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It may not be the most dangerous statement
uttered by a Canadian politician in recent memory. Still
it affords a disquieting glimpse into our current crop
of ministers' misunderstanding of freedom and their role
in preserving it. Friday, while commenting on the Don
Cherry controversy, Jean Augustine, Ottawa's minister
of state for multiculturalism, insisted "the government
will not tolerate statements that create dissonance in
our society and disrespect for others."
The government? Will not tolerate? Statements
that create dissonance in our society?
Just what divine powers has the federal
government suddenly acquired that enables its ministers
to decide which ideas will and will not be tolerated in
Canada? And who died and left Jean Augustine to be thought
God passing judgment on which statements "create
dissonance in our society?" Can you spell gulag?
I am not quick to liken political statements
or actions by democratically elected politicians to communism
or fascism. Such analogies are usually overdrawn. Their
overuse trivializes the horrors of Stalinism, Maoism and
Nazism, and denigrates the suffering of those 40 or 50
millions who died under those totalitarian regimes during
the 20th Century. Augustine has not advocated the arrest
and imprisonment of Cherry for implying that "Europeans
and French guys" are wimps for wanting to wear protective
visors while playing professional hockey, but she has
ominously suggested her government has the wisdom to determine
whether his opinions are acceptable and the moral authority
to squelch them if they are not.
Many of those who support the crackdown
on Cherry - parallel investigations by the commissioner
of official languages, the CBC ombudsman and the Canadian
Broadcast Standards Council, and the monitoring of his
live on-air statements by CBC executives with an eye to
censoring them before they make it to the airwaves - are
undoubtedly some of the same people who were horrified
by the thought of an Evangelical Christian, Stockwell
Day, becoming prime minister and "imposing"
his values on Canadians. Well, those who are using their
government-funded offices to dog-pile Cherry are already
guilty of that behaviour: using state power to make everyone
conform to their world view.
Interestingly, no one has yet sought to
disprove Cherry, only to muzzle him, to force him to apologize
for offending sacred doctrine. So far the campaign against
Cherry has been the epitome of political correctness and
elite obsession with the cult of diversity (which, in
truth, is actually an obsession with conformity to the
elite definition of diversity, which itself is anything
but diverse). Was Cherry incorrect? Are most of the players
wearing visors Europeans and French guys? It should be
easy enough to quantify. But to the outraged tolerance
choir that doesn't matter. Even to suggest such a thing,
whether verifiable or not, is to commit a heresy against
multiculturalism's scripture. The truth is secondary!
Burn him! Burn the witch!
Most of the time, modern liberals do not
debate, they censor - or try to. They take a topic near
and dear to their hearts and declare what the orthodox
line on it is to be. Then they proclaim the matter settled.
They treat their now consecrated position as though it
were something that never again needs to be justified.
When a dissident comes along, their response is to disparage
his motives, question his intelligence, and feign outrage
at his affront to the received dogma. They wonder aloud
how it is possible in this day and age for anyone to question
what "all" thinking people know to be true and
good. But seldom is their reaction to counter the substance
of the dissident's arguments. They prefer shunning.
Early in the past NFL season, radio host
Rush Limbaugh, a man every bit as flamboyant and ontroversial
as Cherry, stated on an ESPN pre-game show that the media
disproportionately praised Philadelphia
Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb because he was black
and reporters wanted badly for an African-American quarterback
to succeed. Never mind that a study of press coverage
of black and white quarterbacks proved Limbaugh was correct
- black quarterbacks received 27 per cent better press
in similar situations than white quarterbacks - Limbaugh
had violated a holy of holies and had to be fired.
Frankly, if the CBC wants to fire Cherry
because he has become too controversial and is hurting
their viewership, that's their business. But the official
and quasi-official inquisitions into his remarks border
on suppression of unorthodox views by the established
order. The overreaction reminds me of the horrendously
out-sized response in the United States to the baring
of Janet Jackson's breast during last Sunday's Super Bowl.
Both houses of Congress are set to hold hearings on the
"Superboob" incident. The federal broadcast
regulator has launched a probe into not only the "indecent"
breast-baring, but the entire half-time show. The NFL
has vowed never to let the same producers near another
Superbowl. And a female investment banker from Knoxville,
Tennessee has even filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf
of the millions of Americans she alleges were "traumatized"
by the millisecond flash of adipose tissue - or in Jackson's
case, silicone enhancement.
Viewers who are offended by Cherry or
Jackson may change channels, boycott sponsors and refuse
ever again to watch the CBC or attend an NFL game. But
the politicians, regulators and assorted other official
pokenoses should just leave well enough alone.
Lorne Gunter
Columnist, Edmonton Journal
Editorial Board Member, National Post
tele: (780) 916-0719
fax: (780) 481-4735
e-mail: lgunter@shaw.ca
132 Quesnell Cres NW
Edmonton AB T5R 5P2
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