Why the “Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act” will increase school bullying.

This could be a stretch to connect the dots on this and the concept will certainly irritate my local Conservative Party MP.

I have written previously how concerned I am by the steady erosion of individual rights that I have witnessed since arriving in Canada in 2004. Having seen my own country destroyed by an out of control government that ignored the constitution and introduced new laws in an attempt to legitimise the wholesale theft of property, the imprisonment and murder of  opponents, I am perhaps more sensitive to these things than most peace-loving Canadians.

It will not surprise readers that I am a Conservative Party supporter. But that is simply because they are less socialist than the alternatives. “Conservative” is not an accurate description of some of their activities. I have witnessed and suffered dearly from the efforts of liberal governments to export their brand of socialism to Africa. Most of the economic problems in the failing European Union are a result of the stronger economies being crippled by the more socialist states that did not have the good sense or political backbone to balance their books.

But supporter or not, I cannot support this new “Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act”, bill. For three reasons:

• I am against censorship.
• I am even more against allowing big government increasing control over our lives.
• This is more evidence of the erosion of individual rights.

In December I published a post about how I believed the “wimpification” of Canada is leading to amongst other problems, an increase in school bullying. I also wrote about “Is Canada becoming a Police State” . This bill, if approved, will be yet another example of misguided legislation handicapping law-abiding citizens but having little or no effect on the criminals. Much like how the crazy gun regulations criminalize  most legitimate gun owners but have little effect on gang members or others using firearms for criminal purposes.

My understanding of the situation is that under existing legislation, the police can request the identification,  internet and email traffic details of a suspected criminal from an Internet Service Provider (ISP), but they cannot compel the ISP to divulge any information without a warrant. It would seem that most ISP’s have voluntarily assisted the authorities when a good enough case has been presented to them. According to the industry, the recent success against a huge number of paedophiles  being an example of this voluntary co-operation.

It seems that under the proposed legislation, the police will neither need a warrant nor valid reason to compel your ISP to hand over your identity and the most intimate details of your internet searches and emails.

So, if you in complete innocence, click on a link in an email from a source you assume to be genuine, and end up on a website that has been flagged by the authorities, you could have the security police beating down your door to cart you away or worse, your name and photo splashed all over the media as a child molester and your reputation ruined.

The proposed act goes further, it would allow the competition board and other government agencies to get in on the act and share the spoils of their legal piracy. This is a horror story waiting to happen. Suppose you ask advice in an email to your banker on how to AVOID paying more TAX than you should on a purchase of a vehicle, let’s assume you are trying to decide between leasing and purchase. If there is an alert for any incidence of the words TAX and AVOID in the same email, you could have the revenue agency on your backs.

Many otherwise sensible people will have the opinion that if you keep away from risky websites and activities you will be safe, the scenario above is clear evidence that you will not be. It would mean that every single internet activity that we currently take for granted: email, browser searches, social media updates could be a weapon that could be used against us at some time in the future. Even a blog post like this one could be considered sufficiently inflammatory for me to receive a visit from the authorities, I have used the words GUNS, POLICE, INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS and FREEDOM on the same page. Suspicious and seditious enough to have me locked away for years.

It will make any cautious business person extremely reluctant to communicate legitimate, but perhaps sensitive, information electronically.

Back to my title, how will this increase school bullying?

I am convinced that the “wimpification” of the West in general and Canada in particular is a cause of many of the social ills of our time. By penalizing and even criminalising law-abiding people who dare to stand up to criminals to protect their lives and their property, we are emasculating the good people amongst us and making it easier for the bad. This is apparent in everything from schools punishing young kids who dare to stand up to play ground bullies by hitting back physically, to arresting a shopkeeper for detaining a shoplifter. To persecuting a home owner who used a licensed weapon to scare off people in the process of fire bombing his house. And the most ridiculous waste of taxpayers money of all, if the media reports are correct, finding a man guilty just because he posed with a hand gun for a Facebook photo.

The point here is that, as a population, we have been so bullied into submission by the nanny state government and political correctness, that we are now too cowed to stand up for ourselves in any respect. Some examples of individual rights that have been taken away from us in the last few years:

• The breed of dog we can own is dictated by the government.
• The police can confiscate our vehicles or an innocent third party’s vehicle BEFORE we have been proven to be speeding.
• The same when we are BELOW the legal limit of alcohol in our blood.
• We are no longer allowed to express an opinion that could be construed as “offensive” racially or sexually. (unless we belong to a minority)
• Our children can be taught inappropriate and biased information at school and we are prevented from objecting.
• Tobacco (legal) smokers are increasingly penalised but pot and crack (illegal) users get given equipment or venues.

That this nonsense can happen in a country that carved such a great nation out of inhospitable terrain and whose armed forces fought so valiantly in the two world wars and other conflicts is beyond belief. This is 21st century Canada, not medieval England under a particularly nasty king.

For once I find myself on the same side of the political divide as the liberals, this bill will be another nail in the coffin of personal freedom in what is supposed to be one of the best democratic nations in the world. It is a moment of political irony that those on the extreme left who so rabidly support gun control will now find their own freedoms limited by the exact big government action they usually support. Poetic Justice?

Let me state clearly and unapologetically that I am not against most of what the police try to do, I know they have a difficult task. I was behind them 100% in their handling of the violence at the G8 summit, if anything they did not use enough force against some of the more violent criminals. My criticism is related to treating law-abiding people as criminals and not taking enough action when they should, for example Caledonia and the Vancouver riot.

For those of you whom I have now irritated enough to suggest I go back from whence I came, my answer is that I would not be here if Canada and our other so-called allies from both world wars, had not supported terrorists and sacrificed the peaceful, economically successful country of Rhodesia to appease the third world rabble. In the process condemning millions of innocent people to brutal, short and miserable lives in the hell that is Zimbabwe today.

Finally for those who promote this nonsense in the name of “multiculturalism” remember that immigrants come to Canada because the conditions and opportunities are infinitely better than the places they are leaving, not in the hopes that Canada will be reduced to the miserable level of their former countries.

Wake up Canadians and email your MP, if we do not show massive opposition to this bill right now, we will be one step closer to a 21st century version of George Orwell’s 1984 and on the way to having one of the most dictatorial governments since the old USSR, communist China or until recently Burma.

Wishing you the freedom to succeed in your endeavours, do something to protect it now while you still can.