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Saturday, February 07, 2009
Ezra Levant: Alumni should stop giving money to the University of Calgary
Our former publisher, Ezra Levant, has issued a call for alumni of the University of Calgary to stop sending money to their alma mater until the University issues a public apology for charging Campus Pro-Life members with trespassing (see the document the U of Calgary sent to the students here in a PDF file). The students were charged with trespassing on the property of the school where they are registered. Here's Ezra
There is a sickness of censorship in Canada, and its depressing to see that it has such deep roots in academia. One of censorship's other foul manifestations is the human rights commission industry. But it seems to exist wherever you find politically correct, leftist, unaccountable government institutions. They're the ones bullying peaceful political dissent. This case is even more grotesque than the HRCs, because the police are involved, like they would be in a banana republic.
It’s unCanadian. The University of Calgary is unCanadian. And Canadians should punish it, punish it, punish it in the only way it cares about.
The U of C obviously doesn’t care about its reputation for academic freedom. You don’t issue letters like that if you care about what the newspapers say about you, or other scholars.
So there’s only one thing left: cut off donations from alumni.
Cut millions.
Cut millions and millions and millions until they publicly apologize, and until they discipline whichever educrat it was who thought that calling the police on a couple of schoolgirls was an appropriate response to dissenting political speech.
In the U.S., socialists have to conceal their socialism by calling themselves "progressive." In the U.S., socialism is unAmerican. But in Canada, just about nothing counts as unCanadian. Not in the popular imagination.
Possibly one reason for this is because the country was re-imagined in the 1960s. From our founding until the '60s, the great ideological battle was between classical liberalism, represented by the Liberal Party of Canada, especially in the person of my favourite prime minister Wilfrid Laurier, and the nationalist centralizers and supporters of big government programs, the Conservative Party (captured mostly in the person of prime minister John A. MacDonald. Who was not my favourite).
Under Trudeau, the Liberals abandoned their heritage, and the heritage of Canada. The Conservative Party took up the cause of free markets and small government, and the Liberals took up the task of being, uhm, all things to all people.
At no point did anything definitively "Canadian" creep into popular sentiment. But that doesn't change the following fact: Until very, very recently, Canada was a bastion of freedom of expression. Laurier fought against the Roman Catholic (in league with the government) censorship in Quebec of various books deemed heretical. Laurier was a member, after all, of the Institut Candien, ground zero for (classical) liberals and teeming ground for lovers of liberty. Members of the Parti Rouge (their motto: Justice pour nous, justice pour tous; Raison et liberté pour nous, raison et liberté pour tous), and the burgeoning future leaders of the Liberal Party with love of liberty constituting the marrow of their bones, spent their time there.
It can hardly be an exaggeration to say that quashing freedom of expression is as unCanadian as socialism is unAmerican. Ezra is right, the Human Rights Commissions are unCanadian. And the move by the University of Calgary to charge their own students with trespassing borders on the same. Let's hope the University either comes to their senses, or is forced to by the sound of chequebooks slamming shut.
Posted by P.M. Jaworski on February 7, 2009 in Freedom of expression | Permalink
Comments
Any chance of WS posting some of these images that caused so much bad press ? We would like to evaluate them for ourselves - We understand it's a right to express a message issue- not a contents of message issue.. Its your call on this request
No risky images of the Prophet ( Peace be with him ) are involved -so there will be no court cases, dynamite vests or riots inrfar away lands..- nobody is trespassing here, thats for darn sure..
so let the pixil dance begin
Posted by: 419 | 2009-02-07 2:43:32 PM
Good one you, Ezra.
But where were you when the U of A charged former Students' Union President Mike Hudema with trespassing when he interrupted a Shell Oil event for students? As an alumnus, Hudema was supposed to be allowed on campus.
Hudema is the director of Greenpeace in Alberta right now, so that probably answers rhetorical question...
Posted by: The Tone | 2009-02-07 4:25:05 PM
Uhm, he's *interrupting* a meeting, The Tone. It's acceptable for the University to charge someone for trespassing if they're going to interrupt a gathering.
Posted by: P.M. Jaworski | 2009-02-07 4:29:36 PM
A few corrections:
1) The Liberals abandoned classical liberalism under Pearson, not Trudeau -- Trudeau just exploded matters.
2) The Tories pre-1960s were not nearly as bad as the caricature you present, but they were certainly far more statist than the Liberals. They did support the market, but they mixed it up with business subsidies and protectionism.
3) The Tories did not start being free-market and small government in the 1960s. It wasn't until Mulrouney and the 1980s that those ideas crept into the party. That's one reason why the Liberals were able to accelerate socialism in the 1960s and 1970s -- they had no effective opposition and the NDP pushing them from the left. When they dropped liberty, no one picked it up for a while. Moreover, the Tories have not picked up liberty like the Liberals once held it. They only support for the economy and guns. The Liberals used to support it for most things.
Posted by: Michael Cust | 2009-02-07 5:33:22 PM
"Any chance of WS posting some of these images that caused so much bad press ?"
419,
I wouldn't want to post the images on the front page of this family-friendly blog since they really are quite graphic, but I did link to them in this post.
You can view a gallery of the posters used in the Genocide Awareness Project here and photos from the event on other some campuses over here.
Posted by: Kalim Kassam | 2009-02-07 6:14:08 PM
U of C, like just about every university in Canada is for the most part more about indoctrination than higher education. I do agree that people who oppose Marxist indoctrination should refuse to donate to any of them. Unless enough people start pushing back against this trend, they will continue as before. As it is, just ask anyone who attends or has attended what happens if you disagree with the "professor's" propaganda. You soon learn that in order to pass you must keep your head down and play the game. This is unacceptable, especially considering the cost.
Posted by: Alain | 2009-02-07 7:17:43 PM
Laurier set the foundation for the destruction of classical liberalism in Canada. How? By encouraging mass immigration. As Mill stated free institutions cannot exist in a multinational political construct. Thus the mass migration of people from non-traditional countries of origin, to fill the West, meant that when they came east,looking for jobs in the 30s and 40s, they weren't too happy to be turned away on ethnic grounds. However, that's freedom of association, the foundation of classical liberalism. Whenever an immigrant tells you s/he came to Canada because of the freedom, you know s/he is lying because when faced with freedom they don't like it.
Posted by: DJ | 2009-02-07 10:35:52 PM
We did view the images, thanks for the opportunity to make our own evaluations. The truth about abortion, as shown in the graphics this group displayed at the U of Calgary would errode support for that parental choice..
In the second half of the 20th century displaying true to life images forever turned public opinion against the Nazis and their final solution programme,- any nation at all with atomic bombs - the American war in Viet Nam,- people overdosing on dangerous drugs, etc... seeing is believing and media is the business of displaying evidence to induce change
Now true to life images of human induced abortion are shown. without apology at a modern Canadian University- and the displayers of these images are hoping that if the thinking public can see the actual aftermath of abortions, then understanding will occur and public opinion regarding the reality of abortion will shift to informed support of prohibiting abortion on demand...
In our view, displaying a graphic truth is not credible grounds for being chased away and or charged with trespass.
Posted by: 419 | 2009-02-07 11:13:13 PM
"Whenever an immigrant tells you s/he came to Canada because of the freedom, you know s/he is lying because when faced with freedom they don't like it."
DJ,
I think you know me as a classical liberal and a defender of the freedom of association, and its corollary, the freedom to exclude (even on "icky" grounds like race, sexuality etc.)
My family and I (of South Asian ancestry and African origin) immigrated to Canada because y'all let us in, because we had some family here, and also because we thought it would provide us with security and freedom from the corrupt autocratic third-world president and his cronies from whom we fled.
We came to Canada because we believed it was a place where we could start again and achieve a high standard of living, that if we played by the rules the law would serve to protect us, even from the government.
To say that we came for "freedom" is not the whole story, but it's part of it. And thankless wretch that I am -- damnit, I want more!
Posted by: Kalim Kassam | 2009-02-08 2:03:05 AM
We came to Canada because we believed it was a place where we could start again and achieve a high standard of living, that if we played by the rules the law would serve to protect us, even from the government.
Posted by: Kalim Kassam | 2009-02-08 2:03:05 AM
Unfortunately Kalim the government "is" the law in Canada. And I can appreciate that your family fled tyranny in the hope of something better.
Where will we Canadians flee to as our situation deteriorates? You see I don't think that we have that option. We will eventually be forced to make our stand right here. Will the immigrants join us I wonder...
Posted by: JC | 2009-02-08 7:59:32 AM
There is more at play at the U of C than free speech. What about my right to hear a dissenting opinion as well the right to voice it? There is a dangerous trend at play here and it flies in the face of freedom defenders from all walks of life.
Posted by: JC | 2009-02-08 8:01:40 AM
"Protesters are on the university's private property and they have refused to follow the university's instructions. Because they won't co-operate, they had to give notice to the protesters that they will become illegal protesters. So they will be dealt with legally if they do trespass"
"What about my right to hear a dissenting opinion "
You don't have such a right.
"the displayers of these images are hoping that if the thinking public can see the actual aftermath of abortions"
Maybe we can show the aftermaths of what Hitler's free speech caused, than use it to surpress free speech?
Posted by: chris | 2009-02-08 8:13:18 AM
Just to note,
I'm all for free speech even with gross displays to persuade public opinion to destroy a woman's right to own her body and the contents within it.
But do it on your own property, the way free speech was designed for.
Posted by: Chris | 2009-02-08 8:15:33 AM
Chris,
"Protesters are on the university's private property and they have refused to follow the university's instructions."
Since when is the UofC, a public taxpayer-funded university, "private property"?
It might be justifiable to exclude certain non-members of the university community from the campus, or a member who posed some reasonable threat of harm to the property, staff, or students of the university. That wasn't the case here. All three individuals charged with trespassing were members of a campus club, two were tuition-paying students, and all they wanted to do was display their signs like everyone else.
"Maybe we can show the aftermaths of what Hitler's free speech caused, than use it to surpress free speech?"
You can read about why the "free speech led to the Holocaust" argument is so weak over here. Some highlights for you:
The NSDAP and its affiliate organizations (the SA and SS) were breaking criminal laws so frequently that no further censorship provisions would have been needed to reign them in. Indeed, the NSDAP was banned for some time after the coup of 9 November 1923, and the SA was briefly banned in 1932. The laws to stop the Nazis existed, the will to use them did not!
Of course the Nazis used propaganda too, but they did so against a background of sustained violence against a fledgling republic in a state of perpetual crisis before they finally seized power at the height of the great depression.
So what would the consequence have been, had Hitler merely been rambling on about Jews and Satan in a stable democracy with an economic and political background comparable to that of any modern member state of the EU? My guess is that few would have noticed, let alone cared about it.
When Hitler’s propaganda is used in justification of censorship, we should remember this: The Nazi party’s rise to power was not primarily a propaganda victory over a stable democracy which merely let down its guard, it was the culmination of a sustained and violent attack on a failing state in perpetual crisis.
Oh yeah, and once in power, Hitler was such a big fan of the free expression of diverse opinions. On the censorship vs. free speech debate, it is the UofC administration which finds itself on the same side as Hitler.
Posted by: Kalim Kassam | 2009-02-08 9:03:54 AM
DJ wrote: "Laurier set the foundation for the destruction of classical liberalism in Canada. How? By encouraging mass immigration. As Mill stated [sic] free institutions cannot exist in a multinational political construct. Thus [sic] the mass migration of people from non-traditional countries of origin, to fill the West, meant that when they came east,looking for jobs in the 30s and 40s, they weren't too happy to be turned away on ethnic grounds. However, that's freedom of association, the foundation of classical liberalism."
DJ nations aren't same as immigrant groups. Quebec and the natives are not south Asian or Eastern European immigrants.
Yes, freedom of association means some people can be bigoted. But it doesn't mean they should. Liberty tends to work better with tolerance.
As for Mill's argument, it seems at root communitarian, not liberal. It is essentially that social cohesion must exist before any value can be experienced.
The appeal to a conservative is the assumption behind it. Mill thought that some nations -- his and ones like it -- were superior to others -- those not like his. This appeals to a conservative because their core principle is we, by chance, happen to be this way, therefore it is right. It is the natural prejudice for one's own people and way of life and contempt for all that is different and therefore threatening.
Mill's argument is, of course, false. As Acton argued, having multiple nations has historically been a check on the aggrandizement of state of power (think of Quebec's slowing of the centralising power in Ottawa versus the domestically all-powerful Washington in the (mostly) one nation US). Further, Mill's assumption has nothing to do with his argument.
Posted by: Michael Cust | 2009-02-08 10:36:07 AM
Michael,
"Tolerance n. The capacity for or the practice of recognizing and respecting the beliefs or practices of others..." has nothing to do with freedom of association. It's about voluntary interaction. Limiting that choice through state coercion is not engendering tolerance, it's simply the state pandering to special interests.
Mill's call for homogeneous states to protect free institutions had nothing to do with superiority. It was about community.
"A PORTION of mankind may be said to constitute a Nationality if they are united among themselves by common sympathies which do not exist between them and any others — which make them co-operate with each other more willingly than with other people, desire to be under the same government, and desire that it should be government by themselves or a portion of themselves exclusively. This feeling of nationality may have been generated by various causes. Sometimes it is the effect of identity of race and descent. Community of language, and community of religion, greatly contribute to it. Geographical limits are one of its causes. But the strongest of all is identity of political antecedents; the possession of a national history, and consequent community of recollections; collective pride and humiliation, pleasure and regret, connected with the same incidents in the past."
The US example does not make sense. The presence of a significant portion of Africans in the US polity, drove the centralisation.
Posted by: DJ | 2009-02-08 5:55:22 PM
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