When you get tired of straw men, Peter, then we can talk.

You would prefer lynch mobs? Although you seemed to determined to make a small gulf a huge one, I’m simply not going to go as far as you, Dcardno, mainly because we don’t share preceptions of the reality of human nature in extremis, your radical and ultra-rational separation of speech from the rest of public life, your apparent absolute priority of free speech over everything else and what the Canadian public will accept in the end. If that gets me barred from the club, so be it. But be careful with those absolute principles of yours, Dcardno. You may find that the tighter you hold on to them, the more people, life, Canada, etc. will disappoint and anger you.

I think Peter has the light. Do not extinguish that light, however dimly lit you might find it.

But it doesn’t belong there, Peter. You are not in favour of Free Speech – you advocate some sort of Free Speech Lite™ where inoffensive speech is fully protected and we pat ourselves on the back for our courage. You are clear that defending say Lemire’s right to speech is distasteful, and even strategically unwise: “The right isn’t helping much by… allowing themselves to be manoevered into championing the likes of Lemire.” Where Warman asks of Icke “What possible benefit can there be in allowing him to speak?” you ask of Lemire, “What possible benefit can there be in defending his right to speak?” No doubt you have a tortuous polysyllabic explanation – but it is a distinction without a difference: you believe in the kind of free speech that is not personally offensive, that doesn’t issue from “a vulgar and intimidating jerk” and where the “time, place, syntax, volume and context” meet your personal standards. As always, freedom of speech for ideas and expressions one agrees with or finds not too unsettling is not freedom, it is comfortable conformity, and you and Kinsella are welcome to it. We don’t have to like the speech we hear, and oftentimes don’t – we can find it digusting and offensive, and can make all possible arguments in opposition to it – but we are called on to defend the right of the speaker to express him- or herself.

You ask why we should rush to give aid to the jerk you referenced, “just because somebody wants to shut him up.” You entirely miss the point: it is not “somebody” who wants to shut him up, it is the Government of Canada, acting in our name – and that is intolerable.

And, I’ll gladly add your name to the not so squabbling but nonetheless messy list forthwith.

Peter
PEN Canada
Noam Chomsky
The Globe & Mail
National Post
Ken McVay
Toronto Star
Rex Murphy
Calgary Herald
Canadian Association of Journalists
Alan Borovoy
Maclean’s
Mark Steyn
Ezra Levant
Courageous MP Keith Martin (and apparently a “huge” number of others who are suffering from an extreme case of laryngitis)
Joseph C. Ben-Ami
Steven Skurka
Catholic Insight
Canadian Muslim Congress
David Warren
Eye Weekly
Mark Milke
Western Standard
and, too many other guest columnists in every major Canadian newspaper to mention

Add my name to that list, please. But it’s one thing to go after S. 13 and a badly corrupted and incestuous human rights cabal, another to say that that anything that comes out of anyone’s mouth anytime in any style and at any volume is an “idea” or even “speech” in the normal sense, and should be protected. I’m not sure everyone on your list would go that far, although I could be wrong. I have some problems with that, mainly because of two arguments that relate to the fringe. The first is that speech starts to blend with actions or incitement, and legalistic distinctions between the two can be a distortion of what the whole game is about. The second is that freedom of speech is not the only important freedom and there can be conflicts on the extremes.

But Jay, there is nothing terribly new about this debate. The classical liberal/libertarian approach based upon first principles meets the more traditonal empirical perspective that can’t quite square the theory with what they observe and experience around them every day. But they should be adversaries only in closed sessions. It’s like those who support democracy because it frees and validates human nobility and those who, like Churchill, see it as a squabbling mess indulging the scummy and fallible, but nonetheless far superior to anything else. Both viewpoints should be welcomed when the Mongols appear on the horizon.

PEN Canada
Noam Chomsky
The Globe & Mail
National Post
Ken McVay
Toronto Star
Rex Murphy
Calgary Herald
Canadian Association of Journalists
Alan Borovoy
Maclean’s
Mark Steyn
Ezra Levant
Courageous MP Keith Martin (and apparently a “huge” number of others who are suffering from an extreme case of laryngitis)
Joseph C. Ben-Ami
Steven Skurka
Catholic Insight
Canadian Muslim Congress
David Warren
Eye Weekly
Mark Milke
Western Standard
and, too many other guest columnists in every major Canadian newspaper to mention

pitted against,

Well, I honestly don’t want to list them as my gentle nature desires to further save them from embarrassment but if you would like to compile one, be my guest.