USA Ranked #2 in Internet Freedom (tiny Estonia #1)

The U.S. is essentially the best country in the world when it comes to Internet freedom. Which is why the federal government needs to regulate it, obviously.

Canadian "Human Rights Court" Fines Comedian $15,000 for Lesbian Insult

More human rights abuse by the Orwellian "human rights" tribunals in Canada. The tribunal ordered a stand-up comedian to pay $15,000 to a lesbian audience member he insulted at an open-mic night. Canada, you've gotta put an end to these disgusting tribunals and their abuse of basic human rights.


For some background on these Canadian "human rights" courts, check out the story of human rights hero Ezra Levant and watch the videos as he awesomely attacks this abusive legal system.

Political rhetoric and the Tuscon shooting

My article on political rhetoric and the Tuscon shooting is up on the Orlando Sentinel website here.  I will probably be contributing frequently to that blog over the next year.  The text of my article is below:

Colorful rhetoric has been part of politics since the dawn of civilization. The term “campaign” itself is of military origin. Military metaphors are common not only in politics, but in business, sports, medicine, science, and every-day life. In 2009, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee published on their website a map of the country with bulls-eyes over the districts of “targeted Republicans”. Nobody complained, because the word “target” and associated symbolism have long been accepted in the non-violent American lexicon. We do not presume advertisers intend to actually kill their “target audience”. We all know that Target superstores do not sell guns and ammo. On October 23, 2010, Democratic Congressman Paul Kanjorski said of Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Scott, “they ought to have him and shoot him. Put him against the wall and shoot him.” Inappropriate? Yes. An actual call to violence? Of course not. Yet when Sarah Palin published her own now-famous “target map”, Democrats accused her of inciting violence. At the time, conservatives laughed off these accusations as being childish, disingenuous, and hypocritical. With the eruption of new accusations against conservatives after the tragedy in Tuscon, we must address this issue head-on.

Political rhetoric becomes heated because people are passionate about politics – and rightly so. When our government is squandering our national wealth, committing generational theft, and destroying an opportunity for prosperity built by generations of Americans, anger is an appropriate response. For Liberals, anger was an appropriate response to “war for oil”, at least while a Republican was President. What we have in American politics is not a climate of hate; it is a climate of passion. We cannot not allow the tragic violence of a lone madman to quell our passions, or use it to lay false accusations of hatred on our fellow Americans.

But that’s exactly what Democrats did after the Tuscon massacre. Within literally minutes of the shooting, the leftist blogosphere and media organizations were saturated with articles and commentary accusing Republicans and the Tea Party of inciting the shooter to violence. In an epiphany, the Left came to believe that, despite non-stop exposure to guns and violence in movies, TV, and video games, it is non-violent military metaphors on conservative websites and radio talk shows that incite lunatics to kill and turn ordinary men into murderers. When the Tuscon shooter turned out to be an anti-Christian, anti-Semetic, God-hating, anti-Constitution, Flag-burning, Marxist, George W. Bush hating, pothead 9-11 Truther, intellectually honest Democrats should have then argued he was incited by their own “violent rhetoric”. Instead, the charlatans on the Left continued to promote the idea of a conservative “climate of hate”, and are using the Tuscon tragedy to push for new restrictions on free speech, including a modern-day Sedition Act. The truth is Jared Loughner never listened to talk radio. He was not motivated by any political ideology or rhetoric, and the only real climate of hate was the one in Loughner’s own deranged mind.

Canadian human rights progress; European human rights decline

There are many reasons Americans have historically differentiated ourselves from Europeans (and it's unfortunate that today some believe we should emulate Europe). One such reason is our respect for natural human rights like freedom of speech. As a consequence America has rejected the idea of "hate speech". The same doesn't hold true for Canada, where hate speech laws have been used to prosecute individuals for committing acts that in the US would be protected as basic human rights: expressing a religious belief (pastor Stephen Boisson), criticizing a religious belief (author Mark Steyn), publishing those infamous Muhammad cartoons (human rights hero Ezra Levant), and allowing visitors to post hateful comments on your website (webmaster Marc Lemire), even if the comment is left "by a police officer posing as a racist".

It should come as a shock to Americans that these simple acts are viewed as crimes by our neighbors to the north (the Canadian government, not necessarily the Canadian people). In defending these prosecutions, Canadian Human Rights Commissioner Dean Steacy recently stated: "Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don’t give it any value". This sentiment prompted a call for Congress to put Canada on the watch list of human rights abusers.

Today a major ruling in the Lemire case marks a victory for the cause of human rights in Canada. Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, which concerns hate speech, was found to be in violation of Canadians' Charter Right to freedom of expression. While this ruling only applies to the Lemire case and it will certainly be appealed, one can hope that this is the first step in toppling the regime of censorship in Canada.

Conversely, in Europe today: Dutch prosecutors are charging an Arab cultural group under hate speech laws for posting a cartoon on their own website. I won't post the cartoon here because I don't want the Dutch police coming after me (just kidding, I live in America - here it is), but here's the description:

The cartoon shows two apparently Jewish men standing near a pile of skeletons with a sign that says "Auswitch," presumably representing the largest Nazi concentration camp, Auschwitz.

One pokes a bone with a stick and says "I don't think they're Jews" and the other answers, "We have to get to the six million somehow."

The Arab European League posted their cartoon as an "act of civil disobedience" in response to the Netherlands' refusal to prosecute a Dutch lawmaker for including cartoons of Muhammad in a film. One might presume the AEL's objective is not to contest hate speech laws, but to have them enforced against those who insult Islam. However, according to the article, the AEL chairman has stated he believes anyone should be allowed to publish insulting material in the interest of public debate.

In 2005 free speech activists around the world rallied in support of the Danish newspaper that published cartoons of Muhammad and prompted worldwide protests by Muslims. Will free speech crusaders come to the defense of Muslims this time around?