Second, sometimes people are rightly judged by what they tolerate as well as by what they do. Speakers have been boycotted because they came from a university in a country that practiced something unacceptable to the Academy–South Africa a few years ago; Isreal from time to time now. Politicians have been in deep trouble for speaking on a campus which prohibited inter-racial dating, and the AFL-CIO refused to admit Soviet government-operated “trade unions” as legitimate counterparts. May I ask what the consequences are to a university which enforces the most draconian speech codes? Do free universities refuse to treat them as equals? Do politicians turn down honorary degrees? Seemingly censors on campus are of no concern to the other universities, or to our politicians.

Free speech and free inquiry are core values of the English-speaking world. When the universities raising the next generation of leaders regard them as optional, the culture has a serious problem. Getting the courts involved is better than nothing, but it does not go to the root of the problem.

One of my professors pointed out that the USSR had a wonderful constitution in 1936. It was full of high sounding clauses about freedom of speech, freedom of religion, fair trials etc. It didn’t do the prisoners in the Gulag the slightest bit of good.

We have seen in Zimbawee that the courts can not control a government which refuses to leave office.

Democracy and rights do not depend on wrtten constitutions. They depend on a habit of mind and spirit – the idea that we don’t do this!

I would say that if people are constantly going to court to enforce their rights, then that is a sign of weakness. Something has gone wrong with the way government is working. The political process isn’t doing its job.

Jane says the sonar case is the courts cutting through a tangle of laws and treaties. Yes but that is really a legislative problem. The fact that the elected legistature let things get that tangled up is another sign of weakness.

“I told him that universities were worried about a panic among graduating students that they would never get a job. For this reason, I gave speeches to young audiences, praising the value of a liberal arts education, saying that being able to write, understand a situation and assess its context were invaluable to any employer. But in Western Canada, the idea doesn’t go over well.

The man looked at me. “Why don’t you say ‘the value of a conservative arts education’? That might make them more amenable.” He was serious.

I thought about explaining that “liberal arts” is a classical term. “Liber” means “free.” It meant the education of a “freeman” as opposed to that of a slave. I thought about asking him if he divided the world into conservative and liberal, just like “pre-modern, modern and post-modern.” In other words, I thought of patronizing him. And the earlier less-polite version of me thought of telling him to consider getting stuffed.”

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/11/21/f-vp-mallick.html

I don’t mind the negative rights, but the positive ones especially seem to be invented on the fly and then presented as sacrosanct because, you know, they’re RIGHTS. And they also come with entire packages of how they are to be implemented, like when the right to education (and specifically, equal education in neighborhood schools) was used to dismantle a popular program for severely disabled kids because it wasn’t equal enough or neighbourly enough.

I do agree with you on hate crime legislation – of which we have some. I think it should be enough that it’s illegal to beat someone up and it should be irrelevant if the victim is Jewish, Muslim, black, native or red-headed (I guess you’ve heard about the panic about the bullying of red-heads?)

But it looks like that’s something I’ll have to live with, at least until it comes up as an issue in Parliament again, which doesn’t look likely in the near future.

I don’t know if the Europeans are less into individual liberty than Anglos – they certainly talk a lot about it, especially the French. But they do love their hate crimes legislation. I can’t help thinking that ‘all people equal under the law’ is a better approach to dealing with violent crimes.