So where did they highlight people being put in court over comments and where did they explain that they are aware we don’t have free speech so even someone being in court isn’t a problem?
Freedom of speech or freedom of expression isn’t freedom from consequences. Words matter, and they have consequences, and people should consider the consequences of their speech in public.
Agreed. Fuck off with this “we have no free speech” bullshit, substack (and it’s freedom of conscience in Canada in the first place, not free speech). All of the things listed are social consequences, not criminal prosecution or some other government persecution. Sarah was booted by her party, not the government, and the rest are employers and universities. If there is fault, it lies with those organizations.
It’s also not protected speech, so if there is fault, those organizations will have to suffer social consequences themselves, as it doesn’t seem that they broke any laws.
Like most people, I avoid companies that platform hate, and am perfectly contented being banned from them if they go that far. That’s not a power they ever didn’t have.
Like I said, clock is ticking. You won't be so happy go lucky when it's your job getting a new CEO or a big platform like YouTube denying you access to a platform.
My job getting a new CEO? Getting a new useless figurehead is supposed to scare me? Why? Youtube is going to block me? Why should I care? They either moderate hateful content, or they lose me and a great many others -voluntarily.
The Doug Ford government has put forward a motion that would censure an Ontario NDP MPP over her comments on the Israel-Gaza war and ask they not be recognized in the legislature until a formal apology is made and a statement on social media is deleted.
The motion calls comments made by Hamilton Centre MPP Sarah Jama last week “antisemitic” and “discriminatory.” If passed, it would call on the Speaker not to recognize Jama in the House “until the Member retracts and deletes her statement on social media and makes an apology in her place in the House.”
So they’re trying to completely take away her ability to govern because of her speech. So yes, the government is trying to silence her.
I’m not familiar with how censure works in the Ontario Provincial Parliament legal framework. Do you have any examples of precedent where a censure motion has been struck down in court? Because my understanding is that the majority was within their legal powers to do this.
There’s a bit of a blurred line when they’re members of government or government organizations versus private employers.
A political party IS part of government, even if it’s not the political party leading the country. However, a party shouldn’t be forced to keep somebody who goes off the rails and is causing them damage. At the same time, those same parties seem to be very pick-and-choose about which “rebellious” members they decide to expel and over what issues
unless i am failing to understand what is being said the article is saying otherwise.
For them, free speech is freedom for them to collect a paycheque while saying the most boring, obvious, cliché, bootlicking shit they can come up with. That is free speech — the right to do these things with minimal government involvement.
It’s complicated. Legally we don’t have “freedom of speech”.
For clarification: Do I believe that’s a core human value? Absolutely.
Do I believe that tolerance is a social contact we should all abide by? Very much so!
Do I trust society to regulate itself? Heck no, from a sociological point of view that’s a mess for lots of reasons. In smaller communities it may be ideal, but anything anyone says now is considered on a global scale.
So, from where I stand, it makes sense for a governing body to place limited restrictions on what a person should be allowed to say in the public sphere. This specific issue is debatable and relies on a certain amount of faith in the institution. Is it right that these people were punished for saying their beliefs? That’s another complicated view that depends on a case by case basis. Is it legally allowable that a politician be censured for what they say? That depends on what they said. Is it morally allowable? From a moral absolutionist point of view, probably not, but our charters were made to prevent people from calling for violence in the public sphere. Is it morally acceptable to allow for someone to call for violence in a very real way as a political representative? What constitutes violence? How far can we deconstruct the rhetorical arguments our society is based on?
It’s complicated. We don’t have freedom of speech and we don’t have freedom from consequences. If you give people you agree with freedom from consequences you also have to give it to the people you don’t agree with.
Indeed. And if the NDP won’t allow its members to recognize that Israel is an apartheid state, then members who see it as such should abandon the party. Both those serving as public representatives, and regular members and donors.
Asking a genuine question regarding the apartheid terminology here. When someone refers to Israel as a apartheid state with regards to Palestinian civilians it always doesn’t make sense to me. Because for that to be true, one needs to consider Gaza and Westbank to be Israeli territory, which I don’t think is a concept that anyone who makes this claim agrees with. To me, that’s like saying North America is an apartheid continent because Canadians and Mexicans don’t get the same rights as Americans in America.
During the Apartheid era in South Africa there were also nominal “independent” countries, known as Bantustans. Israel occupies the West Bank, effectively controlling it the way a Bantustan were controlled. The blockade of Gaza has a similar effect. Finally, there are discriminatory laws in Israel proper. For more information, read this as a starter: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_and_apartheid
Thank you for the explanation. To me it still seems to be a case of expanding the terminology beyond it’s original meaning given the context. The situation today is more of a country occupying part of another country while laying siege on another part of the said country. If this can be referred to as apartheid I don’t see why it can’t be used on most invasions and occupational wars in human history. Furthermore, I’m too young know what people thinks of South Africa back then, but as far as I can remember South Africa has been seen as a single unit in my lifetime. Hence, referring to Israel as an apartheid state in my mind has the implication of Israel somehow has the right and responsibility of ruling over Palestinian territory. Treating the citizens of an occupied country poorly is bad but shouldn’t automatically qualify as apartheid, even though I agree there are some resemblance in practice.
The case with Israel proper is more interesting because you can make the case that there are some apartheid elements such as the fact only Jews enjoys the right to automatically become Israeli citizens which isn’t available to other ethnic groups that currently resides in Israel. However to my knowledge Israel proper isn’t what most people think of when they make the case that Israel is an apartheid state, even tho imo it makes a more compelling case per definition.
Don’t be dense, read the article. The story is not about legality or free speech absolutism. It is about how the window of acceptable political speech in what is considered mainstream has narrowed to a stifling degree to exclude very reasonable milquetoast peacenik sentiments.
Ok, and? Regular parlance can be about legal implications too, I’ve never heard the words “free speech” used in a context with no connection to their legal meaning. Do you have a counter example?
Even in the context of the US First Amendment, which makes it so that the government cannot abridge your right to free speech, it's not unlimited. Think "Yelling 'fire' in a crowded theater, when there's no fire," or libel/slander, or terroristic threats, or, I dunno, witness tampering.
There's lots of speech which must yield to other rights and protections.
B) I don’t actually think it’s unreasonable to think that a headline should clearly indicate the subject of the article - why have headlines otherwise?
Edit: it was a genuine follow-up question to a statement that I feel could have been interpreted in a couple of ways, and his answer did give some precisions on his position, which is why I wanted to ask, rather than assume. No idea why refusing to judge hastily warrants downvotes lol
so in your opinion when charlie hebdo shooting has happened the artists and writers have maintained their freedom of expression well into their deaths? after all they were free to make any kind of comic and they didnt receive any government backlash.
Yeah, actually. They did. Consequences don't always come from those in the right. Sometimes they come from fanatics and deviants. Consequences and justice are not synonyms.
You can provide protections from certain unsavory consequences, but those protections will never be perfect. Sometimes terrible things happen to people for expressing themselves. That doesn't mean they didn't have the inalienable right to express themselves in the first place.
You seem to be conflating two different issues. You may want to consider just how much mixing of philosophies you've been doing. It's probably led to a lot of frustration and anger in your life.
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