Earlier today, Mark Steyn was one of three Canadian free speech champions who spoke as witnesses in Ottawa at the House of Commons Committee on Justice and Human Rights. It was a grotesque spectacle that I still haven’t completely processed yet. My friend Andrew Lawton was there in person and has a good round up of the goings on.
The first hint that things were going to go badly was at the very beginning, when our betters in government decided to remove a layer of sunlight from the proceedings, and voted to limit the ability of interested parties to merely hearing audio proceedings instead of the previously agreed upon televised proceedings. That in itself should tell you something-these disgusting nanny bastards voted for darkness, my tax dollars were used to literally keep us Canadians and other interested parties in the dark about something so important and so consequential as the ghastly, totalitarian possibility of returning to the dark days of Section 13.
It was essentially a gang-up on the invited speakers.
And similar to the current climate of social media zealot “social justice” warriors and their loud, brash incessant virtue signalling instead of arguing, there were few questions asked of the witnesses. More time was spent attempting to damn the honoured guests and pathetically attempt to embarrass the witnesses by quoting back to them their own, words and thoughts. Trying to “catch” them, G-d forbid, standing by their own opinions and words and choices. Trying to ruin them for one bad joke, one bad Tweet, a silly pun or other such inconsequential remark. Or for having an unapproved, unofficial opinion on something! How dare they!
It was absolutely sickening. There was a lot of posturing, and no real consideration of the words of the witnesses. It was Justice Committee Kabuki Theatre.
There was a lot of time trying to get a “gotcha” moment from prominent, published, intelligent, thoughtful, law abiding citizens, and precious little substance. It was absolutely grotesque.
Mark Steyn made a lot of very good points, and one of them needs to be mentioned right here and now. He said that “without free speech, there is only approved speech”, and that approval process of course, begs the question of who approves the speech?
I would add that without free speech, there is actually no speech.
If you cannot discuss ideas freely, if you are ordered by a government not to hold certain thoughts or views, then you are living under tyranny no matter how noble the intentions of the censors. The end result of having no free speech is having no freedom. And that is what the ultimate goal is; taking away your freedom and personal liberty by criminalizing your G-d given right to think what you want, discuss what you wish and love and or and hate whatever you want.
I imagine a transcript or audio recording will be made available in the coming days, so I would urge you to have a listen. I could barely stomach it the first time around, so I shan’t be listening again.
I got a belly full of tyranny today and I’m not going back for second helpings.
Plus, as Mark noted, some of us have been in this movie before. It’s Groundhog Day, the movie, free speech edition.
We are all saying the same things, giving out the same warnings and fighting this same battle ten years on. But now, we have another formidable weapon being brandished against us and it’s the oligarchical control of the internet on the part of the Wokestapo.
This is an exhausting battle but you can be damned sure none of us are going to give up.
It’s harder and more lonely now and the truly repulsive, censorious bullies of social media who have their grubby, totalitarian hands on the control buttons of the entire internet are trying to make it impossible but we will never give up.
IN OTHER NEWS:
Sweden is doomed. Sacrificing its children.
This “conservative” snobbery is exactly why Trump will be re-elected. The Republican party should be pretty much nuked into oblivion on the same scale as what Nigel Farage is doing to Treason May and the “Conservative” party in the UK.
How technology emboldens and enables evil and the real war on women.
Why antisemitism is never “just” about the Jews and it’s just being re-branded once again.
France is dead. Note the very chilling demographic information in this article-the buried lede.
America is not far behind: the origins of the multi-cult.