Freedom of speech is my freedom to say what you don’t want to hear.
—George Orwell, who also originated the term Thought Police

THE LATE Hammie Macdonald, one of our smart
senators, had his Spitfire shot from under his ass three
times during the big war and was in a position to testify
that it was always the plane he never saw that got him.

“It’s the same in politics,’’ he
would say. ‘‘It’s the issue you
don’t recognize that defeats you.’’

It could be that the issue that
defeats the New Democratic Party
government in the next election
will not be patronage or the state
of the economy but a little piece
of cosmetic legislation that reveal-
ed too much of the dark, dic-
tatorial side of the party’s charac-
ter, namely, the Doug Collins
Hate Law. .

. Cosmetic legislation — it used
to be called Motherhood Law in
the days when motheraood was
‘more popular — passes easily
through a cabinet committee.

Probably the committee that
passed the Collins bili didn’t -

notice that the freedom of speech
provisions of the similar federal
legislation have been removed.

By the time the more mature
NDP ministers found out, the pol-

*. itics of it all made retreat im-

possible and they had to defend
the damn thing.

For readers who are deprived of
Mr. Collins’ writings (yes, it’s
true, I do sell to more papers than

_ he does), let it be said that he is a
.; pugnacious Englishman with a
merry smile who loves being
- noticed,

Mr. Collins was one of the most
‘troublesome prisoners of war the
Nazis held in Germany, and he
aspires to be this province’s most
troublesome newspaper columnist.

His columns have one message.
Everything is wrong. That comes

_ through loud and clear..

- ., However, it seems to be his
“wont to blame wrongs on dark-
skinned immigrants, homosexuals
and assorted others of us whom

* he calls ninnies.

His enemies say he is racist. So
do some of his friends. an
When he was nominated as a
“candidate of the Reform party,
Preston Manning refused to ac-
cept him.

However, for all the screams of -

‘outrage that ring like cathedral
_belis'in his ears, it must be
pointed out that no one is forced
‘ to read Doug Collins. He is not a
school teacher, with a captive au-
* dience.
dt should also be said that this
ountry has libel laws, seditious
libel laws and a federal Hate Lit-
; erature Law, not one of which has
been successfully invoked against
Mr. Collins.

‘WV man gets
jail sentence
for burglary

A 25-YEAR-OLD West Van-
_couver man was recently jailed
two years less a day in connection
‘with the burglary of a home and
business and possessing a stolen
suede jacket.

Christopher Myles George
pleaded guilty to all three charges.

The burglary of the business,
located in the 1500-block of
Pemberton Avenue in North Van-
couver District, occurred on Aug.
18, 1992.

The burglary of the house,
located in the 100-block of Keith
Road in West Vancouver, occur-
red on March 26,

The jacket was stolen on April
26. It was recovered in West Van-
couver.

Judge Bill Rodgers sentenced
George in North Vancouver pro-
vincial court on Friday, May 28.

PAULITICS & PERSPECTIVES

He is, surely, an irritant in the
body public.

In oysters this‘may produce a
pearl. In the case of Mr. Collins,
perhaps not.

But I can bring to mind many
people who irritate me for many
reasons. ;

I am irritated by semi-literate
academics who are into my
pockets for $100,000 a year yet
cannot write a simple declarative
sentence using dictionary English. .

Most people who write house,
automobile and movie advertise-
ments irritate me because they,
like Mr. Collins, think I'm a nin-
ny.

Industrialists and some of the
Christians irritate me by standing
with their delicate, soft hands out,
palm up, telling me of my duty to
give alms. I could go on. Who
couldn't?

If our government is going to
try to silence all the annoying
people, there isn’t going to be
much time left in this country for
eating, sleeping, engaging in ad-
vanced forms of acquaintanceship
and other fun things.

What the supremely silly Doug
Collins Law did was to reveal,
even more clearly than in
patronage appointments, that a
governing party can be as
mindless as all the parties that
preceded it. Something about
gaining power affects the brain.

What other explanation is there
for the appointment of the
Human Rights Council as British
Columbia’s official Thought
Police?

These new critural gauleiters
will first invent the offence (“Did
he write that out of racist
motives?’’), next serve as in-
vestigator, prosecutor, judge and
jury and invent penalties.

if it weren’t all such low com-
edy it would be high tragedy.

When the bill was debated in
the legislature, backbench NDP
members hooted and jeered
speeches from the Opposition.

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Although they are too young to
remember, their actions were just
like those of the Fascist Italian
newspaperman at the League of
Nations who hooted and jeered
when Haile Selassie spoke for the
Ethiopians whom Mussolini's
legions had defeated.

One MLA said that Canada’s
courts ‘‘have not done what we
wanted them to do."”

To quote Vancouver Sun col-
umnist Vaughn Palmer, ‘Another
mentioned, chillingly | thought,
that the New Way will be superior
to courts, where a charge must be
proven ‘beyond reasonable
doubt.’ "

A reasonable doubt doctrine has
been heart and centre of our
justice system for centuries. But it
hampers Thought Policemen.
Away with it.

Soon some defence lawyer will
be quoting Sir Walter Raleigh,
who fought laws against the
Brownists in Britain 400 years ago
by saying nobody had the right to
‘make windows to peer into
men’s souls.’’

A court will agree. The law will
be struck down; Mr. Collins will
laugh. Others will cheer. The
dullards among the NDP still
won’t know what hit them.

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