“The first recommendation is that section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act (CHRA) be repealed so that the CHRC and the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal would no longer deal with hate speech, in particular hate speech on the Internet.”
Full report here – commissioned by the CHRC itself.
Update: Unconfirmed sources report that an advisor to the Michael Ignatieff Liberal leadership campaign will be issuing a statement discounting the Moon Report as the work of a “Nazi sympathizer”… developing…
More at the National Post, plus reaction from Kathy Shaidle, and Mark Steyn, with lots of chatter erupting across the ranks of the Blogging Tories.
UPDATE: The CHRC is in full damage control mode – “Lynch is already trying to throw Moon under the bus.”
In her press release announcing his report, which you can see here, you’ll notice something is missing: Moon’s recommendation to repeal section 13. He uses the phrase repeal again and again in his report – but you won’t find it in Lynch’s revisionist press release. It’s like the chapter in George Orwell’s 1984, where Winston is busy cutting out embarrassing items from old newspapers, and replacing them with the new, politically correct truth. That’s what Lynch is doing already.
Is this true? Not a troll or a prank?
A victory for common sense? For liberty?
Just trying to digest all this…. too often these situations are not what they seem, but it looks promising.
Thanks to Ezra , and others denormalizing the CRHC conduct , the CRHC is now in self-preservation mode.
I believe the CRHC is trying to short-circuit a detailed audit of their inner workings , by offering to dump Section 13 , in the hopes that they can quietly go back to business as usual , harassing those who cannot fight back.
After Section 13 is scrapped , the issue of truth , rules of evidence , and the costs to those accused must be addressed next.
“It is for this reason that my principal recommendation is that section 13 of the CHRA be repealed.”
And then goes on recommending additional mush, an opening for the determined supporters of the corrupt HRC’s status quo.
Somehow I have a problem ever seeing this high profile part of the CHRA being repealed or taken away. To much power at stake, we’ll see I guess.
“I believe the CRHC is trying to short-circuit a detailed audit of their inner workings , by offering to dump Section 13 “
That may be, but this report just laid bare their throat. Should attention be shifted away by the abolition of Sec.13, it will simply shift towards the provincial bodies, and the ridiculous complaints accpeted from dope addicts and aging pole dancers.
Newspapers and news magazines should seek to revitalize the provincial/regional press councils and ensure that identifiable groups are able to pursue complaints if they feel they have been unfairly represented in mainstream media.
If this does not happen, consideration should be given to the statutory creation of a national press council with compulsory membership. This national press council would have the authority to determine whether a newspaper or magazine has breached professional standards and order the publication of the press council’s decision.
A newspaper is not simply a private participant in public discourse; it is an important part of the public sphere where discussions about the affairs of the community takes place. As such it carries a responsibility to portray the different groups that make up the Canadian community fairly and without discrimination.
I wouldn’t get too happy, too soon, folks. It looks to me from this like the CHRC will just be changed into a press watchdog with the same, or worse, loose standards for judging “hate” with the usual suspects making and “investigating” the hateful comments. None of which would be subject to the usual rule of law, just like the current CHRC.
Does anyone here believe that Steyn and Maclean’s wouldn’t be convicted before a body like this?
And will blogs be covered by the Press Council?
This report is something that one has to be careful what they ask for. Aside from the Sec 13 call, look at these:
– We must develop ways other than censorship to respond to expression that stereotypes the members of an identifiable group and to hold institutions such as the media accountable when they engage in these forms of discriminatory expression – like what? New bureaucracies?
– Because these less extreme forms of discriminatory expression are so commonplace, it is impossible to establish clear and effective rules for their identification and exclusion. But because they are so pervasive, it is also vital that they be addressed or confronted – How exactly?
I’ve only got a few pages in, and the motherhood crap above is from the general summary – but honestly, these are bureaurats building domains for other bureaurats. One way or the other, the HRC’s are going to remain the same size, and keep their busy hands busy fretting about something.
When you build a bureaucracy, you need to feed the machine.
The problem isn’t the HRC’s per se, it is this statist servile mindset of Canadians that drive the metastasizing civil service.
Politicians need the bureaucracy as much as bureaucracies need the politicians.
FWIW, a welcome surprise.
4(b) “The principal recommendation of this report is that section 13 be repealed so that the censorship of Internet hate speech is dealt with exclusively by the criminal law.”
That would be nice. Truth would be a defense, the accused would have access to all information used by the prosecutors (nee persecutors) and the burden of proof would have to meet the “beyond a reasonable doubt”-standard rather than “on a balance of probabilities.” The threshold of prosecution would rise to a saner level.
If you squint when reading the Moon Report, you can see Ezra’s face between the lines.
If there is no devil in the details, one immediate and obvious conclusion is that this report should enable even a minority government and Parliament to take the necessary steps, no?
I just KNEW it was Kinsella who claimed that the Moon Report was a Nazi thing. It’s soooo his thing to suggest that critics of his radical ideology are “Nazis”. Anything inconvenient to the Liberal Fascist agenda can’t possibly come from ordinary folks who care about human rights; it must come from Nazis, the Special K seems to believe…
What do you expect from someone who appears to be constantly obsessed with imaginary Nazis? It seems to me that whenever someone issues criticism against him based on his own words and/or behavior, he thinks they’re Nazis…
Oh, excuse me… the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy have come to discuss a business deal with me, so I must sign off…
Hi, Mr. Bunny! Mr, Fairy! C’mon in! Coffee? Oh, I see you brought Barney the Dinosaur along… Hi, Barney! C’mon in, too!
I’d be cautious about this. Moon has, I think, offered two options, but in such a manner that it has entrapped the ‘authorities’ into accepting only one of them.
The first option is to scrap Section 13.1 completely. Many of us would prefer this. But, Moon and his boss, the CHRC, and Jennifer Lynch, who oversaw his report (it had to be vetted first by her and the CHRC before it was released) are setting us up for the second option.
Moon refers to hate speech as being controllable by the state only if it advocates violence; that is already in the Criminal Code under Section 319. So, why would we need another state bureaucracy when such a law already exists?
He advocates that each province establish a ‘hate crime team’ to police this section of the Criminal Code? Why? Is hate speech that advocates violence so endemic in Canada?
Then, he goes on to discuss the other option, if the Section 13.1 is not repealed. He says that the article should be rewritten to refer only to actual violence. But why? We already have such an article in 318 of the Criminal Code.
Furthermore, Moon is giving MORE power to this ‘amended HRC. They would no longer take on cases from individual complainants. No, they’d be the complainant all by themself. The CHRC would be the Complainant! It would snoop around, investigate, and decide, on its own, who to prosecute!
Moon tells us that this would stop the ‘significant burden’ that currently exists on the complainant. Heh. What a joke. What burden? The CHRC pays for his lawyer to do all the work. I note that Moon says NOTHING about the significant burden on the accused.
Then, Moon wants yet another regulatory body set up, besides this new one that gives more powers of investigation and prosecution to the CHRC. He wants one for the Internet. It will also snoop around and investigate and prosecute.
And, a compulsory membership on a National press Council to oversee ‘hate speech’.
I note also that Moon has a ‘leftist’ or socialist view of the nature of speech. He doesn’t admit that freedom of speech is a fundamental right. By ‘fundamental right’ is meant that it is a right by the biological nature of our species; that we have the capacity for reason, thought, speech. As such, our free speech, which is linked to our capacity-to-reason, is not given to us by the state. It’s not a ‘social value’; it’s a biological value.
But Moon doesn’t say this. What does he say? He defines free speech as a social value, as a moral or POLITICAL right! No, it has nothing to do with the state. It is a natural value.
So- what’s my first impression view of Moon’s analysis? And remember, he was hired by the CHRC; and his mandate (see Ezra Levant’s excellent analysis on this)..was subsumed under the control of the CHRC and Jennifer Lynch.
I note, by the way, that Moon says NOTHING about the accused. Who protects them?
But, from what I can see, his suggestion of Either Scrap Section 13.1 completely OR, revamp it, is the type of fake exclusionary offers, such as; Either Starve or Eat this mush.
The mush, resting on an invalid definition of freedom of speech, ie, that it is a social rather than natural value, is actually giving MORE powers to the HRC, in that it can initiate investigations; and more powers to control of speech in the press and the internet.
Remember, that Moon has reduced the definition of ‘hateful speech’ to one that ‘threatens, advocates or justifies’ violence against the members of an identifiable group. He is setting up three bodies to investigate this: the CHRC, the newspaper group, the internet group.
This is a strange recommendation, because it essentially duplicates Section 319 of the criminal code. BUT, Moon’s new CHRC allows no defense! The criminal code allows the defense of truth, debate, public interest etc. Moon doesn’t seem to offer any defense. Perhaps it’s there further on in his text.
So – if an internet blog was discussing the advocation of violence by a particular religious group and its texts – could the New CHRC jump in and shut it down as ‘possibly’ advocating a reactionary violence against these people?
So, why is Moon not merely duplicating but in a nefarious way, the operations of Section 318 of the Criminal Code? Why is he setting up not one but three Big Brothers?
Mark Steyn is “moonstruck.” That’s good enough for me.
Er… scratch the first sentence in my earlier comment… I misread something…
I’d love to see Section 13 repealed, but share ET and others’ suspicions.
I am especially disturbed by the vaguely Marxist notion that a newspaper/magazine is more like a “public utility” than a privately owned enterprise, and can be pressured into “serving the public good”.
I don’t see how the complaints against Ezra and Steyn would have proceeded any differently if that recommendation had been in place.
There are several ducks lined up on this issue now:
1) a free member’s bill from Mr. Martin
2) the Moon report
3) the resolution passed in the CPC convention
4) a general agreement in the Canadian press that 13.1 is a problem, along with support from groups like EGALE and PEN
5) And, arguably, a nation that is not going to be distracted by things like this – the economy is the main issue front and centre and will be in the foreseeable future.
If Harper cannot somehow get this problem solved now, he is not deserving of the Conservative leadership.
Good for CHRC for asking for second opinion on section 13 of CHRA; however, the tacit requirment to beef up Criminal Code is somewhat troubling, especially the recommendation for “Hate Crime Teams.”
How deliciously Gestapoian! IMO, CCC is well constructed. We must eliminate/punish/deter criminal behaviour based on hate. The bar has to be set high. Real harm or potentiality must be clear and while not necessarily imminent, present actual physical danger, not perceived fear or outrage.
Replacing the pertinent Section 13 with Hate Crime Teams, presumably funded like Organized Crime Teams and Crystal Meth Teams, sound Orwellian and expensive, while lacking social efficacy.
I’ve read further in Moon’s report; he doesn’t, so far, have any support for the defendant. He even notes that ‘truth is not a defense’ as it is in Section 319 of the Criminal Code. Why not?
Because, Moon says, that ‘hate speech is necessarily untrue’. Hmm. That requires a definition of ‘hate speech’. What’s the definition? Speech that is intended to promote violence against an identifiable group.
He explicitly says that the Criminal Code’s ‘burden of proof’ is too high and therefore, suggests these three new Big Brother bureaucracies as a better option. Please note again, that his definition of freedom of speech puts it firmly within the control of the state rather than the individual, for he defines it as a social rather than natural value.
There is no defense in Moon’s set-up. The only criterion is an ‘intention’ to cause violence against an identifiable group – and that violence is not actual but ‘possible or likely’.
Moon has removed the term ‘contempt’ from Section 13 (exposed to hatred or contempt); he’s removed the term ‘likely to expose’ and focused instead on an ‘intention to cause violence’…with the violence ‘possible or likely’.
So what is different? The interpretation of the speech as ‘possibly or likely’ to cause violence remains…with the CHRC.
The need for the CHRC to wait for a complainant is gone; the CHR bureaucrats can happily snuffle around on their own.
There is still, no defense. Not truth – for Moon declares that hate speech is, by definition, always untrue. And hate speech, is an speech that not merely advocates but even JUSTIFIES violence against an identifiable group.
No defense. Not debate. Not analysis. No defense.
Because if you are debating the textual references to violence in X-religious texts or X-speeches, then, the CHRC might interpret this to mean that your debates ‘justify’ violence.
Section 319 provides for debate and the public interest as a justifiable debate.
Moon’s interpretation of ‘hate speech’ rejects any defense.
Furthermore, he’s increasing the Big Brother bureaucracies – one over any and all; the other over the press; the other over the internet.
Does anyone else see his report this way? I think it’s written for and by the HRC and Lynch and their expanding Big Brother role. Why do we need Moon’s Laws – when we have the Criminal Code? Moon admits that the 319 Law is rarely used; is that a sigh I hear from him? Is that why he’s setting up these new watchdogs that require no burden of proof, no truth defense, and no complainant?
I find very little comfort in the mushy verbiage of the Moon Report.
Given the source of the report and the manner of its commission and release, why would anyone doubt that it’s simply a ploy with eventual purpose antithetic to the causes of free speech and natural justice?
The thing that people seem to miss regarding freedom of speech is that if all speech is truly free, those who do say politically incorrect things will be overshadowed by people of goodwill. You cannot legislate an emotion.
In the U.S., the Nazi party is completely legal. They have meetings, marches and newsletters and can spout their vitriol all they want. They haven’t done any damage at all because no one really wants to listen. But, try to suppress their speech and they will begin to attract large numbers of supporters who also feel threatened by the suppression of speech.
The plain and simple fact is that there are some people who are hateful. They just hate. Well, guess what guys, they are citizens too. As long as they don’t commit any crimes, they are as entitled as anyone else to speak and to write. And, if there are others of like mind, they can listen, read and speak too.
The labeling of some crimes as “hate” crimes is absurd. A crime is a crime, most criminals are more prone to hatred than law abiding citizens. It is a redundant waste of time.
As long as someone is trying to regulate speech and thought, we are in danger. Hatred is not contaigious and is no danger. Violence is dangerous regardless of the motivation, and is therefore illegal.
All efforts to inhibit free speech are efforts to destroy our freedom. It is truly as simple as that.
Best regards,
Gail S
So much for the recommendations at the federal level. Remember, this does not influence the operations of the various provincial HRCs.
Perhaps it will have some impact on their modus operandi but they are still free and clear to continue their nasty business.
Moon Review,
Wider than a mile,
It made young Ezra smile
today …
Cause Moon Review,
was not what you
might think it would be if you’re
in a Lynch mob …
Ezra Levant comments.
The “Cover your MOON” report, still allows modification of S.13 rather than outright repeal.
The real objective would be to repeal S.13 and its provincial equivalents.
Real hate speech is covered in S.318 and S.319 of the Criminal Code so one doesn’t need “Hate Speech Teams” to police what is already policed.
Besides it is Parliaments choice to make recommendations not some usurper at the bureaucrat level. Reportedly, the bureaucrats are answerable to Parliament; not the other way around, as Ms. Lynch and her like minded fellow travelers.
Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
Frankenstein Battalion
2nd Squadron: Ulanen-(Lancers) Regiment Großherzog Friedrich von Baden(Rheinisches) Nr.7(Saarbrucken)
Knecht Rupprecht Division
Hans Corps
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North
The CHRC press release is, as Levant and others suggest, hilarious and/or Orwellian.
“(T)his report is the first step in a comprehensive policy review initiated by the CHRC…”
Oh, and at the very end, something about “revisions?”
“‘Professor Moon points to the Criminal Code and revisions to s. 13. Those are legitimate suggestions. Now what is important is that Canadians have their say.'”
Heh.
Re: UPDATE: The CHRC is already in full damage control mode – “Lynch is already trying to throw Moon under the bus.”
Suggested cut-to-the-chase quote for CHRC Chief Commissioner Jennifer Lynch, Q.C. to use:
“This was not the Professor Moon I knew.”
If Harper is the political chess minded player he is touted to be, he ought to put his mind to this bloody disaster which the HRC’s have become, and have put Canada in the same freedom of speech zone as Cameroon or Zimbabwe.
On the other hand, if you are a LIBERAL and claim Harper has a hidden agenda, then of course he would let the corrupt bastards at all HRC’s stand, and down the road he could silence his critics quite legally with the HRC’s, eh?
Just a thought from a free speecher in ontariario!
Moon just got lynched!!
I do hereby unequivocally advocate violence against child molesters, rapists, murderers, tyrants, Al Qaida, the Taliban and bullies of all kinds.
Violence can be used for good, too.
Thanks for reading the Moonie crap. Clearly I don’t need to.
Fascinating to see that the desired outcome will be MORE not less HRC power.
As to Kathy’s remark about the marxist aspect of media outlets being a public utility, this is exactly the route that Obama intends to pursue in the US.
Intially, free speechers will breathe a sigh of relief in learning that the “fairness doctrine” will not be re-activated. Not so fast. What is coming is something already tagged with an ‘ism”: LOCALISM: the insinuation of “community” groups onto radio and TV boards to provide input on what the “community needs” with special attention to groups that are, wait for it, “under-served”, and with the Damocles sword of licence renewal hanging overhead.
Think about it: this is exactly the Alinsky approach used against the banks, e.g., Citibank, which Obama sued on behalf of the “underserved”.
This is the plan for the silencing of conservative talk radio.
Finally, let’s remember that all our western political elites have sold off our heritage to the third world in order to bring in more warm bodies to support the ponzi scheme of social security pensions et al.
These HRCs are a form of crowd control.
If you go to the site of the report, you can enter an official comment. How great would it be if a massive number of people commented?
Oh please! This is a classic bureaucratic “ink cloud” that will require “careful, detailed, study” before “important decisions are made and implemented”.
In the meantime there will be a request “that everyone defer all questions pending the outcome of consultations with stakeholders”, ignore the commissar behind the curtain, and go back to sleep.
Kyla: If you go to the site of the report, you can enter an official comment. How great would it be if a massive number of people commented?
____________________________
Agreed. I have left my comment. Recommend others do same, but please keep it civil.
david fenske – exactly right.
Moon, who is obviously a ‘left’, a socialist, has effectively rejected the reality of the existence of evil. All hate speech, he declares is by definition, untrue. So, a speech that I give denouncing terrorism, is, by Moon’s definition, untrue and a ‘hate crime’.
To whom will these new bureaucracies be accountable? They no longer rely on an actual complaint; they can, in Moon’s world, go snooping around on their own. They make their decisions on their own; they are unelected, unaccountable.
What’s to stop them carrying out a vendetta against a blog, a newspaper, a radio program?
And is all hate – invalid? Untrue? Is it wrong to hate the terrorist, the genocidal killers, the child molesters? Is it wrong to speak against such actions? According to Moon, all hate speech is, by definition, untrue. Unbelievable.
That ‘study’ of Moon’s first set up an invalid Either-Or situation: either dump section 13, or..set up new bureaucracies with more powers. He spent almost no time on the first option and detailed the second over many pages. It is obvious which one he is promoting.
And that’s why Lynch is spending no time on the first option – removing Section 13. Remember, Moon’s report had to go FIRST to her; it was vetted by her. This report is what SHE and the HRC want. It’s set up so that the first option, which is given almost no weight or focus in Moon’s report, is rapidly rejected, with the focus on the second option – increasing the scope of the HRCs.
I’m sorry, but I disagree with Ezra, who thinks that Moon’s recommendations go against Lynch’s desires. I read Lynch’s comments; she’s setting up the scenario for the left and the liberals to support option 2.
Again, I think it’s a setup. I think they set it up with a false either-or framework, where the first option is trivialized and rapidly discarded and the focus is on the second option. Note that there are no further options outlined in this fallacious either-or scenario.
So, get rid of the first one (cut section 13) and you are left to focus on the other option, which frees the HRC from any restraints imposed by reality, ie, by actual complainers coming in to complain, and sets them up as Big Brother censors.
And, there’s no defense. No defense. There’s in invalid definition of freedom of speech, as a political rather than natural right; there’s an invalid definition of ‘hate speech’ (as untruth); there’s a future-oriented scenario set up (where the speech ‘justifies’ potential violence); and there are three bureaucracies, all unaccountable, set up to oversee our speech, our newspapers, our internet.
It’s exactly what Lynch et al want.
Tell me – what am I missing. I respect Ezra.
Regarding my comment at 11:58, this update doesn’t surprise me in the least, just a little quicker that I thought. Haven’t read all the goings on about this but there isn’t a simple servant alive that would let this kind of power slip through their fingers. The more I see of this kind of crap the more I think that maybe a little violence isn’t such a bad thing after all, might just wake somebody up.
so now will all those people who had their feelings hurt and got the CHRC to ruin someone’s life now be charges with Abuse of Process ?
Can any of the CHRC Sec 13 victims now sue Lynch an the rest of CHRC corruption for having their lives destroyed ?
Wonder how much money we could save in these tough economic time by just firing every last useless staffer at the CHRC, bolting the door and getting by without their meddling in citizen’s lives ?
I agree with ET. Moon’s report is a snowjob crafted to give us a false feeling of security. Uber-leftist Dr. Dawg is already trumpeting that the report is a victory for his anti- free speech crowd.
I agree with ET. Moon’s report is a snowjob crafted to give us a false feeling of security. Uber-leftist Dr. Dawg is already trumpeting that the report is a victory for his anti- free speech crowd.
Whatever happened to Tort Law?
The most important point to take away from this is that government and its’ attendant bureaucracies are the true enemies of freedom and liberty.
There will always be Lynch’s and Warman’s in this world.
What is wrong is giving them loads of money and force of law to prosecute their extreme ideologies. And that means smaller government, not larger.
Whether the gun registry, the CWB, CRTC, CBC, plus many, many, many more – there is a straight line between government, and oppression.
Conservatives recognize this.
The most important point to take away from this is that government and its’ attendant bureaucracies are the true enemies of freedom and liberty.
What is wrong is giving them loads of money and force of law to prosecute their ideologies. And that means smaller government, not larger.
Whether the gun registry, the CWB, CRTC, CBC, plus many, many, many more – there is a straight line between government, and oppression.
Conservatives recognize this.
I largely agree with you, ET, but the report’s principle recommendation (regardless at this point of whether or not it’s implemented) that section 13 be repealed is a real step towards denormalization. Let’s not forget that it wasn’t very long ago that those who wanted to demolish the “Canadian Human Rights” bureaucracy were almost entirely treated as Nazis and hate-mongerers and/or followers of same. Thanks to sterling work by many bloggers, with Ezra at the head of the charge, far fewer people see it that way any more, and those who do are typically demolished on comment threads even at the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail.
This fight is being won in small increments whcih keep adding up, and the fact that the report — with it’s principle recommendation to repeal section 13 and move prosecutions to criminal courts was commissioned by the CHRC, is clearly a sign that progress is being made. There are lots of problems with the report, for the reasons you mention and then some, and I share — deeply — your suspicions, but again, let’s not forget that the main recommendation mirrors what Ezra and Kate and you and I have been calling for for a long time, and that, if implemented, it would move hate speech prosecutions into legitimate justice system where 1) truth is a defense (you couldn’t be prosecuted for, say, accurately quoting an Imam), 2) the accused would be privy to all information gathered during investigation, 3) the complainant could certainly not loiter side-by-side with the prosecutors sifting through and possibly excising key information. In short, making hate speech a purely criminal matter would instantly obviate a great many of the worst injustices perpetrated by the section 13 goon-squad.
The battle is not close to being over, of course, and I agree with you that the series of proposals that are tacked-on as alternatives to the main recommendation are highly problematic, not just in what they suggest but also because, as you mentioned, they may well be being posited as “reasonable” or “alternatives” or as some kind of “compromise” when in fact they are Trojan horses.
When Moon writes “If implemented, (these alternative proposals would) reshape section 13 so that it more closely resembles a criminal restriction on hate speech” he is blithely stepping over a hard line, envisioning increased powers wherein the HRTs are entitled to act as a de facto legitimate partner to our legitimate legal system. It’s telling, in a way, and it suggests that they’ve had too much power for too long and that it’s gotten to the point where they don’t know where parliament/the courts stop, and they start.
It is just a report, and, as Ezra notes, it’s evident that Lynch is clearly not pleased with it, inasmuch as she didn’t even mention the report’s principle recommendation, saying instead “Professor Moon points to the Criminal Code…” (oooh, more power to her ilk, in that he mentioned “reshaping” s.13 to more closely resemble (i.e. to appropriate) the powers of the legit system) “…. and revisions to s. 13.”
Among the revisions Lynch is clearly most excited about and…amicable to, and to the excision of the main thrust, is “Section 13 should also be amended to included an intention requirement. A requirement that the communicator intended to threaten, advocate or justify violent action against the members of an identifiable group, or recognized that her or his communication would reasonably be understood by its audience as threatening, advocating or justifying violence, would reinforce the section’s focus on extreme expression. The relevant intention would relate to her/his conduct (i.e., his/her expression), and not to the possibility or likelihood that violence would result from her/his expression.”
In other words, she’s stumping already to resurrect the most egregious sticking point of the last several years: *intention.* “What was your intention in publishing the cartoons….”
Other suggested alternative proposals, too, take us back to square one. When Moon writes “In my view, a truth defense is not required because hate speech is necessarily untrue,” his logic is circular and pretty much arbitrary; it suggests that if you say something true — i.e. verifiable — but some bureaucrat deems it hate speech, that truth is now “untrue” — truth now determined by bureaucratic dictum. Also, he mentions (agrees with a cited source) that “individuals may well be deserving of hatred and contempt, but that is always based on what they as individuals, do…but hate…assigns blame…not to individuals but to one or more identifiable groups that individuals may belong to.” At a cursory glance, it’s true — one shouldn’t blame the blameless for beliefs/actions they personally don’t hold — but it’s also entirely true that groups (the Weathermen, neo-nazis) may be accurately described as entirely volitional collectives comprised of individuals with shared beliefs. So if, as Moon suggests, one person may legitimately “be deserving of hatred and contempt,” then there’s even more reason — assuming a threat to others — to examine and hold to task and criticize the collective who promotes those same views as the hateful/contemptible individual, to task.
“Hate speech is necessarily untrue.”
Imagine being paid to think about things 24/7/365 and coming up with that as your best approximation of reality.
What if we hate child pornography and say so. Does that make our disgust for the pornographer “untrue” — I suppose that implies that we have no moral right to be disgusted. Or does it mean that because we do, and by the awkward transferred logic of the thought structure, this is “true,” then this is not hate speech?
But truth is no defense, we are told.
In other words, we are being marked by university professors for knowing the right opinions, and the statement should read “nothing that I think is actionable, if you think differently, it may be actionable so don’t say it unless you have a lawyer.”
I have to wonder what this says about the avalanche of hate speech that descended on Sarah Palin from Canadian leftists — does that mean they are acknowledging that they were in error, because all hate speech is untrue?
Or does it mean that it wasn’t hate, just concern, like the concern I have about the power of militant gays to change the educational agenda, supposedly “hate speech” — but how can it be, because clearly it is true, they can change the educational agenda.
I am afraid Professor Moon may have to go back to school, and I would suggest he use a time machine and go back about a hundred years.
If hate speech is necessarily untrue, as Moon posits,
then true speech is by definition not hate speech.
EBD: It’s not true that the MAIN recommendation is the removal of section 13. As ET astutely observes it’s option 1 of two options, and option 2 gets all the ink. So you’ve got it backwards.
Sorry man, it’s not progress at all. It’s bureau-speak. Seem to be reasonable, seem to acknowledge a problem (sec 13) etc., and go for “reform” making HRCs even more of a menace via the route of complaint initiation and media supervision.
I totally agree with others who describe her apparent disappointment with Moon to be a sham. She’s mooning us.
Here’s the deal: there’s no legitimate reform of the HRCs short of shutting them down as there’s no valid work for them to do as the vast majority of landlords and employers aren’t stupid enough to reject good tenants or employees who happen to belong to certain favoured groups. There’s no place for these commissions, period.
When government talks reform they usually mean different but MORE. Think of tax reform and how it always yields MORE tax while pretending otherwise.
It’s a good day for free speech and I commend everyone in the blogosphere who did their part to make this happen.
How about “laundering” speech via offshoring? Why don’t the free speechy types pay some fellow in India ten rupees a month to launder their potentially actionable material? Not much the WKs and Lucies of the world can do to an Indian citizen with an Indian website, is there? I see win-win here.
Right, it is indeed, a ‘moon-job’. We, who respect freedom of speech, have been ‘mooned’ by Lynch and her crowd. I’ll stop the metaphors. No wonder dawg is jumping with joy.
Think about it. A report, set up in a fallacious either-or framework, where you rapidly ditch the first option on about five sentences and spend the rest of the time on the only other option provided. And what does this other option contain?
Invalid definitions.
An invalid definition of freedom of speech, defining it as a social rather than natural right. I’ll quote from Rex Murphy here, who said it rather well, “Human rights, the real ones, are ours from the beginning. They are not bestowed by the state, because the state does not ‘own’ them; they are not a state’s or a ruler’s or, for that matter, a human-rights commission’s to give. It equally follows that they are not a state’s or a commission’s to abdridge, circumscribe, tamper with or make a toy of”. (G&M Nov 17/08).
But Moon rejects freedom of speech as a ‘fundamental right’, despite it being defined as such in our Constitution. Instead, he defines it as a social, a political right. That means that the state has the right and duty to oversee it.
Moon expressly reduces the right to speak by his insistence thath it is a social action and as such, can be limited by the state if it ’causes harm to the public interest or the rights of others’. What does such an ambiguous phrase ‘the public interest’ and ‘the rights of others’ mean in practice?
Moon then defines ‘hate’ as, by definition, untrue. Hate speech is untrue. But is it?
Moon does remove the verbiage of ‘viewed with contempt’ from Sec 13, as well as the term ‘is likely to’, but his definition instead, of hate speech as that which ‘threatens, justifies or advocates violence’ is as vague as the original. Then why keep it?
Moon explicitly says that by adding ‘intention’ to Sec 13, and changing the focus to speech that threatens, justifies or advocates violence’, that the section more closely resembles the criminal code ban, 319. But then, why have the HRC at all if we have the criminal code?
Well, the criminal code requires proof ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ rather than the HRC ‘balance of probabilities’. We are back to making judgments based on speculations about the future rather than on ‘imminent or actual acts’. So, Moon states that we need Sec 13 because the Criminal Code requirements for proof are ‘too strict’.
He also chafes at the requirement for accountability by the necessity for the Att Gen to approve the case, and for police to decide to investigate. Heck, the HRCs don’t need such restrictions.
Moon’s requirement is that ‘speech that threatens, justifies or advocates violence against an identifiable group should be proscribed whether or not violence is an immediate or likely consequence’.
The threat can be either explicit or implicit.
Again, we already have that in Section 319 of the Criminal Code. The difference is that Moon’s Sec 13 requires no ‘reasonable doubt’ but rests on the interpretation of the HRCommissars. And there’s no defense, as there is in the Criminal Code.
Moon states: ‘in my view a truth defense is not required because hate speech is necessarily untrue’. Remarkable. So, to state that anyone who joins a drug gang is engaged in an agenda of the destruction of other peoples – is that a hate speech? Can a member of such a gang sue?
I note that Moon does say that religious beliefs are not immune to debate and analysis, but, how does this fit in with well-known preaching in various religious groups that advocate slaughter of all non-believers? Would the HRC prosecute them?
I remain puzzled. Why, when we have a Criminal Code Sec 319 against hate speech that advocates violence, do we need one that does the same thing but with less burden of proof and with absolutely no defense? That puzzles me. I can only conclude that such an agenda empowers the CHRC to further Big Brother activities.
“EBD: It’s not true that the MAIN recommendation is the removal of section 13. As ET astutely observes it option 1 of two option, and option 2 gets all the ink. So you’ve got it backwards. Sorry man, it’s not progress at all..” — Me No Dhimmi
From the Report:
4(b) “The principal recommendation of this report is that section 13 be repealed so that the censorship of Internet hate speech is dealt with exclusively by the criminal law.”
Later:
“6. Conclusion
I have taken the position in this report that the censorship of hate speech should be limited to speech that explicitly or implicitly threatens, justifies or advocates violence against the members of an identifiable group. However, the prohibition of this narrow category of extreme expression fits awkwardly in a human rights law that is concerned with the eradication of discrimination through education and conciliation. It is for this reason that my principal recommendation is that section 13 of the CHRA be repealed. The Criminal Code hate speech provisions, and in particular section 319(2) and section 320.1, offer an effective response to hate speech while respecting the public and constitutional commitment to freedom of expression. If section 13 is retained, however, I have proposed a series of amendments to the scope of the section, and the related complaint process, which are intended to make the hate speech ban fairer and more efficient.”
One more quote:
“Thanks for reading the Moonie crap. Clearly I don’t need to.” — Me No Dhimmi, 2:13 pm.
I did read the thing. Thanks for filling me in on what it said, though.
vitruvius – accolades and may the gods laugh and smile on you; what a perfect proposition of ‘modus tollens’. Yes, yes, as you say,
IF hate speech is necessarily untrue, then
True speech is necessarily not hate speech.
The problem with the deep thinkers like professor Moon is they don’t know when to stop.
Hopefully the nice people in the government won’t have that problem. Get rid of section 13, let the police and courts do their thing and the rest of us will muddle along as best we can.