Free-Speech Discrimination

Oh, what a sticky web we weave when oppositional ideologies each claim to represent the best interests of free speech and who exactly may practise it.

Students at the University of Western Ontario take it upon themselves to vet the suitability of a well-respected news reporter who has published several books to great acclaim, refusing her a speaking platform, although the university invited her. Christie Blatchford's message, that the country's laws stop at the intersection of the public weal and aboriginal will, has not been well received by the liberal-left, that noisy and aggressive agglomerate.

Yet George Galloway whose divisively astringent message of detestation for democracy and love affair with Islamism and those exemplars of paranoid hatred whose goal is to violently uproot every vestige of civilized democracy is heralded as one with a vital message that Canadians should be force-fed. In the interests of free speech, the voices on the left and the right should be heard. As despicable as his hate-fest is, we only end up with a frenzy of support for him and free publicity, in denying him entry to the country.

Universities are meant to be open-minded places of enquiry that stimulate the cerebral functions of those who attend them. There will always be cabals and factions that are at odds with the values of any society, and most particularly when they are part of an imported culture whose values do not mesh with ours. When they observe the laws of the country and desist from fomenting hatred and the potential for violence they are free to demonstrate their biases. Unfortunately, the left hold on university campuses weights the scale toward celebrating the critical mass of their biases.

We've put ourselves in a fraught situation when we antagonize one another and oppose one another even when we believe we have due cause. It is agonizingly difficult to grit one's teeth and stand aside when groups or individuals whose ideologies represent ideals and values that certainly insult the very basis of egalitarianism and freedoms that represent the foundation of our social mores and values are given free rein to bellow their offensive hyperbole. In the interests of fairness no sanctimonious left-wing groups should be allowed to shut down free speech.

We do have the fall-back of laws that can be counted upon to hold to account those who overstep the boundaries of acceptable behaviour. We should not countenance the rigorously hateful attempts of those who resist the rights of people to speak honestly and forthrightly about what they believe in - without resorting to hate-mongering and societal divisions and covert attempts to overturn the order of a just democracy. Yet that seems precisely what university groups are engaged with in their earnestly juvenile embrace of political correctness.

Carleton University's student association, in banning the the student group Carleton Lifeline has overstepped the boundaries of constructive criticism in favour of outright censorship. The university administration found fault with disturbingly offensive graphic anti-abortion posters set up by a pro-choice campus group, and dealt with it by allocating an alternate space for the demonstration, one which the anti-abortion group refused.

Their sin was to overstep the boundaries of acceptable protest by exposing passersby to shocking images, and by blatantly comparing abortion to the Holocaust, a deeply disturbing association.
They may believe there is reason to compare the two, but their cavalier trivialization of the deliberate planned large-scale deaths of living children, their mothers and fathers does not quite fit the standard for comparison.

It is clearly wrong for CUSA to have taken the step of unilaterally and high-handedly neutering, "disqualifying" the pro-life campus group from further representation unless they embrace "pro-choice". This represents the actions of a dictator, presuming to force upon recalcitrant groups a value they cannot embrace. So when Ruth Lobo, president of Carleton Lifeline claimed "It's very ironic that they have a discrimination policy that allows them to discriminate against pro-life groups", she was quite correct.

And her further statement, "Pro choice should also mean that a woman has the right to not have an abortion, so I think CUSA is being anti-choice by not allowing people to hear the other side", hits the mark. Mature, well-adjusted minds should be prepared to allow that those with opposing views have a right in a democracy to state those views. On the other hand, the sensitivities and sensibilities of others, and their right not to be confronted by a violent message that affronts them should be respected.

And the Human Rights Councils in this country have given effective encouragement to rabidly insistent disaffected groups and individuals who insist it is their right to close down the free speech entitlements of those whose message they personally deplore. In the process further radicalizing those who bring suits to them, and diminishing the freedoms we should all be intent on protecting.

They have themselves behaved dictatorially, forcing upon people what the Councils construe as fair and just decisions. In the process upholding the rights of discriminatory persecution in the perniciously inaccurate guise of reflecting the values of the country.