‘Screening values’ an affront to free thought
The Conservative leadership campaign has produced a wealth of positive policy proposals, but the negative “values screening” policy proposed by Kellie Leitch requires very careful consideration.
Whenever someone suggests that new powers be given to public authorities, our freedom and democracy antennae need to go up, even if the public authority is elected. Election alone is no guarantee that a public authority will not abuse its power to eliminate the basic democratic freedoms of those with whom they disagree. That’s why I am very worried about Kellie Leitch’s proposed policy of “values screening.”
What you’re about to read might seem awfully simplistic, and even unnecessary to articulate, and yet this simplicity is being challenged over and over again by those with power in Canada today. It applies to the suggested new power to be given to public authorities, the power to “screen” “values,” with a view to attaching negative consequences or punishment to “values” opposed by authorities of the day.
If we believe in freedom and democracy, we must allow a private sphere for individuals free from government restraint provided only that there is no trespass upon anyone else. We should measure proposals for new state powers through that prism.
The most private sphere one can imagine, and the one least likely to trespass upon anyone else, is one’s thoughts. That is why free and democratic societies rarely, if ever, even attempt to punish anyone merely for their thoughts. “Thoughts,” of course, include all manner of mental expression, from ideals through religious beliefs and moral judgments to opinions and values.
Whenever two or more people gather they are likely to find they think differently from one another about a myriad of things. You and I are certain to conclude that the thinking of at least some others about something is bad, just as they may conclude our thinking about something is bad.
Consequently, granting state power to punish some thoughts but not others necessarily means allowing someone to choose which thoughts will be permitted and which thoughts will be punished. In a free and equal society, no individual or faction is permitted to try to impose their thoughts upon any other individual or faction. In a free and equal society, only persuasion is permitted.
History teaches, in fact, that attempts by those with power to suppress the mental expression of others often simply drives the prohibited thinking into hiding. Even the powerful totalitarian regimes of the last century were unable to crush dissenting belief systems entirely. Often, attempts by those in power to enforce their beliefs simply provoked resistance, to and including armed warfare.
Attempting to punish the holders of disagreeable thoughts by denying them admittance to Canada will easily be seen as justifying the punishment of those already in Canada who think those same disagreeable thoughts. Both approaches threaten freedom and democracy.
There are two obvious riders to all of this. The first is that even in a free and democratic society, conduct which trespasses upon the person or property of others ought to be restrained by those with power, even though the thoughts which led to such conduct may be free. Conduct which attacks the person or property of another by definition violates the peace which legitimate power should protect. Second, even in a free and democratic society, public authorities should have some leeway to non-coercively encourage what they perceive to be virtuous conduct, subject to reasonable limits.
A final comment is in order. Whenever those in power propose to give themselves a new power to diminish anyone’s free private sphere, even an individual or group for whom we have no sympathy, we should examine that proposal as if we ourselves might one day find ourselves subject to the same punishment. Would it be just if our own thoughts or values were similarly punished? Failing to defend the freedom of any individual or group today against an abuse of power by a public authority exposes our own freedom to the same threat should those in power shift their target tomorrow.