As we proceed at warp speed to the world of the absurd, how long can it be until we're imprisoning people for offensive speech, or more to the point, speech that is perceived offensive? And who gets to decide? It's one thing to have rules, even laws, that people shouldn't call a gay man a faggot, a black man a nigga, without having some censorship consequences. It's quite another to start bringing criminal charges with government imposed fines. It's easy enough to see the next step is imprisonment and the speech crimes expanded to anything and everything the lunatic fringe deems offensive. Won't be long referring to a man as Mr., a woman as Mrs. or Miss, a married couple as parents, will have you in a jail cell.
Criticize your own daughter for undergoing hormone replacement at just 14 years old. Well that's a jailing and fine. Welcome to Canada. Don’t be deceived, Canada is awful https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/don-t-be-deceived-canada-is-awful/ar-AALp9I6 Though comparisons to George Orwell’s work have come to border on platitude, they are apt in the case of Canada. Illiberalism has spread through its great northern expanses, perhaps ironically, via fiat from its duly elected (often liberal) governments. The decline of liberty in the great white north ought to serve as a warning to people in the United States of what is to come should we fail to quell the flames of progressivism within our borders. While this may appear to be a harsh charge to levy against the seemingly tranquil nation of syrup jockeys and overly apologetic forest dwellers, the state of freedom in Canada is quite dire. Protections that many Americans take for granted simply do not exist in Canada. Worst of all, government infringements on human autonomy are often electorally endorsed by the Canadian people, to whom such things apply. In the most recent iteration of this phenomenon, the liberal coalition of Canada's lower house pushed through a piece of legislation that would criminalize the online speech of its constituents if judged to be hateful. Though its architects purport that it only prohibits “the most egregious and clear forms of hate speech,” the lack of an objective definition for "hate speech" essentially provides a blank check for governments to quash dissidents. Daring to say something the Canadian government deems hateful would cost an individual over $16,000 in fines for his or her first offense and more than $40,000 for subsequent ones. If you think the self-censorship caused by social pressure in the U.S. is bad, imagine how much worse it would be if one’s finances could be utterly destroyed for engaging in wrongthink. Canada’s descent into liberal authoritarianism extends well beyond its open hostility to free expression. Up north, you can be thrown in jail if you disagree with the state’s assessment of your child’s gender. Robert Hoogland, a father from the Canadian province of British Columbia, was jailed last year for speaking out against his daughter’s decision to undergo hormone replacement at just 14 years old. Canadian officials convicted Hoogland of “family violence” for referring to his daughter as his daughter. He had no say in whether his daughter was to receive testosterone injections, which can permanently alter one’s physiology, even though we generally accept that minors can not make informed permanent decisions for themselves. As of March 26, Hoogland is being kept in conditions akin to solitary confinement for expressing views that were universally accepted a mere decade ago. The attack on freedom is broad up there. Seeing an opportunity in the COVID-19 pandemic, Canadian bureaucrats moved to impose some of the harshest lockdowns in the world. Toronto’s lockdown began practically at the beginning of the pandemic and endures to this day. Quebec, on the other hand, strictly prohibited people from leaving their homes after 8:00 p.m. for some time, using police force to ensure residents complied. There is no word other than “tyrannical” to describe a government that imposes such severe restrictions on freedom of movement and association. Americans have the good fortune of being able to look to their northern neighbor as an example of what could come to pass should we continue on our leftward cultural drift. Erosion of democracy is not what put Canada on this path because, funnily enough, it has one of the strongest democracies in the world. Rather, it was the unstemmed tide of ideas contrary to the traditionalist worldview that produced a population entirely content with its own subjugation. America, if its essence is to survive, must not go the way of Canada.
https://gizmodo.com/canada-to-make-online-hate-speech-a-crime-punishable-by-1847163213 Canada to Make Online Hate Speech a Crime Punishable by $16,000 Fine The proposed law would likely run afoul of the First Amendment in the U.S., but despite popular misconceptions Canada is actually its own country. Canada’s ruling Liberal government announced on Wednesday that it plans to make online hate speech a crime punishable by as much as $20,000 (roughly $16,250 US) for the first offense and $50,000 ($40,600 US) for the second. The proposal would punish social media users who broke the law but exempt social media companies that host such content from fines. The news, first reported by Canada’s public broadcaster, comes after a 20-year-old man recently rammed his truck into a family of five in Ontario, killing everyone but a 9-year-old, in what Canadian police say was an anti-Muslim terror attack. Canada’s Attorney General David Lametti assured Canadians that the proposed law would not target “simple expressions of dislike or disdain” during a virtual press conference on Wednesday that was livestreamed on YouTube. Instead, Lametti said, the law is only designed to punish the most extreme forms of hatred that “expresses detestation or vilification of a person or group on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination.”
Note to self: If I sudden win a vacation to Canada that I supposedly won in contest I can't recall entering, don't go. https://www.reuters.com/world/ameri...ans-make-online-hate-speech-crime-2021-06-23/ Canada unveils plans to make online hate speech a crime The proposed amendments would make it easier for people to launch complaints against individuals who publish on the Internet - including on social media, on personal websites, and in blog posts - as well as operators of websites. A person could be fined up to C$20,000 ($16,250) if found guilty of hate speech that personally identified a victim. However, the operators of social media platforms are excluded for now. Ottawa said it would soon ask the public for input on proposals to make those operators more accountable.
It seems harder to fix a problem than to prevent it in the first place. Perhaps it is time for good manners to be taught as part of the grade school curriculum, as manners taught by example at home seems to have produced spotty results. On a related note: I'm amazed at the money poured down rat holes by our Department of Education sponsoring summer programs designed to get kids "ready for college" as if a summer of remedial work could replace 12 years of missing education. Maybe cutting grade school class sizes in half could solve these and many other problems. Best to go to the source of a problem when trying to fix it. Fining hate speech on the internet, if enforced, may go a long way to prevent it, but it won't touch the underlying problem.
Which begs the question, will parents be slapped w/fines for online "hate speech" their children engage in?
And guys, it's frickin' Canada. Picking on Hockey would be considered "hate speech" against all Canadians. (OK, well, hats off to the Canadiens for making it to the Stanley Cup playoffs.) But still...
This statement unfairly targets African Americans. Please remove it from your post or I will have no choice but to inform the Canadian government.