Tag Archives: Fascism

News

Canadian Human Rights Commissions are bad for business

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Denyse O’Leary has a re-cap of the sorry state of free speech in Canada, here.

It is worth noting how these Human Rights Commissions don’t just affect individual liberty – they affect commerce, as well! Businesses can be sued just as easily as individuals. All it takes is a victim from a special interest group to feel “offended”.

Closet Conservative linked to this St. Catharines Standard story:

The owner of a downtown St. Catharines fitness club faces a mediation hearing today for allegedly denying a pre-operation transsexual access to the women’s only areas of his gym.

The transsexual — now a woman, but a man at the time of the incident two years ago — is taking the case to the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, John Fulton said Tuesday.

Mark Steyn has more stories of business owners and professionals facing “Human Rights” suits from offended clients. Excerpt:

What’s the “proper conduct” for Mr Fulton? Decline to let the pre-op use the ladies’ changing room and get a “human rights” complaint? Or let the Big Swinging Dick have the run of the shower and get a whole bunch of other suits from his outraged female members?

What’s the “proper conduct” for Dr Stubbs? Decline to perform a labiaplasty on the post-op transsexual because he’s no idea what he’s getting into (so to speak)? Or perform it and risk a malpractice suit for botching an operation?

What’s the “proper conduct” for Gator Ted? Tell the medical marijuana guy to stop smoking pot in his doorway and be hauled before the commissars? Or let the guy go ahead and get sued by the trucker sitting next to him at the bar when he fails his drug test?

There is no “proper conduct”, only the whims and caprices of nuisance plaintiffs backed by the Ontario government’s social engineers. Bar owners and fitness clubs run up five- and six-figure legal bills. The nuisance plaintiffs get the tab picked up by taxpayers, and thus have no incentive to settle.

Canada may have a fiscal conservative running the economy today, but Stephen Harper still doesn’t have the majority government he needs to abolish these kangaroo courts once and for all.

So it may not be time for Americans to flee Obama’s socialist paradise for Canada, yet. Will Canada win back the right to free speech? Maybe. Time will tell.

News

LAT: Conscience rule on abortions may be overturned

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Los Angeles Times story is here.

Reporting from Washington — Taking another step into the abortion debate, the Obama administration today will move to rescind a controversial rule that allows healthcare workers to deny abortion counseling or other family planning services if doing so would violate their moral beliefs, according to administration officials.

And a bit more:

Last month without official ceremony, Obama overturned a controversial ban on U.S. funding for international aid groups that provide abortion services.

The move by the Department of Health and Human Services to throw out the conscience rule is being made equally quietly as most of Washington focuses on the president’s blockbuster budget plan.

UPDATE: The Achoress adds:

If we are going to be a nation that supports the “freedom to choose,” then it seems to me that has to go both ways. Professional health workers should be “free to choose” whether or not they will participate in what they find to be morally objectionable.

Freedom that is only one-sided i.e., “she is free to have a late term, partial-birth abortion and you are not free to refuse her request” or “she is free to demand this contraception and you are not free to refuse to fill that prescription,” is not really freedom.

It is enslavement. Dress it up any way you want. If the government is forcing you to do what your conscience tells you not to, under threats to your freedom, your purse or your livelihood, then you are not free.

News

Hong Kong debates evolution curriculum

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According to the Nature News, Hong Kong is debating whether to support academic freedom in their schools on controversial areas of science.

Hong Kong is in the middle of reforming its school system, and the Education Bureau has issued a series of guidelines for all levels of education to go into effect in September 2009.

…

The guidelines were prepared by the Curriculum Development Council and the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority.

The change affects the teaching of biology at the secondary level. A section of the proposed curriculum guidelines on ‘Genetics and Evolution’ states the following:

In addition to Darwin’s theory, students are encouraged to explore other explanations for evolution and the origins of life, to help illustrate the dynamic nature of scientific knowledge.

Opponents of “teaching the controversy” are ducking debates with the other side:

There has been heated debate in the Hong Kong media since. On 13 February, the radio series Backchat broadcast a programme on ‘Creationism versus Evolution’. Kwok, dean of the science faculty at the university, backed out of the programme when he found it had been changed to a debate format at the last minute, noting that he is not a specialist in evolution and thus cannot counter detailed arguments regarding evolution versus creation.

Professors who want to teach the evidence for and against naturalistic theories are having to dodge academic censors:

Chris Beling, a solid-state physicist and associate professor in the University of Hong Kong department of physics, debated with two other panellists and took the opportunity to mildly criticize the science faculty for refusing his request to continue a course on the origin of the Universe that included a section on intelligent-design thinking. Instead, he has met in private with students to discuss intelligent design.

Keep in mind that Nature News is biased in favor of naturalism and therefore must defend the position that scientific inquiry can never implicate an intelligence.

In other words, their opinion has been set by their philosophical assumption of naturalism, and experiments and observations cannot overturn their a priori commitment to naturalism.

(H/T: Telic Thoughts)