I’m republishing this piece by the late George Jonas from April 02, 2008 – because it’s even more relevant today.
My misgivings about hate-speech legislation and Human Rights Commissions go back to 1977. In those days such laws seemed progressive. Only a few considered that compelling liberalism may be illiberal.
In time, second thoughts and questions emerged. A National Post editorial published in January, 1999, viewed Canada’s hate-speech legislation as “potentially sinister” whose proposed new provisions “could be put to authoritarian and illiberal purposes.” I wrote that hate-speech laws were sinister by definition and could only be put to illiberal purposes.
Certainly John Stuart Mill thought so. He phrased his objection rather forcefully 150 years ago: “The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it… We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavouring to stifle is a false opinion; and even if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.”
What is “hate-speech”? It’s speech the authorities hate. No doubt, it is often worth hating. It may be speech that every right-thinking person ought to hate, but it is also, by definition, speech that falls short of unlawful or tortuous speech — i.e., speech that’s fraudulent, defamatory, seditious, conspiratorial — for which a person could be either sued or charged criminally. Hate-speech legislation seeks to regulate speech that is not against any law — logically, since unlawful speech doesn’t need to be outlawed.
Here’s the paradox. Hate-speech legislation can only ban free speech. Prohibited speech is already banned.
People often say that freedoms aren’t absolutes and they’re right. Free expression is anything but “absolute” in free societies. It’s hemmed in by strictures against slander, official secrets, perjury, fraud, incitement to riot, and so on. The question is, should laws go beyond these strictures? And if they do, won’t they suppress opinion and creed in the end? The answer is yes. There is nothing else for them to suppress.
Repressive positions are difficult to defend for those who wish to keep their liberal credentials intact. They usually do so by quoting bits of pernicious nonsense from the kind of speech they would ban to illustrate how worthless and abhorrent it is. But pointing to the abhorrent nature of despised speech is insufficient because no speech is legislated against unless it’s abhorrent to some. Nobody outlaws Mary Poppins, not even the Human Rights Commissions (though this could be famous last words).
If suppressing opinion breaches axioms of liberalism, can it be justified by utility? Canadian defenders of hate-speech laws rarely offer any examples, other than the dubious benefit of distinguishing ourselves from Americans (one Human Rights-type called free speech an American concept in a recent court case) but one suggestion is that such laws would have stopped a Hitler.
The problem is, the Weimar Republic had such laws. It used them freely against the Nazis. Far from stopping Hitler, they only made his day when he became Chancellor. They enabled Hitler to confront Social Democratic Party chairman Otto Wels, who stood up in the Reichstag to protest Nazi suspension of civil liberties, with a quotation from the poet Friedrich Schiller:
“‘Late you come, but still you come,'” Hitler pointed at the hapless deputy. “You should have recognized the value of criticism during the years we were in opposition [when] our press was forbidden, our meetings were forbidden, and we were forbidden to speak for years on end.”
The Nazis would have been just as repressive without this excuse, but being able to offer it made Hitler’s task easier. Like Canadian supporters of hate-speech legislation, supporters of the Weimar Republic thought that their groups and causes would occupy all seats of authority and set all social and legal agendas forever. Shades of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association or the Canadian Jewish Congress! They couldn’t envisage the guns of their own laws being turned around to point at them one day.
Eradicating hateful ideas through free discourse is liberal; trying to eradicate them through legislation is illiberal. “There is always a chance that he who sets himself up as his brother’s keeper,” wrote Eric Hoffer, “will end up by being his jail keeper.”
Another thing: “Banned in Boston” sells tickets. As Victor Hugo put it: “The writer doubles and trebles the power of his writing when a ruler imposes silence on the people.” I’d think twice before banning neo-Nazis for this reason alone.
Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris, Tim Walz and John Kerry disagree. I often feel Canada and Canadians don’t (didn’t) deserve people like George when nobody is capable of putting politics aside from epistemological and altruist arguments about free speech.
Redplop
You missed one name, Kate, as I still can’t use my log in name NME666. So the right side is just the same as the left side, approved speech only!
The erudite and courtly George Jonas would have been perfect as a CBC board member. Way too smart and experienced in real life for any of their normal sneering to take hold, and maybe — if anyone could — able to break through the CBC group-think and convert a couple. We lost him much too soon.
Jonas was with the CBC. He, like Rex Murphy, were really not welcome there.
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/george-jonas
Yes. The problems with making speech you don’t like a criminal offense is that malicious politicians across the political spectrum could abuse the power. Other legislation the Trudeau government has passed are equally open to abuse and could turn around and bite progressive in the ass:
– accrediting only politically friendly media and then funding them with taxpayer money.
– criminalizing the free speech of energy and other industries that they hate.
– weaponizing the legal system and police against political enemies
– setting up human rights commissions that don’t provide proper due process and can financially ruin the defendants
If conservatives are as half as evil as progressives assume they why are the progressives setting up systems that could be used against progressives once they lose power. Short term thinking, blind arrogance and zero understanding of human nature, I guess. Legitimizing the abuse of government power is dangerous as well as stupid.
“If conservatives are as half as evil as progressives assume they why are the progressives setting up systems that could be used against progressives once they lose power.”
Because at this point in the game, they are not planning on giving up power. Many of them are cognizant of their extra-legal machinations but pursued them regardless. They have thus ramped up the gaslighting about “threats to democracy”, “misinformation”, and fascism. It’s also why they haven’t pivoted away from implementing policies and enacting laws that are clearly unpopular and contrary to the spirit of western societies.
Because for Lieberals…history starts every morning.
I too think that they are arrogant enough to believe (faith not reason) that they will never lose power. This goes against the entire political history of western culture but they seem sure it’ll be different this time.
Communism and Authoritarianism rebranded as Liberalism in a George Orwell manner.
Bernie Faber and the CJC wanted me to sign a petition for Hate Speech laws to be enacted. I told him he could cut his own throat by himself. One day, Mr. Faber or successive operators of the CJC will be prosecuted for hate speech just by complaining about Islamic Terrorism against Judaism. I, and others, will remind him that he asked for it and got it. Good. And. Hard.
The Hitler story is appropriate.
Progressives tend to support laws against hate speech, but rarely consider how useful restricting speech is to the tyrant. They seem to think that the government will at all time be benevolent, at least towards them. But even a cursory examination of history makes a mockery of that assumption.
Misinformation is the latest addition to the laundry list of speech that certain parties would like to see banned. The Winnipeg Free Press ran an editorial on Saturday proposing that we adopt a law prohibiting “deception” by political leaders with the penalty being removal from office. As an example of deception, they cited Trump’s statement that a rally of his had “the largest crowd ever”. If that becomes the standard for prosecution, then no sane person would ever bother with the risks of running for office, and we’d soon have an outright dictatorship. I presume that’s the real goal in any event.
https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/editorials/2024/10/05/if-you-cant-tell-the-truth-lose-the-job
“The Winnipeg Free Press” is an Orwellian moniker if there ever was one.
Lets apply that for a decade against the Winnipeg “Free” Press first.
It is almost as if they never learn, isn’t it?
One little election and the whole, vast apparatus of the State speech control establishment could ban the speech of socialists and their allies. Completely. Gone, poof.
Impossible! This is Canada, you tinfoil hat weirdo, that could never happen! Well, YOU did it to us, why -wouldn’t- we do it to you?
Regarding the Mary Poppins comment: that movie now contains a warning due to the use of the word “Hottentot”.
Hasn’t been banned.
Yet
Given the nature of the “English language” censorship and banning is futile.
The urge to censor and ban,is however most informative.
Small needy people,who cannot convince productive person,as to the wisdom of their ways..always seek to use the fo rce of government to impose ,what they cannot sell.
If a minion seeks to silence,the number one reason,is that truth will reveal their stealing..
hence,in Can Ahh Duh..”Truth is NOT a defence in a Human Rights Tribunal setting..
Cause truth would reveal the thieves and extortionists,infesting this malignant bureaucracy.
Just as it would fo rce the minions of The Just Us System to step out of the shadows.
So let these parasites ban their little words..this will focus attention upon the things they do so fear discussing,while failing to silence anyone..For there are so many ways of calling a parasite a parasite..
Some of them so comforting,that the parasites never even realizes..
“We are from the government.We are here to help”.
You…” into servitude and penury”, being the unspoken part of that sentence.
As a benefit of the strangulation of speech and the closure of these soft methods of resolving different points of view,will be the rise of “Kinetic Conversations”.
For when you know that words will see you threatened with imprisonment,what will you have to loose?
“Don’t cut the rattle off the rattlesnake. Limits on free speech are more dangerous for you than they are for the snakes” – Robert F, Graboyes
Almost all of the national and federal human rights commissions spend most of their time hearing and documenting fa ke abuses about trivial discourse that most normal people simply brush off.
Pierre Trudeau and his flic king charter of rights are not gone enough.
Bonus for lawyers, who have the most to gain.
We have had ha te speech laws for decades, but no one uses them.
I miss George.
Me too. And Rex and Ronnie. And Ken Kulak.
– “The problem is, the Weimar Republic had such laws. It used them freely against the Nazis.”
That’s what the problem was. The problem nowadays is that western governments defend the speech of the modern equivalent of Nazis (Islamics) whilst crushing the speech of those who speak out against these new monsters (importing more and more monsters along the way, of course).
Just ask Assange…..where this goes.
Trump better choose well next time around.
https://youtu.be/Aj0pD5k9uLw
I was thinking of cutting and pasting that article into an email and sending it off to the Liberals that I know.
But then I realized that the essay had many big words and no pictures.