…the very nature of the right to free speech is that they get to say it. Then, the rest of us get to argue with them, denounce their views, call it drivel — basically, joust with words.
But, instead, now folks go racing to human rights commissions and say, “I’m offended.”
…we may all have a right to free speech, but no one has a right to be published in the newspaper. A free press means that the folks who own and publish and edit the press get to back those decisions.
…The hate speech provisions create an incentive to bring a complaint, so that you can actually then attract attention to your claim that something is offensive.
Sorry, but this is crazy.
Ezra Levant comments:
I like moral support in the war against censorship from my conservative friends. But I must admit that I like it even more from left-wingers who, like Xtra’s colunnist, think my views are “drivel”. Because that’s the point here: no-one needs political or legal support to say bland, inoffensive things that everyone agrees with. It’s those things that cause divisions that are prone to censorship. For those on the other side of the political divide to support my freedom of speech, despite their own political tastes, is an act of principle that I admire.
