Don't discredit your arguments by your behavior
I wish some of the people people who are angry about the abuses of human rights commissions would cool down their rhetoric.
It is not helpful to call human rights commissioners "thugs" or to compare them to the jackbooted Nazis or the Stalinist secret police who came in the middle of the night to haul people off to death camps or the the gulag. When you do, you cheapen what happened to those who did experience those horrors. You discredit your arguments when you are over-the-top.
It's like crying wolf too often and too loudly. Then when and if some real abuses are uncovered, no one will believe you because you will be dismissed as someone who continually blows things out of proportion.
Some of the Christians spouting off sure make our religion look like the home of some angry, cranky and even nasty people. You make me want to distance myself from you. We are called to love, even our enemies. Yes we must also speak the truth. But in love.
Even that might run you the risk of a human rights complaint, as it did Calgary Bishop Fred Henry. Don't get me wrong. There is something really wrong with the system. It needs to be fought.
But let's fight with wisdom and courage and humor. If you are going to be a free speech martyr, you would make it easier for the rest of us if you did not end up with complaints against you for being an intemperate jerk.
If you are going to engage in some hyperbole, make sure it is employed for the sake of humor not character assassination or angry overblown venting. Make it funny. Mark Steyn strikes the right tone. So does Binks. Mean-spiritedness is ugly, no matter where it is coming from.
I am for freedom of speech. But I am also for civility and basic human decency. I don't want government controlling our speech, but I do think a modicum of self-control would go a long way in ensuring that we can, in our great diversity of beliefs, share this common space here in Canada with peace because were respect each others' basic human dignity.
It is not helpful to call human rights commissioners "thugs" or to compare them to the jackbooted Nazis or the Stalinist secret police who came in the middle of the night to haul people off to death camps or the the gulag. When you do, you cheapen what happened to those who did experience those horrors. You discredit your arguments when you are over-the-top.
It's like crying wolf too often and too loudly. Then when and if some real abuses are uncovered, no one will believe you because you will be dismissed as someone who continually blows things out of proportion.
Some of the Christians spouting off sure make our religion look like the home of some angry, cranky and even nasty people. You make me want to distance myself from you. We are called to love, even our enemies. Yes we must also speak the truth. But in love.
Even that might run you the risk of a human rights complaint, as it did Calgary Bishop Fred Henry. Don't get me wrong. There is something really wrong with the system. It needs to be fought.
But let's fight with wisdom and courage and humor. If you are going to be a free speech martyr, you would make it easier for the rest of us if you did not end up with complaints against you for being an intemperate jerk.
If you are going to engage in some hyperbole, make sure it is employed for the sake of humor not character assassination or angry overblown venting. Make it funny. Mark Steyn strikes the right tone. So does Binks. Mean-spiritedness is ugly, no matter where it is coming from.
I am for freedom of speech. But I am also for civility and basic human decency. I don't want government controlling our speech, but I do think a modicum of self-control would go a long way in ensuring that we can, in our great diversity of beliefs, share this common space here in Canada with peace because were respect each others' basic human dignity.
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