Pardon me?
You are surprised by this?
I live in Canada. We do NOT have guaranteed freedom of speech.
The UK’s libel laws, for example, are so illogical that US courts tend to refuse to enforce their judgements against people.
And so on…
You may well be correct insofar as things like ‘hate speech’. Libelous statements are a very different matter.
But, just to be clear, if we stick to ‘hate speech’, I ask: is there no country but the US where ‘hate speech’ is permitted? I hadn’t really appreciated that.
For example, David Ahenikew was prosecuted in Canada for telling a reporter 9who asked him) that the Jews started WWII. He was just a stupid old fart with a pre-WWII attitude who happened to be in a prominent position within a native organization and didn’t know anything. He wasn’t running a campaign or making it a major effort to promote intolerance against them. he just replied to a reporter who asked him about something he’d said earlier, and he was so stupid he didn’t even understand how stupid he sounded. What made matters worse, is a native American too stupid to understand about racism. Regardless, he was prosecuted for what he said. Whereas in the USA, the Nazis are allowed by the constitution to parade through a Jewish suburb.
it bothers me that the best examples of Canadian intolerance to free speech revolve around the most despicable racism, but that’s what free speech is about - unpopular, usually wrong, opinions. Nobody wants to ban the right to post kitten videos. (Although maybe they should). it’s just the thin edge of the wedge. the current hysteria is that there oughta be a law against anything offensive online that could be construed as in any way cyberbullying.
And… I think of Canada as probably the next most free country after the USA.
The fact that the US allows greater latitude of some speech is hardly unique.
Sure. Every year in Los Angeles, the Hare Krishnas have a chariot parade. I’m not a Hare Krishnu, but they are Hindus, so I attend most years. And every year I’ve gone, there is at least one fundamentalist Christian group screeching (and I use that term literally) about how everyone is going to hell. That’s nothing compared to what I witnessed growing up in the Bible Belt.
Then, of course, there was the incident that occurred when a Hindu Priest gave the opening invocation at the US Senate:
I’m so used to these type of occurrences, that I don’t even bat an eye at them any longer.
Well, that was SUCH an objectionable prayer! (snicker)
Seriously, it’s embarrassing to be a human sometimes.
That video is so sad it’s actually funny, except the hecklers are serious. these are the people that make your laws, and you wonder why the government is so screwed up.
yeah, I’ve seen the Krishna parade in Toronto (I think I have pictures of it somewhere) It’s fascinating but nobody there was heckling, the non-believers were enjoying the pageant on display. Fundamentalist Christianity to the point of insulting others for not seeing the light seems to be a failure of intelligence more prevalent in the USA for some reason.
However, those people too are provided with the right to free speech. I assume too the “God hates gays” protesters would be arrested and charged if they tried that crap in Canada.
(As someone pointed out in Canada during the debate on state religions - between French Canadians, Irish and the Italian and Portuguese immigrants, if Canada chose to emphasize one religion over the others it would be Catholic. Add in the Chinese and South Asian immigrants, and protestants are probably a minority in this country. )
The video takes us back to one of my original points. The SCOTUS decision said the town did not have to go looking outside its boundaries for diversity - but how seriously did they look inside the town? If they picked and chose certain prayer leaders over others, or if they offered a criteria of choosing, then they would indeed be breaking the spirit of the open prayer and contrary to the SCOTUS decision, it would seem.
Even for example, requiring belief in a supreme being by the prayer leader would rule out polytheistic religions like Hindus or Native Americans; I’d like to know how the wording would rule out atheists leading an homage to the constitution and the supremacy of mankind. (“Need to address a supreme being or beings? That would be us humans”). Any hint of selection criteria automatically separates the population into those with “officially sanctioned” religions and those without.
Since the issue does not seem to have been any criteria mentioned in the decision, I assume there wasn’t any. Why didn’t the local atheists sign up to lead prayers instead of costing the town a fortune in legal fees?