scaramouche

...born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad

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User: scaramouche
Irreverent, contrarian, delighted to be out of synch with the zeitgeist, I depend on my sense of humour (such as it is) to keep me sane in this wacky world.

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Wednesday, 31 December 2008


 A quote for New Year’s Eve: From Freedom for the Thought We Hate: A
 biography of the First Amendment, by Anthony Lewis:
More than any other people on earth, Americans are free to say and write what they think. They can criticize the White House or air the secrets of the bedroom with little fear of punishment. This extraordinary freedom is based on just fourteen words in our Constitutions: the free expression clauses of the First Amendment.
 Here in Canada, we deride those fourteen words, labouring under the delusion that we
 can somehow “balance” free speech with “the thought we hate”—and that the
 effort to do so makes us inherently more tolerant and virtuous than our American
 neighbours.
 As someone who has come to understand that free speech is the cornerstone of a free
 society, and that all our much-vaunted “balance” has done is to give some people the
 power to decide what others can and cannot say—the modus operendi in such unfree
 jurisdictions as Saudi Arabia and Iran—I look upon those remarkable fourteen words
 with a mixture of longing and awe.
 Yes, that’s right, folks. I’m that peculiar type of Canadian who “suffers” from a bad
 case of First Amendment envy.
 And on that note, I'd like to wish all my readers a Happy New Year. When next we 
 connect, it will be ’09.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:08 | link | comments

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