. . . now trumps all throughout the Western world.
In Australia, the columnist Andrew Bolt is on trial for the crime of “offending” prominent members of the taxpayer-remunerated “professional Aborigine” elite. One of the complainants simultaneously “offended” a fellow Aborigine by comparing her recent appearance on TV unfavorably to an act of equine bestiality, but that’s not actionable because no formally designated white people were involved — which was kind of Bolt’s point in the first place: Collective rights based on race, sex, orientation, and ideology (ie, religion) destroy the concept of equality before the law.
In Denmark, despite an earlier acquittal, Lars Hedegaard of the Danish Free Press Society is to be re-tried by the State for the crime of “offending” Muslims by discussing Islam’s treatment of women in a private conversation.
And in Canada the British Columbia “Human Rights” Tribunal has just fined a stand-up comic, Guy Earle, $15,000 for the crime of “offending” lesbians at a comedy club. They were drunk and were heckling him, and he unburdened himself of some putdowns. But they were homophobic putdowns, and so he must be punished. Earle was working for a fifty-buck bar tab and doesn’t have 15 grand, and no comedy club in Vancouver will hire him ever again. He donated money to a gay charity in atonement, but his fellow liberals abandoned him anyway.
In all the above “human rights” cases, the traditional protections of Common Law do not apply — whether the notion that truth is a defense or the principle of equality before the law. For the crime of giving offense is in the eye of the offended. A “multicultural” society needs not sensitivity training but insensitivity training — that’s to say, thicker skins. The alternative is what is happening in some of the oldest free societies on earth: a state ever more comfortable in regulating the citizenry’s speech, thoughts, and jokes. There’s a word for that, and it isn’t “diversity”.
This is the same governmental attitude portrayed toward business in the movie, "Atlas Shrugged." (Sorry, I have not read the book.) You can't just stop the economy when there are all those ideas that need stopping too.
The first time I heard the "right not to be offended," it was used by George Will many years ago in criticizing the caving to minority political pressure to end the use of Native American symbolism at his alma mater. In that case, the circumstances of being a very small minority and no one beyond the white politically correct having much "skin" in the game, they got the censorship. And now, there is much less remembrance of the Native Amercian history of the state for which the state school is named.
Institutionalizing in government the right not to be offended goes a very long way toward never thinking outside the government box. If only they'd institutionalize a right not to be offended by government.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIn Britain, the egregious Macpherson Report on the murder of the black teenager Stephen Lawrence recommended, as I recall it (I think it was back in 1998) that an allegation of racism is made out by a "victim" claiming that he perceives himself to be the victim of racism. In other words, there's no objective test and therefore no basis on which to defend oneself, even assuming that one should have to.
According to wikipedia (I didn't know this until just now) Macpherson also recommended criminalising racist statements made in private.
Most people in this country, I suspect, were they asked, would hold that all this is wrong. Almost all of them lack the intellectual framework to say why.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThey're not "offended"; they're having a grand old time bullying people who can't fight back on account of immutable characteristics. Where do you get a sweeter gig than that?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAyn Rand turns out to be the ultimate 'hit the nail on the head' prognosticator. How much is a ticket to Galt's Gulch, and what is the luggage limit?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI am curious if the 'official' conservative position is now that the Supreme Court was correct to say there is a right to burn the American flag. There has always been strong opposition to that ruling on the conservative side, but now that conservatives are aflame over the importance of the 'right to offend', does that retroactively extend back to flag burning ruling?
Personally, I supported that ruling for reasons which this post makes obvious. Can I start to feel vindicated yet?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseLet's not forget that this trend is now much closer to American soil than we might think. Right now, that Rutgers student whose roommate committed suicide is facing 5 to 10 years in prison for "bias." And then there are a multitude of nice-sounding but ill-advised bills banning "bullying" in school. More Trojan horses for the homosexual agenda...
Specifically with respect to the Rutgers incident, I'm quite tired of how our society thinks other people are to blame for someone's suicide. You know, life is tough. We all have to deal with stress. If someone wants to "check out" we should by all means talk sense to that person but the hand-wringing and finger-pointing after the fact is just too much to stomach.
Welcome to the New World Order, folks.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe Guy Earle situation reminds me of the scene in 1984, where Winston Smith finally breaks in Room 101, and tells his interrogator that 2 + 2 does equal five.
Saying it's so isn't good enough, though; you have to *believe* it's so.
In Earle's case, saying he's wrong by contributing to the gay organization isn't enough; he needs to *believe* he's evil.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseCounterfactual:
You should have felt vindicated when Antonin Scalia joined Brennan's majority opinion, and DID NOT write a separate concurrence.
And you should have felt at least intellectually vindicated by the following quote from one such concurrence, albeit rendered by a somewhat less conservative jurist than Scalia:
"It is poignant but fundamental that the flag protects those who hold it in contempt." - Justice Anthony Kennedy
Any conservative who would argue with that need not challenge the conservatism of others.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAs Mark points out in the Australian case, only certain groups have the right not to be offended. It's hypocrisy in action, but then the left always gives themselves the right to be hypocrites.
My proposal is this: We allow for a right not to be offended, but limit it to those of us who value civil liberties and free expression. Whenever we're offended, we drop the hammer.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePolitical Correctness is McCarthyism from the liberal left; and by controlling the language they control the debate.
And whatever happened to "Sticks and stones ..."?
Has it been amended to: “Call me a name – here is my lawyer Jones”?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt’s because if this kind of lunacy that we must allow the Westboro idiots to protest funerals.
As much as I despise what Westboro does, to be threatened with fines or prison for doing standup comedy or having conversations about the pros/cons of Islam is infinitely worse.
Who needs Sharia when you have liberalism?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOn offense, the First Amendemnt, burning the American flag, and comedians quashing hecklers with anti-lesbian remarks:
The First Amendment protects speech that is offensive, so the comedian's conduct in speaking anti-lesbian words would be protected by the First Amendment, without question.
Burning the American flag is an ACT, not speech, and until the flag-burning case or cases, could have been prohibited by law. Instead, the Supreme Court held that some acts have an expressive, i.e. speech, component, and therefore have First Amendment protection. Unfortunately, such a ruling makes each act subject to a court's decision on whether it contains a speech component. To the extent a fairly objective standard like that stated in the First Amendment becomes ambiguous and subject to the rulings of a tribunal, it is undemocratic.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOnce people realized that being "offended" can pay handsomely, that was the end. Insatiable greed on the part of people, and especially lawyers, takes over. Being "offended" has become a profitable industry unto itself, and there's no way to put that genie back in the bottle. The only thing that might help would be "vigorous" countersuits.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMinority indignation has become an industry that actually manufactures the stuff while expanding the market for it. It's a cheap opportunity for the inept to lay claim to a sense of royal dignity, lawyers make a bundle, and the Left silences meaningful intercultural dialog as well as stanching good humor.
People like Nidal Hasan (Fort Hood) and Crystal Mangum (Duke LaCrosse) are both examples of the stifling of common sense in lieu of the pretense to diversity.
Zexufang (11:57) is correct that this is the new McCarthyism. Careers and lives are destroyed to protect special classes of people from hearing any kind of reasonable criticism remotely connected to their official victim status.
The Left has gone off the deep end in the effort to make a clear separation between their supposed morality and the imagined racism of conservatives. This insanity cannot long be the basis of any kind of meaningful social growth because as much as it pretends to include, it's real goal is divisiveness - to excluding conservatives no matter how ridiculous the premise may be.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseCounterfactual,
I highly doubt that Mr. Steyn has changed his opinion on flag burning. His position (and mine) has always been "If you can't stand the heat of your burning flag, get out of the super-power business." Likewise, flag burning is an excellent way to spot the idiots.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNo matter how well aberrant behavior is "protected" by law from offensive speech, no law will ever make such behavior normal, and that's the real problem. The purpose of this sort of protection is to obfuscate what the protected class wants to flaunt. Just won't work.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseBill1:
The right to peaceably assemble involves action, no? And what if a peaceable assembly - indeed, one that is silent, and without any speech - entails a silent group burning flags?
I don't suppose that the # of people involved provides any discernible difference. Nor do I suppose that the group's right is merely to stand there. Assemblies entail actions.
In the case of burning a flag, the distinction between "speech" and "action" is so convoluted that it is devoid of any persuasiveness.
I would agree, however, that allowing people to film and widely distribute footage of public fornication - acts clearly illegal under decency laws absent the celluloid - illustrates a divergence from speech and action.
Bear in mind, as well, the relation between the "action" in question, on the one hand, and the understanding of what has commonly throughout our history been understood to be protected by the First Amendment - forms of political protest.
And one person burning a flag hardly upsets the "civic order" to the point of placing the "action" under the rubric of unsafe or damaging behavior from which society should expect some level of protection.
If a segment of society cannot bear someone expressing revulsion with one's country, and that country is the United States of America, well, I'd urge the offended to shop for a new home.
Thankfully, there were five justices who understood that the civic health of our Republic and its principles are a little more resilient than for which some seem to give them credit.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAs to the Westboro folks: just as it's perfectly constitutional and not a violation of First Amendment rights to prohibit anti-abortion demonstrations within some specified distance from the abortion clinics, it ought to be perfectly constitutional to prohibit anti-gay (or whatever it is the Westboro folks are demonstrating against) demonstrations within some specified distance from a funeral.
But of course, that's not popular with the elite, so it will never happen.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOur society now has money-hungry, headline-hunting people who seek insult where none are thought, none are implied, and certainly none are spoken. Hooray for attorneys. NOT!
Oops! Now the lawyers will come after me.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe argument about a demonstration in which a flag is burned would be more effective if the First Amendment didn't contain an acknowledgement of "the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for redress of grievances."
Given that a significant percentage of the population find burning of the flag so offensive that they will act in violation of the law to attack the flag-burners, there is no doubt in my mind that without the "expressive content" gloss put on flag-burning by the Supreme Court, any government could easily prohibit flag-burning as "non-peaceable" and still fit that prohibition within the strictures of the First Amendment.
After all, there is some offensive speech that is still constitutionally prohibited, such as harassing speech, defamatory speech, and so on.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse