Conservatives Are Dismantling Western Democracies

It's been a bit of a whirlwind lately, but there are some very disturbing patterns emerging in the politics of western democracy these days. At the top of the list, is what appears to be a steady effort on the part of conservative politicians to dismantle western democracies, and in particular the concept of individual rights.  

This is happening on numerous levels, and because each country is slightly different, the specific attacks are distinct.  The pattern, however, is what matters. In general, the attacks are either aimed at the judiciary, or at the rights of individuals, with a general approach of fomenting what will become constitutional crises. 

Although not the first occurrence of this, the UK government's decision to exercise rarely used powers to deny royal assent to the Scottish Parliament's recently passed Gender Recognition Reform Act.  My first thought on this was "that's an odd move - exercising those powers in the UK is going to provoke a constitutional crisis.  Then I thought about it a bit further, and a few months ago, when Alberta's newly minted Premier Danielle  Smith was musing about an "Alberta Sovereignty Act", the topic of whether the Federal Government could exercise an equally obscure power called "Refusal".  

In both cases, the exercise of the power in question would trigger a political and constitutional crisis in both countries. Such a crisis would call into question both the division of powers, the role of the Federal level of government to intervene in the affairs of a lower level of government, and in fact with the judiciary had any power at all to mediate such a dispute. Such a crisis could in fact be serious enough to break the political consensus that had led to the constitutions of the respective nations being formed as they are. 

Let's consider for a moment that the objective in both cases is not in fact to assert novel powers, nor to overrule the legislation of an errant lower level of government, but rather it is to provoke the crisis that would allow the conservatives to dismantle the much more liberal constitutions - especially the civil rights aspects of those documents - which conservatives have for some time seen as an obstacle to their legislative agendas. 

Looking a little further, in Israel, a recently elected hard right government under Benjamin Netanyahu has promised to massively overhaul the role of the state's court system.  Conservatives have long argued that courts had become "activist" - usually in the context of the fact that much of their legislative agenda runs at odds with the concepts of individual rights. Here in Canada, Harper feuded with the SCC over matters like mandatory minimum sentencing, and lost on fundamental matters associated with the court's interpretation of the Charter. 

In the United States, the politicization of the courts by the GOP took hold under GWB, and during the Obama years, the GOP refused to allow any of Obama's nominees to the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) to be affirmed. This set the stage for a series of GOP candidates to be appointed under Trump, and then for the now-conservative aligned court to reverse course on abortion.  

Both of these moves are designed to ultimately place the courts firmly under the yoke of political masters, and to roll back much of the legislative and case law decisions that conservatives don't like.

Then in both Canada and the US, we are seeing provinces and states teeing up legislation designed to create conflict with their respective Federal governments. This isn't merely a case of "the usual grievances", as demonstrated in both Alberta and Saskatchewan, the provinces are attempted to assert unique powers to ignore Federal laws - not a good thing.  Ontario's conservative government has threatened to use the S33 "Notwithstanding" clause multiple times on matters where it seems capricious and unnecessary to do so. 

In both Canada and the US following their 2020 and 2021 elections respectively, extreme elements fostered by increasingly radical conservative politicians attempted to overturn the results of elections - in both cases by launching attacks on the seat of government itself, claiming in one form or another that the government was unjustly elected, or that it was acting against the people. This is no coincidence - the specifics of talking points differ, but the tactics of both were strikingly similar, with the Canadian Convoy occupation clearly drawing from the organizing and funding efforts around the US Capitol riots of 2021, and the Convoy shifting towards almost a siege model, instead of direct attack - clearly based on "lessons learned".  Mysteriously in both cases, the public backing of these events by conservative politicians is both prominent and not actively discussed in the news. 

How does this all tie together, you might ask? The same way it always does of late. Conservatives have been increasingly organizing with each other internationally through organizations like the IDU. I do not think it is a coincidence that there are direct and indirect connections to the IDU where these various activities are taking place.

Any one of these could be viewed as nothing more than a spat between levels of government, it comes at a time when political divisions are running high, and the far right has become increasingly emboldened. However, it seems increasingly unlikely when conservative politicians around the world are expressing suspiciously similar sentiments, and are making disturbingly parallel moves to address long standing conservative grievances. 

The Steyn Is Back ... and He Still Doesn't Get It

Mark Steyn has returned to the pages of the National Post, and he is continuing his crusade to never be held accountable for his "free speech".  (No surprise there, Steyn and Levant have been mutual cheerleaders for ages)

Mr. Steyn seems to be confused about the difference between free speech, free speech without consequences.  As always, his argument boils down to being able to say whatever the heck you want, and nobody should be able to hold you accountable for it.

He raises several instances where he claims that "free speech" is being unreasonably abrogated:

In California, Mozilla's chief executive is forced to resign because he once made a political donation in support of the pre-revisionist definition of marriage. 

At Westminster, the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee declares that the BBC should seek 'special clearance' before it interviews climate sceptics, such as fringe wacko extremists like former Chancellor Nigel Lawson.

Let's give these two examples a little closer scrutiny, shall we?

Brendan Eichs resigned as CEO of Mozilla as a result of it becoming public knowledge that he had financially supported the pro-Proposition 8 campaign in California.  Nobody has said that he has no right to do that.  He's perfectly free to do so.  Similarly, the users and developers behind Mozilla have an equal right to say that they don't like the idea of being led by a man who is objectively hostile to many of their peers and colleagues.  

Open source developers are notoriously liberal creatures.  They don't like the idea of bigotry and oppression being fomented by their leaders.  So, what happened when Mr. Eichs stepped in as CEO?  A few enterprising individuals went and did a bit of digging into Mr. Eichs' public record and found that he had acted in a manner they didn't approve of.  This was publicized, and the community around Mozilla began to protest rather vocally.  

Was Mr. Eichs' right to free speech (or action) being "suppressed"?  Not really.  Nobody is telling him to "shut up", and in fact I'm quite sure that Mr. Eichs could make quite a living for himself on the lecture circuit with Mr. Steyn, I'm sure.  What has happened is the community within which Mr. Eichs resides chose to censure him for what they perceived to be an inappropriate action.  (I won't pontificate on the proportionality of the consequences for Mr. Eichs, I don't have enough information about the particulars to make much of an assessment of it)

Regarding Mr. Lawson, although I have found one or two mentions of this report from the UK House of Commons Committee, it isn't exactly widely reported precisely what was said, so I'm even more cautious about the veracity of Steyn's claims.  Of a total of 3 news results on the subject, 2 were opinion pieces - including Mr. Steyn's column), and the third was behind a paywall, so it's a little difficult to assess the details and the veracity of Mr. Steyn's interpretation of things.

Mr. Lawson's position regarding climate change is well documented, and he has been pretty clear about it for some time.  Fine.  There is nothing saying that the BBC or any other news source has to give him an audience from which to spout his beliefs.  You see, the interesting thing about this is that Mr. Lawson is free to believe whatever he wishes.  But, just as in situations where creationism crosses paths with science, he is not entitled to his own 'facts' as he chooses to make them.    Therefore, a science show on BBC talking about climate change does need to be careful when bringing in someone like Mr. Lawson as an "expert".  If the show is about the known facts, then Mr. Lawson probably is not the right person to bring in.  

Mr. Steyn seems to think that this represents a narrowing of the public discourse.  Of course, like the average creationist who argues that "the debate" should be taught in schools, he is conveniently ignoring the fact that the facts have long since narrowed things down to the point that the debate is not one of "if", but rather of "when, and how much".  When so-called "skeptics" continue to repeat the tired line that there is "ambiguity in the science" or a "lack of clarity", they eventually render themselves irrelevant to the actual discussion.  

But free speech is essential to a free society because, when you deny people 'an opportunity to act like normal political parties' there's nothing left for them to do but punch your lights out

Of course, libertarians like Mr. Steyn argue this all the time.  They seem to have forgotten the lessons that we all learned (or should have learned) during the Nazi era in Germany.  There are in fact exercises of "free speech" that need to be censured and held in abeyance, for if they are not, they can and do become the tools of oppression and violence for those who are the targets of them.

Those few who are foolish enough to "sincerely" hold those beliefs that the Nazis used to demonize Jews in 1930s Germany (or whatever other bigotry you wish to look at, such as that in Rwanda in the early 1990s) don't have a legitimate voice, for their exercise of "free speech" has consequences for others besides themselves.

The problem that Mr. Steyn's position ignores is the inherent privilege that Mr. Steyn has as a reasonably wealthy, white American.  He is not a member of a minority population subject to systemic and deliberate suppression, he is not a member of a visible minority and subject to the consequences of America's racial segregation era.  He is, in fact, quite comfortable.  As a result, he fails to recognize that in order for there to be free speech, there must also be boundaries to it.  Some of those boundaries are going to be legal, some are going to be social - matters of courtesy shall we say.

If you cannot express your ideas reasonably without violating those conventions, then perhaps it is time to re-evaluate the positions that you are holding.  Are they unreasonable?  Has the society you live in moved past the assumptions that those positions are rooted in?  An excellent example of this would be the gay marriage debate in Canada:  If you raised this subject with most Canadians today, they would shrug and walk away on the basis that it has been the law of the land for close to a decade, and the world hasn't fallen apart as a result of it - holding to the argument that gay marriage should be illegal in Canada is largely seen as an archaic belief.  Society has moved beyond that issue.

Similarly, we have a fairly clear sense of what constitutes hate speech, and why hate speech is subject to censure.  I doubt that anybody would have a big problem with hauling off a white supremacist who started publicly broadcasting Nazi-era propaganda lies about Jewish people and charging them with hate crimes.  Mr. Steyn may decry what he sees as unreasonable "political correctness", and he is welcome to do so.  What is not open for debate is whether or not there should be consequences for those who not only violate the rights of others with their insistence on unbridled free speech.  There are and there will always be.

Is that an unreasonable limitation on "free speech"?  To a libertarian like Mr. Steyn, yes.  To the people who are the targets of hate speech, the question is a little different.  As I have argued many times in the past, rights and freedoms are not absolutes, rather they are a cat's cradle, where individual rights exist in constant tension with each other and the rights of others as well.  Mr. Steyn's right to free speech has limits, as does my own.  To believe otherwise is to blind oneself to the fact that we live in a social world.

The Problem Of Corporate Personhood

Over the last several years, we have seen a steady escalation of businesses asserting rights and privileges which are normally reserved for individuals.  A number of years ago, that extended into the realm of freedom of speech, and other areas where corporations are gradually asserting the same rights and freedoms as individual citizens as well.  

The most recent example of this popped up in the form of a company called "Hobby Lobby" making a big fuss about providing contraceptive access through its health care benefits.  What is interesting here is that Hobby Lobby is a sizeable company, and yet it is making this objection based on the company president's personal beliefs. 

I can appreciate that the owners of the company have specific beliefs that they hold very deeply.  However, when they are making decisions of this nature, they are effectively imposing their beliefs and morality on their employees who may or may not share the same set of beliefs.  While the sole proprietor of a company may make such decisions without affecting the rights and freedoms of others, this is not the case with Hobby Lobby.  Instead, what we have is the owners of the company claiming that their companies have the same rights as they do with respect to religious beliefs:

Hobby Lobby Stores Inc., Mardel Inc. and their owners, the Green family, argue for-profit businesses — not just religious groups — should be allowed to seek an exception if the law violates their religious beliefs. The owners approve of most forms of artificial birth control, but not those that prevent implantation of a fertilized egg — such as an IUD or the morning-after pill.

There's a problem here.  How can a business claim to have "religious beliefs"?  Last I checked, the people who run a business can worship as they see fit, but I cannot see for a minute how an abstract entity such as a business can be held to have such beliefs.  A company ultimately exists to transact business - no more, and no less than that.

While the ownership of a company may well set policies within the company which are in line with their personal beliefs, it is more than a bit of a reach to assert that the company itself has those personal beliefs.  It is an even greater reach to assert that a company has the right to assert that it is protected in holding such beliefs.

Today, another dimension of the Hobby Lobby story came to light:

Having heard this, and always wanting to be certain of what I write about, I just called the Marlboro hobby lobby and asked whether it would be stocking any Chanukah merchandise. I was told it would not. When I asked why, the answer - verbatim - was: 

"Because Mr. Green is the owner of the company, he's a Christian, and those are his values"
FYI, I would guess that, in a five mile radius around that Marlboro store, a solid one-third of all residents are Jewish. But, then again, what is the difference? Since the reason Hobby Lobby won't sell Chanukah goods is unrelated to how many Jews are in the area, it wouldn't matter if the percentage were higher or lower. 

The reason is that Mr. green's Christian "values" preclude him selling anything related to a Jewish holiday - not just Chanukah, but Passover too, based on the call I just made to corporate headquarters.

I have a great many Christian friends and acquaintances. And I can honestly say that I don't know even one who would ever see excluding Jews as having anything to do with Christian "values". But, evidently, Hobby Lobby owner David Green does.

While there could be a legitimate business reason for not stocking material related to a particular holiday, it seems interesting that the reason given here is Mr. Green's alleged "Christian values".  I think  that this tells us more about the motivations behind Hobby Lobby's demands in court.

At the end of the day, a Corporation is still a business.  Commercial transactions carried out in a business are quite apart from the religious convictions of the people who work in the context of a business.  For example, as an atheist, I might personally find it ridiculous to sell religious texts in a bookstore.  However, I have no right to refuse to sell those books as a member of the store's staff.

Similarly, though, the business has no right to insist that I purchase one of those texts for myself.  To do so would be a clear case of the business infringing upon my personal freedoms.  This applies whether we are talking about transactions in the context of the daily conduct of business with customers, or the business of hiring employees who work in the company's facilities.

Businesses exist within the broader context of society, but they are not active parts of society.  Rather, they are products of society themselves.  To grant them the same rights and privileges as individual citizens creates a serious problem.  Just as various "free trade" agreements have granted businesses the arbitrary right to sue a nation's government for acting in a manner which goes contrary to the company's perceived self-interest prevents a government from acting in the defence of its citizens, granting a business civil rights equivalent to those enjoyed by an individual citizen distorts the fabric of civil society.

When we allow businesses to become "full members of society", we create a situation which gives them a disproportionate say in the execution of government.  Likely to the detriment of individual citizens.