“We published those cartoons for the intention and purpose of exercising our inalienable rights as free-born Albertans to publish whatever the hell we want no matter what the hell you think.”

“The only thing I have to say to the GOVERNMENT about why I published them is because it’s my bloody right to do so!”

Man, this guy is a new hero to me!

Sure, it goes with the territory.

Attack their Canadian version of Right to Arms with the horrendously-overbudget C-68 (compulsory gun registration, sweeping restrictions on gun ownership and weapon seizures by government) and now the Right to Free Speech. (try speaking freely on Canadian forums like PlentyofFish and you will quickly find yourself edited, warned and ultimately banned).

Domestically, the Framers put all those rights in the Bill of Rights as restrictions on government from arrogating to itself all those elements of control that were necessary for a dictatorship to flourish (arms [*], assembly, free speech, property, due process, etc…).

It’s just that other members of the old Commonwealth (UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand) are further down the road to dictatorship than we are. With the Real-ID Act, the Patriot Act, the numerous gun bans and restrictions enacted by state, local and federal governments, the accelerating loss of the right to privacy, we too are swiftly losing the full protections of the first ten amendments (e.g. Bill of Rights — Void Where Prohibited by Law).

So it comes as no surprise that, once the guns have been seized by government and the owners registered, now they can go after free speech.

I guess freedom isn’t lost all at once, but slowly squeezed out of a nation until getting it back is all but impossible.

[*]

“The right of self-defense is the first law of nature; in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest possible limits. … and [when] the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.”

– St. George Tucker, Judge of the Virginia Supreme Court 1803

Everything our Canadian commenters say may not be sincere. They have to avoid pissing off their big brother national government. So who knows if they’re really telling us what they really think?

Question everything the Canadian citizen subject says. They’re oppressed up there in the north. You have to read between the lines to see what they’re really trying to say.

The reading between the lines thing is something you have to do in backwards and oppressed nations.

It alarms me when my Canadian friends say things like, “Oh, you musn’t say that”, “My, my, that will hurt people’s feelings”, “That will cause trouble”, or this one, “You Americans think you can say whatever you want”. Part of Canada’s problem comes from their decades old effort to support and sustain a bilingual population using draconian federal regulations. There is many lessons here for us.

For instance, I detest some of the things John Edwards says. When he starts spewing his populist rhetoric about robber barons and “two Americas” it really gets under my skin.

There ARE two Americas. There’s the America where a worthless turd like John Edwards gets rich off of suing innocent hardworking doctors, and then gets to tell us how there are two Americas. And then there is teh real America everyone else lives in where those who bust their asses succeed and those who do nothing fail.

Hey, that’s Canada. A couple years a go a guy from Ohio was arrested for swatting his kid on the butt when she ran out into a mall parking lot in Toronto. Corporal punishment is illegal in Canada.

I agree. When I heard that part of the video I almost stood up and cheered.