The Accretion Disk of a Republic

A Canadian comedian named Mike Ward has been ordered by the Quebec Human Rights Tribunal to pay $42,000 to Jérémy Gabriel and his mother, as compensation for being insulted.

Jérémy Gabriel has Treacher Collins syndrome, which causes disfigurement. Mike Ward joked that he thought he was just "ugly."

I don't think Ward's joke was funny, or tasteful. But is it the purpose of government to sanction a man for saying something offensive? Can't the government just let the market decide? Look at what happened to Michael Richards' career after shouting down hecklers at the Laugh Factory ten years ago. Civil society has informal mechanisms that check rude behavior.

Quebec thinks differently. Section 10 of their Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms declares that,

Every person has a right to full and equal recognition and exercise of his human rights and freedoms,without distinction, exclusion or preference based on race, colour, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, civil status, age except as provided by law, religion, political convictions, language, ethnic or national origin, social condition, a handicap or the use of any means to palliate a handicap.

Discrimination exists where such a distinction, exclusion or preference has the effect of nullifying or impairing such right.

The Tribunal ruled that Gabriel was harmed by the joke, because Gabriel asserted that he had become subject to bullying at school and had attempted suicide.

Why should I concern myself whether Canada places a higher value on a subjective "right to equality" than the right to free speech?

Restrictions on offensive speech have already become commonplace in the United Kingdom, too, which saw an arrest of a Scottish man for making a Facebook post critical of Muslim immigration.

This is a crystal clear distillation of American exceptionalism. This country is like a star. We demonstrate freedom, and innovation that benefit the rest of the world. If free speech is attenuated in the United States, it's all over.

Hillary Clinton has promised to introduce a Constitutional Amendment to overturn Citizens United within the first thirty days of her Presidency. That would mean restrictions on political speech.

Hillary Clinton is the singularity which will collapse the star of American exceptionalism. No light will ever escape the event horizon.