October 26, 2006

Canadian Postal Workers Seek Censorship Of Mail

I don't agree with the content on the mailers in question, but I still believe that there is a right to say what is said. Allowing government employees to stifle that right is unacceptable.

Vancouver postal workers have walked off the job to protest an anti-gay pamphlet theyÂ’re being asked to deliver to hundreds of homes.

They say the brochure distributed by a religious group amounts to hate mail -- but they face disciplinary action if they refuse to handle it.

Ken Mooney, the Vancouver president of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, says the walkout sends a message that posties will not “participate in the dissemination of homophobic material.”

The pamphlet says AIDS is “the plague of the 21st century” and calls homosexuality “ungodly, unhealthy and unnatural.”

Mooney says postal workers are “deeply offended” by the mailing, which he says subjects members of the gay community to “scorn and hate.”

Frankly, I'd take offense at large parts of the message and much of the language in the pamphlet. I'd drop mine in the nearest garbage can after first using it to scoop up the dog crap in the back yard.

But I don't see where the union or individual postal workers have any place determining what goes through.

And I applaud Canada Post for indicating that those who refuse to deliver the flier will face serious punishment.

Posted by: Greg at 10:57 AM | Comments (17) | Add Comment
Post contains 242 words, total size 2 kb.

1 The only thing I can find to disagree with you on here is your assertion that you don't agree with the content of the mailers.  I've seen you write worse yourself.

Anyhow, I don't think these postal workers have any more right not to do their job over the anti-gay mailings than the Minnisota bus driver who claimed it violated her religion to drive a bus with an ad for a gay news magazine on the side of it had.

Posted by: dolphin at Fri Oct 27 06:32:19 2006 (oQl4G)

2 I noticed you weren't quite so upset about the bus driver though...

Posted by: dolphin at Fri Oct 27 06:33:08 2006 (oQl4G)

3 To the degree that a given driver can be assigned to a different route where the bus does not have the ad (because it doesn't run on every bus) and thereby not impose censorship, I have no problem with the accommodation of belief. If the case to which you refer had required the removal of the ad from even a single bus, I would have disagreed completely.

On the other hand, to demand the censorship of the mail because the message is rejected is a step towards a fascist state that you should reject -- as should any person who believes in freedom.

And as for your assertion of me writing worse -- you are a liar. But then again, what else is new.

Posted by: Rhymes With Right at Fri Oct 27 12:13:14 2006 (o6p/E)

4

If queers were kept in the closet, as circa 1950, there would have been  no AIDS epidemic in America.


Posted by: Ken Hoop at Sat Oct 28 06:06:57 2006 (EPkr9)

5 Actually I reject both allowing the postal workers to not deliever the mail on their assigned routes and allowing the bus driver not to drive her assigned bus. Making allowances for the practice of religion is one thing, making allowances for every petty whim is quite another. If the bus driver can point out where her Bible has the commandment "thou shalt not drive a bus with an ad for something you disagree with on the side," then I'd be more than happy to make such an allowance. We're constantly told that freedom of religion doesn't mean that we are free to never encounter religion in our daily lives. If that is so, then it must also work in reverse. Her religion may teach hatred of gay people, but if she wishs to be allowed to display her religion publically she must also be willing to be confronted with the religion of life philosophies of others.

As for your unfounded claim that I am a liar, you have simply confirmed that coming back to visit was a mistake, and you are incapable of the civil conversation you used to be quite good at. I should have taken the clue from the horrifically racist and hate-filled rethoric that now fills your posts, but I was trying to give you the benifit of the doubt. It's such a shame, you used to have things of value to say and were able to say them without resorting to playground insults. What a change you've made and unfortunately it's not for the better. I won't be back.

Posted by: dolphin at Sat Oct 28 07:03:52 2006 (/ieWx)

6 Oddly enough, you made an unfounded and unsupported claim about me making statements equivalent to those n the mailer, and and now make unfounded statements about racism. Proof positive that you are a liar in my book.

As for your not coming back -- I'm not bothered by that decision. After all, you have a long history of making false statements on this site and your own.

Posted by: Rhymes With Right at Sat Oct 28 10:45:30 2006 (+sVuQ)

7 And KKKen, maybe if Nazis like you remained safely in the closet we wouldn't have the resurgence of anti-Semitism around the world.

Posted by: Rhymes With Right at Sat Oct 28 10:52:37 2006 (+sVuQ)

8 There's a certain irony in your assert that I am a liar while simultaneously assrting that youv'e never said anything derogatory twoards gay people. Do you assume that most of your readers are first time and unable to simply flip back through your archives. If they do they can let me know and I'll be happy to quote some of the anti-gay comments you've left on my site.

Then of course you say my claim of racism is unfounded shortly after a post in which you detail racist comments you've made and offer the most unbelievable of justifications. You called hispanics "wetbacks" but then claim that as a Texas resident (a state that borders Mexico) you simply had no idea what the word meant (which of course didn't stop you from using it). Then the crack rock jab at the black Congresswomen. How you can claim to have been "extending her own metaphor" while keeping a straight face is beyond me. She made no metaphor for you to extend. She used the word "pimp" which means "exploit." Her context make it clear that that is the definition of the word that she is using, but in the interest of being fair, lets assume for a moment that you don't have as good of a handle on the English language as the congresswoman and truly didn't know that there are multiple definitions for the word "pimp," much the same way you didn't know you were using a incredibly well-known racist term earlier. It STILL doesn't follow that you were extending her metaphor as the alternate definition of "pimping" has to do with prostitution, not drug use. You made a racist statement, and when somebody called you out on it, you squirmed and wiggled and offered some weak justification that doesn't even make sense.

As for me having a "long history of making false statements," I'd challenge you to find one. If it's such a long history, that should be an easy task. I've never made a false statement on your site (I've hardly visited here as it is), and while I can think of one maybe two times on my own blog (in the entire 3 or so years it was up) in which I unintentially made a factually incorrect statement, I always added and addendum to the post correcting the error as soon as it was brought to me attention.

Posted by: dolphin at Sun Oct 29 08:40:04 2006 (/ieWx)

9 I don't have to go far to prove you a liar.

Look at your comment from October 28 -- I won't be back.

'Nuff said.

As for the rest, I did use the word in question understanding it as having a more restricted meaning than I realized -- one related to immigration status rather than ethnicity. Upon discovering my error, I even posted disclaimers/apologies related to my use of the word. But I have to remember -- active conservatives are entitled to no forgiveness or leeway, while the KKK past of Democrat senators and Supreme Court justices can be dismissed.

As far as the statement about the city councilwoman, I did extend her "pimping" reference to talk about her "whoring" herself -- and made it clear how low she had sunk. Race doesn't enter into the equation, so don't try to make it a case of race. It is rather like the time you asserted I was advocating violence in the name of Christianity, while dismissing a paragraph-and-a-half of explanation of why such violence would be antithetical to Christianity.

And your assertion was that I had made statements equivalent to or worse than what was in that mailer regarding homosexuals is false. I didn't and I haven't -- because I don't believe such things. I have, over the last couple of years, become quite anti-dolphin.

Now please abide by your assertion that you won't be back -- I'll be glad to be rid of you.

Posted by: Rhymes With Right at Sun Oct 29 11:25:26 2006 (DPGwN)

10

Just because I deny the mythical components which go into the "Holocaust' story exalting Jewish suffering as opposed, say, to Ukrainian suffering, in World War Two, doesn't make me a Nazi. Just because you throw words like "wetback" around, doesn't mean you're a racist.


Posted by: Ken Hoop at Sun Oct 29 14:06:07 2006 (Cs2j3)

11 KKKen -- the Jews were undeniably targetted by Hitler for extermination. You insist on continuing with your pernicious error.

I, on the otherhand, have made a point of correcting my error when I discovered it.

Posted by: Rhymes With Right at Sun Oct 29 14:45:25 2006 (DPGwN)

12

The historical verdict is not in on the subject. "Functionalists" like Arno Mayer argue that Hitler wanted deportation,nothing more, and the lack of planning for a war loss (like Bush's lack of planning for an insurgency in Iraq) played the key part in causing whatever losses occured at the end of the war when Germany was in parlous anarchy. Now, Dresden...that was "exterminationist."


Posted by: Ken Hoop at Mon Oct 30 10:48:53 2006 (EPkr9)

13 That's right, KKKen, it always comes back to  the same old song -- "Love poor misunderstood old Adolph -- and condemn the evil FDR and Churchill."

Why don't you join your buddies at Storm Front?

Posted by: Rhymes With Right at Mon Oct 30 12:58:42 2006 (Pjurp)

14

Better than your hackneyed cliches which wish to freeze post World War Two paradigms as partial justification for US/Israeli domination in the Mideast ,lately discredited by the Iraq and Lebanese bloody debacles.


 


Posted by: Ken Hoop at Mon Oct 30 13:31:35 2006 (EPkr9)

15 Yes, KKKen -- you've long made it clear that you prefer teh pre-WWII paradigm of "Kill the Jews and burn them in the oven!"

Posted by: Rhymes With Right at Mon Oct 30 14:10:21 2006 (Pjurp)

16

that's your contrived ahistorical schemata, which discreditation and Israel's consequent loss of stature has your britches in an inextricable bunch.


Posted by: Ken Hoop at Tue Oct 31 08:01:55 2006 (EPkr9)

17 That's right, KKKen -- all those dead Jews are somehow contrived schemata.

Posted by: Rhymes With Right at Tue Oct 31 11:59:22 2006 (hC982)

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