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I want to talk about the harsh and unjust treatment of Lesley Hughes by the Liberal Party:  “Liberals ask candidate to step down over 9/11 comments” It seems to me that Lesley Hughes’ arguments can be defended, because she accused the Israeli government and other governments of advance foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks – and hey, that’s going to upset people – but as she states, she is not accusing Jews in general and is not anti-Semitic in any way – and I believe that.   There may or may not be some evidence to back up what she has been saying.   If someone has read her article, or has info about this, it’s a good topic for discussion.

I know that one of my favorite columnists, libertarian Justin Raimondo of Antiwar.com, has presented evidence that there was Israeli foreknowledge while rejecting accusations that key elements of the U.S. government were directly involved in 9/11 (if I’m understanding his position correctly).  I don’t think it is fair to single out the Israeli government as some people do, but that’s the nature of bias.  We all have our biases and sometimes we are resistant to going against our illusions about the world and giving up our old loyalties.

Yes, I know, we’re not allowed to criticize the U.S. government either – because anti-Americanism is “hate” and don’t you know, the establishment in Europe and North America are trying to ban all “hate”.  They haven’t quite got around to criminalizing political “hate” speech yet in Canada or we’d all have to be thrown in jail.   So the people in power being criticized (and those identifying with them) throw up a smoke-screen of accusations about racist and religious bigotry to cover their aggressions.

And of course we’re not allowed to talk about or present critical evidence about the Israeli government in general and its main ally and the power behind it, the U.S. government.  Because then how else would these governments get away with their agendas of fomenting war and conquest?   Always hiding their crimes behind sentiment.   Don’t criticize the poor “democratic” governments or else you’re a vicious “anti-Semite” or “anti-American”.  I’m trying to think of a term to describe hatred of the British government which is also open to being “picked on” by vicious critics like me.  The British have marketed their intelligence agencies very well using the James Bond series but they don’t seem to be a politically correct protected class yet.  I’m sure they’re working at it.

The establishment defends itself and presents arguments that have no substance whatsoever (”9/11 conspiracy theories disrespect the victims”), even though everything is at stake.  The future of the whole world depends on intelligent citizens being able to restrain governments.  And on our ability to call for them to reveal secrets and conduct proper investigations.  And Canadians need to be allowed to consider neutral or peaceful approaches instead of making Canada take a warlike position (http://www.nationalpost.com/news/world/israel/story.html?id=488484) on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Iran.

Why are Canadians dragged into more and more wars?  And isn’t 9/11 – and the dubious official story – the basis of our current involvement in Afghanistan?    From now on, we should face the subject directly and not be afraid.

And I know that many libertarians want to run away from 9/11 and nobody likes to upset their friends and allies.  I would like to thank libertarian science fiction author L. Neil Smith (http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2007/tle404-20070204-02.html) for taking the line he has on this.    Nobody likes to upset people and make waves.   And we don’t all read the same books and we’re not all aware of the same facts.  So we should all read more.  Take a look at the evidence.  Watch the movie “Loose Change- Final Cut” – you can find it on YouTube.  Read David Ray Griffin’s books – you can find them on Amazon.  But above all, follow your own heart and mind.   There are gaping holes in the official story.

Could aircraft bring those buildings down?  And then there was another building that fell down afterwards that wasn’t even hit.   Melted steel and clouds of pulverized dust!    All three towers came down as if they were some kind of controlled demolition.  This is what I perceive and I refuse to deny what I see and how I interpret it.    Not to mention the fact that the later anthrax attacks were confirmed by the FBI as coming from a U.S. lab!   I could go on and on.  There were reports of multiple explosions within the towers and endless suspicious incidents and unanswered questions that lead people like me to conclude that it was a “false flag” “Pearl Harbor” type of event that was deliberately set up in order to justify endless war against the Moslem world.   The neo-conservatives stated in their 2000 “Project for a New American Century” report “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” that there would need to be a “new Pearl Harbor” (p. 51) in order to achieve American hegemony.    Another book, by the way, I can recommend is Ian Henshall’s “9/11 Revealed: The New Evidence”.

But people are so quick to excuse all the holes in the story, to make excuses for these people in the U.S. government and all their publicly known efforts to keep criticial evidence secret.

So of course, Ms. Hughes’ views are not surprising to me and I am absolutely sympathetic to what happened to Lesley Hughes and to any other candidate in the same situation.

In any case, there is supposed to be free speech in this country and we should expect candidates to have intelligent opinions on important issues and not to be toadying to the established order.  But the party leaders of the major parties – on the other hand – they won’t stand for that!   They don’t want to just disagree or let the candidate have their opinion.   They don’t want to offend the foreign policy status quo.

I hope that Dion -and Harper and other leaders – are prepared to lose votes over this (more votes than maybe the media will ever acknowledge).

And I hope that Canadians take note of the message being sent to them by the major parties.   YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO HAVE OPINIONS ON THIS SUBJECT IF YOU WANT TO RUN AS A CANDIDATE AND YOU SHOULD SHUT UP.    OR ELSE.   SO BURY THOSE OPINIONS AND SHUT UP.

So I just wanted to translate that for people in case they weren’t paying attention.

TWO classes of people in Canada:  those who have the right on paper to run as candidates but are prevented because they’re busy exercising freedom of the press and freedom of expression (what’s left of those) – and those who keep their mouths shut and are “privileged” to “serve” in the government and rule over everyone else.

And Bev Collins is another case where the Liberals are really going to town with their new “principle” of hacking up anybody who holds 9/11 truth positions:  “NDP Running Conspiracy Theorist”

And I’m sure – speaking sarcastically – it will be a really “popular” and “winning” strategy for the Liberals and Conservatives to pursue this line of attack and I hope they keep it up so they can discredit themselves further with a large section of the public who believe in free expression and who question 9/11.

Good for “JC”, by the way, who is defending Bev Collins at the Western Standard blog (http://westernstandard.blogs.com/shotgun/2008/09/more-911-truthe.html).  And also here (http://westernstandard.blogs.com/shotgun/2008/09/liberal-candi-1.html), my fellow Libertarian candidate Krista Zoobkoff steps up to the plate to defend free expression.  One of the commentators quotes Diefenbaker:

“I am a Canadian,
free to speak without fear,
free to worship in my own way,
free to stand for what I think right,
free to oppose what I believe wrong, or
free to choose those who shall govern my country.
This heritage of freedom I pledge to uphold for myself and all mankind.”

Quote by: John G. Diefenbaker
(1895-1979) Prime Minister of Canada

I see the whole thing as parallel to the withdrawal (?) of Conservative candidate Chris Reid for advocating gun rights and for criticizing the failure of passengers to intervene in the famous bus incident (passivity and powerlessness being the theme of our lives).  I agree with him on those issues.

And of course this is parallel to NDP Leader Jack Layton dumping Dana Larsen with his drug activities taken out of context as Marc Emery explains.

And another parallel is the trouble faced by Conservative Lee Richardson over his attempts to talk about crime in the context of immigration and culture.  Not allowed.   No doubt he’s trying to say something intelligent without causing offence, but that’s often very hard to do because many immigrants would feel threatened no matter how he said it.  But anyway, the point is whether he’s allowed to say what he thinks and have a discussion.  Maybe problems can be faced more realistically if people can describe them honestly.  Instead, just fear, trembling, apologies – censorship.

Candidates must be uninformed – that’s the rule – no opinions allowed.

And this brings to mind a fundamental problem with our system of government.  This is the whole concept of government by representatives.  These “representatives” can never represent individuals anyway.  It’s impossible.  Besides the fact that the parties determine who are the representatives, individual citizens would like their views represented by a single representative but this is logically impossible for a Member of Parliament to represent all views.  He/she can only reflect a “consensus” or pretend to but that’s not really the situation either.   in reality, he reflects his own views and those of his party – and beyond that, those of the special interests who control the party.  This is why I think we ought to look at direct democracy or direct representation – referenda via an online virtual assembly.  A citizen who can’t attend all votes could hire a representative who can vote on issues by proxy and directly represent their views issue by issue.  Differences in points of view, prejudice or character issues would just be normal individual differences in a system like that.  I think it’s something we need to have eventually.  It’s not the end goal for libertarians, but it would allow individuals to debate fellow citizens directly and influence attitudes and the outcome of votes directly.  This way there are no special candidates to be placed on a pedestal and shot down because they have controversial opinions or because they’re human in some other way!

September 28th, 2008

Comments for Dion and Harper send clear message to Canadians – dissent over 9/11 and other issues will not be tolerated

• Jim Carlton, Calgary

September 28th, 2008 at 8:06 pm

The cracking down on dissent within the mainstream parties is significant on a number of levels. It flies in the face of free speech. It seems to be used to cast a shroud over openess in government. But most significantly, it completely debauches the idea that we have any actual representaion by our elected MP’s. They are there to tow the party line, and that’s all. Its definately time for change.

• Jean-Christophe Roux

October 4th, 2008 at 8:30 am

I don’t feel any urge to defend Lesley Hughes. As a member of the Liberal Party of Canada she supports authoritarian policies and wishes the worst for Canada. Her freedom of speech is under attack? First off, I don’t think this is the case, but more about that below… So, her freedom of speech is under attack? Excellent! Maybe that will help her realize that she is on the dark end of the political spectrum. Let’s hope she will apologize for years of awful political activism.
I love when government people go after each other and hurt each other. Wonderful! More of that!
The whole idea that political representation of millions of Canadians by a few hundreds of representatives does not make sense. How can one MP represent the opinions of some 100,000 human beings living in a district? That’s impossible. I can hardly represent myself! That political representativity is an impossibility and that makes it a swindle.
Instead of fighting for good representativity, one should fight for Liberty and minimal (ideally zero) political representativity.
If I were the leader of a party (no worry, will not happen soon), I would be upset at members straying from the platform. I don’t think that it “flies in the face of free speech” because the so-called victims can still leave the parties and government violence is not used against them. Quite different from government going violently after you (fine and jail) because you did not register as political third-party. The problem is not that Dion and Harper straighten out their political friends (I do think they are justified), the problem is that Canadians believe that political parties should represent the opinions of millions of human beings.

• Alan Mercer

October 9th, 2008 at 2:27 am

I should have updated the post to mention that Harper supported Lee Richardson. It was the media gunning for him.

About Lesley Hughes, in this case it was something she wrote years before.

I don’t agree with sticking to national platforms – I think this is inappropriate for individuals – it should be “pick and choose”. I think individual candidates should have their own platforms and this is the current practice in the Libertarian Party of Canada, which is based around certain principles in any case.

In Canadian politics, there is too much emphasis on the party. It’s better for voters to evaluate the candidate’s message and get a sense of them. It’s more bottom up that way and closer to being representative.

I don’t believe things are improving – it’s all top down and getting more so – I think there needs to be direct representation of each citizen’s beliefs in order to change our society positively. That would be better – I believe rights protections would improve that way also. I know I’m talking about direct democracy again, but it’s a way to engage others directly instead of people hiding from these issues. The parties will keep things moving in a more oppressive direction until ordinary Canadians start dealing with freedom issues. It doesn’t mean that majorities only vote in legitimate ways or that I consider anti-freedom votes to be legitimate. Not at all. If we want a free society, we need a large number or majority to agree with that anyway, so why shouldn’t the system be shaken up by selling this idea of everyone having a vote issue by issue? Let people empower themselves, spread out the power among everyone and dump the oligarchy.