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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