Liberals talk support freedom of speech when it is their speech. When someone else is speaking, they are likely instead to support its opposite: freedom from offense.
Ms. Lane Wallace, a columnist at The Atlantic, proposes that the FCC adopt a requirement, similar to Canada's, that broadcasters shall not broadcast "false or misleading news." She writes:
Honesty seems like such a no-brainer of a requirement. . . . .
Think about it. We prohibit people from lying in court, because the consequences of those lies are serious. That's a form of censorship of free speech, but one we accept quite willingly. And while the consequences of what we hear on television and radio are not as instantly severe as in a court case, one could argue that the damage widely-disseminated false information does to the goal of a well-informed public and a working, thriving democracy is significant, as well. . . . .
It's odd, really, that the idea of requiring news broadcasters to be fundamentally honest about the information they project across the nation and into our homes sounds radical.
By Ms. Wallace's standard, would Pres. Obama be prohibited from speaking on TV? After all, the Wall Street Journal termed his budget speech the most "dishonest" in decades while Charles Krauthammer called it "intellectually dishonest." At the Washington Post, Marc Theissen similarly called Obama's Libya speech "fundamentally dishonest." Can we all agree that, under Ms. Wallace's proposed broadcast standards, Pres. Obama would be banned from the airwaves?
Not likely. "Truth" isn't that easily agreed upon.
Ms. Wallace's vision requires some government agency to determine what is "truth" and then outlaw broadcast of anything disagreeing with its vision. That would be an Orwellian nightmare. I can only hope that the Obama administration isn't reading her column.
Two unrelated items illustrate how the left prefers to deal with dissent:
Criticism of Islam is not allowed at Princeton or Columbia. As Human Events writes:
Nonie Darwish, the executive director of Former Muslims United and author of Cruel And Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law, was scheduled to speak at Columbia and Princeton last week, but both events were canceled under pressure from Muslim groups on campus.
Darwish, a soft-spoken ex-Muslim and daughter of an Islamic martyr, is a champion of the rights of women and non-Muslims in Islamic societies, and leader of the group Arabs for Israel. She had been planning to speak on “Sharia Law and Perspectives on Israel.” She is one of the few courageous voices who speak out against Islamic anti-Semitism and the oppression of women under Sharia.
Prior to 9-11, the politically correct opinion would have been that women's rights were more important than religious sensibilities. Now, that has reversed, provided that the religion is Islam.
In 2005, Michael Mann said that there was a “fundamental problem w/ GRL now,” referring to the journal Geophysical Research Letters published by the American Geophysical Union (AGU), because “they have published far too many deeply flawed contrarian papers in the past year or so” and “it is probably best to do an end run around GRL now where possible.” Tom Wigley responded that “we could go through official AGU channels to get him [the editor of GRL] ousted”(1106322460). A few months later, the editor of GRL having left his post, Mann comments, “The GRL leak may have been plugged up now w/ new editorial leadership there” (1132094873).
In the Wall Street Journal, Glenn Reynolds explains how Pres. Obama may be setting the ground work for prosecuting Fox News under campaign finance laws:
Bert Gall and Robert Frommer of the Institute for Justice have made a compelling case that the Obama administration's word choice is quite significant. They think that by branding Fox as something other than a "legitimate news organization," the White House is actually setting up a more brutal attack using campaign finance laws. News media organizations are exempt from campaign-finance laws' speech regulations. But if Fox is not a "legitimate news organization," then federal election authorities might be able to argue that its political speech can be regulated like that of any other non-news corporation.
Over at MediaMatters, Eric Boehlert concludes that Prof. Reynolds argument is "So dumb it hurts." How does Mr. Boehlert reach that conclusion? He uses dishonest editing.
The Iranian parliament has voted make a priority of passing a bill to apply the death penalties to bloggers who harm "mental security in society" by promoting, for example, "corruption" or "apostasy." AFP reports:
Iran's parliament is set to debate a draft bill which could see the death penalty used for those deemed to promote corruption, prostitution and apostasy on the Internet, reports said on Wednesday.
MPs on Wednesday voted to discuss as a priority the draft bill which seeks to "toughen punishment for harming mental security in society," the ISNA news agency said.
One the Iranian parliament's biggest admirers is Bill Clinton. As he explained (link also has the audio) to Charlie Rose in 2005:
[Iran is] the only country in the world that has now had six elections since the first election of President Khatami. [It is] the only one with elections, including the United States, including Israel, including you name it, where the liberals, or the progressives, have won two-thirds to 70 percent of the vote in six elections: two for President; two for the parliament, the Majlis; two for the mayoralities.
In every single election, the guys I identify with got two-thirds to 70% of the vote. There is no other country in the world I can say that about, certainly not my own.
Of course, the Democrats would not try to promote a similar bill to censor US media. The death penalty is too extreme, and they wouldn't say the bill was about "mental security." They might call it instead "thefairnessdoctrine."
Animal rights activists have appealed to the European Court of Human Rights:
His name is Matthew [image at right], he is 26 years old, and his supporters hope to take his case to the European Court of Human Rights.
But he won't be able to give evidence on his own behalf - since he is a chimpanzee. Animal rights activists led by British teacher Paula Stibbe are fighting to have Matthew legally declared a 'person' so she can be appointed as his guardian if the bankrupt animal sanctuary where he lives in Vienna is forced to close.
An anonymous businessman has offered a substantial amount to cover his care, but under Austrian law only humans are entitled to have guardians.
The country's supreme court has upheld a lower court ruling which rejected the activists' request to have a trustee appointed for Matthew.
So now 36-year-old Miss Stibbe and the Vienna-based Association Against Animal Factories have filed an appeal with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
The pretense for this case appears to be a fraud: an animal does not need a "guardian" in order to be taken care of. If the "anonymous businessman" with too much money were genuinely concerned about Matthew, the chimp, he could buy Matthew from the animal sanctuary where Matthew currently resides. That would be 100% effective and also much less expensive than paying lawyers to pursue this series of court cases.
Contrast this with the continuing attempts in Europe to limit human rights for humans. There is some good news on this front, at least for those who can afford the legal expenses. Douglas Farah writes:
Today there was good news on freedom of speech front, as the Wall Street Journal won a complete victory in a libel case involving terror finance issues. The lead reporter, the venerable Glenn Simpson, is now 4-0 since 9/11 in these types of cases.
While the victory is a testament to his tenacity and care, it is also a testament to the courage of the WSJ in willing to fight and win these cases. Most are lost simply because the will to fight has gone out of so much of the media, who would often rather settle than protect the truth.
There were similar legal attacks on Channel 4 (UK) for airing the documentary "Undercover Mosque." As Alistair Palmer of the (UK) Telegraph writes of this documentary and the reaction by the West Midlands police:
The programme recorded preachers at the Green Lane Mosque in Birmingham making remarks that were not only bigoted and full of hate but also bordered on incitement to murder. Abu Usamah, one of the main preachers, was shown saying: “Osama Bin Laden, he’s better than a thousand Tony Blairs, because he’s a Muslim”; “Allah has created the woman, even if she gets a PhD, deficient. Her intellect is incomplete”; and advocating that homosexuals should be “thrown off” mountains. [Assistant Chief Constable of West Midlands Police] Mr. Patani’s reaction? To refer the programme makers to the Crown Prosecution Service for inciting racial hatred.
He also referred the programme to Ofcom, the TV regulator, sending out a press release as he did so. Mr Patani’s press release claimed that “those featured in the programme had been misrepresented” and that it had “undermined community cohesion”. Those claims were blatantly false, as the Ofcom investigation itself made crystal clear.
To get Mr. Patani to stop his accusations, Channel 4 had to sue the police for libel, winning a £100,000 settlement. Channel 4 had the privilege of defending itself with the argument the documentary was truthful. By contrast, for a Canadian accused under 'hate speech' laws, truth is not a defense.
RELATED: See Mark Steyn defend himself against similar charges in an Alberta (Canada) Human Rights Commission hearing here.
Not every Canadian is willing to accept Canada's abolition of freedom of speech. The Western Standard magazine published the infamous Mohammad cartoons two years ago. Consequently, the Orwellian-named Alberta Human Rights Commission is prosecuting its publisher, Ezra Levant. They held their hearing on his case last January 11. For some reason, they allowed Mr. Levant to video-record the hearing. He did and it is now on youtube. In the sample below, the inquisitor, Shirlene McGovern, asks him for his "intent" in publishing the cartoons. Her dry bureaucratic approach in asking about thought crime, reminds us of Hannah Arendt's comment about the banality of evil:
Ms. McGovern has since resigned from the case, reportedly because she was surprised by the strength of the public reaction against such interrogations over alleged thought crimes.
Canada's Human Rights Codeforbids, for example, any publication that "is likely to expose a person or a group or class of persons to ... contempt." Contempt is a quite vague concept. (Under Canada's interpretation, as expressed by Ms. McGovern, the issue of contempt is somehow tied into someone's subjective concept of the publisher's "intent.") Nearly any expression of a political opinion can be interpreted by those on the other side as 'exposing them to contempt.' Consequently, to the extent that Canada is willing to enforce the code, it really is the end of free speech.
For instance, the Hadith reads "The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: `The time [of judgment] will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews and kill them; until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!' Sahih Muslim book 41, no. 6985." It seems that any discussion of that passage at all would offend ("expose to contempt") one side or the other and thus be illegal in Canada.
PREVIOUSLY, Canada's liberal party rejected a proposal to restore freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
UPDATE: Deborah Gyapong has much more on abuses by Canada's Human Rights Commission.
Bill Ruder, an Assistant Secretary of Commerce in the Kennedy years and an acknowledged leader in public relations, says frankly, "Our massive strategy [in the early 1960s] was to use the Fairness Doctrine to challenge and harass right-wing broadcasters and hope that the challenges would be so costly to them that they would be inhibited and decide it was too expensive to continue." ...
