Thursday, October 10, 2013

The Cure for "Hate Speech" Is More Free Speech, Better Speech and Smarter Speech (UPDATED)

I had to make a short post about the campaign that Stand With Us is going to run in Vancouver.

This is an effort that I can get behind.

I am not directly involved with Stand With Us or any other organization-ever-mostly because I would never be a member of any club that would have me as a member and I'm not sure if my affiliation with them would hurt or hinder the cause!

While I believe firmly that one cannot "fight" antisemitism, Stand With Us is taking the right approach with this campaign with respect to "hate speech".

The only cure for "hate speech" is by having more speech, a more free society, more free speech and offering people better, more sensible speech.

Civilized people will defer to civilized speech and ostracize the "hate" on their own.

Government need not police civilized people and their speech and thoughts. That, my friends, is called totalitarianism.

And by government, I of course mean government-any governing body that is made up of individual humans who collectively tend to think that they know better than you what you should think and say and how you should behave.

So as Mark Steyn would say: NUTS TO THAT.

Good for Stand With Us for putting their money where their mouth is.

UPDATE: Stand With Us Canada looking for an office intern!

Just heard from Meryle Kates, the Director of Stand With Us (Canada).

She is looking for a student intern-someone in second year university/college and up for one day a week doing social media, help with events, some office administration for Stand With Us.

The internship is unpaid, but the intern will receive an Emerson Fellowship, which includes a trip to Israel in August and LA in November for training conferences.

It's a great opportunity.


Contact info: 

T: 416.966.0722
E: merylek@standwithus.com