While G20 protesters were held in a detention centre last weekend, two self-serving chaps tried to lead the other imprisoned protesters in a ‘chant’.  The chant was based on lyrics from a song posted on YouTube by one ‘anrkidchris’, called “Crash the Meeting”, which was written in advance of the G20 summit and offers the usual lefty wannabe revolutionary diatribe: it’s time to make war, the police are trash, let’s go and raise mayhem.  They even refer to Toronto as ‘T Dot”, which I think is supposed to be real street.  Their video – which I’ll let you find yourself if you must <insert language alert here> – includes banners of protest against our current economic system, against corporations like The Gap & Starbucks, against the notion that 1% of the world has 45% of the worlds wealth, includes warnings like ‘expect resistance’, and ends with the plea that ‘another world is possible.’

I’d like to say that the other world they seem to think is possible, is only possible if other people are in fact not free, and if you’ll acquiesce to the theory that other people (the ones who disagree with them) are mindless sheep.

Generally, when we meet people who think that all others around them are gullible twits, we label them arrogant.  This kind of arrogance invalidates a person’s ideas for our communal future.  The reason for that dismissal of their ideas is that when a person takes that arrogant position in relation to their neighbours, said person shows clearly that the motivation to govern or lead is not out of love for people or the desire for them to be free.

Why?

Because the moment you think other people are incapable idiots, you’ve proven that you don’t respect them, (and that is the antithesis of love and concern for people), and, because you don’t respect them, you will never trust them to make decisions for themselves. That means you cannot leave them to be free – to enjoy real freedom, where others can disagree, make mistakes and intentionally choose what you believe to be foolish. It is because of that absolute disdain for real people that the left always ends up turning back to a massive socialist state as an answer to the problem of how to make sure that everyone does what they want.

These folks are not anarchists or libertarians representing freedom.  They are arrogant tyrants who want the whole world to live the way they dictate. They are not after freedom, they’re after power – and these happy rapping chaps are willing to promote ‘war’ as a means to that end.

What about people who want to buy from the corporate world these chaps hate?  Those doing so not because they’ve been seduced by corporate ad power, but because that’s the choice they’ve made? Are they free to do that or not? What about people who want the free interaction of wealth creators? What about those people out for a nice evening at the Keg last weekend who found themselves picked up along with crowds? In the big picture, who’s really on their side? Who are the real violent tyrants? The police?  Are the legally empowered individuals putting their lives on the line to protect our system of negotiated freedoms really tyrants?  Are not those who prance around with talk of revolution and war actually culpable?  Of course they are – incendiary talk of war and ‘crashing’ the G20 meetings is not illustrative of peaceful protest, but of violence, civil disorder, and risk to the public at large.   The only logical consequence was for the police to step in aggressively to shut down the unrest.  The result of that socially healthy decision is that innocent bystanders who didn’t think to stay away entirely will inevitably be caught in the sweep designed to protect the community as a whole.  We do have a right to expect that after a brief and safe detention where those gathered can be sorted, they’ll be released.  And they were.

I’ll make a second comment here regarding the notion that 1% of the world ‘has’ 45% of the wealth. Not quite. Just going with their own numbers, a better way to phrase the situation would be to say that 1% of the world has CREATED 45% of the world’s wealth. Wealth is not a static commodity which can simply be spread around. Wealth is created. The role of the state is not to spread wealth around, but to facilitate a free environment where it can be created. The creation of wealth and freedom are the keys to feeding our planet, caring for the poor and infirm, and advancing as a society.

In contrast, the end game for what these happy rappers advocate is a disordered mess where the state rules everything, punishes personal or individual success, and rewards mediocrity and idleness. That, by the way, is the land of labour unions without restriction (economic rule by little cult collectives that throw away the individual liberties of whomever dissents), of statist environmental regulations (that sacrifice freedom for whatever trendy idea gets cooked up to further the statist cause), and a world ultimately condemned en masse to poverty because these tyrants have no plan on how to create the wealth for tomorrow. Why create something when the state is just going to dole it out or spread it around, and in the Obama version of the same insanity just borrow, borrow, borrow to keep the game going?  When state power becomes the great equalizer and arbiter of who gets what among the general population, the consequence over and over through history is a populace dependent on the state.

THAT is the real road to slavery and poverty – precisely what many of the groups protesting last weekend say they’re against, and yet seem bent on creating. I’ve actually had people like these try to explain to me how we need to ‘redefine’ freedom. Orwellian indeed. It’s ironic that the people screaming about freedom and calling the police Nazi’s are in fact the real national socialists of today . . .

Re: Copyright Legislation and Fair Use extended to the pulpit

Greetings Minister Clement,

My name is Rev. Bob Davies and I’m a pastor in Kanata, Ontario. I’m writing to ask you to include something in the current copyright legislation that is underway. I’m sure I should have said something earlier . . . but since this is a work in progress, I expect there is still time.

In my work of preaching, I consider part of my role to be the critique of culture. There is a long and well established history of interpreting the pulpit in those terms. Certainly the civil rights movement would be the easiest and most significant example. Part of critiquing culture is the referencing, alluding to, or otherwise using cultural artifacts in the process of communicating. In our multimedia generation, that means making use of, or reference to, copyrighted material for illustrative, educational, or critical purposes.

Given the role of the pulpit in Christian circles, and assuming a parallel role for those of other faiths, I think the pulpit should share a place in the Canadian establishment of Fair Use policy within the new copyright act. Really, it’s a no-brainer. Along with education and the media, the pulpit shares a valid and vital role in our communities and should share similar rights.

I am not looking for churches to have wild free use of copyrighted material, especially not for fundraising or any other such project. What I am looking for is the freedom to fairly use copyrighted material in the course of our preaching ministry in a similar fashion to that employed by teachers for educational purposes.

The purpose of this freedom, again, is not for some profit, but is an expression of the reality that communicating in this culture requires multi-media expression, and critiquing culture requires relevant illustration. Clips of music or film and the display of images is foundational for 21st century preaching. The use certainly seems fair to me: it suggests no confusion of ownership; it has no financial motives or gain that would imply damages; and it serves the greater purposes of Canadian society by including the faith based pulpit in the cultural conversations of the Canadian public square.

Would you please seek to amend the currently proposed Copyright Act to allow churches and preaching ministries the Fair Use protection described above?

I might add an additional comment. DRM technology seems to me quite alarming. Copyright law is only fair when it clearly marks the termination of ownership after a set time, thereby reflecting the realistic dispersal of information, ideas, and symbols into the common culture. Technology which inhibits legitimate use beyond copyright time limits, or which forever eliminates the ability to exercise Fair Use is synonymous with the elimination of Fair Use. That would be a grievous step backwards for Canada since it would make Canada’s Fair Use provisions moot.

I know there is a great push from industry, but they threaten the legitimate freedoms of Canadian citizens, and we look to you to protect us. I look forward to your success in that regard.

I’ve sent a similar letter to the Prime Minister, and hope that together we can shape a Fair Use policy that includes the pulpit. Please don’t let the current cultural sidelining of the church and matters of faith keep what is right from being done.

Thanks so much – God’s blessing on your work and service,

Bob Davies

The state has one primary purpose.  It’s role is to prevent the control of some by others, and so to guard individual freedoms. Discerning the appropriate government role for most issues of violence, theft, international aggression and trade can be reconciled back to that foundational purpose.

That simple expression of the state’s primary purpose is not undermined if we should recognize honestly that some issues are obviously more complex.

Copyright law for example.

Taken too quickly, the libertarian commitment to laissez-faire capitalism might seem to resolve our current debates easily. Perhaps we’d expect to hear that since artists make something, they should be allowed total control of its use in perpetuity.  Or we’d expect a permissive or supportive nod to entertainment corporations and their certain right to private property, and so also whatever new versions of copyright law they would like to buy from our political and judicial systems.

But the matter is not that simple.

The purpose of copyright law is to establish a fair balance of individual freedoms.  We have the freedom to create.  We have the freedom to hold and use private property.  And we also have the freedom to use that which is not owned or ownable.  We only reach the boundary of our freedoms when we presume to control how another person may freely create, possess or use, and it is precisely at that point that the reality and complexity of our present situation concerning copyright becomes apparent.

Technological advancements have made possible not only the creation of new kinds of cultural artifacts, artistic expressions, and media, but also the powerful ability for some to control how these artifacts are used by others over time.  In tandem with the progressive redefinition of copyright law over the past two decades, we have permitted a severe imbalance of and infringement upon individual freedoms that will require a strong and courageous government hand to address.

Copyright law establishes a balance between the individual freedom of the creator of a cultural artifact and the expected later free use in the context of culture.  It provides protection for a creator while others purchase the first copies of their creation, but reasonable time limits recognize the reality that another set of individual freedoms exist which demand protection.  Those other individual freedoms are related to the notion of the ‘commons’.

The ‘commons’ refers to those things which cannot be owned by any one individual. Resources such as air, oceans, rivers, and perhaps even roads or parks.  When considering the great cultural artifacts and expressions of human kind, we refer to the creative commons. The notion of the creative commons is based on the recognition that all creative acts happen in the context of culture, and so ultimately find their expression, longevity, and honour in that milieu.  A person cannot claim that their creative acts, no matter how original they may be, have been created or exist in some kind of void apart from other individuals any more than a man who pees in a lake will be able to stand on the shore and identify the half litre of liquid that belongs to him.  Even more ridiculous would be someone pretending he never drank from the lake in the first place then preventing others from drinking from the lake because he thinks his contribution means they are potentially drinking his water.

Over time, the artifacts and ideas that individuals create become part of the open and free conversations between other free individuals in the public square.  That common space provides not only a market for new ideas, artifacts, and information, but is also the common resource which all artists and thinkers require and use:  it is the sole basis for allusion, flattery and critique.  For other individuals to be free to think and critique and create they must have free access to the cultural artifacts and ideas that populate the creative common public square.  The notion of a creative commons is absolutely necessary in order to establish a balance between – and so to protect – the practical individual freedoms of the artists, thinkers and creators of yesterday, today and tomorrow.  The firm time limits of copyright are the key means to that balance.

There is a tendency to interpret the ‘commons’ in collectivist terms, as an expression of that which is held or owned by all.  This is a grievous error.  It is that collectivist thinking which has diminished the potency of the notion of the commons.  Collectivist thinking actually attributes ownership of the commons to some nebulous sense of the ‘masses’, some glorified ridiculous romantic collective ‘we’.  This is one of the tragedies of the late 20th century.  Not only does the collectivist approach inevitably dissolve the practical meaning of real ownership, but it also  thoroughly undermines our sense of individual responsibility for that which is supposedly owned.  The idea that some great voice of the glorious collective ‘we’ will shout out on our behalf tempts us, as individuals, to stay silent when we should cry out.  While it appears to relieve individuals of the necessity of rising up and vociferously asserting their freedom, in practice, the glorious ‘we’ has no substance.  Collectives are nothing more than individuals together; without individuals who act because of their own sense of responsibility, they are merely ideas devoid of substance – and so also power.  It is indeed that lack of individual responsibility which has left us in this situation.

The question before us is not a debate between whether a cultural artifact is privately owned by an individual and whether some ‘we’ can take ownership at some future point in time.  Rather we face the fact that once an individual’s created artifact or idea is poured out into the public square, it is only a matter of time before it ceases to be practically ownable by anyone at all. Ideas and information, over time, disperse into the sea of ideas that surround us.  This means that, over time, the individual freedom for others to create and to use that which cannot properly be owned must also be protected.

Again, the claim is not that other individuals may suddenly appropriate another person’s property.  The claim is that the ongoing ownership of something poured into the midst of public conversation must have reasonable limits.  The creator, of course, has the option of withholding their artifact or idea and keeping it forever privately to themselves.  Artists are always free to create without any obligation to share or display their work.  But few ever do.  As each creator acknowledges the heroes who have inspired their own joy and new thoughts, so also they desire to play that role for others.  If not, they at least expect the world to give them money or even fame in exchange for their creativity.  Either way, they make their work public because they want something.  There is a cost for that want to be met.  The cost is that successful ideas and artifacts ultimately transcend the notion of ownership altogether.

How long before the assimilation of an individuals idea, information, or artifact into culture takes place?  The time limit needs to be realistic: not too soon, neither too long.  The rule used to be 7 years, and then was renewable up to 28.  More than a quarter century seems more than fair.  Given that, the current practice of extending copyright beyond a century is an absurd excess.  What individual could live that long and still require profit?  Only corporations seek that kind of long term profit and financial gain without providing any actual service; why should anyone make money off of any idea or song created before they were born?  What service is provided for that profit?  Keeping a digital file?  Citizens can do that themselves for free!  Promoting and advertising that product?  What company invests money in advertising and promoting hundred year old ideas?  No, these practices are, of course, based on the expectation is that the creation is an asset that should make money for whoever ‘owns’ it for as long as possible.  To permit that practice to continue for more than a century is a flagrant violation of the individual rights of others.

The practical reality in our culture is that after 3-5 years a popular idea or artifact is old.  New technology and art have overtaken the creative ideas of 3 years ago.  In a culture in which this pace of change and novelty is increasing along with the volume of creative works and ideas, the idea that copyright should be extended even longer is thoroughly crazed.  To the contrary, 5 year copyrights renewable 4 or 5 times make more sense.  They allow an individual 2 full decades to profit from their creative labours.  A firm new principle: corporations are not entitled to expect further profits based not on new creativity which they have facilitated and promoted, but rather on the idle practice of buying new law and so moving the posts of copyright law further ahead into time.  This vile corruption must be ended immediately.

Further, the technologies currently in use which are designed to limit the legitimate use of non-ownable artifacts and ideas beyond that 20 year mark violate the individual rights of all those who desire access to the creative common public square.  Currently, there is a preferred idea that digital information should be marketed as a kind of term lease, so that it would eventually break down or terminate after a set date.  This is contrary to the fair expectations of free individuals.  Digital Rights Management (DRM) software should protect the copyright holder for the expected duration of the copyright, 20 years for example, and then it itself should become inactive leaving the ideas, information and artifact to be free  for appropriate use.  The dissemination of  ideas and copies of created artifacts into culture means that they cease to be ownable over time – our copyright law and copyright technologies must reflect that truth.  As well, equally priced product free of any protections must be developed and made available for immediate fair use prior to the end of the copyright term.

In line with this necessity, the idea of limiting technologies with firmware DRM is also an absolute and gross violation of individual freedoms.  Ultimately the medium on which ideas and media are sold must permit copying, unless we are going to throw in the towel and admit that copyright is limitless insofar as time goes.  And what about other legitimate fair uses?  How can these be pursued if the hardware is unavailable or restricted?  Not to mention that current DRM practices limit more than simple copyright issues.  We are legally entitled by law to purchase, for example, DVD’s from other regions.  We are legally entitled to purchase machines that will play DVD’s from other regions.  But the current and proposed DRM firmware will stop that functionality.  Who are they to infringe on the individual legal rights of others?  All attempts at the technological level to limit legitimate free and fair use must be prevented and stopped.

By other fair uses above, I refer to the new Canadian law which is making space for news media and education to be free to use creative works.  DRM technologies mean that what the law gives with the right hand, corporations are illegitimately taking with their left.  The fact the courts are aware of these shady attempts at control, and posture in making policies that are in truth impotent, gives cause to question the degree to which current copyright laws are not expressions of principled governance and legal thoughtfulness, but are instead merely a sign that Canadian law can be bought at whim.

Let’s be clear that law which is purchased is no law, and accordingly citizens will soon consider themselves absolved from attending to her statutes.  Individual freedoms are not given by the state or courts – they pre-exist them.  The role of the state and her court is to protect that which already is, and if the law fails to do that, then citizens will cease to obey that law.  It is true that piracy is a symptom of a lack of respect for the law.  But that risks misstating the real problem.  Piracy today is perhaps more a measure of the degree to which individual citizens consider the law not worthy of being obeyed.  And again, as long as the law fails to protect individual freedoms, as long as it permits ridiculous redefinitions of what it means to buy a product, and as long as it appears to be the subject to the influence of money, corporate power, and other out-of-line influence, individual citizens’ respect for the law will continue to diminish.

It is worth commenting that the rights of individual educators and journalists are not the only ones that require protection.  The new Canadian law fails to take into account the pre-existent role of the pulpit in segments of our culture.  Historically, the pulpit has been at the centre of critiquing culture.  The civil rights movement, for example, started in the pulpit.  Today, the pulpit is no less significant as a muti-media means of communication and critique.  As such, it must be included under fair use provisions.

The Christian Libertarian is no advocate of anarchy or theft.  But, as a plea for the protection of the individual freedoms God has given to every citizen of this world, and due to the fact that we live in a creative common conversation where individual ideas are sown and blossom and feed beyond the range of our own lifetimes, we are right to expect the government adhere to its primary function and so craft law accordingly.

With thanks to Andy, whose mind always inspires and challenges me.

Premier Dalton McGunity has led his govermnent to back away from the proposed sex ed curriculum for Ontario schools.  Good move.  But not enough – for now the curriculum is simply shelved awaiting some ambiguous consultation process.  The people advocating this radical agenda are stalled, but not stopped.  Below is my letter to Premier McGuinty submitted before the government’s reversal.

Mr. McGuinty,

I am not happy.  In fact, I’m quite angry.  I am the father of two children, one daughter just shy of three, and the other a year-old boy diagnosed with Down Syndrome. I am a competent father who is capable of raising my children and teaching them what is required about our values, beliefs, mores and ethics.  I expect and insist that people with different values and mores check theirs at the door around my children.  That is my right as a father, and so I demand that the school back off topics that interfere with my rights in that regard.

I’ve heard about the plans for the sex-ed curriculum that my children will be exposed to in our ‘public’ school system.  If this school system wishes to remain public, then it had better rethink this idea fast.  Not everyone shares these social left values.  They are an expression of a certain peculiar perspective on society – beliefs about God, values and mores – and for that reason, in the same way that we keep religion out of the classroom, we’ll be keeping these ideas out too.  The state is not a tool with which secular statists can engineer the kind of society they want.  The classroom is not a place where certain groups in society are free to advance their idiosyncratic values.  That is exactly what this program represents.

There are no circumstances under which anyone other than my wife and I will speak to my ten year old daughter about anal sex, masturbation, female lubrication or anything else of that sort. If those conversations happened between an adult and my child in any other venue I would call the police immediately. And that is exactly what I plan to do. Even in the case of a doctor, at 10, I would be in the room.

There are also no circumstances where anyone will be speaking to either of my eight year old children about homosexuality. Period. That is my right, and is non-negotiable. Get away from my kids. Your values are not mine. We can live together in peace, but you violate that peace when you shove your beliefs down my kid’s throats. Back off.

Ah, you might say, but these teachers are trained to present some approved curriculum.

I don’t trust you. I don’t trust a teacher with this responsibility. And I certainly do not trust some statist backroom educational committees that are saturated with agenda driven, politicized and polemical individuals. I’ve seen the academic side of this stuff; I recognize the blatant social-left engineering.  The provincial government should be protecting us from these people. The sexualization and consumerization of our children is a REAL societal problem with REAL consequences.  You are participating in that sexualization and are creating an unmanageable situation where individual teachers will have to navigate conversations with children of varying maturity levels about explicit sexual behaviours. How will you ensure that no teacher is using these conversations for other personal sexual purposes? What do you plan to say when that finally happens – when some ill-motivated individual takes advantage of the environment created by these classroom discussions?

I might add that, if I were an elementary school teacher, I’d quit before being put in a position where I had to breach these topics with young children. This is ripe for misunderstandings and miscommunications. If I were a teacher the idea that my career could be ruined because of the curriculum’s content would leave me in an untenable position: especially if I were a young male teacher. Do you not remember ever being afraid of a teacher? Do you have no recollection of the first male teacher you had?  How can children in the third or sixth grade possibly process this material well when dispensed in the varied and complicated context of the elementary school classroom?

Stepping away from the hypothetical, what are we supposed to do to care for my daughter if some male teacher is the one to initiate these conversations. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I will call the police. Because short of a criminal investigation, there is no way for me as a father to know if a teacher’s use of the curriculum is appropriate.

And what on earth do you think happens in the schoolyard afterward? Well I’ll tell you. I remember, clearly, a young girl in our schoolyard being tormented by boys who wanted to check and see of her pubic hair had come in. They told her if they found any they wanted to pluck them. That was kids in grade seven, who were receiving sex ed, targeting a girl in grade six. I know kids say things, but you want to introduce that kind of experience to children even younger? In a classroom of thirty kids, it takes only one or two with lesser maturity to terrorize other children – and you are opening the door for them. This is stupidity, irresponsibility, and the fact that this is even being considered one more reason why I do not trust the public system with my children.

I hear you politicians talk about protecting our children – but you are feeding situations that do not belong in our schoolyards. As far as I’m concerned you and your government are now part of the problem. I will protect my children from you, and there are no circumstances where this left wing education system will access my children regarding their political social engineering agenda.

I am a product of public education in Ontario, and we bought our home close to a school here in Kanata. My mom stayed home during my younger years and volunteered at the school for trips, in the library, and with community programs like block parents and our community association. I say this to illustrate that I came from a home, and so we are crafting a home, that can be healthy and supportive in its contribution to our public school and community.

Unfortunately, each time this kind of thing arises, we recognize that the extreme left values of the public system seem further and further away from those of our home, and that the government has no intention of protecting or including us. Public education in Ontario today appears to be a selective education system sensitive only to the needs and agendas of liberal elitists and the far left. It fails to understand the real hope of a vibrant multiculturalism, and seems to have fallen into the secular left’s absolutely ridiculous and erroneous idea that they are somehow neutral. They are not. They represent another belief system taking control of the education of our children at the expense of the variety of values held by the vast majority of people from all kinds of background and beliefs who want these matters dealt with in the home.

This morning, my wife and I discussed our options. Where we are not of the means to afford private education, and where home schooling isn’t realistic for us, we sometimes feel stuck in the public system.  So I’ll need to find a solution that satisfies our needs.

What that means, as far as I can figure right now, is that I’ll have to present myself to the teacher each year where this material is part of the curriculum, and explain that s/he will not communicate this material to my child in any way. My child will not be a part of lefty social-engineering, nor be taught values, mores or beliefs by a secular or morally ambiguous institution. Our values and mores will be taught in our home and church. During those class times, other options for my child will be created. I’ll try to help the teacher understand where I’m coming from, but if they seem to have trouble understanding me, or seem insistent on the party line, then we’ll be having the school switch our child’s class. Better up your budget for administration.

Further, if there is anything that seems inappropriate to me, I will be calling the police. There will be interviews and an investigation into what has been said in the classroom. And if I feel that my child as been adversely affected in any way by sexualized discussions in the classroom or school-yard, I’ll be examining aggressive legal action against the teacher, school, and province.

Get away from my children.