"Human Rights" Are a Threat to Free Speech

They are being weaponized for political gain.

 "Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself." 

― Salman Rushdie, author.

Freedom of speech means freedom for those you despise and to express the most despicable views. It also means that the government cannot pick and choose which expressions to authorise and which to prevent. 

―  Alan Dershowitz

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

―  Martin Luther King, Jr.

In the last decade, there have been over 1,000 attempts to punish or “cancel” professors for their speech, resulting in nearly 200 firings. This figure is nearly twice the number of professors fired during the infamous Red Scare period of the 1950s, when about 100 professors were dismissed due to accusations of communist sympathies.

— Greg Lukianoff

Free speech at some Canadian universities and colleges has strangely met opposition from the Human Rights folks. Go figure. 

Moreover, parliamentarians are beating on the straw-filled scarecrow of freedom of speech. There is a lot of straw on the Parliamentarian floor.

Of course, all involved tell others and perhaps themselves that their intentions are on a pathway of an arc that leads toward an improved society, but intentions and outcomes are separate vehicles,  and such tinkering often makes things worse; the engine running rough soon belches black smoke. 

Human Rights courts and their gift of authority to Claimants should not be weaponised.

Such enthusiasm for human rights verges into a sanctifying feeling, leaving behind the old standard of hate speech being only incitement to violence. Such wise human rights souls suffer the same temptations as Eve: to eat the fruit of knowledge, to have the latest toy, a university or college human rights department and private human rights codes (often stolen from other universities).  

However, few realise that all universities and colleges are subject to the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, which, although better than the rest,  is also a deeply troubled and flawed body. They are not set up to take respondent complaints; complaints take years, and the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO) and various Ontario human rights departments have been criticised for this over the years with no improvement. The HRTO and the human rights headwaters set up to lead to ad hoc university tributaries are getting dryer,  not wetter.