Danish cartoon aftermath – the attack on free speech continues

Posted on March 28, 2009 by Daniel Keyes

Following my most recent post, a reader (my dad) directed me to this story.

Tragicomic irony as the United Nations Human Rights Commission urges laws banning free speech. You guessed it … it’s a Motoons thing, pushed by Pakistan and other Muslim nations, horrified that the publication of a cartoon in Denmark forced thousands of Muslims to burn cars, Danish flags and consular buildings and in a couple of cases, to kill each other.

GENEVA (AP) — The U.N.’s top human-rights body approved a proposal by Muslims nations Thursday urging passage of laws around the world to protect religion from criticism.

The proposal put forward by Pakistan on behalf of Islamic countries — with the backing of Belarus and Venezuela — had drawn strong criticism from free-speech campaigners and liberal democracies.

Free speech, apparently no longer a human right.

As I wrote in my previous post, while the Danish cartoon scandal is old news, the true battle rages on – the battle of free speech, and freedom in general. And as the cartoons were used as ammunition in the battle against free speech during the scandal, the scandal itself continues to be used as ammunition today.

A democratic society depends on the ability of its citizens to openly exchange, debate and criticize ideas. The United Nations wants religion protected from that criticism. It’s an attack on freedom and an attack on our democratic society. While the danger of offence resulting in violence is real (we’ve seen what happens when a group gets offended by some cartoons,) it’s much more dangerous for society if we allow ideas to go unchallenged.

Here’s the original story Jules Crittenden was quoting from in his blog entry.

Update:

I didn’t post the cartoons because I figured they were accessible enough. But, as requested, here’s a link to the cartoons that caused so much commotion.

Ezra Levant on the new human right – the right not to be offended

Posted on March 26, 2009 by Daniel Keyes

I accept no man’s authority to approve or disapprove my right to publish something.

Hear, hear!

While the Danish cartoon debate is old news, the free speech debate is as relevant as ever. In light of the release of Levant’s new book, Shakedown, I decided I’d share an essay I wrote on this subject for my “Language of Persuasion” class about a year ago. In the paper, I defend the thesis that the Danish cartoon riots were not about cartoons at all – Muslim fundamentalists used them to fuel outrage and create fear, which became a powerful tool in an organized effort to attack free speech, and the Western media submitted to that fear. Levant was one of the few who did not, and he was taken to the human rights tribunal for it.

Read it here: Terror as a persuasive medium in the attack on free speech

The Danish cartoon scandal was not about cartoons at all. It was about the freedom of speech. The riots were an organized campaign designed to silence any criticism of fundamentalist Islam and it managed to strike fear in the hearts of the Western media. Fear prevailed over the freedom of speech during that violent time. But the battle is far from over. If the Media realizes that submitting to fear will only encourage more violence the next time someone speaks out, and if they approach sensitive issues with more courage the next time, free speech will reign once again.

Big brother’s watching…

Posted on March 25, 2009 by Daniel Keyes

At least, he’s got plans for our friends in Britain.

LONDON — Social networking websites like Facebook could be forced to pass on details of users’ friends and contacts under British government proposals to fight terrorism.

Millions of Britons use sites like Facebook, Bebo and MySpace to chat with friends, but ministers are concerned the rapidly evolving technology could be exploited by extremists.

Critics have attacked the plans as more evidence of big government intruding into people’s lives.

Your tax dollars at work.

Posted on March 23, 2009 by Daniel Keyes

And how will this help the homless? You’ll have to ask David Miller that one.

The city is giving $100 pre-paid Visa cards to people who agree to pretend they’re homeless when Toronto conducts its needs assessment of those without shelter.

In an e-mail sent out last week to different social agencies and individuals, city employee Monica Waldman said they are looking for “tons” of people to sign up to be “decoys” on April 15, the night scheduled for the city’s second homeless head count.

“Decoys are essentially ‘faux’ homeless people for quality assurance purposes in this research,” she wrote. “As a decoy, you would need to come to a 30-minute training session and then be deployed to various sites throughout the city where you will wait to be approached by the research volunteers.”

Uniting for freedom

Posted on March 21, 2009 by Daniel Keyes

When discussing politics, we – that is, society in general and the mainstream media – tend to talk in partisan terms. You’re either a Liberal or a Conservative. We root for our team, and waive our flag as we sling mud at the other team. It works the same in government – just watch question period. Instead of keeping their head in the game, politicians take part in the chanting and taunting coming from the stands. The media reports on the partisan attacks, rather than the issues that separate the parties, and public discourse follows. It’s a vicious cycle.

As politicians jockey for higher rankings in the polls, some people are left wondering “who’s standing up for the issues? who’s standing up for freedom?” Well, it’s up to us. We can continue waiving our banners in the stands, or we can get up, get engaged and behind those politicians whose priorities lie with the issues, instead of the team they play for in this game our political system has turned into. We need to get to know our candidates instead of blindly voting for the team they represent. Because the issue of freedom doesn’t fit neatly into any one party.

But, as Ron Paul has discovered, freedom has the power to unite when you put partisanship aside. In his book, The Revolution: A Manifsto, he writes:

By the end of 2007, more than twice as many Meetup groups had been formed in support of our campaign than for all the rest of the candidates in both major parties combined. I have never seen such a diverse coalition rallying to a single banner. Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Greens, constitutionalists, whites, blacks, Hispanics, Asian-Americans, antiwar activists, home-schoolers, religious conservatives, freethinkers – all were not only involved, but enthusiastically so. And despite their philosophical differences in some areas, these folks typically found, to their surprise, that they rather liked each other.

The mainstream media had no idea what to make of it, since we were breaking all the rules and yet still attracting such a varied and passionate following. I began making this a central point of my public speeches: the reason all these different groups are rallying to the same banner, I said, is that freedom has a unique power to unite us.

In case that sounds like a cliché, it isn’t. It’s common sense. When we agree not to treat each other merely as a means to our own selfish ends, but to respect one another as individuals with rights and goals of our own, cooperation and goodwill suddenly become possible for the first time.

And that’s what needs to start happening here in Canada. There’s more to politics than partisanship.