It looks obvious

When you restrict freedom of speech so it will not offend segment of the population how do you prioritize which segment’s feelings are more valuable? Is it not OK to insult Muslims for their believes but OK to insults evangelical christians? This is the kind of issues the NY Times usually ignores, mostly because it is pretty clear in the editorial room what should be considered acceptable.

I am as far as it can be from evangelical christian and I don’t agree with most of what they believe in, advocate for and even the tactic they are choosing to peruse their goals. However I accept their right to be wrong and primitive as long as they don’t force me to change my way of life. This is simple form of tolerance that Liberal Democracies should maintain. This is not, however, what Canada “human rights” commissioner vision of human rights:

In a decision that foreshadows the possible fate of Fr. Alphonse de Valk, Canada’s leading pro-life voice among Catholic clergy, the Alberta Human Rights Tribunal has forbidden evangelical pastor Stephen Boisson from expressing his moral opposition to homosexuality. The tribunal also ordered Boisson to pay $5,000 “damages for pain and suffering” and apologize to the “human rights” activist who filed the complaint.

[...]

While agreeing that Boisson’s letter was not a criminal act, the government tribunal nevertheless ordered the Christian pastor to “cease publishing in newspapers, by email, on the radio, in public speeches, or on the internet, in future, disparaging remarks about gays and homosexuals.” Moreover, the tribunal’s decision “prohibited [Boisson] from making disparaging remarks in the future” about the activist who filed the complaint and witnesses who supported the complaint. Many of Canada’s religious leaders and civil libertarians have expressed concern that the government’s human rights tribunals are interpreting any criticism of homosexual activism as ‘disparaging’.

It is a peculiar world where the only criteria to choose which groups human rights are protected is the politicly corrected current fashion…

(via LRC)

There they go again! This time the NY Times questions the merits of the American approach toward freedom of speech. What is strikingly shocking is that the only justification to ban certain form of speech, particularly what many define as “hate speech” is because:

“In much of the developed world, one uses racial epithets at one’s legal peril, one displays Nazi regalia and the other trappings of ethnic hatred at significant legal risk, and one urges discrimination against religious minorities under threat of fine or imprisonment,” Frederick Schauer, a professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, wrote in a recent essay called “The Exceptional First Amendment.”

The mere fact that other countries find it appropriate to regulate opinions seems to those who advocate for imposing the same legal structure in the US. This argument seems so strong in fact that I could not find any other justification - nor the argument that such freedom promote violence, any supporting data to prove the horrible damage inflicted by the, almost, unrestricted freedom of speech in the US. Nor does the article bother to show any evidence of any benefit derived from restricting the right of people to express their opinion, as wrong and hateful as they might be.

I have to admit that I’m using similar litmus test, but also very different - If it was adopted by Western European countries it have to be very suspicious. Quite often the comparison reviles that the European system is not such a good deal…