their hearts.

I say they deserve that respect. And, if that makes me a censor, I'll wear that insult with pride.

Link

Kinsella's a pretzel. No logic except the tactics of winning.

[Moxie]

In other words, he believes that his opinion, and his opinion alone, should govern what is "right and proper."

I suspect that if, say, Stockwell Day became a "censor" and began declaring much of Kinsella's expression to be outside the bounds of "reasonable and proper limits on human expression," Kinsella would be screaming bloody murder.

God, I hate small-minded government activist statists who want to take our freedoms away to satisfy some political agenda of their own. They make themselves into gods who deign from on high what "is or is not acceptable," and would never subject themselves to others' assessments of their own expression, behaviour or activities. They are hypocrites of the highest order and profoundly dangerous to free and democratic societies.

Thankyou I feel the same way.

For the detractors of Political Islam what do you think organizations such as CAIR represent? Political arms of Islam to further their aim of Islamifying democratic countries. England now MAKES nurses turn hospital beds towards Mecca five times aday and they were ordered not to administer medical aide during prayer time because it's disrepectful to Islam. Non-Muslim women being denied medical treatment in the name of tolerance. Political Islam is growing faster than I can absorb, under the guise of reasonable tolerance and accomadation they are killing British culture with the socialist goberments blessing.

Wahhabi Islam is a man made cult that was invented in Saudi Arabia, this form of Islam is being forced on other races and cultures such as Africians, Afghanies, Iranians, Iraqies, Lebanon, etc. The Arab's version of Islam is the form of Islam that is creating global violence and mayham. It is spread by violence and demonic men such as the mad leader of Iran and the Sudan. To state that Arab culture isn't being forced on non-Arabs is absurb.

Edited January 16, 2008 by Charles Anthony
corrected quotation formatting

[Wilber]

August 1991

Even if one agrees with hate censorship as a restriction on freedom of speech, there is no way that any of these cartoons can be construed as direct incitement to violence. If they are, then we have a whole new definition of hate literature.

Ironically, even though some found them offensive, the cartoons were a condemnation of violence by a particular group. Our noble media's response was to back away from printing them because of further violence by those who would excuse or even support that same group.

The purpose of a Human Rights Tribunal is to stick up for those who's rights have been violated. If they are going to stick their nose into these situations it follows that there must be a "right not to be offended".

The concept is reminiscent of the Inquisition.