Are the Human Rights Commissions and the Canadian Human Rights Acts Only About Censorship?

Kevin Michael Grace, host of The Ambler and writer at Vdare has sent me an email about linking him with libertariansim. I have posted both his email and my response to him.

Here is his email:

Dear Ms. Asrat:

I don't know where you got the idea I am a libertarian, paleo or otherwise. See this. I may be a pessimist, but I am not a nihilist; the biggest influence on my political and social thinking is Hilaire Belloc. As for immigration to my country (Canada), my position is: end it. I see no need for Canada to take in more than, say, 5,000 immigrants a year for the foreseeable future. As for Muslim immigration, my position is: none, ever.

Cordially,

Kevin Michael Grace

Here is my long response:

Dear Mr. Grace,

Thank you for your email. It has always been a pleasure reading your articles, and I am glad to see that your website is up.

As I wrote in my blog post, I am observing a trend (seeing and sensing, as I've put it), so some of my thoughts are some kind of intuitive analysis of what I see happening.

I do apologize if I singled you out incorrectly, or unfairly, but this is how I see what's happening. After a prolonged absence, your first article - your comeback article, if I may say so - was on the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Human Rights Commissions. I have written about your article in this post. Surprisingly, I found that your concern over the HRCs and the CHRA was not to disclose their positions on non-discrimination, but to talk about their attempts at censorship - or as you say "self-censorship."

I make a case in my post that the primary objective of the CHRA and the HRCs is to prevent non-discrimination, perceived or real, toward groups ranging from homosexuals to feminists, with minority groups filling in the gaps. This self-censorship which you talk about is a consequence of this coercion by non-mainstream groups who are sabotaging long-held beliefs and behaviors to favor their way of life.

Most Canadians do discriminate. I will wager that in the safety of their private homes many will not self-censor. But, public life is often harsher, and people have to toe the line if they want to prevent hassles, including getting sued or losing their jobs.

With increasing liberalism (in the case of homosexuals and feminists), and mass immigration of visible minorities, chances for getting into trouble (i.e. doing something that will be construed as racism or discriminatory), has resulted with a culture of fear. People will say as little as possible about contentious issues in public.

I was surprised, therefore that your argument against the HRCs and the CHRA was that they were a secret plan to "kill politics." I think they were partly a result of immigration (or admittance of non-traditional peoples) and their fears of discrimination. It was the blacks and Jews who influenced the formation of the CHRA in the first place. But, this is of course maintained by liberal ideas and politics.

So, rather than talk about these societal changes, and the historical reasons for the formation of the HRCs and the CHRA, and what fuels them these days which includes high immigration levels, it seems that you preferred to talk about self-censorship as the overriding factor. As I said before, this self-censorship came out of a specific historical and social context. It seems your concern relates to the narrow focus of individual freedoms (of speech, of expression etc.) that libertarians hold dear, rather than to the broader social issues that conservatives try to address, which certainly also includes free speech and expression as part of the whole picture.

That is why I implied that you might have libertarian inclinations.

Sincerely,

Kidist Paulos Asrat