Jordan Peterson on Orwellian Bill C-63

2 months ago
8

"In my country, there's a bill that's in second reading, which has pushed it quite a ways along the legislative route, Bill C-63, which literally allows people to be reported to a provincial magistrate under the possibility of one year's imprisonment in their own house with an ankle bracelet, with all their communication intercepted in consequence of anyone's complaint that they're afraid that a hate speech event might occur in the next year. Yes, that's Bill C63, you know, and I've read that bill, I've read that bill three times, because every time I read it and then think about it, I can't believe that I could have possibly understood it properly, and yet here we are, and there is very similar things going on in the UK. There was a terrible bill that was recently defeated in Ireland, for example, which would have put severe restrictions on free speech. And there are people in the UK who are being persecuted and seriously persecuted for expressing their opinions offensive though they may be, publicly in a manner that is absolutely necessary if you're going to support free speech. And we know that the free speech that offends no one requires no defense and that's partly because it has no content if I only ever say something that everyone agrees with and produces no emotional response whatsoever there's no point in Even speaking because you don't have to concentrate on what's obvious if you're going to speak you have to concentrate on what's contentious and disruptive.
And there isn't anywhere on earth, and this certainly includes my home country, where the protections for that vital right are more thoroughly enshrined and deeply entrenched than they are in the United States. And seriously, thank God for that. It's so vital, it's so important. So, you know, and so good on you for managing to maintain it, and don't be taking it for granted, because it could disappear at any time, as Robert Kennedy pointed out earlier."

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