Of the left, and rights

What I wanted to write about this week was the big news from the Ontario NDP leadership race. But it turns out the big news, so far kept mostly secret, is that the Ontario NDP is having a leadership race.

As a member of the not-working-too-hard press, that’s about all I’ve learned, as none of the leadership candidates has contacted me. Untiring activist and personal friend Dave Meslin has sent around some Facebook messages gamely portraying the contest as the biggest thing since Barack Obama, but his has been a lonely voice. After years of drifting in and around political obscurity, apparently this is the latest social-democrat strategy: stealth leadership campaigns. Always keeping us guessing, the NDP. As the economic climate becomes friendlier to NDP orthodoxy than it has in a generation, the party of conscience has gone into hiding, presumably to launch a sneak attack.

I was going to embark on a big investigative feature about all this, but I was struck down by illness. (I write this gripped by an explosively messy fever.) Sources close to the party who asked to remain anonymous did tell me the convention will take place March 7-8. More news on this investigation as it develops.

In the meantime, I did hear from NDP MPP Cheri DiNovo, who would have been a favourite to win the leadership had she not stayed out of the race, and who represents me as the member from Parkdale-High Park (or the Greater Junction Area, as we call it around here). The good Reverend Doctor wrote in to object that in my column two weeks ago, I misquoted her. Though I didn’t actually quote her at all, I characterized her as prioritizing ethnic and gender sensitivities over free-speech rights. In fact, she writes, she is a great free-speech advocate, and merely thinks that “there is a limit to freedom of speech in a democracy … when your freedom of speech bumps up against my right to housing, jobs, i.e., my freedom.” The example she gives is of an employer posting a “no Jews need apply” sign. This is a situation, she says, to which “libertarians have no answer.”

Now I’m hardly going to speak for strict libertarians, since I’m not one, but my understanding of their ideology is that a private employer should be free to discriminate on any grounds he or she likes. So their answer, I would think, is that the sign would be just peachy.

But you needn’t be a libertarian to see that the supposed clash of freedoms here is completely false. One is — or should be — free to make the case that Jews should not be employed, if one is really that stupid. But because of our Human Rights Code and employment law, one is not free to actually discriminate in hiring on ethnic or religious grounds. The sign, which is not an expression of opinion but an actual act of discrimination (to the extent that it, in itself, prohibits people from applying for a job on prohibited grounds), is evidence of an illegal hiring policy.

Contrary to what DiNovo thinks, the problem is not that “hateful speech can lead to hateful action.” The problem arises when speech itself is an action — such as in cases of espionage, conspiracy, libel, incitement to violence and, yes, posted hiring criteria. But that’s because the speech causes the damage on its own — and is therefore a matter of fact and not an expression of opinion, incidentally.

Confusion about this stuff abounds, however. Barbara Hall, chief commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission, is another one who believes in emphasizing the limits on free speech. In her letter last year explaining that her governmental body held no jurisdiction to stand in judgment of conservative polemicist Mark Steyn, she went on to judge him and “condemn” him and reasoned, “It is often said that with rights come responsibilities.”

Now, that may often be said, but it is absolute nonsense. What makes rights rights, as distinct from privileges and perks and gold stars, is that they come with no responsibilities at all. They are non-contingent. For instance: in a democracy, we have the right to vote. But we can choose not to vote, or to vote for an idiot, or to vote while wearing a blindfold so that even we are surprised by the outcome. None of this would — or should — void our right to vote.

This non-discerning quality is likely the origin of the phrase “everyone has a right to his opinion.” Even irresponsible idiots retain their rights. Even accused criminals. One would think that Barbara Hall, seeing as how she heads an organization whose whole reason for being is to protect rights, would not need a lecture on this stuff from me.

Alas, there she was in the news again this month, calling for a national mandatory regulatory organization for publications (both online and in print) to police violations of that responsibility she talks about. Meanwhile, the CRTC is seeking to broaden its mandate to regulate content on the internet as it does on the airwaves. Put the proposals together, and you’ve got the basis of a grand Orwellian Ministry of Truth.

Meanwhile, news out of Saskatchewan is that the old ridiculous bigoted lunatic David Ahenakew was finally, after two trials over six years, acquitted of hate-speech crimes he was accused of after making some ridiculous, lunatic, bigoted comments to a reporter. Here, at least, a beacon of sunlight cutting through the thought-crime fog. Now the loony old fool can descend into the disgraced obscurity he deserves. Unless B’nai Brith get their way — a spokesperson is quoted in The Globe and Mail saying they’ll ask the Crown to review or ask for a change in legislation. Everywhere, people whose opinions are absolutely dominant are seeking to suppress the marginal opinions of others. Sigh.

But even without the changes to the law sought by Hall, the B’nai Brith and others, the desired repression of contrary opinion may already be achieved. As they say, ’tis better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and face a possible six years of trials, public condemnation from Barbara Hall and thousands of dollars in legal fees.

Right, so now what’s the Ontario NDP’s excuse?