A Tickling Freedom?

".... so these flatterers do not use a genuine or serviceable freedom of speech, but merely a winking and tickling innuendo."

- Plutarch. Morals 3157

How We Treat Those We Disagree With

"One test of the character of a man is to see how he treats those who disagree with him. If his only desire is to destroy those who disagree, then he is much like the bramble - plenty of good points, but no real substance for good."

- David Guzik. Commentary on Judges 9.

Just Before Societies Fall

"Before societies fall, just such a stratum of wise, thinking people emerges, people who are that and nothing more. And how they were laughed at! How they were mocked! As though they stuck in the crawl of people whose deeds and actions were single minded and narrow-minded. And the only nickname they were christened with was "rot." Because these people were a flower that bloomed too soon and breathed too delicate a fragrance. And so they were mold down. 

These people were particularly helpless in their personal lives; they could neither bend with the wind, nor pretend, nor get by; every word declared an opinion, a passion, a protest. And it was just such people the mowing machine cut down, just such people the chaff-cutter shredded."

- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The Gulag Archipelago. VOL 1. 

Posessed By Ideas

"People don't have ideas. Ideas have people." 

Carl Jung

The Mole Of Totalitarianism

"As we begin to understand our judicial practices, we realize now that the public trials were only the surface indications of the moles tunnel, and that all the main digging lay beneath the surface."

~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The Gulag Archipelago 

Rules Of Radicals

Insightful about where the rage comes from.  

“One acts decisively only in the conviction that all of the angels are on one side and the devils are on the other.” 

~ Saul Alinsky. Rules For Radicals

".....statement from Rules for Radicals “We are always moral and our enemies always immoral.” The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the immorality of the opposition...." ~ David Horowitz

Human Nature Is Our Problem Utopia Can't Exist

"Naturally, the first reaction of conservatives to this advice will be to reject it. Conservatives do not want to behave like leftists, who see politics and government as a means for transforming the world and the people in it. Temperamentally, conservatives are cautious because they know that the problems the world faces are caused by human beings, not by the social institutions that progressives plan to change. Social institutions reflect who we are far more than they shape what we will be. Therefore, all political “solutions” are imperfect; all will fall far short of their goals; all will require constant reforms to fix the additional problems they create........

Conservatives are realists who believe in the constitutional skepticism that guided the Founders. They know that human nature — not society — is the insurmountable obstacle to equality and justice, and that a democracy works only through compromise and respect. Democrats pay lip service to this wisdom but don’t really believe it. There is no compromising utopian goals, and they will accept no lasting modus vivendi with those who oppose these goals."

David Horowitz

Censorshiop of Freedom Of Speech

"In a society such as Canada that fetishizes politeness and moderation, Free Speech can be hard to stomach. But that is the price you pay to live in and intellectually vibrant society that is safe for intellectual dissidents and other would-be reformers. We don't need laws to control the more reckless users- or abusers - of free speech. The community itself will naturally marginalize people who are excessively rude or bigoted. Such informal mechanisms - not section 13- (Was in Himan Rights Comission code until it was repealed) explain why it's no longer socially acceptable to be a bigot in polite Canadian Society.

The occasional rough edges that come with freedom of speech are constantly exaggerated by those who would seek to control that speech. But the trade-off they would propose namely, having a government agency so powerful and so omnipresent in our lives as to be able to investigate, prosecute, and punish dissident ideas - is a much more troubling danger than the odd vicious comment or reactionary sermon. If the choice is between individuals using their freedom of speech hurtfully and an all-Seeing Big Brother watching our words and thoughts, I know which society I'd rather live in. You can always ignore a racist. You can't escape from the government."

(Ezra Levant. Shakedown)

Human Rights Authoritarian Failure

"Despite my considerable involvement in pressuring the Ontario government, many years ago, to create Canada's first Human Rights Commission, I regret the attempt to use the law in this way.......
There should be no question of the right to publish the cartoons in question Religious prophets no less than political leaders or even deities may be legally permissible targets of satire or even scoring. This is the essence of free speech in a democracy. No ideology political, religious, or philosophical can be immune. It will be wise, therefore, to remove those provisions in the human rights act....."

Alan Borovoy

If We Lose Our Freedom

"If we lose our freedoms in this country, the job will be done to us not by malevolent autocrats seeking do bad but by parochial bureaucrats seeking to do good "

~ Alan Borovoy

Free Speech

"We live in a free country where people have as much right to express outrageous and ridiculous opinions as moderate ones."
~ Justice Ian Bennie Canada

Free To Be Right Or Wrong

"One of those foundations is our right to have an opinion or belief that is different from society's orthodoxies, no matter if it's popular, or even correct. That's called freedom of conscience.  It's closely related to freedom of speech: having freedom of thought isn't much used if you can't express yourself."
Ezra Levant. Shake Down

Free Speech Is Dead In Canada

"That's the point. It's offensive speech that requires legal protection. If you don't believe in freedom of speech for offense of speech, you don't believe in freedom of speech at all...... But any original thinking on almost any issue is likely to be controversial and offensive to someone, .....
Ezra and I have a higher opinion of Canadians that Agent McGovern and her fellow thought police do. They think you're wee sensitive delicate creatures who need to be protected by the state from anything that might discombobulate you. We think that, as citizens of one of the oldest settled constitutional democracies on the planet, you're perfectly capable of deciding for yourself what you want read. You don't need your opinions monitored by government enforcers, some of whom are incompetent., others of whom are corrupt, and none of whom should have the powers they have."

Mark Steyn. Forward to "Shakedown"