Canada, Shame on You

Oh Canada... for shame, for shame.

You may not have heard about a recent case where a Canadian comedian got in trouble for responding to some hecklers at one of his shows. The heckler was apparently a lesbian and the comedian suggested that he could put... something.... in her mouth to shut her up. I don't know about you but I think that is kind of funny (although my sense of humor tends to be rather edgy).

So why is this news? Said comedian is now in front of a Human Rights Tribunal. A Human Rights Tribunal? I can think of only a handful of tribunals - one dealing with Hitler, another dealing with Slobodan Milosevic. But for a freaking comedian? I know, I know - some of you reading this will say "so what, he is a comedian" (probably the same people that thought Don Imus should be fired because of who he is rather than what he did). So what if he is? Free speech is free speech - if you're analyzing who the messenger is then you are not an advocate of free speech.

There is a little bit more to the story. Believe it or not, there is a Canadian Human Rights Council that decides what speech is "decent". That's right - in Canada it is apparently your right to not hear something that is offensive to you. Ugh.... that is exhausting to even think about. Everything is offensive to someone. You can take the most mundane idea or statement and some hen in Western Alberta will have a problem with it.

But even that point is irrelevant. Even if something is offensive to 99.9% of the people someone should still have the right to say it. I know that I wrote about this when the Imus controversy hit and it is still true today. I also wrote about it again when the film Tropic Thunder was under attack for using the phrase "full retard" (I still get a lot of web traffic from people that search on "full retard offensive").

The bigger point here is our own history. We are still shackled by the archaic puritanical "values" of our ancestors. Two hundred years ago women were not supposed to speak in public. It has only be a shade more than forty years since Elvis had to be filmed from the waist up on the Ed Sullivan show because of his "suggestive" gyrations. Shortly after that, the Stones had to sing "Lets spend some time together" instead of "Lets spend the night together" on the same show (if you've never seen the clip, Mick rolls his eyes ever time he sings it).

Also, every generation seems to be an embarrassment to the previous generation. The envelope gets pushed a little more each time and one day we'll shake our heads at our own kids. We'll probably reflect upon how great our generation was and how we never did _____ and always did _____. Which of course is pure crap.

Anyway, back to my point. If someone hadn't have pushed the envelope in the past many of the things that you enjoy - music, dance, movies, dress, etc - wouldn't be around today because they offended someone. So at the heart of the issue with the Canadian comedian isn't his right to heckle a heckler, it is the idea that a government can decide what is decent speech. The fact that we still have to fight these battles is a sign that we have neither learned anything from the past nor embrace freedoms. It has to be consistent for every one, every time.

And for the record, some of the greatest advocates of free speech were comedians. Lenny Bruce was probably the first to make us think about the issue of decency. George Carlin picked up the ball and ran with it. He was prosecuted for swearing during his act because it violated decency laws. That's right - he used the seven dirty words. Can you imagine such a thing today? When I see people advocate free speech restrictions based on their own likes and dislikes (and it is ALWAYS based on these) I do get a glimpse of how it happens.

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Speaking of free speech, I did not even know that Salman Rushdie was in town over the weekend until it was too late. I saw an interesting quote from an article in the Buffalo News. He was talking about how the religious fundamentalists see non-believers:

“the fundamentalist believes that we believe in nothing. In his world view, he has his absolute certainties, while we are sunk in sybaritic indulgences. To prove him wrong, we must first know that he is wrong. We must agree on what matters: kissing in public places, bacon sandwiches, disagreement, cutting edge fashion, literature, generosity, water, a more equitable distribution of the world’s resources, movies, music, freedom of thought, beauty, love. These will be our weapons.”

How beautiful is that? I'm often asked how an atheist can find beauty in the world and I can't think of a better answer than that one.

Sadly, directly below this article was an advertisement for a psychic fair. Two steps forward, one step back, I suppose.