POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY JENNIFER LYNCH IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
The very concept of hate speech is a dangerous one, smacking of Maoism.
It is so clearly an Orwellian concept open to endless abuse and no generally agreed definitions.
The expression can be used as a fair casual description: it is one I use to describe the likes of Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter.
But what it represents should never be regarded as a crime.
At the point when hate speech actually becomes threatening or dangerous as opposed to unpleasant and ugly, we have the entire criminal and civil law to deal with it.
Those who advocate the increasing criminalization of speech are always found, upon examination, to be acting out of special interests, not out of society’s great interests.
The very idea that you could jail someone for saying something is repellant to a free society.
To avoid having the likes of Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter assuming too great an influence in Canadian society, our schools need to do a proper job of teaching, by words and example, what it is to have a civil and humane society. I am afraid, increasingly, they fail in this task.
