Canadian Censorship - Yay or Nay?

Well, it is your country and you are of course free to do what you like in it and enact any law or policy you see fit. However, I cannot agree with the concept of censorship. If one can censor what I say today because it offends them, what's to stop someone from censoring what you say tomorrow because they found it offensive? We do not have the right to not be offended. everything anyone says can be taken as offensive by someone somewhere and if we go about sanitizing speech because of it, sooner or later, no one will be able to offer opinion or speak at all with out some sort of legal consequence.

I don't think censorship is ever something to be proud of. American's speech laws aren't necessarily free, but few countries, if any, are as lax as us. With greater freedom there's more room for people to abuse it. This is unfortunate, but it has to be legally tolerated because the law has to apply to everyone. The only times censorship is ever justified is when speech is directly threatening to someone else.

My biggest beef about censorship in general is who exactly gets to decide something's offensive. I recently heard that Canadian radio banned the broadcast of Dire Strait's (is that the band?) Money for Nothing, because the word "f@ggot" is mentioned. Granted, I don't know the full story, but I heard that only ONE person called in to complain. The majority didn't decide that "f@ggot" in that context (really not offensive in the context of the song) was offensive, a small minority did. It's a little difficult for me to comment in detail, as I don't know if Canada "bans" speech across the board or selectively. My guess would be selectively, as any power implementing rules, much less crafting the rule to implement, is already bias and already has things in mind to ban and things that are deemed acceptable. For instance: is Bill Maher allowed to give speeches in Canada? I do wonder if they'd ban him or if it's just someone like Coulter they'd keep out. The problem with picking and choosing speech is that you have to pick and choose it. If you're prohibited by law from speaking freely because someone may take offense, then it's absoluely pointless to speak at all. I just don't understand how "hate speech" can be defined across the board. What I take offense to might not bother someone else, and vice versa, and it's always the minority of anything in a situation like this that gets to keep expressing and is granted deference as some sort of "victim's rights" hogwash that's counterproductive and unnecessary.