(Canada)Should Democracy Place Limits on Basic Human Rights & Freedoms

Should democracy, as a whole, place limits on basic human rights and freedoms?   This one sentence is complicated for so many reasons.   First of all, human rights are directly related to freedoms in an interesting way.   Freedoms can be taken to excess, but human rights, when taken to excess, conflict with freedoms.   Freedom to hate, at an extreme, infringes on the human right, at an extreme, to exist in a world free of bigotry.   This is why democracy MUST place limits on basic rights and freedoms, but at the same time, democracy must relax its policies to create a more even and fair society.





Freedom of speech is one of things most mal managed in democracy today. There is a common saying that “my freedom of speech ends at the tip of your nose.”   In essence, this is saying that you should be able to say whatever you want, as long as nothing happens, via your actions, physically to anyone or anything.   Freedom can be taken to the ultimate level, where any one person is allowed to say whatever he/she wants, as long as he/she is not physically attacking anyone in a direct or indirect manner.   The existing hate laws need to be modified to suit this agenda.   The hate laws should not be repealed, however they shouldn’t be able to become tools for minorities to prevent others from expressing opinions.   Democracy was correct in the way it dealt with Richard Keegstra, an Alberta teacher preaching the absence of a holocaust in Europe during the World War Two years.   People who are in positions of trust, teachers for example, should NOT be allowed freedom of speech.   If one teaches or preaches only one side of an issue, one is not being tolerant of the views of others.   If someone was so sure in their beliefs and could back them up in open debate, they would come out the victors.   However, people who are wrong, and can be proven wrong should be allowed to enter into public debate and be proven wrong.   Only this way can the REAL truth be exposed.   This is why...