DEFEND TO THE DEATH HIS RIGHT TO SAY IT

I Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "FANCY SCHMANCY CULTURAL PRECINCT":

While I appreciate Mr Watts' participation in this thing, if he is reporting the facts of what happened perhaps he should not include the sarcastic editorial for which he is famous and strictly report the facts. That way, the people reading this can judge for themselves.

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I appreciate your participation in what I  prefer to call conversation rather than "a thing".

The  comment receives prominence  because of your appreciation of information provided by Mr.  Watts.

Not because you take exception to his inimitable style of expression. 

Like it or lump it, you must take this citizen of the community as you find him. 

Any occasion time and energy are used to express an idea, a writer really is baring his soul. Opening himself up to criticism. No artifice can be employed. It's the real deal. A rare gift, destined to become more rare in the climate we find in Aurora.

The Aurora Citizen Blog was effectively silenced with litigation paid for with public resources and despite a successful but expensive defence.

What price democracy that has a price tag? 

I posted Christopher's comment with others and published it as a guest post. 

One, because it was informative. 

Two because I trust it to be accurate. 

And three because I needed not to write yesterday.

There are days when thoughts at the forefront of my mind would not be helpful by being shared.

They may even be dangerous to my well-being. 

On Sunday evening, I watched a news item on television about an event  in Turkey thought of as a modern state with democratic elections and such. Turkey is an ally of the west. During the Cold War the U.S. had a ring of missile bases in Turkey aimed at the population of the Soviet Republic. 

Sunday's news item put the lie to any similarity to democracy. 

An actor, playwright and blogger was performing a play to an appreciative but private audience. The State of Turkey does not allow the play to be publicly offered .

It is critical of politicians...the governing body.

As a blogger,critical of politicians, the actor-playwright-blogger risks arrest and incarceration for crimes against the state. 

We  are so much better off in Canada, are we not? 

We may not like what Christopher has to say about politicians or how he  chooses to say it when he puts pen to paper,so-to-speak. But he does have the right. 

Politicians  would  naturally prefer him not to exercise the freedom Canadians enjoy under the Charter of Rights. 

Rights are acknowledged at the same time limits are explained by  governors to the governed.

Quarter of a century before the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was signed into law, an editorial in the Aurora Banner quoted a maxim attributed to Voltaire hundreds of years prior. I was still learning. 

"I may disagree with what he said but I will defend to the death his right to say it"

Is it as true today as it was then? 

Or was it an illusion never  tested ?