Misunderstanding Freedom of Speech

I find the way that the hard-line right-wing commentators twist things around time and again, often misrepresenting facts to suit their own distorted perceptions about how the world works.

In the Saturday edition of the Calgary Sun, I was treated to 2/3 of a page dedicated to a tirade by American commentator Ann Coulter. Ms. Coulter is notorious for manufacturing facts where convenient, and ignoring reality every bit as much.

Today, I was catching up on some of the columnists that normally write columns for the Sun Newspaper chain in Canada.

An interesting pattern is emerging - not merely misunderstanding, but outright distortion of the facts.

Columnist Link Byfield complains that freedom of speech is being suppressed. Why? Because University of Calgary officials didn't want a campus anti-abortion group to put up posters that tried to draw analogy between abortion and the holocaust. I think anyone with even a half a brain could figure out that the comparison is invalid at best, and offensive in the worst way to the memory of those that perished in those dark days.

His father, Ted Byfield is busy whining because the Conservative party didn't swing far enough to the right to suit his "Social Conservative" sensibilities. His complaint? Apparently the debate over abortion was "suppressed". (Read, the resolution didn't go the way he wanted it to, so he's going to sulk now) Similarly, Columnist Janet L. Jackson is whinging about the abortion issue. According to her, there is some massive conspiracy to start performing late term (9th month) abortions that the Liberal party is propogating. News to me, and nothing I've been able to dig up even hints that such a thing is part of the Liberal party policy agenda. (Oh - wait - they are changing the rules on the "morning-after" pill, aren't they? Of course, RU-486 won't do much good after the first 72 hours - but the rabid pro-life movement seems to view that as a late-term abortion.)

The complaints are consistent - whether the topic is abortion rights, same-gender marriage, divorce law, hate crimes law, or turbans in the RCMP. Basically, these people complain that a policy they dislike is "being shoved down their throats", or that their "freedom of speech" is being curtailed. Why? Usually because the changes in law that are taking place happen to constrain their ability to impose a particular moral code on others are being suppressed.

Omigosh - their right to spew unfounded vitriol against homosexuals is being curtailed - my goodness - they might actually have to found their irrational arguments in actual fact. What a horrifying concept!

Ted Byfield might have to explain, in rational terms, why a woman who has been raped should carry the resulting child to term.

Or - horror of horrors, they might have to actually come up with why allowing a couple to marry is going to cause the irreparable harm to society that they claim it will.

I will point out that none of these geniuses has put their money where their mouth is and actually challenged the laws in question before the courts. Why? Because they know full well that their position is not sustainable in the harsh light of legal scrutiny.

I do not want to take from them the right to express their opinions, I don't think that would be appropriate. I do want them to put their opinions forward with supporting evidence that is verifiable. If you want to assert that the society will crumble because of a marriage, that's fine, but I expect you to back that up with some kind of intelligible evidence.

Similarly, if you believe that a group of people should be marginalized, you darned well better have some pretty solid reasoning. Those that squawked about bill C-250 as an assault on their freedom of religion should step back and ask themselves just how a law that insists that their language not incite violence against people is contrary to their freedom of religion.

While I disagree with many of their suppositions, these people do have a legitimate voice in the discourse of the nation. It would be far more useful if they approached that discourse in the spirit of intelligent debate rather than the shrill, unfounded positions they continue to assert.