Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Vigile.net Deserves to be Heard

I cannot say that I agree with a lot of the opinions found on Vigile.net and particularly in the 'Tribune Libre' section.
But even if I were opposed to every single article, I would defend its right to publish.

Open and free debate is essential to any democratic society and listening to opinions, even those that make your skin crawl, is an essential element. Have we forgotten our civics lessons?
Free speech is a principle easy to espouse, but one that takes maturity to embrace in practice.

I remember the sad case of David Ahenakew a Native leader who made a most thoroughly racist rant to a reporter, including his opinion that Hitler was just trying to "clean up Europe" when he "fried six million of those guys."
Clearly a kook and off his rocker, he was vilified in the press, stripped of his honours and then finally dragged through the courts by the Crown for years until he finally dropped dead. It was clearly a case of overkill of a sad pathetic man.
While Mr. Ahenekew got what was coming to him in the press, I deplore the over-reaction by the government. It was clearly a case of politically correct overkill.

If I can defend a character like Mr. Ahenekew, I certainly will defend Vigile.net.

Did Vigile.net publish antisemitic opinions?
The Canada-Israel committee believed it did and it exercised its democratic right to complain. The reaction to that complaint in the Press and media was also an expression of free opinion, with some supporting Vigile.net, most not so much.

Mr. Frappier, the webmaster, reacted by removing some content. Others would have hoped he'd act more forcefully, but it is his right to do as his conscious and principles dictate.
At any rate, what remains is content no worse than found on other websites across Canada and I don't hear a great big hullabaloo over other so-called 'offensive' posts found elsewhere.

Today comes news that the Canadian Shia Muslim Organization has re-posted on its front page,  a thoroughly distasteful video by notorious American White Supremacist and antisemite David Duke. If perchance the video disappears you can find the original here on YouTube.

And so one wonders if politicians will rise in Parliament to denounce this clearly hateful piece with the same vim and vigour that we observed in the Vigile.net affair.

Now we get word that Vigile.net is subject to a $500,000 defamation lawsuit and I cannot help but fear that it may be an effort to restrain free expression.

In our system of justice, when one is without the substantial financial resources needed to defend oneself, the process of getting sued is in most respects more painful than the outcome. Most cases are dropped after the complainant has made his point and exacted his pound of flesh in the guise of debilitating legal expenses.

While I'm not commenting on this case in particular, (I don't even know who the principle is) suing for defamation is an act of aggression meant to punish, more than it is an effort to re-establish one's good name (if that is even possible.)
When convicted cheaters and crooks can sue for defamation (with zero chance of winning), it is open season on anyone that challenges the rich and powerful. It's just a matter of using deep financial resources to inflict pain.

Vigile.net has a right to be heard. If others disagree with the content or believe that certain opinions go beyond acceptable bounds, they should speak out.
Our system is pretty good at exposing the truth, whatever it may be. People can and will make their own minds up about the site, after all views are heard.

Mr. Frappier walks a fine line and publishes some articles that others may find offensive. He should expect a vigorous response and shouldn't moan about being attacked by those who disagree. That reaction is part of the game.

That being said, heavy-handed and shamefully politically motivated attacks in the National Assembly should be denounced.
Lawsuits meant to inflict financial pain (I have no idea if the above-mentioned suit is such) in an effort to stifle opinion, should be rejected by all.

Writing to defend a political opponent is always difficult, but I cannot in good conscious stand by and watch a political lynching.

I know that if each of us who is in a position to do so doesn't stand up for free speech, it will disappear.

Today Vigile.net.....Tomorrow me.
and next week......you!

24 comments:

  1. Editor, Re David Ahenakew, he got what he deserved. I don't know WHERE you draw your conclusion that his prosecution killed him. He was awarded the Order of Canada, and he disgraced himself deserving to have it taken from him, but he's not the first. Far from it!

    In a sense, you're right about defending free speech, but there are slander and libel laws, so even free speech isn't absolute.

    While the SRC seems to allow Anglo bashing and other assorted racist filth on its network, Don Cherry gets severely admonished by its English counterpart, the CBC, for stating how it's "Only Europeans and Frenchmen (hockey players) that wear visors (to protect their eyes)". The other night on his Coach's Corner segment, he referred to the Habs of old by one of their former monikers, "The Flying Frenchmen". After uttering those words, he turned to Ron McLean asking if it was OK to say that. McLean anyway, did approve of it.

    It sickens me that SRC, supported by MY taxes, gets away with anything and everything anti English, but CBC and the meddlesome federal government allow Cherry and others to get away with nothing if they THINK of saying something that can be remotely construed as anti Québécois.

    On another related topic, I for one will never watch Mel Gibson in any movie, past and present, talk show interview, nothing. I hope he's fully censured by Hollywood, and even if he is, he can run to and cry on his private island. Too bad nobody has sued him for his drunken anti-Semitic rant, but thankfully he was publicly admonished, and fully deserved to be. Again, free speech is not absolute.

    Too, it's not as if his movie, Passion of the Christ, wasn't intentionally anti-Semitic. It finally came to the point the Pope, allegedly the best theologian the Roman Catholic Church has had this past century, finally officially censured any interpretation or referral to the Jews being in any way, shape or from for Christ's death, and that was very recent. It only took over 2000 years for that to happen, but I guess it's better late than never.

    Being Jewish, you can understand my bias, but what David A. said was very inflammatory. Then again, so was Lionel Groulx amongst others, and like the racist vitriol on SRC spewed endlessly today unchallenged, he got away with it. May his impious remains and soul rest in Hell for all eternity!

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  2. Any examples of SRC's supposed anglo bashing?

    I have a feeling I'm going to be dissapointed...

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  3. You are correct, vigile.net should be villified publicly for what it is, but it has a right to exist, the same for the site vigil.net got closed and it's webmaster arrested.
    I cannot but find this a delicious irony that what it advocated fir others his happening to them. That being said they should be free to be, and their supporters within the PQ, Blic exposed for their support if it. To combat such evil, better it be in full sunlight so you can see it in all it's ugliness and thus making it easier to combat.

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  4. The losers at Vigile.net did their best to stifle Colonel James Angus Brown and tried to have his anti-separatist website (www.parkavenuegazette.com) shutdown. It's great that Vigile is being sued $500,000 for defamation. There is some sweet karma here.

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  5. > […] But even if I were opposed to every single article, I would defend its right to publish […]

    That’s very Voltaire of you…

    > Open and free debate is essential to any democratic society and listening to opinions, even those that make your skin crawl, is an essential element. Have we forgotten our civics lessons?

    Some of us most certainly have.

    And perhaps you have overestimated the level of citizenship of the society we live in. You expect to universally appeal to lofty Enlightenment philosophies when in actuality your target society is more about bread and circuses. Even with a rudimentary knowledge of world history, it’s plain to see how the two cannot be juxtaposed.

    > Free speech is a principle easy to espouse, but one that takes maturity to embrace in practice.

    Yes, and with great power comes great responsibility. And the pen is mightier than the sword.

    These truths might be lost in our era of ever-present, always-on media hawking online or on-air trash with copious amounts of gratuitous slander masquerading as freedom-ensuring vigilance. Social media that promote to-the-second preoccupation with narcissistic minutiae do little to educate the masses on their true duty to listen to the other side and to foster critical thought and reason. Free speech is hardly about gratuity; it is entirely about hard-fought liberty. Too often, the two are easily confused.

    To observe the pedestrian name-calling and bandwagoneering into which degenerate many such debates, one might think that we’re due for a civics lesson do-over. Of course, that’s not going to happen in a society that tacitly cultivates and openly condones our wholesale disengagement.

    Perhaps it’s not right to exclude other social factors. Brand names, consumer goods, slogans, ideologies: all ready-to-eat! Sometimes it’s hard to see where the pork stops and the circus begins.

    How lucky we are to live in an age where we don’t even have to choose between watching a couple of middle-aged wonks in a public display of scripted ventriloquism and our favorite Flying Frenchmen in an equally public display of improvised gladiatorial virility.

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  6. To the anonymous contributor at 7:25AM who has an extremely short memory: You obviously haven't been reading this blog for long, have you?

    ...or are you simply dead from the neck up?

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  7. Oh please mister Editor, dont pretend you have any compassion for the Vigile.net fate....

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  8. To anon@ 12:31PM
    "Oh please mister Editor, dont pretend you have any compassion for the Vigile.net fate...."

    Of course I do?
    I get my best material from there!

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  9. @Editor : You better a find place now....they are doomed :P

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  10. To Anon @ 12:31PM: No writer, no tears I'm sure. Certainly none from me, and while I don't care one iota what happens to Vigile.net, what Editor writes is food for thought because frivilous lawsuits reek havoc on those who have to fear being sued for expressing an opinion, so from THAT standpoint I share Editor's sentiments.

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  11. @ Mississauga Guy

    You mentionned "the racist vitriol on SRC spewed endlessly" and I simply asked for examples. I wonder who is really "dead from the neck up", because you apparently can't name a single one. Funny how some react here when somebody challenges them to back up their rantings with facts.

    I'm waiting for examples, and you haven't delivered. I want my endless SRC racist vitriol and I want it now!!!

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  12. i wonder if one of the posters here is the editor of the Angry French Guy blog that hasn't been updated for a year now?

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  13. "I hope he's fully censured by Hollywood, and even if he is, he can run to and cry on his private island."

    The guy was drunk and he apologized. Nothing more to say. Case closed. Let's move on.

    "i wonder if one of the posters here is the editor of the Angry French Guy blog that hasn't been updated for a year now?"

    http://angryfrenchguy.com/

    That guy is a real piece of work. Goebbels would be proud.

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  14. "i wonder if one of the posters here is the editor of the Angry French Guy blog that hasn't been updated for a year now?"

    I'm not him but I like his style ;-)

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  15. Angry French Guy is very ignorant, I guess we all agree on this.

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  16. @ Anonymous:

    "Funny how some react here when somebody challenges them to back up their rantings with facts."
    "I'm waiting for examples, and you haven't delivered. I want my endless SRC racist vitriol and I want it now!!!"

    Here is an example. A few years ago on the New Year's Eve "Bye Bye" show on Radio-Canada, English Canadians were called an inbred gang. Other groups, including blacks, were also targeted.

    Here is a link:
    www.friends.ca/news-item/7603

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  17. Oh no, people were mocked! On the most risqué comedy show of the year!! The horror!!!

    FYI, the annual Bye bye shows mock EVERYBODY, 99% of them being "pure laine", including every single PQ politician, Céline, Péladeau, Gilles Proulx, etc etc.

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  18. No anonymous 11:01 bye bye is the nationalist leftist trash show it us, it always was and is anti English, anti Canada, anti right and always left separatist loving.
    Saying it dies trash everyone is being blind as most hard separatist are, blinded by hate that they do not see anything wrong with it.

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  19. The show lampoons every Québécois personnality but is anti-english? Great logic! No arguments, no proof, authentic No Dogs reasonning.

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  20. "The show lampoons every Québécois personnality but is anti-english?"

    According to the example he posted. Pay attention.

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  21. @ Jason

    "According to the example he posted. Pay attention."

    Well then with further examples I learned of it must also be anti-Québécois, anti-politician, anti-french, anti-woman, anti-men, anti-hetero, anti-gay, anti-pollution, anti-environnement, anti-SRC, anti-TVA, anti-smart, anti-stupid, etc etc. I admire your logic.

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  22. @ Anon. at 11:48 AM,

    If someone on any show on English television called the Quebecois "an inbred gang," you can be sure there would be an uproar in Quebec.

    You also neglected to mention the anti-black slurs on the "Bye,Bye" show, which were extremely racist by any standards.

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  23. "Well then with further examples I learned of it must also be anti-Québécois, anti-politician, anti-french, anti-woman, anti-men, anti-hetero, anti-gay, anti-pollution, anti-environnement, anti-SRC, anti-TVA, anti-smart, anti-stupid, etc etc. I admire your logic."

    Well firstly it isn't MY logic because I'm not the one that posted the exmaple. I was just merely clarifying his post. I don't find the sketch offensive at all so get off my case.

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  24. "but I cannot in good conscious stand by and watch a political lynching."

    After a thirty year long political and cultural lynching as a Canadian in the province I plan to pitch a tent, roast marshmallows and play some Johnny Cash while Vigile.net swings.

    Free speech that polarizes, alienates, dehumanizes, proselytaizes,scapegoats and otherwise seeks to curtail the freedoms of others is neither a right or an ideal.

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