Or, perhaps, Lenny Bruce….
Actually, the ‘Lenny Bruce’ comparison works well – in some ways…
October 4th, 1961: Lenny Bruce performed a stand-up comedy routine (during which he tended to ‘riff-on-the-fly’) at a night club in San Francisco. He was promptly arrested and charged with violating Section 311.6 of the Penal Code of California – the clause which claims that banning ‘obscene speech’ is a ‘reasonable limit’ on ‘free speech’.
May 22, 2007: Guy Earle performed a stand-up comedy routine (which he adjusted to talk back to some hecklers in the audience) at Zesty’s in Vancouver. He was promptly charged with violating Section 13 of the Human Rights Code of Canada – the clause which claims that banning ‘hurt-speech’ is a ‘reasonable limit’ on ‘free speech’.
Yet, like George Carlin, I suspect Guy did not expect such a vicious censorship attack form ‘the left’…
And – yes, we are banning ‘hurt speech’!
By now, the very people in charge of protecting human rights fail to recognize that the ‘right to be offended’ is essential in any healthy society! Instead, they seem to be under the unjustifiable impression that there is some ‘right NOT to be offended’….silly bunnies…
Punishing people for saying things that offend is not just silly, it is contrary to the fabric of our society!
It was not justifiable when Lenny Bruce and George Carlin and Richard Pryor were persecuted for words that offended some within their audience and it is not justifiable when Guy Earle is persecuted for using words that offend some within their audience…
Hey! Doesn’t this sound a little similar?
But, there ARE differences!
When Lenny Bruce and George Carlin were charged for saying stuff people found offensive (and, yes, regarded ass ‘dangerous’ to ‘morality’ the ‘fabric of society’), they faced an actual real court: one where their rights as citizens who are innocent until found guilty were respected. Guy Earle – well, he is not that lucky.
Guy Earle is facing a ‘Human Rights Tribunal’….one which can try people not for their actions, but for how others might, perhaps, react to their words.
One where the investigators actively search out ‘thought crimes’, demanding ‘intentions’ are as actionable as ‘actions’.
One where the defendant, if found innocent, has no means of recouping the cost of his/her defense…which can run into tens, even hundreds of thousands of dollars.
One where the ‘process’ of being investigated and prosecuted is the punishment itself!
Even though the fateful night when Guy Earle talked back to his hecklers in Vancouver may have been almost 3 years ago, the ‘trial’ (it’s more of a semi-star-chamber thing than a real trial) is only taking place now. After all, it takes a while to financially exhaust the HRC’s victim properly prepare the case!
Well, last week, to be exact….as Mark Steyn comments:
It ended a day early, due to Mr Earle’s inability to pay for a flight to Vancouver to defend himself in person and his lawyer’s decision to withdraw from the proceedings after pseudo-judge Heather MacNaughton, Chief Commissar of the British Columbia “Human Rights” Tribunal”, opted to ignore the BC Supreme Court’s ruling on potential jurisdictional overreach and carry on with the trial. It remains to be seen whether the defence’s actions were the right thing to do.
‘The ‘right’ thing to do”…
The right thing for WHAT???
Let us consider the implications of withdrawing one’s defense from the HR Tribunal: unless I am mistaken (and I am certainly no legal expert), this means he is forfeiting his right to appeal any ruling they may pass against him. And, once passed and registered with a real court, an HRT ruling is as legally binding as if it had been issued by a court.
Among past rulings of various HR Commissions, lifetime speech bans have been know to be included….hardly something conducive to making a living as a cutting-edge comic!
Yet, it was not until after people like Lenny Bruce, George Carlan and Richard Pryor got their asses (the term seems appropriate, given the topic) tossed into jail that ‘people’ woke up – and began to fight against being oppressed by their own governments.
Last week, I had lamented what had happened when a bunch of thugs were permitted to use threats of violence to cancel the planned speech by Ann Coulter at the University of Ottawa. While the condemnation of the thughs (both the students who threatened violence and the provost who had whipped them up into a frenzy) and of Alan Rock, the president of U of O has been very well covered, the criticism of the role the Ottawa Police played (or, rather, were either unable or unwilling to play) was not.
George Jonas put it rather well:
Resisting any temptation to enforce the law, Ottawa’s finest exemplified Canada’s definition of moral leadership by observing neutrality between lawful and lawless.Coulter later wrote the police “called off” her speech because they couldn’t guarantee her security. Interesting, if true. Will it start a trend? Will police call off property rights at the scene of robberies-in-progress? “Look, lady, it’s just a cash register. If they want it so badly, how about letting them have it?”
My own attempt to state this, phrased as a letter (and sent, among others, to the Chair of the Ottawa Police Services Board – the civilian body in charge of supervising the Ottawa Police) has been much, much clumsier. The Chair – Mr. El-Chantiry (whom I had had great respect for) has sent me back a very brief reply, telling me in no uncertain terms that it is not the job of the Police to police.
His full response – along with my reply letter to him (sent just as the Easter long weekend began, so he really has had little or no chance to reply and defend his position) were the subject of my last post, found here.
The reason I mention this?
Aside from the obvious one, denial of freedom of speech,there is another connection. In the comments to that post, CodeSlinger and I got into a bit of an extensive discussion about what happened, how, why – and what the best remedy is. CodeSlinger suggests that it was wrong for Ann Coulter to permit her speech to have been canceled: some things are worth fighting for, even if one must put himself or herself into potential danger of injury or arrest.
What does Mr. Earle plan to do – should the verdict of the BC HRT be unreasonable? Oppressive? Will he continue to behave in accordance with his innate rights, instead of submitting to the unreasonable intrusion of quasi-legal busibodies?
If he does, he will be arrested and his ass will be tossed into jail…
Is Mr. Earle showing he has the courage to be the next ‘George Carlin’?
Xanthippa's Chamberpot 
April 5, 2010 at 08:17
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April 5, 2010 at 19:23
Xanthippa:
Was this the right thing to do? That depends on whether you mean morally right, or legalistically effective.
It was most definitely the right thing to do from a moral perspective. One does not negotiate with terrorists. Ever. Even when they seem to have the upper hand.
Whether it will be effective from a legalistic perspective remains to be seen. But one thing is absolutely clear: it would certainly be effective if everyone did it.
If no Canadian deigned to take any HRC proceeding seriously, and simply ignored any court orders arising from such, then it would rapidly become glaringly obvious what a miscarriage of justice the HRC really is.
This would be civil disobedience in its highest form — it would be both highly effective and morally right.
The thing to do now is for all accused Canadians to follow Guy Earle’s example. It is the right thing to do, and the more people do it, the more effective it becomes.
Ignore the HRC, except to document its abuses, and it will rapidly and thoroughly discredit itslef by its own oppressive shrillness.
Xanthippa says:
Yes!
There are 2 key things here that are really, really helpful.
1 – he is a performer, so he has high visibility and will raise the profile of the case even more
2 – he was NOT part of the ‘free speech’ movement before this happened to him! Until a bunch of right-wing, pro-free-speech bloggers held a fundraiser to help him pay for his defense in the summer of 2008, he was totally unaware that he was not the only one in this predicament!
This drives it home: you don’t have to be ‘political’ – Earle certainly wasn’t – and THEY CAN STILL GO AFTER YOU!!!
If it happened to Earle, it can happen to anyone.
And performers GET the danger in that – AND they have the means to reach audiences….they are performers, after all.
Now, for some really, really bad news: am just in the process of writing it up. A bunch of guys attacked 2 students for being Zionists, 3-4 of them returned 10 minutes later and went after the 2 (one was already injured and bleeding from a blow to his head) with a machete!!!
During the attacks, the thugs kept calling their victims ‘f***ing Jews’ and similar insults, some in Arabic…
When did thin happen? Less than 24 hours ago – at around quarter to two this morning.
Where, you ask, did this happen?
Downtown Ottawa!!!
I have got to go finish it up and post it – though, I admit I am so upset that we have permitted our society to devolve this far that my hands are shaking and I am having trouble connecting the bits up instead of just ranting off on tangents….there are so many really important tangents that need ranting on….but, first things first: I have to get my facts straight and at least a little bit of confirmation!
April 6, 2010 at 12:36
my dog does better comedy crapping in the public park..
Guy Earle is NNNOOO George Carlin and will fade back into the obscurity he was in before Ms. Pardy ‘Served’ him up to the public for his hateful attack
here and queer
Xanthippa says:
Thank you for your comment.
I have not really seen enough of Earle’s comedy act…but, from the little I have seen, I cannot say I find him particularly funny. What I have meant by my post is that, I suspect, the silly heckler’s charges against him may have thrust Guy Earle into a position where he may cast hiself into the role of George Carlin or, perhaps more accurately, Lenny Bruce. Something he would not have thought of doing before this.
And, that his actions suggest he just might have the courage to try it.
And that if he does try it, I will be there to support him!
That is all.
This heckler – by being unable to tell the difference between ‘hate speech’ directed against homosexuals because of who they are from ‘pissed-off’ speech by a semi-inebriated comic whom she herself heckled first – this heckler has not only opened an opportunity for Earle he would never had had before….. She has cheapened and devalued the very real fight for all humans – including homosexuals – to be recognized as equals, without special righs and privileges for some people and not others (like, say, marriage!) in our society – a fight I participate in every day!
That was very wrong and stupid of her.