At Home in Hespeler

Just over two weeks ago I wrote a couple of posts suggesting that the move afoot to license cyclists had more to do with restricting peoples freedom than than any benefit that may incur. Oh no, I heard, and heard… How can you give tickets to people that don’t have licenses?

How indeed?

Of that 184 tickets police issued to cyclists, 49 went to bikers whose bikes didn’t have a working bell. Forty of the tickets were issued because the cyclist didn’t have proper working lights, and 38 were issued to cyclists who were riding on the sidewalk. Other citations were given to cyclists who didn’t stop at red lights or who made improper lane changes.

freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy, pimply minions of bureaucracy bicycle license, Toronto Police

Was it two whole days ago I was complaining about licencing of cyclists? My how time flies. One of my comments in that post was that we are already licenced for boating:

Car, motorcycle, boat, sitting beside a pond fishing, all require a licence. Now Michael Walker thinks cycling should require a licence…

My old pal Ron, who used to blog here, commented on getting his boat licence:

Perhaps it will be like the boaters so-called licence. I took the test at a booth at a flea market. It took me twenty minutes, with no studying, and I hadn’t driven a boat in years.

But what could be so wrong with licencing bicycles? asked everyone else who commented. The boat licence provides a nice background. As  noted by Chris Selley in today’s National Post there’s lots wrong with  the boat licensing system: no boating experience is necessary, private licencing without proper oversight, licence not required if your renting the boat or if your just visiting. One thing the licence is not about is improved safety.

Here in Ontario (I can’t vouch for elsewhere), the boat licence comes with one other minor problem, it authorizes otherwise illegal searches. The OPP can, and advertise heavily that they do, stop your vessel and board it, at which time they can, and do, demand the pleasure craft operating card of the driver. It matters not at all that you are operating safely and legally, it matters not at all that they have no grounds or reason. As they will tell everyone through media sources, they hit every lake, big or small, they stop any boater on those lakes. You will, they assure us, be asked to provide your boaters card if you go out on you boat. Now that they have stopped you to check that your paperwork is in order, they can do a quick look around make sure everything is up to standard.

To provide a little perspective on this, the OPP can absolutely not pull you over while driving down the highway for no other reason than to see your licence. Having done so, they can not search around to see what they see. Even when they perform the RIDE program, stopping people to check if they have been drinking, they do not ask for your licence. But on your boat, that kind of police state tactics is fine.

When I see politicians talking about licencing bicycles because “there is no requirement for a cyclist to carry personal identification,” I imagine a world where cyclists are stopped riding down the road, for the reason of proving they have the appropriate papers. Am I paranoid? No, it is the exact same regimen that is occuring on the lakes and rivers all across the province: you cannot go to your cottage and take a simple boat ride without having to answer for it, and that is incompatible with living in a free society.

freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy, pimply minions of bureaucracy OPP

Toronto Councillor Michael Walker wants to force Toronto cyclists to get licences for riding of said bikes. Adults, as well, should have to wear helmets, lest they crack their pretty heads open. Free choice? Not in Michael Walker’s city!

It is, however, the licence issue that’s most troubling. It may be an excusable request if the problem was rampant bikers who don’t know how to ride their bikes. A course, plus a test for every body’s safety, perhaps. But listen to Walkers reason for wanting licensing:

Currently, there is no requirement for a cyclist to carry personal identification…

Micheal Walker doesn’t want you riding around in his city if he can’t tell who you are and, we presume, if you belong.

Car, motorcycle, boat, sitting beside a pond fishing, all require a licence. Now Michael Walker thinks cycling should require a licence, at the same time as the City of Toronto is trying to get more people to ride bikes - a conflict of priorities if ever there was one. However, Walker’s stated reason, because you should have to carry identification, is chilling. If he gets his way there will be one method you can go to leave the house that wouldn’t require handy identification: walking. How long before the likes of Michael Walker decide that’s not safe enough, and identification is required, so it is not “difficult for police?”

At that stage, you can no longer go under the mantle of free citizen.

Toronto: Not in a Death Spiral, freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy, pimply minions of bureaucracy Bicycle, City of Toronto, licence, Michael Walker

J. Edgar Hoover had a file too. Here’s a hard and fast rule of 1930-60’s America, don’t piss of J. Edgar or you’ll find yourself with a file. Fast forward to Canada, 2009, and discover another bureaucrat who keeps files: Canadian Human Rights commissioner Jennifer Lynch:

Please, please, look. We have experienced 16 months of invective hurled at us, and at any time when anybody has tried to speak up and correct misinformation, gross distortions, caricaturizations,[sic] then the very next day there’s been some full-frontal assault through the blogs, through mainstream media. I have a file. I’m sure I have 1,200, certainly several hundred of these things.

Twelve-hundred files. On whom? may we ask. Bloggers who speak ill of your institution? Ezra Levant? Mark Steyn? No doubt all of the above, but here’s a question for you Jennifer, do you have a file on Warren Kinsella, defender of the HRC’s? But of course, they’re her files, and she being a mere public servant, none of my business.

Of course, Ms. Lynch says so much more, including defending her job:

I’m a public servant responsible for giving effect to the principle that ‘individuals should have the right equal to others to make for themselves a life they are able and wish to have,’ and I’m going to do it.

I always like to pull out the old UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights which, when people like Jennifer Lynch want to debate these things always seems like a good place to start. Oh, and speaking of starting, here’s something from the second paragraph of the Preamble, you don’t get much more basic human rights than that which appears in the preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human rights:

…the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief

I searched in vain, by the way, for any reference to the “right equal to others to make for themselves a life they are able and wish to have,” whatever that actually means.

At the end of the day, that’s what this fight is about, everybody’s right to speak and think freely, without intimidation from some government lackey, whether in the form of hauling your sorry self before a tribunal, or just keeping a file on you.

Jacobian Piece of Impertinence, free speech, freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy, human rights, pimply minions of bureaucracy Ezra Levant, free speech, Hoover, HRC, Human Rights Commisions, J. Edgar Hoover, Jennifer Lynch, Mark Steyn, UN, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Warren Kinsella

I have been watching the Ontario Progressive Conservative leadership race with some interest the past few months, and slowly but surely made my call on who I think should become the next PC leader. This weekend it all comes to a head, as Progressive Conservatives in Ontario vote for a replacement for John Tory (side note: really, you people want John Tory to run for Mayor of Toronto? You like David Miller that much?). I have at different times written off every candidate in this race for one reason or another, but the time has come to endorse somebody, anybody.

First, lets do away with the caveats: I am not, nor have I ever been, a member of any political party. I did consider taking out a membership for this race, but never did.  I do, however, tend to vote Conservative (not so much Progressive), although my vote has to be earned. I refuse to just give it to the guy who’s the least left wing.

To start with, lets eliminate a few candidates. Frank Klees is a throwback, a seventies Progressive Conservative who belongs to another time, another ballot. He was, in my opinion, un-vote-able in much the same way John Tory was un-vote-able. Memo to Frank Klees: Dalton McGuinty will probably step down in a few years, you would be very comfortable in the Liberal party.

Randy Hillier I liked, and agreed with him on most issues. I hope the next leader has a seat at the table for Hiller. He is, however, not ready for prime time. He has nowhere near the professionalism and polish needed to run a major political party, and may never develop it. It makes him refreshing, but not an appropriate choice.

And then there were two. How can I not choose Tim Hudak over Christine Elliot. Christine Elliot presented one policy that I was big on, flat taxes. This is possibly the best policy option out there, simplifying the tax system, balancing the tax load between private individuals and corporate, yet at the same time lowering taxes for lower income workers. Sadly, I don’t get the impression Christine Elliot is as committed to a flat tax as I am, I get the impression she can speak it with a straight face, but that it is disposable policy. What your left with is Red Tory Liberal lite policies. Thanks, but no.

Tim Hudak, on the other hand, comes in with one big plus, the human rights issue. This isn’t a minor issue, in my mind, this is the issue. Frankly put, if you can’t see what is so wrong with these speech tribunals, then you don’t have appropriate conservative credentials. This may never make it to an election platform, Christine Elliot may be right and it may be too dangerous an issue (I disagree, but lets run with it). However, her un willingness to fight for it, to talk of these judge/jury joint ventures in a negative way indicates she doesn’t get what is wrong with undemocratic, un-judicial beaurocrats passing judgement on the speaking habits of the citizenry.  It’s not so much a major policy issue as it is a litmus test: if you won’t talk about disbanding these kangaroo courts, then you’re not my kind of conservative.

On almost all talking points and policy issues, Tim Hudak passes my sniff test. His conservative credentials are strong. He gives the impression that he has conservative values, not because they are a good career decision, but because he believes in the core tenant that freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy.

freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy Christine Elliot, conservative principles, Dalton McGuinty, flat tax, Frank Klees, HRCs, human rights, John Tory, PC leadership convention, PC leadership vote, Prgressive Conservative Party, Randy Hiller, Tim Hudak

I sit here, week after week, month after month, yes year after year, economics degree in hand blogging about freedom, politics, carbon taxes and so forth.  I even have a Friedrich Hayek quote (…a policy of freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy…) as my tag-line. Then one day, finally, a pretty big economics blog links to me, and it’s because I wrote out the lyrics to a one hit wonder song.

Just  - sigh - .

freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy Brave Belt, BTO, carbon taxes, David Henderson, Dunrobin's Gone, Economic Freedom, Freedom, Friedrich Hayek, Wonder of Ecoomic Freedom

The posts are all in from Monday Nights FreeSpeechApalooza in London with Kathy Shaidle, Salim Mansur and Ezra Levant. Mark Steyn has been discussing it, as has Ezra himself and Kathy.  Right Girl, Dr. Roy, Winston, Wonder Woman, Josephine and Strictly Right have all weighed in.  Blazing Cat Fur has a transcript of Kathy’s speech and Lumpy, Grumpy and Frumpy has video.

As for me, I have pictures:

Go Ezra Go, Uncategorized, free speech, freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy, pimply minions of bureaucracy Dr. Roy, Ezra Levant, Kathy Shaidle, pimply minions of bureaucracy, Right Girl, Salim Mansur, Wonder Woman

We sit here and pontificate on the Human Rights Commissions in this country,  fighting the forces of censorship, of state controlled speech, and some days,it feels like progress is being made. Ezra Levant goes off the deep end on Michael Coren, and we cheer. Mark Steyn fights with high profile and a high margin of victory, and hooray! Baby steps forward. But it is clear, the fight against censorship is being lost,and lost badly.

The Ontario Human Rights Commission is calling for Parliament to force all Canadian magazines, newspapers and “media services” Web sites to join a national press council with the power to adjudicate breaches of professional standards and complaints of discrimination.

Barbara Hall, who claimed a lack of jurisdiction in the Steyn complaint last year and then pronounced on the complaint anyway, thinks all media, including blogs, should be subject to a national press council.

The implications for this are massive, and they affect every current event blogger. Doesn’t this mean that anonymous bloggers must register their blogs? Won’t they have to unanonymousize? What about reptilian kitten eaters? Must they register? Would a press council even allow us to call Gilligan that, or would we be forced to post, on our own blogs, paid for with real after tax day job dollars, an I’ve been a very naughty boy judgements against us?

No, we may be winning the debate, but we are losing the war. When the pimply minions of bureaucracy feel quite at liberty to make such suggestion, we not only aren’t making progress, we are going backwards.

And what Gilligan Kinsella and the rest of the apologists need to realize in a hurry is, either we all have free speech, or none of us do.

Jacobian Piece of Impertinence, free speech, freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy, human rights, pimply minions of bureaucracy

The resolution is available in .pdf version, or .doc version.

free speech, freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy, pimply minions of bureaucracy

Freedom. This blog has always been about freedom. That’s why the top quote has for a couple of years now been the F.A. Hayek quote:

…a policy of freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy…

I believe in freedom of Canadians to act in accordance to their will and beliefs, so long as it doesn’t impose on others freedoms, or cause harm to others. I believe in freedom from government, not freedom as granted by government. And I believe the Rt. Hon. John Diefenbaker got this one right:

I am a Canadian,
a free Canadian,
free to speak without fear,
free to worship God in my own way,
free to stand for what I think right,
free to oppose what I believe wrong,
free to choose those who shall govern my country.
This heritage of freedom I pledge to uphold
for myself and for all mankind.

Prime Minister John G. Diefenbaker
July 1, 1960.

h/t
Five Feet of Fury
Halls
Covenant Zone
SDA
et al.

freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy

It’s done everywhere else in North America that I have ever been to. It’s done in Europe. In Paris you can buy vintage wine in the corner store. Stop at the corner store for a few quick items, grab a six pack of Guinness while I’m at it. Beer at the grocery store is hardly some new, untried concept. It is used, and has worked in hundreds of jurisdictions in the world, and there’s no reason it can’t work here.

I’ve posted before on this, back during the Ontario election where John Tory was tentatively prepared to study the idea:

Now granted, nothing drastic from our man Tory. Just a few trial locations, study the question: as if Quebec, Alberta and B.C., the U.S.A. and Europe are not test location enough. Really, the data exists, the idea works. But from baby steps like this comes full fledged working policy, so I’ll take what I can get.

Now, Halton Conservative MP, Ted Chudleigh, has a petition to allow beer to be sold in grocery stores, and is prepared to present it at Queens Park. There is an on-line petition, however according to MP Chudleigh’s blog: “Actual paper signatures are necessary to ensure authenticity.”

Ending the Soviet style marketing approach would lower prices, increase convenience of both purchase and bottle return, increase accessibility to the market for small brewers especially in local markets, and would bring Ontario into the 21st century.

The petition is here, print it off, sign it (and get others to), and mail it to:

Derek Forward, 2000 Appleby Line, Suite232, Burlington, ON L7L 7H7

It’s time that Ontario joined every other jurisdiction in the 21st century.

Of course a petition from an opposition MP is hardly the stuff of government policy, but if enough people sign the petition, it becomes harder to ignore. It may not be policy, but maybe it’s the start of something.

freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy, pimply minions of bureaucracy

On this, and other blogs, there’s often talk about freedom. We fight for freedom, or we want freedom or we want to maintain freedom. But what gets lost sometimes, is what we are really talking about. People in Prague, or Warsaw, or Budapest know: they lost their freedom to the Soviets (Warsaw to the Germans, then the Soviets) during the 20th century. Free nations now, they know what freedom means.

Forty years ago today, August 21, 2968, Soviet tanks rolled into Prague, Czechoslovakia to eliminate the “Prague Spring,” an early form of Glasnost introduced into Czechoslovakia when reformist Alexander Dubček came to power in January 1968.

Peter Worthington, who was there, has a fine piece on the invasion in today’s Sun: The Death of Prague Spring. He has far more knowledge on the subject than I do, so I will defer to his column on the subject.

Prague Spring was about freedom, real freedom for real people. The invasion in August ‘68 was about repression, about the glory of the state over the glory of the person. A real fight, for real freedom.

freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy

Ezra Levant is all over the pages of the National Post today, as the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission rejected the Danish cartoon complaint against the Western Standard magazine. To Levant this was a freedom of speech issue, and rejected claim or no, he believes freedom of speech lost:

This censor approved what I wrote. His decision is not that I have freedom of speech. His decision is that I have his approval. I’m not interested in his approval. The only test of free speech is if I can write what he disapproves of with impunity. That’s what freedom of speech is, to piss off some second-rate bureaucrat like Pardeep Gundara and know that you have the right to do so, because you’re in Canada, not Saudi Arabia.

I’m frankly usually unimpressed with many people who think their free speech has been trampled on : The Internet is full of grieved morons who believe someone asking them to watch their language in a public chat room is speech oppression; or Australians who know their firsts amendment rights and how they apply to the internet. No, just because Ezra says his speech was limited does not mean it was.

However, the complainants representative, a director with the Edmonton Council of Muslim Communities, Yasmeen Nizam, appears to support Levant’s argument:

Obviously we didn’t want this to continue, so [another goal was] perhaps to discourage people from further maligning our prophet and our religion…. We wanted this to have a deterrent effect.

Discourage people from maligning their prophet and religion and have a deterrent effect. And how might they do that:

I never wanted someone’s freedom of speech curtailed. I always wanted to sit down, with some third party, for mediation, and have a discussion

The question is, if a you can get a government agency to sit down and “mediate” a “discussion” about somebody maligning your prophet and religion to create a deterrent effect, how are you not curtailing that person’s freedom of speech? The answer is, as Levant argues here, that’s exactly what you are doing. And he is right.

Go Ezra Go, free speech, freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy

Yesterday at work I decided to put an end to At Home in Hespeler. It was done, had run it’s course, and was clearly not a growth operation. Furthermore, blogger fatigue set in some time ago, and it has been a monumental chore to sit and type something, anything for the better part of a year if not longer. Then when I got home I checked my usual blogs (see sidebar) and what did I find?

Richard “The Boy Named Sue” Warman has finally filed his statement of claim.

Canada’s busiest litigant, serial “human rights” complainant and — the guy Mark Steyn has called “Canada’s most sensitive man” — Richard Warman is now suing his most vocal critics — including me.

The suit names:

• Ezra Levant (famous for his stirring YouTube video of his confrontation with the Canadian Human Rights tribunal after he published the “Mohammed Cartoons”)
• FreeDominion.ca (Canada’s answer to FreeRepublic.com)
• Kate McMillan of SmallDeadAnimals.com
• Jonathan Kay of the National Post daily newspaper and its in-house blog
• and me, Kathy Shaidle of FiveFeetOfFury.com

Well walking out on a day like that felt wrong and after a days thought, I’ve changed my mind. This fight is my fight too. It is a fight for free speech, it is a fight for the blogosphere in Canada. My small part is to keep talking, to accept the responsibility that comes with freedom of speech, and to add some money into the paypal accounts of the four blogs involved:

Kathy Shaidle of Five Feet Of Fury
Kate McMillan of Small Dead Animals
Free Dominion
Ezra Levant

All four have donation buttons and could use the help right now.

It should also be noted that the National Post, and it’s writer Jonathan Kay have also been named, although I’m guessing they aren’t looking for donations for a defence fund.

For more

Buy a t-shirt, support the cause.
Malkin.
We are men, free and spirited men and we will not allow even the Dominion of Canada to trample on our rights.
Red Tory.
Steynianism.
A bore and a war.
No Libs - Richard Warman’s pants.

freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy, human rights

After yet another shooting kills yet another innocent bystander in Toronto the not in a death spiral, Mayor David Miller and Premier Dalton McGuinty have, yet again called for a handgun ban. This time, their pleas seem to have some validity as the handgun in question appears to have been legally owned by a registered handgun owner.

The problem with the above is simple: while the shooter may have had a permit to own the gun, it was still an illegal gun at the time of the shooting. How’s that? you say. In order to own a handgun, you must agree it will be in one of two places: at home, locked in a safe; at your gun club, locked in a safe. There are two exceptions to this rule: You may take it out at the gun club for target shooting; you may travel between the club and your home with the gun. In order to do the latter, you must go to the police, notify them of your intent to travel with the gun, and get a temporary travel permit, that allows you to drive with the gun in your vehicle between the two locations. That’s it. Take the car, with the gun, to a strip club at 1:00 on a Saturday morning, and the gun is illegal. It is in a non-approved location. David Miller has said one of the reasons he wants a ban is if someone has a gun on them in the streets of Toronto, they can be arrested, no questions asked. That is true either way, if someone has a gun, then they are violating any permit they have, and can be arrested. No questions asked.

Proponents of a handgun ban use such baseless arguments all the time, and they do so for a reason. There is no evidence to suggest banning handguns will have any effect on violent crime. Some States have found letting more people carry guns around results in less violent crime. Britain has found banning the handgun went along with an increase in handgun use. Neither of which proves a pro handgun causation, but they do make a mockery of anti-handgun arguments. There is no reason to ban handguns.

But, some would argue, it can’t hurt. There’s no legitimate reason to own a handgun, so what have we got to lose? To which I would ask, when the handgun ban fails to decrease violence, which item will be next on the banned list? Which hobby next to be declared pointless? Which freedoms taken away for David Miller’s political expediency? What possession of yours will the state confiscate because they have no interest in solving the problem?

Because that’s what this is about, finding red herrings to yell about, finding bucks to pass instead of facing up the the real challenges of solving the problem. And when you ask what have we got to lose, the answer is, freedom.

Toronto, freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy