To attempt to explain how, I will use Quebec language laws as an example.
Let us take the average French-Canadian. Let us assume they're unilingual but functional in English. In fact, they would like to improve their English and can see the importance of a second language in today's global context. They recognize that French outside their provincial borders has limited use but that English is an international language. Where when two different languages meet, English is the common link. In boardrooms across the globe English is key. It's a fact and reality. Quebecers understand this.
Let us further add to their profile a moderate attitude towards immigration, religious rights and freedom of expression and choice. Standard stuff. I recognize, that in today's clouded understanding of rights, that the average person is willing to negotiate some of their rights away in exchange for some specious state initiative but this is not the purpose of this post. Moving on, they have 'nothing against' English or English-speaking people but have accepted the concern about needing to protect the French language.
Already they walk a fine line.
Enter liberty.
If they state they are for 'freedom' then, how can they accept punitive measures exacted against their neighbors? Worse still, if they by free will decide their own children would be better served in an English environment, how can they consent to the government preventing them to do so subverting their personal rights to those of the collective?
I think if the average Quebecer took a second and looked at things from the perspective of liberty as defined by the great humanists and philosophers of The Enlightenment, they'd see the erosion of liberty caused by state laws.
If they have friends of non-Francophone stock who are ostensibly equal citizens (pay taxes, play hockey with them, own properties etc.), then it doesn't equate that they should tolerate laws that discriminate. By their aloof or indifference comes state-sanctioned discrimination pitting one language group against another.
It's inconceivable to me how a Quebecer would permit the bureaucracy to prevent them from making their own decisions as they see fit. At the moment, Quebec is a slave to the unions on an economic level, and are beholden to the state for their rights.
The biggest crime the government has perpetuated on all of us as individual is stripping us of our moral agency.
Laws to protect a language onto itself are not evil. There are plenty of laws in many jurisdictions. However, none are as draconian as they are in Quebec. That is, preventing one class of citizens (French-Canadian) from choosing schools of their choice. Preventing a class of citizens (non-Francophone) from expressing themselves in their own language under the threat of fines and denial of business permits.
I defy Quebecois apologists for such outrageous infringement on civil liberties to find me ONE jurisdiction in the West that permits one group of people to levy fines against another for simply expressing themselves in English.
NAME ONE.
It's all I ask.
One.
Please allow me to save you some time.
Zero.
There are no OLF's in the West and certainly none in North America.
Now.
If you are one, despite all these affronts on liberty, that still chooses to let your collective nationalist sensibilities get in the way of whatever you have thought are "individual rights" then you have no respect for civil liberties.
None.
The problem is once you hand over your rights to the state, they control you. They begin to redefine rights in their own image. Thus, nonsense like 'health care is a right' starts to enter the lexicon. People begin, blindly, to accept this because on an emotional level, what can be more important than health? But on a rational and abstract level, health is personal. By handing over those personal rights to the state, you've in effect lost control of your own health.
Quebec's language laws - and Canada's free speech laws- for that matter are nothing but abysmal laws that assault OUR INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY.
I can not stress this enough.
You can't on one side claim to be 'free and open' while simultaneously hand out language tickets for using words other than French. You can't be "tolerant" if you shout down an opposing view accepting one can prosecute another for their opinions (Mark Steyn is a perfect example of this as he faces the Human Rights Commission for his political views). There is no "balancing" liberty. That's a bilk of bull shit mediocre minds and pathetic fools have sold you.
By all means, if you calculate it's all acceptable (illogically) creating multiple degrees of liberty that amount to nothing but philosophical chaos and massive inequality and injustice, than so be it.
Just don't tell me you're for liberty and freedom.
If you can't see, in the abstract, the dangers of this and where it can all lead.
Then you have no respect for civil liberty.
Let us take the average French-Canadian. Let us assume they're unilingual but functional in English. In fact, they would like to improve their English and can see the importance of a second language in today's global context. They recognize that French outside their provincial borders has limited use but that English is an international language. Where when two different languages meet, English is the common link. In boardrooms across the globe English is key. It's a fact and reality. Quebecers understand this.
Let us further add to their profile a moderate attitude towards immigration, religious rights and freedom of expression and choice. Standard stuff. I recognize, that in today's clouded understanding of rights, that the average person is willing to negotiate some of their rights away in exchange for some specious state initiative but this is not the purpose of this post. Moving on, they have 'nothing against' English or English-speaking people but have accepted the concern about needing to protect the French language.
Already they walk a fine line.
Enter liberty.
If they state they are for 'freedom' then, how can they accept punitive measures exacted against their neighbors? Worse still, if they by free will decide their own children would be better served in an English environment, how can they consent to the government preventing them to do so subverting their personal rights to those of the collective?
I think if the average Quebecer took a second and looked at things from the perspective of liberty as defined by the great humanists and philosophers of The Enlightenment, they'd see the erosion of liberty caused by state laws.
If they have friends of non-Francophone stock who are ostensibly equal citizens (pay taxes, play hockey with them, own properties etc.), then it doesn't equate that they should tolerate laws that discriminate. By their aloof or indifference comes state-sanctioned discrimination pitting one language group against another.
It's inconceivable to me how a Quebecer would permit the bureaucracy to prevent them from making their own decisions as they see fit. At the moment, Quebec is a slave to the unions on an economic level, and are beholden to the state for their rights.
The biggest crime the government has perpetuated on all of us as individual is stripping us of our moral agency.
Laws to protect a language onto itself are not evil. There are plenty of laws in many jurisdictions. However, none are as draconian as they are in Quebec. That is, preventing one class of citizens (French-Canadian) from choosing schools of their choice. Preventing a class of citizens (non-Francophone) from expressing themselves in their own language under the threat of fines and denial of business permits.
I defy Quebecois apologists for such outrageous infringement on civil liberties to find me ONE jurisdiction in the West that permits one group of people to levy fines against another for simply expressing themselves in English.
NAME ONE.
It's all I ask.
One.
Please allow me to save you some time.
Zero.
There are no OLF's in the West and certainly none in North America.
Now.
If you are one, despite all these affronts on liberty, that still chooses to let your collective nationalist sensibilities get in the way of whatever you have thought are "individual rights" then you have no respect for civil liberties.
None.
The problem is once you hand over your rights to the state, they control you. They begin to redefine rights in their own image. Thus, nonsense like 'health care is a right' starts to enter the lexicon. People begin, blindly, to accept this because on an emotional level, what can be more important than health? But on a rational and abstract level, health is personal. By handing over those personal rights to the state, you've in effect lost control of your own health.
Quebec's language laws - and Canada's free speech laws- for that matter are nothing but abysmal laws that assault OUR INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY.
I can not stress this enough.
You can't on one side claim to be 'free and open' while simultaneously hand out language tickets for using words other than French. You can't be "tolerant" if you shout down an opposing view accepting one can prosecute another for their opinions (Mark Steyn is a perfect example of this as he faces the Human Rights Commission for his political views). There is no "balancing" liberty. That's a bilk of bull shit mediocre minds and pathetic fools have sold you.
By all means, if you calculate it's all acceptable (illogically) creating multiple degrees of liberty that amount to nothing but philosophical chaos and massive inequality and injustice, than so be it.
Just don't tell me you're for liberty and freedom.
If you can't see, in the abstract, the dangers of this and where it can all lead.
Then you have no respect for civil liberty.
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