Those of you who can’t recall the famous Sally Field Oscar moment from ye olde days of yore are, well, not as old as the rest of us. And those who have a more accurate memory than me know she didn’t say “you like me, you really like me!” she said “you like me, right now, you like me!” Not “really like me.” Really! Watch!
And by the way that was way back when the Oscars weren’t nearly the woke left-wing progressive pride political events they are now, and were almost tolerable to watch! Thus I watched that year.
Anyway all this is a long way to explain that Canadians actually, really, like…normal. How do I know this? Because when I planted a pithy little reply on a post on X by liberalvision CTV News, it got 900+ likes. (Even more liked the CTV News post, which confirms it.)
That’s a lot of likes for a reply on a post by a Canadian outlet. But it obviously struck a chord. And it made me feel like Sally Field except replace the word “me” with “normal.” (I also care that you like me if you do, but way less, really.)
People recognized the normalness of that curt reply. And thank God, many of them must also have thought, we can now, once again, be normal and express that kind of factual science-based normalness thanks almost exclusively to Elon Musk and his takeover of Twitter, whereupon he turned it into a free speech mecca — and a semblance of normalness reappeared. We don’t have to go as far back as that Sally Field moment to recall that to say such a thing as I did would have had me banned for life from the platform.
And if progressives in the Liberal Party and the NDP have it their way with Bill C-63 — the so-called “Online Harms Act” — I could literally be sent to jail for saying it or even visited by the police and put under house arrest for THINKING it and MAYBE posting it — as in be a guy who is considered a threat to Canadian society because I MIGHT think it and then say it or post it.
Seriously. And yes you are still in Canada. You were not teleported to North Korea.
Read the article in the (very) left-leaning publication The Atlantic which felt it was so important for freedom and freedom of speech and normalness that they actually allowed someone to rebuke one of their own — a progressive leftist. Trudeau and the woke progressive-left liberals they normally so adore. Very, really, rare.
Canada’s Extremist Attack on Free Speech – The Atlantic
Famous pollster Angus Reid even pointed it out as did many normals, and sort of sadly, asks a Captain Obvious question at the end:
Some excerpts from The Atlantic article:
… The Online Harms Act states that any person who advocates for or promotes genocide is “liable to imprisonment for life.” It defines lesser “hate crimes” as including online speech that is “likely to foment detestation or vilification” on the basis of race, religion, gender, or other protected categories. And if someone “fears” they may become a victim of a hate crime, they can go before a judge, who may summon the preemptively accused for a sort of precrime trial. If the judge finds “reasonable grounds” for the fear, the defendant must enter into “a recognizance.”
A recognizance is no mere promise to refrain from committing hate crimes. The judge may put the defendant under house arrest or electronic surveillance and order them to abstain from alcohol and drugs. Refusal to “enter the recognizance” for one year results in 12 months in prison.
This is madness….
…Arif Virani, Canada’s minister of justice and attorney general, is championing it. “We need the ability to stop an anticipated hate crime from occurring,” he declared last week. “The Conservatives need to get on board. Now.” …
…“The bill imposes draconian penalties for certain types of expression, including life imprisonment for a very broad and vaguely defined offence of ‘incitement to genocide,’ and 5 years of jail time for other broadly defined speech acts. This not only chills free speech but also undermines the principles of proportionality and fairness in our legal system.”…
…But amendments would not go far enough. No one who favors allowing the state to imprison people for mere speech, or severely constraining a person’s liberty in anticipation of alleged hate speech they have yet to utter, is fit for leadership in a liberal democracy. Every elected official who has supported the unamended bill should be ousted at the next opportunity by voters who grasp the fraught, authoritarian folly of this extremist proposal.
This, my friends, is progressive. This is what progressives wrought. And by virtue of the word itself — progressive — this is but the beginning of what they have planned for you.
If you’re normal like me, and you value living in a country that isn’t like China or North Korea, you do NOT like this. You really, really, do NOT like this.
The nominees are progressive, and not progressive or conservative. Vote accordingly.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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