People tend to believe that freedom of speech has absolutely no limitations. WRONG.
Limits on speech were incorporated in the criminal code in relation to treason, sedition, blasphemous and defamatory libel, disruption of religious worship, hate propaganda, spreading false news, public mischief, obscenity, indecency and other forms.
According to Keegstra, the genocide of Jews NEVER HAPPENED. Gas chambers, extermination, the dead bodies of victims... it was all made up!....
What a goof.
Anyway, Keegstra was in some hot water after that but the smartie pants decided to argue that he was exercising his freedom of speech. Well, clearly Keegstra didn't teach law, because there are limitations to our freedoms. Some of you may complain that there is a problem with limitations of a freedom, but really people... freedom from what. If we didn't have limitations, we would have people like Keegstra teaching our future generation and then we would all be doomed.
Keegstra was spreading hate speech and courts found that his breach the limitations of his oh so cherished freedom.
Hate speech is whatever vilifies a person or a group based on their social marker(s). This includes, but not limited to, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation ( That's right you homophobes), religion etc.
We see this constantly, especially on social networks such as Twitter. We see the senseless minds of people ranting off of the keyboard and onto your timeline about this crap. And they'll admit they're being ignorant.
What they won't admit to is that they should just put their foot in their mouth and perhaps keep it there.
What else are you ignorant minds that have access to the internet saying? Slavery never happened? First Nations people were never colonized, tortured and forced to convert to Christianity?
...Chris Brown never assaulted Rihanna?
Whaaaaaaat????
Couldn't disagree more. I'm a vehement believer in inalienable rights, the most important of those rights being the right to speak. A government has no right to limit to limit the speech of anybody. Sadly, they do and it's accepted. Some speech is hateful, disgusting, abominable. That being said, it must be said, it must be heard and it must be confronted by right-minded and knowledgeable people. Think about how many issues of the past would not have been addressed had the freedom to discuss them been persecuted and censored. Women's suffrage, universal suffrage, slavery, disability rights, etc. It's easy to say that these are matters that would have been solved in time; but these matters had peoples who went against the social norms and mores of their day, risked ostracism to tell the truth. Can silencing the ignorant for their distastefulness ever be worth silencing truth? Is it safe and in the interest of the body politic to have these positions fester in shadows?I would argue no. It never is. People must speak, for better or for worse. The truth, however, must always be there to defend what is right and what is correct.
ReplyDeleteIt was said. It was heard. And it was confronted by right-minded and knowledgable people. "ISSUE OF THE PAST" that you are talking about could be addressed without HATE SPEECH. I think you misunderstood the entire point of this blog post. It wasn't about censorship. It was about people's lack in consideration for others and that refusal to coexist with different groups of people. It's about certain people believing they could assert their beliefs over others--- such as claiming holocaust never occurred and teaching that to high school students. Feel free to read the post again. And carefully this time.
ReplyDeleteEveryone is entitled to an opinion after reading any of my posts. No need to get rude!
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