Freedom Needs a Better Defence (re: Ezra Levant)

mckeever's picture
Submitted by mckeever on Wed, 2008-02-06 14:54.

The Western Standard (which was, until recently, published by Ezra Levant) requested, and today published, my op-ed on Ezra Levant and Human Rights. Comments are open, and the irrationalists have already started adding their sentiments. You might enjoy adding a comment or two of your own. Here's the link:

http://westernstandard.ca/website/article.php?id=2731

Cheers,

Paul


( categories: )

Register to read a paper?

dinther's picture

A newspaper that requires me to register in order to read it? I think not. (Moving on) 

Global warming is a hoax carbonhoax.org.nz and spread the word.


Right not to be insulted?

Leonid's picture

Leonid

Does one have a right not to be insulted? Does government has to protect such a right? My answer is big "NO"! "A "right" is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man's freedom of action in a social context. There is only one fundamental right (all the others are its consequences or corollaries): a man's right to his own life." (Ayn Rand,” Man’s Rights," The Virtue of Selfishness, 93.) Such a right can be denied only by using of physical force. This is so called negative right. "Right" not to be insulted is positive right, that is -it has to be provided, granted by society and again by using force. But right which is provided by force is contradiction in terms; its beneficiary doesn't enjoy it by right but by permission. The only justification of using force by individual or by government is retaliation against those who initiate the use of force. Insult is not initiation of coercion. It is an opinion. it can be right or wrong or even amoral, but it cannot stop people to deploy their own minds and use their value-judgment. Censorship can and will. Censorship is moratorium on minds. As in today culture of positive rights people think that they are entitled to material values provided by others -like jobs, electricity, health service and so on, so they think they entitled to the right not to be insulted-without even to consider the possibility that they maybe well deserved to be insulted (like in case of Mohammed cartoons).What they don't realize is that by crying "censorship" they negate all inalienable rights altogether and live not by right but by permission, by whim of bureaucrat who will decide for them how to think.


Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.