Tag: censorship

The War on Thought Error at Queen’s University

Another tale of PC gone amok
Queen’s new ‘dialogue’ monitors

To the students of Queen’s University,

Our school has, in recent years, been infiltrated by subversives who would pollute this academic environment with their improper thinking, “free speech”, and conversations behind closed doors.

The rogue agents who threaten our society must be brought to justice for their crimes. We must be ever vigilant in this war of ideologies. We must smoke out thought offenders wherever they dwell, unleash a campaign of shock and awe on their reputations and commence an operation of enduring freedom against their freedom to offend.

Queen’s has a reputation as a modern liberal university. The evil-doers have perverted the liberal faith to their own ends calling their followers to fight under a banner of free-speech. Queen’s is at risk of descending into sectarian violence as the so-called freedom fighters terrorize the feelings and post-modern sensibilities of the student body. Queen’s should ‘liberated’ rather than ‘liberal’ and when the thought insurgents are defeated, students will greet us as liberators.

For the errorists that offend us and those who ought to find offense, we have left their reputations in utter ruin, made them know that they shall find no safe quarter and have questioned their freedom from imprisonment. Some have condemned this campaign as a “disproportionate response”, however, let there be no doubt, in a post-9/11 world where the self-esteem of the marginalized victims of the neo-conservative heteronommative colonial imperialists were attacked under a clear-blue sky on a Tuesday morning, we must be ever-vigilant. Either you are with us, or you are with the thought errorists.

What to do with the subversives who disrupt our order? Thought errorists with potential information as to the locations and activities of other speech insurgents will be subjected to “enhanced interrogation techniques”. Their leaders will be put into a number of stress positions which include calling for resignations in the Queen’s Journal, debasing their names online and most importantly, forcing the abandonment of their neo-liberal views followed by full reprogramming (please vote “yes” in the upcoming referendum on the proposed thought errorist re-education mandatory student fee).

Appeasers of liberal fundamentalists will readily point out that some errorists have recognized their mistakes and have apologized. However, if they (or anyone) has the ability to offend again, the emotional freedoms of we the drum-circling, pachouilli-burning, self-loathing truth-speakers are at risk. I call for all Queen’s students to rise up against the errorist threat, whether you are a victim of American hegemony, an empathetically marginalized philosophy major or if you simply harbour guilt that your father is the vice-president of TD bank and is paying your tuition. Together, we can turn Queen’s from a place where a diversity of ideas are debated to an institution where the lives of those whose thoughts do not conform to our standard are destroyed.

We stand united against thought error, indeed against those that are an affront to the collective single-mindedness of the student body. Though they have infiltrated our governments at many levels, their thought crimes are not representative of the student body. All students must stand against these abominations to the new world social order. When the Society of Graduate and Professional Students unilaterally spoke with one voice against Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan, they did so bravely standing against a majority of thought errorists in the graduate student population. The SGPS did not speak for all students, but they spoke against the errorists and we salute their tough stand. We are heartened to see the counter-errorist troops in the SGPS fighting to gain a thought foothold among graduate students. Once they do, proper thinking will spread like wildfire to all students in all nations. Agents from the elite dialogue facilitation division have been deployed to correct thought among those who still harbour errorist sympathies. Room 101 of the John Deutsch University Centre has been allocated for dialogue readjustment.

It is the hour of our calling, and for those that hear it, they will stand to serve in defence of all that is just and right by our collective voice. We must stand against the evil of offense wherever it shows its face and stand ready to uproot it wherever the seeds of thought error are sown.

May the non-denominational post-deistic spirit of the Queen’s collective bless you all.

WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

Telecaster’s Jim D. Patterson is a Liberal. What are the consequences for free opinion and fair elections?

Yesterday, on Dave Rutherford’s show, the Calgary radio host had Jim Patterson, CEO of Telecaster (TVB). Rutherford got right to the point which I first raised in this post: Is Jim Patterson a partisan Liberal? While Patterson admitted that he supports the Liberal Party of Canada, he denied partisanship. I outlined about $4000 in donations that came from “Jim/James D. Patterson” (or someone that shares that exact name that lives in Lakefield Ontario) over a period from 2004-2006. The data compiled included one donation made just 12 days before Canadians went to the polls in the 2006 election. This donation came at the very time that Patterson had the last word on the suitability of election advertising for the home stretch of that election campaign.

Of course, party supporters (large and small) and even high donors to political parties are able to run large private corporations and organizations, but I question how appropriate it is for Mr. Patterson to oversee the advertising process during an election when his group has admitted more than one mistake when it comes to election/advocacy advertising? Telecaster made a mistake in dumping a Canadian Renewable Fuels (CRFA) advertisement and cited an odd request that CRFA require Stephen Harper’s permission because the ad included his image. Of course, issue and advocacy advertising cannot be subject to an easy veto by a political figure who may not like the content of an ad which may hold them to account. How would election advertising work in this climate?

Telecaster admitted its error and eventually let the CRFA advocacy ads run.

However, given Telecaster’s folding to Liberal (and CBC) demands during the last election that a Conservative ad be pulled only to have the private regulatory body flip-flop and re-approve it days later is unacceptable. Free elections cannot be run in this environment.

Should a non-partisan parliamentary body be assigned to provide oversight into potential partisan abuses of Telecaster’s unique position? The free market allows competition of ideas, of product and even of partisanship. However, when an effective monopolistic cabal has editorial control over election and advocacy advertising and its suitability for viewing on every private television network, the market is not free and potential abuses are bound to arise.