As revealed truths protected by the right to free speech, whether in law or in custom, increasingly offend the designated victim groups of a society, there will follow more frequent and vociferous justifications made by those offended and their benefactors for limiting the scope of the First Amendment, or of the equivalent cultural mores. The offense taken is directly proportional to the cultivated sensitivity of the offended group and the perception by that group of the willingness of the offending group to seek appeasement in the surrender of their right to speak freely and openly.
see: Canada (2010).
did anyone understand that? i didn’t.
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Man, is the dark lord going to be pissed when he finds whoever wrote this shit in his blog.
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Never tried this opener…
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i got no idea what Roissy’s job is but he always makes me think of the Thomas Pynchon line about DC… from Slow Learner… something to the effect of: “everyone at the party was in favor of overthrowing the government but temporarily working for it, and everyone found a fine irony in this…”
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I’m not an EFL speaker and still understood it. What’s wrong with you, ahappinessexperiment? :
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Why is Roissy talking about political correctness? I agree with what he is writing but would much rather talk about picking up girls.
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Then let me translate:
The right to speak the truth has historically been protected by the free speech provision of the First Amendment in the U.S. Problem is, the truth hurts, and as groups increasingly assert their “rights” over and above individual rights, specifically the “right” to not be offended, the more these groups will demand that the free speech rights given to an individual be eliminated to suppress the speech that hurts their feelings (i.e. women are shitty drivers, blacks genetically tend to have a lower IQ than whites, etc.).
The more sensitive the group is–or, as I prefer to think of it, the more sand that particular group has in its vagina–the more it will huff and puff and demand that the right to speak the truth be curtailed so the group won’t have to deal with having its feelings hurt. Likewise, the more pussified the people speaking the truth have become (or the more pussified the purported leaders of those people have become), the more they’ll bend over to take it in the ass and see their Constitutionally-given right to free speech taken away by the sandy mangina group. See generally Canada circa 2010, or the recent idiocy at Harvard over someone’s personal email.
So there you have it. Roissy’s was far more eloquent, but I guess we have to thank “ahappinessexperiment” for reminding us that, while eloquence is all well and good, sometimes you just have to hit people over the head with what you want to say so it penetrates through the buzz of the mainstream media, ipods, xboxes, twitter, facebook, and whatever other distractions you have.
FYI, happiness is a state of being, not an experiment.
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nope. the first amendment will be OK. it’s one thing we all agree on, whether left wing or right wing. william s. burroughs, norman mailer and gore vidal will be with us for a long time. the american fags, nazis and communists tend to all agree on this…. so free speech is as close to a consensus as we’ll ever have here. what could be more american?
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Holy shit, Roissy. You pepper polysyllabic words into your writing like a pretentious teenager that recently discovered “Word of the Day” on Webster.
We all know you’re decently intelligent, big guy. Now stop writing like a douche, and express your very simple ideas with $5 words instead of $50 ones.
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But Markzoni, don’t you appreciate mastery of the pen? Mastery and virtuosity are what one can find and enjoy in anything. Boxer’s marine&medic micro in Starcraft, classical music, thorough analysis of Frankfurter Allgemeine and elegant proofs. Now simplify all of them and you get Stacraft II, autotuned music, Fox News and No Child Left Behind.
I doubt that’s the world you want.
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Brad, i don’t know what you are talking about, but i think the right wing just WISHES that the left wing was against free speech. u listen to too much AM radio or something. you can call fags sex-niggers for all i care (that’s what i call them)… i think we all get along on the first amendment here regardless of political orientation…
this is a recent conservative meme that they WISH the left wing wanted to censor them so they can call the left wing hypocrits…
i’m no PC thug. i’m all in favor of calling a spade a spade. i think that was the whole fucking point liberals were trying to make once upon a time.
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+1
I used this line on a 9.5 and her panties fell right off on the spot. They love it when I go all alpha ranting about the political issue du jour.
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it’s the conservative faggots who have always been on the censorship side. don’t try to suddenly turn the truth on her pretty ass because you heard some fat ass on AM radio tell you it’s the liberals who get offended easily. lay it on me you jew niggers. tell me i’m against the first amendment.
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i’m trying to come up with an offensive word and i’m not sure what it is. are there offensive words left? if you can find one, use it. i think we resolved this issue in 1957 with Lolita, Naked Lunch and Tropic of Cancer, but if republicans want to believe censorship is on the horizon let them say what it is they fear speaking.
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Gee, the political posts always attract a much lower quality of commenter. They don’t know what you’re referring to or what you have previously said and project all sorts of hatred, ignorance, and stupidity onto you.
One big tipoff you are dealing with one of these fools is that they assume, because they disagree with you about X, that you disagree with them about Y and Z which they feel more confident vilifying than X. Thus they attack you over Y and Z even though you have only talked about X.
These idiots imagine that just because certain opinions are often found together in the same minds, there is some necessary logical connection between them, even though they can’t themselves say what it is.
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“One big tipoff you are dealing with one of these fools is that they assume, because they disagree with you about X, that you disagree with them about Y and Z which they feel more confident vilifying than X. Thus they attack you over Y and Z even though you have only talked about X.”
Polymath, can you put that into English? what are X Y and Z here?
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That whole Ann Coulter thing was an embarrassment. Doesn’t matter if you don’t like her. She’s got a right to speak.
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This wasn’t that hard to understand people… as soon as you try explaining female dynamics to them and their true nature, they’ll immediately band together and gang up on the guy for speaking the truth and claim they are the “exception” and that they aren’t like that. Women will look for any possible way to avoid taking the blame or ownership of any actions they take.
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The Middle East has long had a big problem here in that honor killings are most often made against innocent men who happened to insult someone’s sister or daughter when she royally deserved it (to be called a bitch for instance).
Men putting women on pedestals creates a victim class whereby a verbal insult becomes a reason to escalate things to violence…not good for all the males in question.
In the USA, there are no blood vendettas for calling someone’s sister a bitch. At worst, we might say “Hey Buddy, that’s harsh. That’s my sister you’re talking to”.
As much as I speak out against feminism, it has given us more premarital sex and we are allowed now to argue with and insult American women without being killed by other men for it (of course in the Duke Lacrosse Fake Rape case, an insulted woman tried to get her revenge).
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of course i’m one to keep sipping my whisky and keep trying to think of new things to say. i’ve always considered myself a bit of a lefty, but hey, i’m all for pulling out rifles and shooting the offended. but i’m from the south, so when i say i’m a lefty it just means i read faulkner while sipping my whisky.
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if this is about ann coulter i have no idea what you are talking about. i thought we were talking about the first amendment.
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i this post was really about ann coulter i give up. i can’t follow american politics. i assumed it was a general statement.
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Wow, I was trying to relate to important historical episodes of American free speech like Lenny Bruce and Henry Miller and Burroughs… and it turns out it was about Ann Coulter–speaking in Canada. I didn’t think my sense of dignity could be drug any lower. But is has been brought lower.
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Europe reached this point long ago. If America goes, the West is gone. Better learn Mandarin quick.
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He he, taboos are ad hoc amendments to the First Amendment.
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I’m glad, Roissy, that you are keeping an eye on developments in America’s Moral Leader, Canada. A large proportion of the most influential Americans have long been wishing that America was more like Canada, politically, socially, legally, and so forth, and slowly but surely, step by step, they are realizing their wish, as we all can see over the years. I’ll leave it to you and others to name specific instances of their success.
Here’s a perfect illustration of the sort of thing for which Americans look to Canada for inspiration, example, and guidance: Canada: Retirement savings may go to support the poor (are you listening, Democrats?)
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It’s in reference to a piece Kagan wrote while she was at Harvard justifying possible limits on free speech. Who gives a shi*t about coulter?
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narzheewa said:
But Markzoni, don’t you appreciate mastery of the pen?
Exactly. Great writing moves the soul. Everytime I read an American Crisis by Thomas Paine or the Gettysburg Address by Lincoln, or passages written by Tacitus or Cicero, I am at times moved to tears by the beauty of the words. This skill has huge benefits in game as well. A quote I once read rings true with this thought:
“Men love with their eyes and women love with their ears. ”
Roissy is here teaching us in no small part because of his writing and speaking skills. He’s a master PUA because of these abilities.
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Example of a black beta?
I think this was guy was a BotM candidate.
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Out lives would be much better if we didn’t have to deal with blacks and all their dysfunction.
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So how do budding lotharios use this to get laid?
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This post extends past mere political free speech. It also touches on those douche bag harpies on the net who want to claim that game is abuse and people who learn game need to go to prison.
The takeaway portion of the post is: “The offense taken is directly proportional to the cultivated sensitivity of the offended group and the perception by that group of the willingness of the offending group to seek appeasement in the surrender of their right to speak freely and openly.”
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Can we get back to the topics dealing with girls and game?
I need something to lick!
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dude…cmon man just stick to writing about girls. i agree with you and all and i understand what your saying and i see where your coming from…..which is fine…..thats fine. but i dont check this site multiple times a day to see posts like this one. posts about what the dark lord does are far more delicious.
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Even if free speech is stifled to suppress exposure of the pretty lies, feminism has already sown the seeds of its own destruction.
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Sounds like the guy who accused you of using $50 words got his feelings hurt. Maybe you should just be quiet now.
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yawn. “get back to writing about girls.” This blog has mixed Game/current events/politics since its begining and seems to be more, not less, popular for it.
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ahappiness
conservatives try to suppress pornographic speech, yes
but liberals develop entire regulatory schemes like the fairness doctrine for radio that wholly suppress entire worldviews, or monopolize universities and bar entire fields of inquiry. when traditionalists ran the universities in the US the left/liberal tradition flourished, now that the left runs them all conservative thought is suppressed. they medicalize unpopular thought and call it mental illness by attaching suffixes previously used only by psychology only to DIAGNOSE mental illness to belief systems they disagree with, like -phobia. people are fired and harrassed for saying things about race and gender just because they are unpopular. men live in fear of looking at women cross eyed in the work place.
you are comparing the right not wanting scumbag comedians and writers to publish pornography to that?
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The only reason Ann Coulter got banned is because we have a pussy Ontario premier who didn’t do anything to stand up to the shrill fembot and PC harpies who opposed her appearances. Yes, she’s a wack job – but we can only recognize this by letting her embarass herself by yapping those lizard lips.
The only reason we have a pussy premier, is because the opposition has continued to shoot itself in the foot and failed to put forward any legitimately qualified people. Same thing with the Feds, it’s hard to trust these clowns when half of the cabinet is made up from yahoos from rural Alberta ridings. The corrollary of this being of course that the federal Libs have been utterly hapless and without cajones since dictator Chretien let loose of the reins.
It’s all in shambles, frankly.
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In a word, yes, he is and for all practical purposes I and most men would agree that the Republican Party must drop (at the grass roots level) its opposition to premarital sex and pornography and the new trend of arresting johns and of raising the age of consent from its reasonable level of 16.
Much of the male vote will keep its distance otherwise.
Those comedians have every right to say what they do and they have a huge male following for a reason.
It is mainly older Republican women who run the show in disapproving of things like porn. We don’t need to have a pro-male ideology run, for all practical purposes, by old women (apologies to Phylis Schafly who is otherwise an ally of the men’s rights movement).
Having said that, in a two party oligarchy, we men don’t have much choice because that choice is often voting for the prudes to stop the Marxist feminists.
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ahappinessexperiment,
This comment of mine from an earlier thread gives a detailed example.
But it happens all over when politics is discussed on this blog: someone who states a position which happens to agree with Republicans (or liberals, or conservatives, or Democrats) on a particular issue is declared, on that basis alone, to BE a Republican (or liberal, or conservative, or Democrat) and abused for all the things the commenter finds bad about that group.
Intelligent people sometimes fail to conform 100% with political stereotypes. Stupid people think that they can generalize from a view on one issue to views on all issues, because they themselves get their opinions wholesale.
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I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.
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A society that will ban porn will also put women on a pedestal. In that society, if you call someone’s 17 year old sister a bitch for being one, a possy is sent after you for “molesting a child”.
It is no less anti-male than when the feminists won’t let you look at a woman cross-eyed.
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ahappinessexperiment–
The left wing does censor people. At least people with much to lose who might be influential.
They don’t do it by a before the fact screening regimen.
They do it by after the fact severe punishment. By screaming “racist” and “anti-Semite” and “sexist”.
Oh it’s legal to say the N word. Just woe be it to anyone in any higher level job who does. Vast apologies are needed, else curtains to that job and a branding of the individual in seeking other higher level jobs. Even the use of an unrelated word that sounds similar, e.g. “niggardly”, got a man in the highest levels of DC city government into some serious trouble a while back, with much need for profuse apologies. An explanation of the etymology of “niggardly” did not obviate the need for him to promise to never utter it again
Lest those things particularly the first two are thought to be just words, consider that the left tried to get Stephanie Grace fired from her clerkship, and that her job offers after clerking will be affected if people in the legal profession remember her, or think many others will. Consider what happened to James Watson. Larry Summers was guilty of the lesser offense of perhaps being guilty of sexism so after the punishment and disgrace of losing his presidency of Harvard, he got a second chance at a high place on account of his brilliance, but make no mistake he was hurt.
You don’t think that’s a kind of censorship?
Why is it about no one on the “uncovering pretty lies” side around here uses their real name when commenting here?
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dana–
So, so true.
The universities have almost always tended to be somewhat more liberal than the society in which they existed here and elsewhere , but before the cultural Marxist new left takeover they were places far more open to all ideas, so long as they were rigorously researched and explored.
Now the cultural Marxist bedrock principals of essential gender and racial sameness, and the absolute necessity of making equalizing everything the highest social priority cannot be seriously questioned.
It is however a bit of an exaggeration to say that ‘all conservative thought is suppressed’. It’s all scorned yes, but small government and lower taxation type conservative though is tolerated, barely, at universities.
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Jerry–
First of all it’s far less anti-male than the pervasive leftist feminism we have now, you idiotic twerp. Traditional society that in the Anglosphere only (and not as some inherent necessity of patriarchal paternalism) put women on something of a pedestal in some respects, also considered men naturally far superior in others, and as the natural leaders of women. As well such societies in the west ensured that every reasonably successful man (top 80% or so) was married to a virgin or near virgin, unless perhaps he fell near the bottom in which case it much depended. He could be lucking to get anything.
Second of all there is more than one type of conservatism. Realist types who predominate on this board and include Roissy, do not wish to prohibit all pornography and are probably for the most part fine with the laws in that respect as they exist now in the US. What we all have in common is seeing the deep fallacies and ideological censorship (or that attempt) of the cultural Marxist derived left, and oppose it.
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The Right seeks to maintain the collective vitality of the people. Some censorship of sxe and related things is part of Right’s efforts to control the destructive effects of unregulated sxuality.
The Left, on the other hand, is all about pure, undistilled, vampiric will to power of its upper cadres. The Left is heir to Robespierre, Lenin, and Stalin: it’s anti-human and stands for no higher ideals.
All the talk of “caring for the poor or minoriteis” is alliance-building with the lower strata, to be discarded when no longer needed. All the talk of openness and freedom, all the Lenny Bruce filth, is battering rams for dismantling traditional morals of the Old Order, to be discarded when said old order is dismantled.
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ahappinessexperiment,
It’s not the conservatives that we’re worried about in Canada, it’s the liberals. In Canada the liberals have given the ability for anyone to who is offended to sue ,for free, outside a court of law all in the name of “human rights”. A woman recently won $17k because a school lunch supervisor told her son to “eat like a Canadian” with a knife and fork rather than a fork and spoon in the traditional filipino way. Take a look at the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms when you have a chance.
Fortunately the Human Rights Tribunals are starting to fall apart; one province is going to dismantle theirs and the Supreme Court recently ruled that several interpretations of the Charter conflicted with our constitutional right of free speech. Ann Coulter will test the tribunal in Ontario. It’s an interesting time for free speech in Canada.
The right censors on moral grounds, and gets called sexist, racist, homophobic, etc. The left censors because the think that no one should have their feelings hurt.
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and Sarah Palin has successfully forced 19 year old Levi to pay $1700 per month for the rest of his life (well 18 years anyway) because he got Bristol preggers and didn’t want to stay with her.
If the GOP is going to be anti-abortion and want men to take that position seriously, then they have to do some math:
Get woman preggers and she has the baby but you don’t want to live with her:
$367,200
Get woman preggers and she doesn’t have the baby and you don’t want to live with her:
$500
Does the GOP really think they will garner the lion’s share of the male vote with this kind of math hanging over their heads?
The way around this is at least to be like Texas which has a cap of $1000 per month on child support, regardless of how many babies one has sired in the state. So a man can get 10 women pregnant and only have to pay each $100 per month. The price for having made a few sexual mistakes would be:
$216,000 total.
That is more like it! Men will join the Pro-Life Movement and protest abortion when a woman not getting an abortion will only cost the man $216,000 instead of $367,200.
Reduce that to $500 per month cap (at least per child) and you get $108,000 liability, at which point more men would join the GOP’s protests against abortion. The single moms could apply for welfare if their parents or a new boyfriend won’t take care of them.
Lowering the child support sword would do a lot for the GOP – if the party were controlled by males, which it isn’t.
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@Doug1
You know that Sam Brownback got VAWA/IMBRA passed in return for Cantwell agreeing not to filibuster Alito.
The right is only “far less anti-male” because people like me are on Twitter with more than 10,000 followers making sure the new GOP does not follow its traditional anti-sex ways and guys like Roissy have blogs like this.
You do your fair share.
It isn’t easy getting a pro-male party with Sarah Palin being prayed to but we can do it if we don’t fall into infighting.
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PA–
(bracketed phrased added).
For sure. It won’t be discarded as an ideology though.
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Jerry
It’s the feminist left that got that child support=mostly alimony jacked way the hell up in the late 80’s and early 90’s from it’s traditional much lower levels, esp. for higher earners.
It’s the feminist left which suffuses our mainstream media which blocks any wide expression of outrage at such amounts in any appreciable corner of the media.
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Jerry–
You’re right of course that the gop hasn’t stood for men’s rights. It’s just been less destructive of them on it’s own than the dems.
It’s part of conservatives in the us (and the rest of the West) rarely doing more than just saying, “slower, slower”. Never rolling anything except taxes back.
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To break this down into it’s most simple form:
America has officially moved from Alpha to beta.
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All is not quite lost up north, though.
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The statist, leftwing, PC culture is directly at odd with truth, justice, and the American way. Come on, PC means lying for the benefit politics. Social justice is an excuse for stealing. And you know the SWPL’s hate this country. If they didn’t, they would accidentally do something helpful to us and our allies at least once in a while.
So yeah, R, the First Amendment gets in the way for these folks. I noticed there was some lefty hand wringing over kids burning the Mexican flag. There was never any concern when it was stars and stripes.
To sum it up, these are our Vichy Americans.
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I’d like to take a moment to put forth a serious thought.
Men are well served to learn the art and habit of anonymous living. Start now, even if you don’t need it. Make it a hobby to arrange a collection of everything you need to be able to live completely off the grid.
I mean, do you really want to be a model citizen who does whatever the law requires of you?
Or do you want the option to make your own rules?
State enforced indentured servitude to some bitch who refused to get an abortion.
Keep your passport renewed, gentlemen.
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“But Markzoni, don’t you appreciate mastery of the pen? Mastery and virtuosity are what one can find and enjoy in anything. Boxer’s marine&medic micro in Starcraft, classical music, thorough analysis of Frankfurter Allgemeine and elegant proofs. Now simplify all of them and you get Stacraft II, autotuned music, Fox News and No Child Left Behind.”
No. Read Hemingway, for instance, and you’ll see what he means. Quality writing can indeed be simple, tough, and masterful at the same time.
“I’m glad, Roissy, that you are keeping an eye on developments in America’s Moral Leader, Canada. A large proportion of the most influential Americans have long been wishing that America was more like Canada, politically, socially, legally, and so forth, and slowly but surely, step by step, they are realizing their wish, as we all can see over the years. I’ll leave it to you and others to name specific instances of their success.”
Canada sucks ass and I don’t want America to end up anything like it. The only people who want a Canadized America are SWPL dipshits who love handing half their paycheck over to the corrupt nanny state. Fuck that noise.
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It’s Larry Auster’s First Law of Minority Relations:
“The more egregiously any non-Western or non-white group behaves, the more evil whites are made to appear for noticing and drawing rational conclusions about that group’s bad behavior.”
or phrased another way:
“The WORSE a designated minority group behaves, the MORE we must blame ourselves for it.”
or …
“The more difficult or dangerous a minority or non-Western group actually is, the more favorably it is treated. This increasingly undeserved favorable treatment of an increasingly troublesome or misbehaving minority or non-Western group can take numerous forms, including celebrating the group, giving the group greater rights and privileges, covering up the group’s crimes and dysfunctions, attacking the group’s critics as racists, and blaming the group’s bad behavior on white racism.”
i.e. the more you placate the bloodsuckers, the hungrier they get.
Applies to feminists, sexual minorities, and manginas too.
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@xsplat
Or preferably to some of us, have it given up for adoption. Best of both worlds: your progeny populates the earth, gets an intact two-parent family who is dying to raise him, and you don’t have to pay through the nose for it!
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Rumpole_Stiltskin wrote
Can we get back to the topics dealing with girls and game?
I need something to lick!
*chic noir spits our tea*
😯
hey now player 🙂
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So no bashing….
Jews
Blacks
Moslems
Fags
Sluts
The poor
Socialism
Unwed mothers
Bastard children
Climate scientists……
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It’s about how liberal/leftards believe free speech belongs to those who call everybody else “Racist!” the loudest (bonus points for whomever everyone else is afraid of calling “intolerant” for fearing of having the “hate speech” beaten out of them in return).
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Neither liberals nor conservatives are on the side of “The Truth”; they both use it to advance their respective agendas.
We need the Constitution to explicitly state that telling the truth is a human right.
Ann Coulter looks like a horse and lies like a snake. The Lie is like air to the Evil; without the Lie, the Evil dies. You are not free.
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Ann Coulter was silenced in Canada, and and Obama’s supreme court nominee wants to silence pretty much everyone. The post referenced Ann Coulter, but the Supreme court nominee foreshadows Canada coming here.
The left position on freedom of speech has always been: freedom for left wing speech. They see disagreement as a form of physical attack, which oppresses them, and freedom, to them requires not only requires the comfort of supporting words, but freedom from the threat of being exposed to objectionable thoughts.
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Don’t presume Liberals will go down without a fight – or bloodshed, either. BIG monetary spoils and power begets the will to grasp this treasure in a deathgrip. The only fools EVER to give away everything were white males.
If one does believe the conflict will be on MSNBC, then one is smoking fantasy mancrack at The Spearhead…puffing away until the day when clever words and wit actually ever change an injustice.
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@Jeffrey of Troy
Oh, and who is to decide what speech is “The Truth” and what is not? Via a Human Rights Tribunal? That’s worked so well for Canada.
Or perhaps a “Truth Czar” appointed by a President like Obama, or by a President like Bush? Take your pick. Your Liberal tendency towards censoring uncomfortable political speech is exactly the point of this thread. It’s that condescending belief that the average American is too stupid to determine “The Truth” as it relates to them by listening to a variety of viewpoints in an open marketplace of ideas. Instead they must be instructed and monitored, banned and prosecuted when necessary, by an anointed politically correct elite.
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Per historic battle results: The last man standing
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Roissy: the last bastion of free speech on the web.
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@Tinderbox
“Oh, and who is to decide what speech is “The Truth” and what is not? Via a Human Rights Tribunal? That’s worked so well for Canada.”
No one gets to decide what the truth is; it’s what the evidence proves. It’s quite easy to find out the truth about many things in this world, but many still believe they are free to believe whatever they want.
” Your Liberal tendency towards censoring uncomfortable political speech is exactly the point of this thread. ”
My Liberal tendency? WTF? I am Rational, neither Conservative nor Liberal. Are you a binary robot?
I don’t want to censor “uncomfortable” political speech. It is the right of all humans to tell the truth. No one is free to lie.
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Whose evidence? Who decides what the rules of that evidence are?
Anyone is free to lie if they choose to risk their credibility for a calculated gain. Telling the truth is not a human right, I don’t even know what you mean by that. There isn’t a culture on earth that doesn’t embrace it, particularly in the Mideast or a place like China, where it’s way things are done societally to never tip your hand to your adversary in business or politics.
Mandating truth-telling in the Constitution would be a disaster. Real government wouldn’t be able to function, particularly in diplomacy and waging war. This is the kind of Pollyanna thinking that led to the Church Committee in the 70s and the increasing de-balling of the C.I.A., leading directly to being unable to prevent 9/11 and the wars we’re in today.
Mandating “truth” as an enforceable human right is a utopian ideal. And yes, it’s this sort of ideas that Liberals come up with all the time in a quest to perfect mankind, finding new “human rights” that didn’t exist five minutes ago, much less in a classical sense. In the utter disregard for actual human nature and in ignorance in how the world actually functions, these utopian schemes end up creating far worse and oppressive environments because people are not and never will be angelic beings. If you’re espousing Liberal ideas and walking and quacking like a duck, don’t be surprised if people assume you vote and agree with that crowd.
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I guess this is a swipe at Canada but such assertions make it so hard for me to identify it as such. I live in Canada and I have lived in NYC and Atlanta. The myth amongst Americans is that Canada is some political correct pseudo-utopia which neatly fits into the construct of American liberal idealism. Nothing could be futher from the truth. I am a typical Canadian liberal and have lived extensively in the USA. I have lived in New York City/Atlanta and a few other places and I found my “typical Canadian liberal” opinions neither fit neatly into the ideology of American leftists nor the right-wing. We agree with bits of what each side says. It just doesnt fit perfectly. Canadian politics is simply more about practicality and pragmatism, not so obsessed with liberal vs. republican ideology. The problem is you cant judge Canada from reading about it. You have to live here. For instance, Canada has marijuana laws and drugs laws similar to the USA but everyone know you can light joint or do drugs in any club/bar in Vancouver, Montreal or Toronto and no one will care. Canada is also not race-obsessed nor race-sensitive, which is like the patheon of American liberalism. If you scan Canadian headlines, you dont find them filled with the obsession of insensitive comments made by political leaders denigrating this group or that group, which believe me, probably happens more than it does in the USA. Cmon, do you really think, Vice Magazine, or SWPL could be birthed from the political correct USA? In Canada, no one is seeing a psychiatrist becuase they were called the n-word three times in high-school. Would it surprise you to learn that the 15% GS Tax (now 13%) on everything we purchase was introduced by a conservative government? Believe me, I have lived in both countries. Even if Obama realizes his dreams, the USA will never truly resemble Canada. I dont say this to knock the USA becuase I like the place for other reasons but your identity politics, racial obsession and hillbilly/Palin-doctrine is very uniquely American. We dont have that crap inserted in our daily lives. Plus we have better-looking feminine babes (Y’know its true).
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I’d like to second what Jake said; the sort of news that hits big enough to be seen in the United States isn’t an accurate display of what’s really going on here. The Human Rights Tribunals – originally started to address housing and employment issues – have spiralled out of control, and a lot of Canadians are pissed about it. For the most part we don’t have the endemic economic and racial divides which are so prevalent in the US, and our politics are less ideologically driven (except where Quebec is concerned). Your typical Canadian will be a strong advocate for Freedom of Speech and traditional values – but there are some problems as well.
The biggest being that Canadians trust their government. They assume that any law passed – whether it be smoking bans, seatbelt laws, what have you – are in our best interest. And while in the *practical* sense we tend to have more Rights and Freedoms than the majority of Americans, there’s no document explicitly enshrining most of them. The cops can do whatever the fuck they want to you – but because Canadians are inundated with media portraying the American Constituion, and we’re so similar culturally, we assume we have the same protections.
99% of the time the government knows that violating these American Rights will be more trouble than it’s worth. The whole society will make a gigantic stink. But that other one percent of the time…
We definitely need some reform here, but the country as a whole isn’t a hotbed of European Socialist values (despite our shitty, gov’t run healthcare – hell, even that’s beginning to crumble as illegal private practices open up). I think some of you might like it here – just don’t make your first visit during the winter.
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“Your typical Canadian will be a strong advocate for Freedom of Speech and traditional values ”
Oh come on.
When Coulter was shut down, where was the outcry.
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I don’t watch that much news, and this was the first that I heard about it, so I can’t speak to any outcry – though I suspect there is one in Newspaper editorials and AM radio.
But from what I’ve gathered, saying that she was shut down is a bit of an exagerration.
She started out with the University cautioning her about Hate Crime speech laws – which is horseshit, but not an innately Canadian problem. It’s a problem with Acadamia everywhere. The University was just using the tools they had to threaten her. Granted the mere existence of Hate Speech laws is unethical bullshit, but in practice the police in this country use them judiciously, throwing the book at mob violence. Regarding Coulter, the cops couldn’t have cared less; she had no problems with anybody but the school administration there.
And as for the speech itself (as far as I know) there were peaceful protests outside, and a few question-askers who pointed out what a jackass the woman is. There wasn’t any mass movement to block or silence her, it was on the side of grassroots booing. There’s a fine line between unacknowledged censorship and heckling.
There are suggestions that Ann has been trying to play things up as censorship – cancelling her second appearance due to ‘security concerns’ (we all know the dangers of gun-toting Ottawa hippies) and trying to blame it on the establishment.
Not that I disagree with the point behind Chateau’s post, I was just disputing some of the facts. There certainly are some folks down there do want to turn the US into what they *think* Canada is, and when it comes to situations like this perception is often more important than reality
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Whats all this fuss about Coulter? Coulter wasnt shut down because she was espousing dangerous political views. Fox News is available in Canada. People are well-aware of her and her political stance.
Coulter’s speech was stopped in Ottawa because I heard safety was an issue. In fact, her organizer stopped the speech.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ann-coulters-speech-in-ottawa-cancelled/article1509793/
She ended up giving her speeches in Calgary etc. So what’s the big controversy? Do you really think Anne Coulter is viewed of some sort of threat to Canadian security becuase her views are “dangerous” or something? As if her veiws will revolutionize the country? C’mon….Along with Bush, she supported the Iraq War. Do you really think Canadians, left or right, regret not participating?
This dislike for Coulter in Canada is simply becuase during the Iraq War, videos circulating of her repeatedly claiming very negative things about Canada. She is viewed largely as anti-Canadian. In fact, the wikepedia definition of “anti-Canadianism” includes her rants like “Canada should be grateful that the US allows it to exist on the same continent”. She also famously made a false claim that Canada participated in the Vietnam War (almost damn-near a sacreligious statement in Canada becuase about a quarter of American ex-patriates fleed up here for that very reason). She famously said “”Canada used to be…one of our most…most loyal friends, and vice versa. I mean, Canada sent troops to Vietnam. Was Vietnam less containable and more of a threat than Saddam Hussein?” Plenty of my friends laugh endlessly about her ignorance about this issue, which Im sure most Americans overlook.
She did eventually get it right. Only to say that “The worst Americans end up going (to Canada). The Tories after the Revolutionary War, the Vietnam draft dodgers after Vietnam and now after this election we even have blue states moving up there . . .”
I am sure Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have all met opposition if they visited the United States becuase they are viewed as “Anti-American” or made statements Americans do not like.
What do you expect ? Canadians are going to welcome someone who
Oh yeah…I forgot American freedom does not even allow you to visit Cuba. Or even considering the “Freedom” to broadcast Al-Jazeera which was seriously debated here, but the idea was backed off from becuase of pressure from the USA.
As you can see Coulter could say whatever she wishes despite of U of Ottawa’s words of caution:
http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/03/23/throw-ann-coulter-in-jail/
And BTW, in all seriousness: if Coulter is what passes for hot these days in the USA, you are in serious trouble.
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Coulter wasnt shut down because she was espousing dangerous political views. Fox News is available in Canada. People are well-aware of her and her political stance.
Coulter’s speech was stopped in Ottawa because I heard safety was an issue. In fact, her organizer stopped the speech.
By your argument Hitler never censored anyone either. Safety was an issue because the Canadian government was sponsoring thugs to beat her up – nominally non governmental thugs, thugs not officially on the government payroll, but still somehow snug in the bosom of the state.
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@ James.
Your arguement is a very shaky one. I barely understand your analogy and perhaps, this is exemplar of my original point – not understanding Canadian politics. Our government is currently ruled by a minority Conservative government most apt to side Coulter’s stances in the first place.
If a speech in the USA was cancelled by a liberal speaker’s organizers, due to the agressive nature of Tea Party protesters and a fear of safety, I would not assume this is becuase its a conspiracy against free-speech in the USA. Especially, if later, that same speaker gave speeches throughout the same country.
Furthermore, Coulter does not offer any clearly revolutionary stances or positions that are unheard of in Canada. Her books are not banned and her political opinions are hardly “eye-openers”. She does however coyly on occassion use controvery to capitalize/ gain media attention.
Coulter’s hatred is due to her percieved “anti-Canadianism” and statements of that nature. Recently, Billy Bob Thorton was booed off stage in Toronto and then decided to cancel a tour because he made nasty statements about Canadians that made his audience react with hostility. Surely, you dont think this another example of a free speech violation.
I live here in this country. Its obvious your Canadian experience is limited. If you notice, you probably havent met any mentally-stable Canadians who visit America saying “Wow. Ive never heard anyone able to say that before. There is so much freedom here”. My friend, this is not China.
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@James A. Donald
Points subtracted because of Godwin’s law.
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Our government is currently ruled by a minority Conservative government most apt to side Coulter’s stances in the first place.
If a speech in the USA was cancelled by a liberal speaker’s organizers, due to the agressive nature of Tea Party protesters and a fear of safety,
But the threat was made not by the tea party, but by the government guy who would be in charge of Coulter’s security. It is the difference between some random thug saying telling you to get the hell out or you are going to get hurt, and a cop telling you to get the hell out or you are going to get hurt. Clearly, the cop is going to hurt you, or make sure someone else hurts you.
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