Right Rants

Yesterday I was lucky enough to spend much of the day with Mark Steyn. Yeah, you’re jealous and you ought to be. Heck, even Today Me is jealous of Yesterday Me.

Everyone seems to want to pick Mark’s enormous brain. While he testified in front of the Ontario Standing Committe on Government Agencies about the farcical Ontario Human Rights apparatus, they asked him question after question - not about his experiences under their persecution, but about how he would change the system if it were up to him. What process would you put in place? How would you screen cases? What changes would you like to see? Do you feel there is a place for the ban on hate speech?

Canada has a real problem with freedom of speech, and everything Mark spoke of yesterday referred to that issue. However, in the scrum after the hearing, in which more people asked what they as individuals could do to end this abuse of rights, it occurred to me that much of what he said could be applied to all political activism, not just the denormalizing of Canada’s state censorship.

Steyn and Kathy Shaidle made two excellent suggestions that could be applied to any kind of politically based culture war:

• Say “Merry Christmas” in your workplace instead of “Happy Holidays”
• Fight tyrannous regulation by breaking small rules - the reverse of the broken windows theory

If enough people break a small and oppressive regulation, something will have to be done at the government level. Think Tea Tax and Boston Harbor. Right now the inmates are running the asylum that is America (and Canada, as referenced by Steyn). It’s time for us to revolt. If our phonecalls and pleas to representatives are falling on deaf ears, then we have to do something to make them take notice. No, not bombing a federal building in Oklahoma City. But how about the equivelent of what Mr. Steyn and Ms. Shaidle do every day? They ridicule the rules, post over-the-top and “offensive” articles, and make people laugh at the absurdity of silencing thought and opinion.

The United States Government is stealing not only your money but that of your future generations. Find a small way to break that cycle. Keep America as free as possible.

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