If a Tree Falls on a Blogger Does it make a Noise?

While readers of conservative blogs are aware of Canadian Human Rights Commision inquisitions against magazines of the Great White North, Al Siebring wonders if the bloggers are living in Who-ville:

There was an email making the rounds in Ottawa this week. It was written by an assistant to a federal Conservative Member of Parliament. I don't know the assistant's name, or which MP he (or she) works for, but it doesn't really matter. The note was sent around to all the other assistants in Conservative MP's offices. It was a simple request, really:

Good afternoon everyone, I am wondering if someone might be aware of an issue with the Canadian Human Rights Commission??? I have received a few emails from constituents complaining about the HRC and I don't know whether this is just a blanket complaint or whether HRC was recently in the news....? Can anyone help me shed some light on what this issue might be about??? Thanks so much for your help!

I was absolutely stunned when I saw this email. I had always assumed that people who worked for - and advised - MP's would be "up to speed" on issues of national importance, and in my mind there are few things more important in Canada today than the threats the various human rights commissions pose to free speech rights. But the email also illustrates what I've long suspected.

While the Internet is becoming a very interesting place for people of like mind to share information, it is also keeping various parts of our society from truly talking to one another. Conservatives, Christians, libertarians, and other free speech advocates
can write insightul blog entries till the cows come home. And through the technology of trackbacks and "links" we can be inspired by each other's brilliant posts for days on end. We can even email the stuff we really like to our friends. But in the end, we're operating in a closed circle. We've created an online ghetto, and all the rhetorical and
polemic brilliance in the world ends up being nothing more than "preaching to the choir."

Without the internet, however, many of these preachers wouldn't even have a choir. Sure most sermons don't make it to the congregation, but occasionally the choir strikes a harmony that can't be ignored. Rathergate. Jay R. Grodner. And now some noise is beginning to be heard in the Canadian Parliment.

H/T SDA

Originally posted in UNCoRRELATED Jan 19, 2008