Tom Flanagan was a top political adviser and respected professor until he was the victim of his own words and a set-up by aboriginal activists.
His opinion that people who look at child pornography should not be put in jail is repugnant to many and something with which I disagree. But the context of that one sentence was taken all on its own in order to marginalize him. And it worked.
Here is the whole 15 minute documentary "Flanagan" from The Rebel:
4 comments:
So you're ok with people being on NAMBLA's mailing list?
What Professor Flanagan believes - as meticulously detailed in his book, "Persona Non Grata" (which I recommend to everyone) - is considerably more complicated than "people who look at child pornography should not be put in jail."
His essential point is that mandatory minimum prison sentences for a first possession offense is less than ideal.
That's hardly controversial since child pornography wasn't even a stand-alone offence under the Criminal Code until 1993. Prior to that, it was covered under general obscenity statutes.
And before Harper decided to politicize everything, there was no mandatory minimum. Judges were allowed to use their discretion, which - until very recently - was the entire point of having judges in the first fucking place!
Flanagan decidedly did not say that kiddie porn was okay, or that there should be no criminal consequences for it, just that prison shouldn't be the first, last and only option.
His book is also a study in both free speech and academic thought, which the right turns out not to be as devoted to as we like to pretend.
I would've been happier if the documentary went into more detail on both of those points.
Anonymous,
Flanagan mumbled a bit when he was speaking at that point, but what he said was that he "was put on NAMBLA's mailing list", not that he put himself there.
It was a bit of mischief, likely from political enemies.
Andy! Still trolling my blog? I'm flattered. I doubt Flanagan signed up himself. Maybe some creep did it just to punk him. Not that you'd know anything about that sort of behavior, eh?
And Skippy, yeah, there's enough material to have filled out at least a half-hour slot on this, but this brief mini-doc was quite interesting. Of course, to get a full picture, one has to do a lot of reading, and sometimes viewing, from multiple sources, so no single documentary is going to be able to provide everything.
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