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Freedom Action of the Week
Email List Archive
Free-Market.Net's F r e e d o m A c t i o n o f t h e W e e k
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Edited by Thomas L. Knapp. To subscribe or unsubscribe to this and
other lists, click to: http://www.free-market.net/features/lists/
----- Featured Action of the Week -----
First Week of June, 2001:
Free Paul Bryan
Sometimes the great people here at Free-Market.Net cover
for each other. Sometimes, they do so without even meaning to.
This week's action opportunity is one of those cases. I'm going
to give my usual pep talk, but then I'm going to turn you over
to J.D. Tuccille, who will make it easy for you to do what
needs to be done. In passing, I'd also like to thank
Free-Market.Net member Paul Miniato, who brought the situation
at hand to our attention.
It would be a mistake to call democracy a libertarian notion
as such. One man, one vote does not always render the best
result if freedom is what we're after. But democracy, at least
to some extent, is the best system we've been able to come up
with for making political decisions in an optimal manner:
instead of entrusting power to an individual or an oligarchy,
we disperse that power and use the force of our arguments
to convince a majority of the individuals to whom it is dispersed
of the correctness of the course we recommend.
Like I said, it isn't perfect. It can and does fail. And it
is more likely to fail, and fail catastrophically, if we monkey
around with the underlying mechanisms that make it work. One
of those mechanisms is recognizing the right to freedom of speech.
Dispersal of power via democracy is _guaranteed_ not to work if
the voters are denied access to information on which to base
their decisions.
Which brings us to Paul Bryan. He's one of us -- a member
of Free-Market.Net since 1998 -- and he's also the proprietor
of a web site that features Canadian election news. He's also
in trouble with the Canadian government for violating a law
that imposes censorship on election results until all of the
polls are closed.
Arguments can be made that posting election results from
the East can affect the outcome in the West. Those arguments
are irrelevant. The _point_ of political speech is to affect
election results ... isn't it?
Mr. Bryan faces a fine of up to $25,000 (Canadian). Not for
scrawling graffiti on someone else's property, or punching
someone in the nose. Not even for lying or committing fraud,
but for conveying _accurate information_ (which he has a right
to do) to the public (who have a right to read it).
As I stated earlier, Mr. Tuccille has done the legwork on this.
Instead of posting a rehash of the links here, I'm sending you
to his civil liberties site at About.Com to read his take on
the issue. The article includes a summary of the case, links
to relevant information, and, most importantly, contact
information for Elections Canada, the enforcement body which
is bringing these ridiculous charges.
The action should be self-evident: use that information
to convey your displeasure. You don't have to be from Canada.
Suppression of free speech is an international problem with
international implications. Countries like Canada (and
the United States) are the ones who insist on sending election
observers to countries with bad human rights records. Canada has
just joined that category, and it's perfectly proper for someone
from Tanzania or Russia or Sri Lanka to take the same steps that
Canada would if the situation were reversed.
Give'em hell.
P.S. We've added a new feature to Action of the Week: an accessible
archive of past columns. Feel free to browse -- and to act. Better
late than never!
Free Paul Bryan, by J.D. Tuccille:
http://civilliberty.about.com/library/briefs/bl053001.htm
Action of the Week column archive:
http://www.free-market.net/features/list-archives/activism/maillist.html
----- Alternate Actions -----
The Freedom Action of the Week Club: Commit yourself to doing one
action per week. If the action above doesn't appeal to you, consider
one of the alternate actions at:
http://www.free-market.net/features/action/
If you know about another action or organize one of your own, e-mail
Tom at tlknapp@free-market.net so we can tell the rest of the group
next week.
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_________________________________________________________________________
Thomas L. Knapp | "Your genuine action will explain itself, and will
Managing Editor | explain your other genuine actions. Your con-
Free- Market.Net | formity explains nothing."
| --Ralph Waldo Emerson
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