Judge Greer

So, after seeing Judge Greer from Florida being vilified in the press and online, I did some reading on the man. Wow, was I in for a shock. Very few of his honor's critics appear to have done any research on the man at all. He seems to have had a great career as a lawyer and judge. A few of the facts:

Judge Greer is a member of a Southern Baptist Church. He's not currently attending services because his presence brings protestors.

Judge Greer is a life-long Floridian.

Judge Greer once shared a house with Jim Morrison. Yes, *THAT* Jim Morrison who went on to found The Doors.

The judge is said to be a quiet, studious, unflappable sort of guy who makes decisions based solely on the law. The judge is 63.

Not the sort of guy I was expecting to find at all. I'm not sure what I expected.

--EBG

After doing my little burst of research, this link popped up on sfgate.com. More details than I found, including updates over the last week. They leave out the part about Jim Morrison though.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/03/26/national/a154853S75.DTL

--EBG

The link to Jim Morrison is interesting... who would have thought? :-)

I've been impressed by the guy. He's a conservative who's ruling from the bench according to the way he thinks the law requires, rather than the way his heart might want to take him. You can't ask much than that from a judge.

BG

RE: Judge Greer >>> A Brave Man!

Judge Greer was also a conservative Republican who was asked to leave his church, but facts won't get in the way of the religious fanatics ranting and raving about "activist judges". Fox really played up the fact that Judge Whittemore was appointed by Clinton and all but ignored the fact that the dissenting judge of the 3 judge panel of the Federal Appeals Court was also a Clinton appointee and of the entire court, 6 of the 10 dissenting judges were appointed by Republicans.

Schiavo Judge Attains New Fame, Infamy

Sat Mar 26, 4:00 PM ET U.S. National - AP

By VICKIE CHACHERE, Associated Press Writer

CLEARWATER, Fla. - Amid the pitched legal battle over Terri Schiavo that has been fought through his court, Pinellas County Circuit Judge George Greer has been under the protection of armed guards, and friends say his family also is protected.

Death threats have been made against him for allowing Michael Schiavo to remove the feeding tube that has kept his 41-year-old wife alive for the past 15 years, and the Southern Baptist church that Greer belonged to for years has asked him to leave the congregation.

Greer — a conservative Christian and longtime Republican known for an easy manner — has become the public face of the judiciary in this internationally watched fight. But despite the mounting pressure, he has been steadfast in his rulings that Terri Schiavo is in a persistent vegetative state and did not want to be kept alive artificially.

"There are very few people who have shown the will to stand up to raw power," said Stetson University Law Professor Michael Allen, who has studied the Schiavo case. "He's one."

"This is simply a case of people not liking this decision, and the fact that a judge is standing up to this is quite important," Allen added.

On Saturday, Greer rejected arguments by Terri Schiavo's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, that their daughter tried to say "I want to live" before her feeding tube was removed March 18. They argued that she said "AHHHHH" and "WAAAAAAA" when asked to repeat the phrase.

Greer said that "all of the credible medical evidence this court has received over the last five years" suggests Schiavo's behavior is not a product of cognitive awareness. Doctors have said Schiavo's past utterances were involuntary moans consistent with someone in a vegetative state.

When informed of Greer's rejection, Bob Schindler reacted with somber sarcasm: "He did? Great surprise."

It was Greer who first ruled that Terri Schiavo was in a persistent vegetative state and would not want to be kept alive artificially. Three times he has ordered the feeding tube be removed, as requested by Michael Schiavo, and his rulings have consistently been upheld in appeals filed by the Schindlers.

Greer, 63, also stood up to congressional efforts to intervene in the case, rejecting an attempt by the House of Representatives to subpoena Terry Schiavo as a means to force the reinsertion of her feeding tube. Since then, other judges have followed in refusing to act under a newly crafted federal law allowing them to consider the case.

Greer, a former county commissioner, became a judge in 1992. He was recently re-elected to a six-year term, but has announced that he will retire once that term is up.

While in legal circles he is garnering acclaim for his consistent application of Florida law in the case, there has been a price.

Protesters now show up at his Clearwater home. The FBI (news - web sites) arrested a North Carolina man it said placed a $50,000 bounty on the head of a judge in the case, although officials didn't name the judge.

This past week, he parted ways with his Southern Baptist church, which had advocated keeping Terri Schiavo alive, after his pastor suggested it would be better if he left.

"You must know that in all likelihood it is this case which will define your career and this case that you will remember in the waning days of life," Calvary Baptist Pastor William Rice wrote to Greer in a letter than later became public. "I hope you can find a way to side with the angels and become an answer to the prayers of thousands."

Greer could not be reached for comment because of the frequent hearings on the Schiavo case, but longtime friend Mary Repper said she recently spoke with him and he sounds "worn out" by the case that has been on his docket for more than seven years.

"It's been going on so long and it's reached its fevered pitch," Repper said. "It's gotten so angry and so hostile, but he's still hanging in there."

Repper said Greer has taken comfort in being consistently upheld by higher courts, but his split with his church has been a blow.

"The people in that church should be ashamed of themselves, to demonize George and to ask him to leave for doing his job, for upholding the law," she said. "To me, that was the most offensive thing that has happened so far."

Greer has been asked to step down from the case five times and has refused.

Attorney Pat Anderson, who had represented the Schindlers for three years of the court fight, filed three motions for recusal but said she could not get Greer to budge.

"A lawyer told me when I first got involved in this case that he (Greer) does not have a reverse on his transmission," Anderson said. "He apparently is too prideful to say 'I made a mistake. I made a mistake because I didn't have all the information and I am sorry I made a mistake.'

RE: Judge Greer >>> A Brave Man!

My understanding from media reports on Saturday was that the latest motion by the Schindlers concerning the alleged utterances of Mrs. Schiavo was based on a lawyer hired by the Schindlers allegedly hearing the "aaaah"...waaa" sounds. It appears that the Schindler team had resorted to having the lawyers "manufacture" evidence where no other new evidence could be found. The court saw through this and rejected the evidence furnished by the paid lawyer.

To me, this is something the bar association should look into. Any lawyer who "manufactures" evidence should be disbarred. That lawyer should be given a lie detector test. It is absolutely ludicrous how the legal process has been abused and twisted out of shape by the team advising the Schindlers.

Oh, and while I'm at it, that priest who acts as their personal counsellor and spokesperson was really putting the boots to Governor Jeb Bush last night, invoking Easter and urging the governor to exceed his powers and literally break the law. This guy should be cited for incitement to commit a crime! x(

RE: Judge Greer >>> A Brave Man!

>To me, this is something the bar association should look into.

>Any lawyer who "manufactures" evidence should be disbarred.

>That lawyer should be given a lie detector test. It is

>absolutely ludicrous how the legal process has been abused and

>twisted out of shape by the team advising the Schindlers.

For people who genuinely believe that all human life is valuable and who also believe that Terri has a degree of consciousness, it's hardly unreasonable that they believe that she is trying to communicate. Were you in the room? Do you know if they were lying about the sounds she made?

It's one thing to disagree (as I do) with the interpretation that those sounds reflected her attempts to speak, but to say that they are "lying" and should be professionally disciplined is reflective of exactly the kind of hateful, irrational extremism on both sides which is making most people quite sick.

>Oh, and while I'm at it, that priest who acts as their

>personal counsellor and spokesperson was really putting the

>boots to Governor Jeb Bush last night, invoking Easter and

>urging the governor to exceed his powers and literally break

>the law. This guy should be cited for incitement to commit a

>crime! x(

This country, thank God, is not Canada. We have something here called Freedom of Speech. Unlike in Canada and simiarly repressive Western European countries, American citizens here are allowed to express their views on controversial political, social and moral matters without fear of being criminally prosecuted.

In this country, citizens are allowed - as this (by the way extremely gay) "spiritual advisor" did - to express the view that a governmental official has legal powers that other people may not agree they have. That's called free speech. Moreover, our nation has a long history of commendable civil disobedience, and a citizen is also permitted to express the view that circumstances justify civil disobedience.

But since you come from a country without any history or appreciation for free speech or free thought, it really doesn't come as a surprise that you would sit up there in that mammoth wasteland calling for the imprisonment of American citizens for expressing their views.

RE: Judge Greer >>> A Brave Man!

C'mon, Doug, tone it down! Your depiction of Canada and Western European countries as nations with no tradition of free speech or free thought aren't true and you know it. In all of those nations, as in the United States, free speech and free thought are the norm and protected by law. There are limits in many nations, including the United States, on "free speech," although they may differ from country to country. In all of them some forms of speech are crimes, like falsely crying "fire" in a crowded theater or inciting to riot. In Canada and Western Europe "hate speech" is considered to be beyond the limits. In the U.S. hate speech is not generally illegal, but other forms of speech and thought are very much limited, especially speech relating to sex (and particularly its less conventional forms) which can carry civil and criminal penalties. Other forms of speech have also been limited, especially after 9/11, because of security fears. That's not the case in Canada and Western European nations, where speech and thought with sexual content are generally legal, unregulated and not prohibited from the nations' television screens, for example.

I'm sure other posters here (especially the legal eagles) can come up with other examples of speech that would not be "free" in the U.S. but acceptable in Canada and Western Europe. Or vice-versa.

The other democratic nations of the world aren't carbon copies of the U.S. and don't wish to be. The U.S. doesn't wish to be carbon-copies of them, either. There are many "freedoms" in other democratic nations that the U.S. has chosen not to adopt: same-sex marriage, prostitution, death with dignity, recreational drug use, etc. There are some American "freedoms" other countries have rejected, like allowing unlimited gun ownership. Each democratic society has to decide for itself the limits on unfettered freedom that its members can accept and support. Just because their choices are different from those of the U.S. doesn't make them countries with no tradition of freedom!

RE: Judge Greer >>> A Brave Man!

And returning to the main topic, it's a crying shame that Americans are generally so utterly ignorant about their judicial system and the way it works. The result is that it's easy to whip them up into froths about "activist" judges who don't rule the way the American fascists want (which, in many cases, would actually require the kind of judicial activism they so hypocritically deplore).

The Schiavo case and the recent decisions on the constitutionality og prohibiting gay marriage are good examples of this. The hue-and-cry of "activism" is heard in the land, fanned by the sleazy likes of Tom DeLay and his ilk, but anyone who reads the decisions in these cases for themselves can see that they don't involve judicial activism, by any definition. Rather, they're very thoughtful, carefully reasoned and conservative (in the classic sense) decisions that trace the development of our jurisprudence and make clear how their conclusions flow from the decisions that have gone before. That's not judicial activism. That's exactly what we want our judges to do: examine new fact situations and reach decisions that show logically and deductively how existing law and precedent apply to those new fact situations. If you read the Schiavo or the gay marriage decisions you will see for yourself that the judges in those cases did exactly that (and deliberately so, because the judges understand the current political climate and know their decisions will be subjected to microscopic scrutiny). There's no innovation in those cases. They only apply existing law to the facts of the cases. But try to explain that to the howling masses drunk on their literalist fundamentalist beliefs and fanned into frenzies by vile hypocrites who are using them to advance their own, quite different agendas!

The "activists" in these situations are the legislators and elected officials who have tried to invade the sphere of the Judiciary by passing private laws to overturn previous court decisions (in the Schiavo case) or are willing to amend the Constitution (trampling states rights in the process) to annul the state court decisions finding in favor of gay marriage.

RE: Judge Greer >>> A Brave Man!

>C'mon, Doug, tone it down! Your depiction of Canada and

>Western European countries as nations with no tradition of

>free speech or free thought aren't true and you know it.

No - they are not true, but perhaps Duggie Dearest is so mis-informed that he really thinks that the rot that his pea brain exudes is factual.

>Each democratic society has to

>decide for itself the limits on unfettered freedom that its

>members can accept and support. Just because their choices

>are different from those of the U.S. doesn't make them

>countries with no tradition of freedom!

Well said Tri - bet Duggie Dearest doesn't have the faintest idea of what your are trying to tell him.

>C'mon, Doug, tone it down! Your depiction of Canada and

>Western European countries as nations with no tradition of

>free speech or free thought aren't true and you know it.

Tri, as my new best friend, I hope you're going to permit differences in opinions between us without questioning the sincerity of my view. The truth is, there is probably no political or legal issue about which I care more than the principle that someone should never, ever be punished or prosecuted for expressing views on political matters. As the American Founders - who placed that principle in the most absolute terms possible in the very First Amendment - knew, as long as a country adheres to THAT principle, without fail, true tryanny will be impossible.

It is the case that Western European countries adhered generally to this principle in the decades after World War 2, with some notable exceptions (such as the criminal prohibition in France and Germany on even "questioning" the prevailing historical orthodoxy concerning the Holocaust - should "questioning" something EVER be criminalized?).

But in the last 15 years, those countries have demonstrated an increasing willingness to place more and more limits on political speech. You can call it "hate speech" if you want, but the fact of the matter is that more and more opinions are ending up on the VERBOTEN list, including opinions on some of the most controversial and debated matters in the world. Governments there have basically used the power of the law to prohibit and criminalize the expression of certain views that they find offensive. That's just fact.

By calling it "hate speech," you seem to try to suggest that it's really not that big of a deal, since, after all, it's just "hate speech," and who needs hate speech?

But you have to understand that what is "hate speech" is - like pretty much everything else - purely a function of who gets to define it. In Western Europe, it just so happens that liberal-leftists are the majority, so speech that they don't like gets called "hate speech" and is then criminalized.

But in the U.S., imagine what would happen if it were permissible to prohibit and criminalize "hate speech." What views do you think would be barred? YOURS. The Left in this county thinks that the Right traffics in "hate speech," BUT the Right believes with equal fervor that the Left engages in "hate speech." Do you really favor a law that allows the Government to ban any speech that is deemed "hateful"? That is pure tryanny, and it's exactly what is happening now in Europe.

It is incomparably repressive to allow speech to be criminalized simply because the prevailing power considers it to be so wrong, so bad, that it can be banned. That's pure Taliban mentality, and it's what the left in Europe is supporting. The proposed EU Constitution is even more repressive than anything occuring now.

I just read a case last week about a cartoonist in Austria who published some cartoons that rather aggressively and disrespectfully satarize Christianity. The Greek government, which likes Christianity, deemed it to be "hate speech" and a violation of the laws in Europe banning "speech which offends a religious group." As a result, it INDICTED the Austrian cartoonist for this criminal behavior and now the Austrian government is powerless to prevent its citizen from not only being arrested if he enters Greece, but also from being forced to defend against the charges in Greece (he was just sentenced to 6 months in jail in abstentia) and having the punishment enforced against him IN AUSTRIA.

That's the repressive fruit that is reaped when anti-free-speech laws are sown. I know you don't think of Western Europe as being "repressive" - that's a word that should be reserved for the U.S. - but if you're being honest, you just have to acknowledge that these very disturbing trends are real.

You asked me in a post a few days ago how the Left seeks to impose its views on others the way the Right does, which I still intend to answer. But this is a perfect example.

The problem is that most people who seek to impose their views on others don't realize they are doing this. The Christian Conservatives in the Schiavo case or with abortion or other issues don't think they're imposing their moral views - they think they are trying to save Terry Schiavo's life or the life of a baby or to protect children. Identically, the Left doesn't think it's imposing its moral views - they think they are fighting racism or poverty. Both sides are correct; they do have arguably laudable goals in seeking to impose their views on others. But they are imposing their views just the same.

You see the danger of it right here. That Canadian, Luv2Play, called for the representitive of the Schiavo family to be criminally prosecuted for expressing his views on Jeb Bush's powers. For him, there is nothing odd about that because criminalizing political views that one dislikes is now de rigeur in Europe.

If it were YOUR views that were being banned in Western Europe or in the U.S., you'd be screaming bloody murder, rightly so. But people don't get upset when views they don't care to express (such as those the Left in Europe has deemed "hate speech") are banned. But they should, since eventually, once the idea gets legitimized that speech can be banned, it will be turned against just about everybody (hence the use of these laws now to punish those, such as the Austrian cartoonist, who engage in "anti-Christian" hatred).

If expressing hatred against Christians is to be criminalized - and how can anyone oppose that who supports anti-hatred criminal laws? - half the people in this forum would be in jail. Do you really want that?

Finally, I know it's hard to imagine for you that a certain form of very significant repression is spreading in Europe but not the U.S., but the one thing that Supreme Court justices of EVERY ideological stripe have been equally vigorous about protecting is the notion that POLITICAL speech - which is at the core of free speech - must be protected. Although you attempt to suggest that 9/11 has somehow changed that, you have no examples of this because it's not true.

As much as some may not want to believe it, the reality is that a citizen in the United States cannot be criminally prosecuted for expressing their views on political matters, whereas people in Europe and Canada can. Furthermore, that trend is WORSENING in Europe, as they expand more and more the types of views that can be criminally punished. That is tyranny pure and simple.

Well, new best friend, this is one on which we'll never be in complete agreement, even though you make a number of thought-provoking points.

I wasn't aware of the Austrian case you cited, but assuming the cartoons in question were just satirical or disrespectful, as opposed to calling for violence or murder of Christians, the action of the Greek government is definitely a case of "overreaching." I suspect this isn't the end of the matter, and that it will be appealed to higher European courts. One needs to keep in mind that the European laws are fairly new and do not yet have the long history of jurisprudence underpinning them that the First Amendment has in the U.S. In Europe, that jurisprudence is in the process of being built. However, I would be surprised if the Greek action is upheld by a European appeals court.

Without wanting to re-open old debates, I would just point out that "hate speech" laws in Europe aren't aimed at political speech, and I believe there's little evidence to show that they've been applied that way. (This is a good place for our European contributors to weigh in!) On the other hand, for very real and tangible reasons that perhaps don't apply in the U.S., European nations have determined that certain speech cannot be permitted for fear of stirring up far worse problems. Europe has spent the past 50 years trying to get over a history of centuries of religious and ethnic wars that have slaughtered tens of millions of Europeans in the 20th Century alone, and physically destroyed vast swathes of the continent. To try to avoid any recurrences, Europe has decided that prohibiting "hate speech" is a lesser evil than a resumption of old wars and national vendettas. If the U.S. had experienced a similar history, we might reach a similar conclusion.

I disagree that the U.S. doesn't punish political speech. If someone, in anger at a political act or position of the President, says something like "I'd just like to kill him for doing that," with no intention whatsoever of ever actually doing that, he could still find himself in big trouble with the law, especially if he says it within earshot of the Secret Service. The U.S. punishes other kinds of speech: there are a number of things you can't say these days at U.S. airports, even in obvious jest, without facing imprisonment. If you are an Arab-American you don't feel free any more to comment on certain matters, or contribute to Muslim charities or even to attend certain mosques for fear of being detained and shipped off to someplace like Syria or Egypt to be tortured. In my view these are all violations of the First Amendment, but they happen and are upheld by the courts. Evidently, as in the case of hate speech in Europe, our legislators and courts have determined that banning such speech/actions is an acceptable evil. For the most part, I think the Europeans have better-founded reasons for banning hate speech than the U.S. has for its limits on speech.

As for "questioning" the Holocaust (as in questioning if it really happened) that's just a way to try to dribble around hate speech laws or to be anti-Semitic while pretending not to be. The Holocaust is a fact, one of the ugliest in human history. European nations know that, and they also know what's behind the fake "questioning" and have deterimined that it constitutes a form of hate speech. If you're defending those who "question" the Holocaust, or "question" it yourself, then I'm afraid we won't be able to be best friends any longer. :-(

>I wasn't aware of the Austrian case you cited, but assuming

>the cartoons in question were just satirical or disrespectful,

>as opposed to calling for violence or murder of Christians,

>the action of the Greek government is definitely a case of

>"overreaching."

Here's the account of this extremely disturbing case in the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/news/story/0,11711,1443908,00.html.

The satire was aggressive and probably offensive to any Christian, but hardly a direct incitment to violence. But that's the whole problem with giving legitimacy to the idea that you can criminalize "offensive" speech - what is sufficiently "offensive" to be criminalized will always end up growing and growing until virtually no speech other than the most innocuous is allowed.

That's why the Founders recognized that it's a very binary matter - we either have free speech or we don't. As this article suggests, Europe (and Canada, which is even worse), is on the road to not having it.

>Without wanting to re-open old debates, I would just point out

>that "hate speech" laws in Europe aren't aimed at political

>speech, and I believe there's little evidence to show that

>they've been applied that way. (This is a good place for our

>European contributors to weigh in!)

That's not really true. I've posted lots of articles here reporting on the criminal prosecution of people for saying things about Muslim extremists, gay rights, and other issues. It wasn't along the line of "Let's kill all gays" or "Muslims are filthy scum" but, instead, "I believe that Islam is inherently more violent" or "I believe that homosexuality is unnatural" - opinions with which I disagree, to be sure, but clearly ones that people should be able to express.

And, as is clear, if you're going to criminalize speech that is offensive or "hateful" towards Muslims and gays, you have to criminalize speech that is similarly hateful and offensive to Christians, conservatives, heterosexuals, white males, etc. And before you know it, we'll have a society where the majority gets to criminalize the expression of views with which it disagrees. See Europe and Canada for examples.

On the other hand, for

>very real and tangible reasons that perhaps don't apply in the

>U.S., European nations have determined that certain speech

>cannot be permitted for fear of stirring up far worse

>problems. Europe has spent the past 50 years trying to get

>over a history of centuries of religious and ethnic wars that

>have slaughtered tens of millions of Europeans in the 20th

>Century alone, and physically destroyed vast swathes of the

>continent. To try to avoid any recurrences, Europe has

>decided that prohibiting "hate speech" is a lesser evil than a

>resumption of old wars and national vendettas. If the U.S.

>had experienced a similar history, we might reach a similar

>conclusion.

The Holocaust may not have happened in the U.S., but other grave injustices did. Despite slavery, we don't criminalize racist views. Despite the occurence of 9/11, we don't criminalize the expression of views supporting Muslim extremists (see Ward Churchill). Despite the fact that Stalin slaughtered millions and millions of people, we don't criminalize the expression of pro-Communist or even pro-Stalin views.

>As for "questioning" the Holocaust (as in questioning if it

>really happened) that's just a way to try to dribble around

>hate speech laws or to be anti-Semitic while pretending not to

>be. The Holocaust is a fact, one of the ugliest in human

>history. European nations know that, and they also know

>what's behind the fake "questioning" and have deterimined that

>it constitutes a form of hate speech. If you're defending

>those who "question" the Holocaust, or "question" it yourself,

>then I'm afraid we won't be able to be best friends any

>longer. :-(

I would think a person should be able to defend the right of someone to express a certain view without being accused of having sympathy for that view. I vigorously defend the right of hard-core Communists to advocate for a Communist Revolution even though Communism has caused as much human carnage and suffering as fascism has. That hardly makes me a Communist or sympathetic to those views.

If it should be criminal to question anti-fascist orthodoxies, how can you justify not having similar laws making it criminal to express pro-Stalin views? Should people be able to question whether or not Stalin was really as bad as people claim?

My view - shared by the Founders, who did a pretty good job of creating an incredibly stable, strong, enduring republic - is that ALL views, no matter how repugnant, should be able to be expressed. Aside from the danger that is avoided by adopting that view, it's also the case the suppressing a particular view is NEVER effective in combatting it; to the contrary, it drives it underground, creates martyrs of the people who express them, and prevents odious ideas from being attacked and destroyed. It's always better to let even the most repugnant ideas - ESPECIALLY the most repugnant ideas - get an airing so that they can be defeated.

Between allowing repugnant ideas to be expressed and endorsing the notion that the majority and/or the Government can criminalize certain ideas, there's no question that the latter is way more dangerous and threatening to all forms of liberty.

Well, best friend, you're obviously much more libertarian than I am. I think there is some speech (although very little) that's an abuse of the general right to free speech and is properly limited. "Offensive" speech doesn't qualify in my view. If that's what European law bans, then the Greeks may actually be doing Europe a favor by pushing the law to one of its absurd extremes, because the problems you pointed out will become evident to them and the law will probably be changed so it doesn't have the effect of banning satire or garden-variety offensive remarks.

Your posting reminded me that for a long period the U.S. vigorously punished people who spoke in favor of Communism or belonged to the Communist Party, and to this day it's a question on applications for U.S. visas and immigration entry forms that result in barring someone who answers "yes" from entering the U.S. The U.S. also hypocritically punishes people (almost all non-Communists) who dare to travel to Cuba without government authorization, even though it now permits Americans to visit other Communist countries like North Korea, China and Vietnam.

In short, there's NO perfect democracy, and NO place where people are perfectly free to do or say anything they like. Different countries make different choices about the limits to perfect freedom, and that will always be true. In true democracies, some of those choices turn out to be mistakes, but usually they're corrected, which is probably what will happen in the end to European "offensive" speech restrictions.

I realize this is just a dialogue between chums, but I trust you'll pardon the intrusion.

>Well, best friend, you're obviously much more libertarian

>than I am.

NO! You're kidding, right? (Cue sarcasm refresher.)

>the problems you pointed out

>will become evident to them and the law will probably be

>changed so it doesn't have the effect of banning satire or

>garden-variety offensive remarks.

Probably, but when? How many will be punished or forced to defend against it until it is changed? Why should even one person have to do so?

>In true

>democracies, some of those choices turn out to be mistakes,

>but usually they're corrected, which is probably what will

>happen in the end to European "offensive" speech restrictions.

Even San Marino isn't a TRUE democracy anymore.

You keep saying "probably" though. What if they're not? Will you continue to make excuses for them?

In the weeks leading up to the last Iraq war, in March 2003, I was in Florida. At that time of the year there were many Canadians there as well and we are easily identifiable because most of us drive around in our cars with Canadian license plates. At that time many in our government were (and still are) speaking out against the war and criticizing the American government. The reaction came pretty swift from "fair minded" Americans. They started slashing tires on Canadian cars and doing other acts of vandalism. There was quite open hostility towards any comments that did not agree with the FOX news take on the war. Is this the "vaunted" free speech American-style?

Trilingual cited the case of those in America who expressed sympathetic views on communism in the forties and fifties. They lost their jobs and some were driven to suicide. The American government actively persecuted these people. Meanwhile we in Canada actually had a communist party that ran for seats in Parliament. One actually got elected (unfortunately for him he ended up in jail for uttering seditious remarks!).

Doug lives in his own world where he sees America as the perfection of liberty and the rest of the democracies as somehow inferior to the American model. The US is the most violent society of any democracy yet Doug makes no mention of this. It has more murders per capita than any other democracy, again not a comment. It has more people in jail per capita (and a disproportionate number of racial minorities)than any other democracy, still no comment. It is the only democracy that still has the death penalty and undoubtedly sends innocent people to their deaths since no criminal judicial system is perfect but, hey, no problem.

Democracies with a longer history than the US have come to realize that speech can incite hatred and acts of violence. You don't need to have a Hitler to show this but he was a stark example. Television can cause violence, as can other forms of media, especially on young or impressionable minds. Easy access to guns makes the combination lethal, as these school shootings illustrate. At what point is America going to wake up and take some action?

I'm not saying shut down free speech. What I am saying is outlaw guns and make hate speech a crime, just like seditious speech.

In the weeks leading up to the last Iraq war, in March 2003, I was in Florida. At that time of the year there were many Canadians there as well and we are easily identifiable because most of us drive around in our cars with Canadian license plates. At that time many in our government were (and still are) speaking out against the war and criticizing the American government. The reaction came pretty swift from "fair minded" Americans. They started slashing tires on Canadian cars and doing other acts of vandalism. There was quite open hostility towards any comments that did not agree with the FOX news take on the war. Is this the "vaunted" free speech American-style?

Trilingual cited the case of those in America who expressed sympathetic views on communism in the forties and fifties. They lost their jobs and some were driven to suicide. The American government actively persecuted these people. Meanwhile we in Canada actually had a communist party that ran for seats in Parliament. One actually got elected (unfortunately for him he ended up in jail for uttering seditious remarks!).

Doug lives in his own world where he sees America as the perfection of liberty and the rest of the democracies as somehow inferior to the American model. The US is the most violent society of any democracy yet Doug makes no mention of this. It has more murders per capita than any other democracy, again not a comment. It has more people in jail per capita (and a disproportionate number of racial minorities)than any other democracy, still no comment. It is the only democracy that still has the death penalty and undoubtedly sends innocent people to their deaths since no criminal judicial system is perfect but, hey, no problem.

Democracies with a longer history than the US have come to realize that speech can incite hatred and acts of violence. You don't need to have a Hitler to show this but he was a stark example. Television can cause violence, as can other forms of media, especially on young or impressionable minds. Easy access to guns makes the combination lethal, as these school shootings illustrate. At what point is America going to wake up and take some action?

I'm not saying shut down free speech. What I am saying is outlaw guns and make hate speech a crime, just like seditious speech.

>In the weeks leading up to the last Iraq war, in March 2003,

>I was in Florida. At that time of the year there were many

>Canadians there as well and we are easily identifiable because

>most of us drive around in our cars with Canadian license

>plates. At that time many in our government were (and still

>are) speaking out against the war and criticizing the

>American government. The reaction came pretty swift from "fair

>minded" Americans. They started slashing tires on Canadian

>cars and doing other acts of vandalism. There was quite open

>hostility towards any comments that did not agree with the FOX

>news take on the war. Is this the "vaunted" free speech

>American-style?

No, dear, it is criminal mischief.

>Trilingual cited the case of those in America who expressed

>sympathetic views on communism in the forties and fifties.

>They lost their jobs and some were driven to suicide. The

>American government actively persecuted these people.

>Meanwhile we in Canada actually had a communist party that ran

>for seats in Parliament. One actually got elected

>(unfortunately for him he ended up in jail for uttering

>seditious remarks!).

The fact that you have to go back 50 years to find examples of American suppression of Communists shows how much free speech is protected today in the United States.

The FACT is that currently, American citizens are free to express any political view they want without fear of criminal prosecution, whereas citizens of Europe and Canada are not. Do you deny that fact?

Also, I thought you were IN FAVOR of criminalizing hate speech? Given the fact that Communists slaughtered tens of million human beings and viciously repressed hundreds of millions of others, aren't you in favor of the suppression of Communism using anti-"hate-speech" laws? Or are you only in favor of using the criminal laws to silence right-wing "hatred," but not left-wing hatred?

>Doug lives in his own world where he sees America as the

>perfection of liberty and the rest of the democracies as

>somehow inferior to the American model.

Any place, such as Canada, where citizens can be imprisoned for expressing political views which the majority finds offensive is not a place where liberty reigns. Period.

>Democracies with a longer history than the US have come to

>realize that speech can incite hatred and acts of violence.

Then why aren't Western European countries and Canada suppressing Communists and their speech? Nothing has killed more people in Europe than Communism - why are those views allowed, but not "racist" or anti-gay views?

Also, are you in favor of prosecuting people who express hatred against Christians or white males or against America, or is only certain kind of hatred bad but the hatred you exude is OK?

>I'm not saying shut down free speech. What I am saying is

>outlaw guns and make hate speech a crime, just like seditious

>speech.

The places with the highest incidence of gun violence in the United States are large cities where guns are already prohibited. That's because the large cities are ruled by liberals who think like you do and who have banned guns. The violence is committed with guns that are illegally obtained. By contrast, the places where this is NO gun control has the lowest amounts of gun violence.

Therefore, isn't it facially illogical, even stupid, to suggest that banning guns is an anecdote to gun violence when the most gun violence occurs where guns are banned?

NO dear, criminal mischief is having your tires slashed for no apparent reason, when the criminal doesn't identify with you as the owner of the car. Ask the Jews who had their storefronts smashed in during Kristelnacht in the 1930's whether that was criminal mischief. It was something much more sinister, an indication of where things were going in Nazi Germany.

Can you cite one case where a Canadian has been prosecuted, much less convicted, for expressing a political view? I think not. As for freedom of speech, we do have a Charter of Rights that guarantees that as well as freedom from discrimination against all minorities, including against homosexuals, which America expressly does NOT have.

If the Communist period is too long ago, what about the Vietnam War? We had thousands of conscientous objectors fleeing the repressive US regime for Canada. That was an illegal war carried out by a country strong enough not to have to answer to anyone except its own citizens. When they finally saw the reality, the government lost the support of the people.

Today the US is engaged in another illegal war. Again, they're too strong for anyone to do anything about it. But these things have a way of accumulating. Someday, America will have to answer for these actions.

It's legally criminal mischief. Unless the Florida legislature writes new legislation, that's what the suspect would be charged with.

Besides, you guys are terrible drivers (and tippers). Public safety issue??? Waiters trying to keep you out of their restaurants???

>Can you cite one case where a Canadian has been prosecuted,

>much less convicted, for expressing a political view? I think

>not.

I think so. . . .

Stomping on free speech

John Leo (archive)

April 12, 2004 | Print | Send

'Canada is a pleasantly authoritarian country," Alan Borovoy, general counsel of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, said a few years ago. An example of what he means is Bill C-250, a repressive, anti-free-speech measure that is on the brink of becoming law in Canada. It would add "sexual orientation" to the Canadian hate propaganda law, thus making public criticism of homosexuality a crime. It is sometimes called the "Bible as Hate Literature" bill, or simply "the chill bill." It could ban publicly expressed opposition to gay marriage or any other political goal of gay groups. The bill has a loophole for religious opposition to homosexuality, but few scholars think it will offer protection, given the strength of the gay lobby and the trend toward censorship in Canada. Law Prof. David Bernstein, in his new book "You Can't Say That!" wrote that "it has apparently become illegal in Canada to advocate traditional Christian opposition to homosexual sex." Or traditional Jewish or Muslim opposition, too.

Since Canada has no First Amendment, anti-bias laws generally trump free speech and freedom of religion. A recent flurry of cases has mostly gone against free expression.

The Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission ruled that a newspaper ad listing biblical passages that oppose homosexuality was a human-rights offense. The commission ordered the paper and Hugh Owens, the man who placed the ad, to pay $1,500 each to three gay men who objected to it. In another case, a British Columbia court upheld the one-month suspension, without pay, of a high school teacher who wrote letters to a local paper arguing that homosexuality is not a fixed orientation but a condition that can and should be treated. The teacher, Chris Kempling, was not accused of discrimination, merely of expressing thoughts that the state defines as improper.

That anti-free-speech principle, social conservatives argue, will become explicit national policy under C-250, with criminal penalties attached. Religious groups say it would become risky for them to teach certain biblical passages. If a student says something that irritates homosexuals in class, the student's parents might be held legally liable. Some Canadians worry that, for instance, discussions about gay men giving blood will be suppressed. Robert Spitzer of Columbia University, a longtime supporter of gay rights and an important figure in the American Psychiatric Association, published a study finding that many gays can become heterosexual. Would that study be banned under C-250 as hate speech? And since C-250 does not mention homosexuality but focuses broadly on "sexual orientation," Canada's freewheeling judiciary may explicitly extend protection to many "sexual minorities." Pedophilia and sadism are among the conditions listed by the American Psychiatric Association under "sexual orientation."

Church foes? The churches seem to be the key target of C-250. One of Canada's gay senators denounced "ecclesiastical dictators" and wrote to a critic, "You people are sick. God should strike you dead." In 1998, lesbian lawyer Barbara Finlay of British Columbia said "the legal struggle for queer rights will one day be a struggle between freedom of religion versus sexual orientation."

It's starting to be defined just that way in other countries. In Sweden, sermons are explicitly covered by an anti-hate-speech law passed to protect homosexuals. The Swedish chancellor of justice said any reference to the Bible's stating that homosexuality is sinful might be a criminal offense, and a Pentecostal minister is already facing charges. In Britain, police investigated Anglican Bishop Peter Forster of Chester after he told a local paper: "Some people who are primarily homosexual can reorientate themselves. I would encourage them to consider that as an option." Police sent a copy of his remarks to prosecutors, but the case was dropped. In Ireland last August, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties warned that clergy who circulated a Vatican statement opposing gay marriages could face prosecution under incitement-to-hatred legislation.

In the United States, the dominance of anti-bias laws and rules limiting free speech and free exercise of religion is clear on campuses, not so clear in the real world. Still, First Amendment arguments are losing ground to antidiscrimination laws in many areas, and once stalwart free-speech groups, like the American Civil Liberties Union, have mostly gone over to the other side. An unlikely split has occurred. In the interest of fighting bias, liberal groups reliably promote laws that limit First Amendment principles. The best defenders of free speech and freedom of religion are no longer on the left. They are found on the right.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/johnleo/jl20040412.shtml

>Can you cite one case where a Canadian has been prosecuted,

>much less convicted, for expressing a political view? I think

>not.

Man told to pay gay man $1,000 for comment

Last Updated Oct 11 2004 09:30 AM EDT

CBC News

MONTREAL – Quebec's Human Rights Commission has ordered a used car salesman in Sorel to pay a gay man $1,000 for a derogatory comment made three years ago.

In 2001, Marcel Bardier told the man's travelling companion to keep an eye on him because he was a "fifi", a french word that equates to "fag".

The man, who cannot be identified because of a court order, filed a complaint with the Commission which said the comment caused him to feel dehumanized, humiliated and degraded.

Bardier told the Commission that he had nothing against homosexuals, but was simply acting in a fatherly way to the man's companion by warning him of his sexuality.

The Human Rights Commission ruled that the term was an inappropriate way of referring to homosexuals and shows a lack of respect for the human dignity people are entitled to.

___________________________________________________

http://www.religioustolerance.org/bibl_hate3.gif

On 1997-JUN-30, Hugh Owens of Regina, SK, Canada placed the above ad in the Star Phoenix, a newspaper in Saskatoon SK. 5 It is a copy of a bumper sticker that he was selling to the general public.

Owens, 50, an Evangelical Christian, and a corrections officer, 4 later said that the ad was "a [conservative] Christian response" to Gay Pride Week. During an interview with the National Catholic Register, he said: "I put the biblical references, but not the actual verses, so the ad would become interactive. I figured somebody would have to look them up in the Bible first, or if they didn't have a Bible, they'd have to find one." The Register reported: "Owens denies that, as a Christian, he wants homosexuals put to death, as some inferred from the biblical passages. He believes, however, that 'eternal salvation is at stake,' both for those engaging in homosexual acts and for himself, if he fails to inform them about 'what [he believes that] God says about their behavior'." 6 . . .

Three gay men, Jeff Dodds, Gens Hellquist, and Jason Roy felt that the ad belittled them, and subjected them to public hatred. They lodged a complaint with the Saskatchewan Human Rights Board of Inquiry. The case was heard from 1999-AUG-23 to AUG-30. On 2001-JUN-15, the board ruled that the ad exposed gay men to hatred in violation of the Saskatchewan Human Rights Code. Mr. Owens and the newspaper were both ordered to pay each of the three claimants $1,500 in Canadian funds (on the order of $1,500 U.S. at the time).

>Ask the Jews who had their

>storefronts smashed in during Kristelnacht in the 1930's

>whether that was criminal mischief.

Those who took part in Kristallnacht weren't charged with anything. Their actions were encouraged by the regime. There's a difference there, don't you think?

What happened to you is unfortunate. I doubt it rises to the level of intimidation experienced by Jews in 1930s Germany, but if you think it does, I won't debate the point.

>As for freedom of speech, we do have a Charter of Rights

>that guarantees that as well as freedom from discrimination

>against all minorities, including against homosexuals, which

>America expressly does NOT have.

If the Charter of Rights guarantees free speech in Canada, as you claim, then it is being systematically violated.

How can you claim that you are a proponent of free speech when this whole discussion began when you called for the spokesman for the Schiavo family to be criminally prosecuted for expressing his political view about what Gov. Bush should do in that case?

>If the Communist period is too long ago, what about the

>Vietnam War? We had thousands of conscientous objectors

>fleeing the repressive US regime for Canada.

Free speech is abridged when the Governement, as it does in Canada, criminally punishes people for expressing political views that the majority dislikes. Canada and Western Europe do that and the U.S. does not.

You have to keep raising every other issue you can think of - Vietnam, Iraq, gun control, the death penalty - to distract attention from the fact that your country tyrannically punishes people for expressing certain political views and the U.S. does not.

>Today the US is engaged in another illegal war. Again, they're

>too strong for anyone to do anything about it.

Yes, exactly. When a country protects liberty, it is strong and powerful, as the U.S. is. By contrast, when a country is insecure and punishes its citizens for expressing unpopular views, it is weak, impotent and irrelevant - like a vast, frigid Northern country I won't name.

But these

>things have a way of accumulating. Someday, America will have

>to answer for these actions.

Ooohhhh, scary. Canadians can be so intimidating when they make threats like this.