[W]e’ve experienced over the past eight years a profound shift in our political culture, a shift that has resulted in a significant portion of our body politic holding a five-year-old’s view of free speech. What makes this shift notable is that unlike most changes in politics, you can trace it back to one day: January 21, 2010, the day the Supreme Court issued its Citizens United ruling and restored free speech rights to millions of Americans.
For nearly 100 years up to that point, both sides of the political aisle had used campaign finance laws–I call them speech laws–to muzzle their political opponents. The Right used them to push unions out of elections. The Left used them to push corporations out of elections. These speech laws kept building and building until we got the mack daddy of them all–McCain-Feingold. It was at this point the Supreme Court said, “Enough.” A five-judge majority ruled that Congress had gone way too far in violating the Constitution’s free speech protections.
The Citizens United ruling was viewed as a blow for freedom by most on the Right, which had in recent years gotten some free speech religion, but as an unmitigated disaster by the Left. Over the decades, the Left had found it harder and harder to win policy arguments, and had come to rely more and more on these laws to muzzle political opponents. And here was the Supreme Court knocking back those laws, reopening the floodgates for non-profits and corporations to speak freely again in the public arena.
An excellent speech. She convinced me that the Left went completely “anti-free speech”-unhinged after the Citizens United ruling. The Left wanted UNIONS to continue operating as massive election voices … while restricting corporations from having a free election voice. If there is one thing the left HATES … it’s a level playing field. Because they can NEVER compete in the FREE MARKET of ideas.
kiddies 4, 5 and 6+ have been voted off the island
The current US Supreme Court is unanimously free speech as in the ruling a couple days ago where an Asian-American musical group called the Slants can register a trademark making the Washington Redskins trademark victory a slam dunk.
Canada’s Supreme Court believes in free speech a bit more than Stalin and a bit less than Hitler. And the fascist government of Canada just passed a law that it is a criminal offense to use a legally improper pronoun. Seriously – you can’t make up this shit.
I am deeply saddened by my neighboring Canadians loss of basic human freedoms. Including the freedom to simply NOT LIKE freaks, geeks, and assorted fringe nut jobs. Living one’s life according to one’s own personal beliefs (not The State’s) is … a basic HUMAN RIGHT. Forcing politically-correct behavior and belief is simply inhuman. Canada’s removal of basic human rights is equivalent North Korea’s treatment of Otto Warmbier … rendering each Canadian citizen a brain-dead Automoton of The State. Sick. I am so sorry for my Canadian friends.
PS … what happens to a visiting US citizen who calls a Tranny a dude … or plays “dude looks like a lady” on his iPod ? Will he (I) get arrested … or fined ? Will I be forced to observe ALL Canadian “law” ?
“Will I be forced to observe ALL Canadian “law?”
I suspect so but they have to catch you and once you are back home, the US government wouldn’t deport you. If you can go to jail for a pronoun, take care conjugating verbs.
Actually, Kenji, Scar has mis-characterized the penalty for using an unapproved pronoun. If you are charged you will be introduced to the benevolent Star Chambers of our Human Rights Commissions. A fate that will be far worse than dealing with the criminal justice system.
In our criminal justice system, you can perpetrate the most heinous offense and if you can keep your case out of court long enough, our SC has ruled that you must go free. The Star Chambers are forever.
Bill C-16 amends both the Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code. You can appear in a Kangaroo Court where the same people function as judge, jury, and executioner PLUS go to jail as a criminal for calling a queer an it.
“This enactment amends the Canadian Human Rights Act to add gender identity and gender expression to the list of prohibited grounds of discrimination.
The enactment also amends the Criminal Code to extend the protection against hate propaganda set out in that Act to any section of the public that is distinguished by gender identity or expression and to clearly set out that evidence that an offence was motivated by bias, prejudice or hate based on gender identity or expression constitutes an aggravating circumstance that a court must take into consideration when it imposes a sentence.”
If someone “mis-names” such an individual, they’d be committing a criminal act if they were conservative and engaging in civil disobedience if they were socialist.
So then, the “Human Rights Act” gets amended to violate the Human Rights of “normals” who refuse to play along with someone’s gender (sex) game ? Right then … the leftists have gone completely out of control. No Tranny is … “born that way”. Sorry Lady GaGa … that’s just CaCa !
>No Tranny is … “born that way”.
Homos aren’t “born that way” either. Until it is proven that they are born that way(and it isn’t proven) then continually restating such does not make it a fact no matter how shrill or strenuously they keep restating it.
If it isn’t a fact(and it isn’t) then it is an article of faith and that means it is a tenet of a religion.
I already have a religion. I shall not be honoring or practicing someone else’s religion or tenets thereof.
This freedom of faith was created in me by my God and no man can rescind or override it.
Oz … I am on board with you 100%. The Human Genome Project should have easily identifed the “gay” gene. But the funny thing is … is that the “gay community” doesn’t want to find a gay gene. Because the isolation of such a gene would mean that parents could test their fetus and then ABORT the “gay” lumps of tissue (their terms … not mine). I am not convinced that there is any such thing as a gay gene … or that the the many aberrant, deviant, mutant, behaviors are in any way … normal.
Does that mean I would HATE or DISCRIMINATE against such people ? No. I don’t prey on the weak … and the he/she she/he pre-op and post-ops … are weak, and confused, and troubled. I treat them with the same compassion I give to cancer patients. I pray for their recovery. I pray for Bruce Jenner. I pray that he leave that FREAK SHOW of a sinful “family”. I pray that he recover the manhood that he once had.
Forcing ME to accept their deviancy by using their “preferred” pronoun is as absurd as ME forcing everyone to call me “His Majesty”. That would be INSANE, arrogant, and idiotic. Bruce Jenner will always be Bruce to me. Sorry. Born a man. No amount hairspray will ever alter that FACT.
So a once great Country is now to be dragged down to 3rd world status because it is being led by leftist morons. All because the head moron in charge cannot wait to be granted an exalted personification { pat on the head } by the socialists at the UN.So lets erase our cultural heritage and throw the borders open to every 7th century motivated terrorist or any other anarchist looking for a free ride.
Freedom of speech is in dire straits in Canada, especially after the Supreme Court’s horrendous Whatcott ruling in 2013.
Election speech fares no better. In Libman in 1997, the Supreme Court managed to find an excuse to strike down aspects of Quebec’s totalitarian referendum law but only after essentially praising it to the skies. Then there was Harper in 2004, which hammered the last nails into the coffin.
None of the “fundamental freedoms” in Section 2 of the Charter of Rights are worth the paper they’re printed on after the Supreme Court’s malevolent misinterpretation of most of them over the years.