Mirror, Mirror.
link Right-wing U.S. firebrand Ann Coulter will file grievance with rights panel.
Ann Coulter: you either love her or you’re a liberal. While there is no doubt that she views things from a conservative perspective, it’s interesting that the article is already imposing a bias to the reader by labelling her a “right-wing” firebrand. Oddly, you will seldom see the label “left wing” firebrand to such pundits as Rachel Maddow or Bill Maher. You will never hear the adjective “inflammatory” applied to them either.
Canadians are smugly proud of their image of being a fair and compassionate people. That’s all fine, but in reality, are we? It’s a bit like the girl holding a mirror who has to tell people how pretty she is and people are too polite to disagree. Years ago, a sitting Prime Minister was fond of referring to “da Canadian values”, whatever they were. The implication of course is that if you don’t hold such “values”, you weren’t Canadian or at least not a good one. How could you fight that if you were in opposition to a particular policy?
While the words “true north strong and FREE ” are inscribed in our national anthem, the words ring hollow. In fact, maybe we should change it to “the true north strong and politically correct” except that finding a rhyme for the next line would be iffy. Zealots like this Francois Houle have appointed themselves as gatekeepers for what a free and intelligent populace should be allowed to hear. Certainly, he is not alone as many like him have been trying to muzzle opinions that don’t happen to align with their own version of what’s acceptable. Years ago, a provincial human rights commission launched a case against “inflammatory” comments by Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn, which thankfully was unsuccessful. Meanwhile, truckloads of money were spent by the defendants to fight for their rights of free speech. The lesson is, don’t veer too far off the PC path or risk paying college tuition for the kids of lawyers.
Here’s the bottom line, if we only tolerate opinions that match our own, then it is not a free country, it’s a cult. Maybe we should put the mirror down and look at ourselves as we really are.