Brickbat: Watch What You Say

In Canada, Charlie Angus, a New Democratic Party member of Parliament, has introduced a bill that would make it illegal "to promote a fossil fuel, a fossil fuel-related brand element or the production of a fossil fuel." Regular citizens who violate the act would face a fine of up to $500,000 ($369,622 U.S.), while oil company executives would face up to two years in jail or a fine of $1,000,000 ($739,245 U.S.). The bill defines promotion as "a representation about a product or service by any means" that is "likely to influence and shape attitudes, beliefs and behaviours about the product or service." It specifically bars people from saying that some types of fossil fuels are less harmful than others and could even punish anyone who claims that the oil and gas sector benefits the economy.

Comments

[TJJ2000]

Isn’t that kind of bold tyranny what most “Democratic Party member”-s are all about? If they didn’t practice self-projection like nobodies business they’d have nothing.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Strong and Free.

[Sometimes a Great Notion]

Fossil fuels are beneficial to human beings. Suck it, Charlie.

[Longtobefree]

Didn't Jefferson Airplane have a song about this way back when?

[n00bdragon]

Isn't Canada the 5th largest oil producer in the world and a major exporter? Also, how exactly does one run a business without promoting its product?

[Rossami]

Regulating themselves back into the Stone Age.

Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration. Given their romanticized view of history, maybe they're aiming for the early Iron Age.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

Hard to imagine making iron without some kind of fossil fuel usage. Heck, hard to imagine staying warm in the Stone Age without using fossil fuels. But on the other hand, do Eskimos burn seal fat in igloos or what?

[Rossami]

Charcoal was the primary fuel used for smelting during the Iron Age. Use at scale drives massive deforestation but it's not a fossil fuel so it's somehow magically "green" in modern minds.

[Mickey Rat]

Why are "green" politicians so deathly afraid of debate that they feel a need to criminalize their opposition? Do they so lack confidence in their position that they do not believevitvwill withstand scrutiny?

[Idaho-Bob]

Climate Nationalism.

And these fuckers bitch about Christians.

[MatthewSlyfield]

I hate articles like this. "Terrible bill XYZ! Panic!" and not a crumb of discussion on whether or not the bill is likely to pass.

[Rossami]

While I agree that likelihood of passage is relevant to the social/political debate, I can't blame the reporter for skipping it. 'XYZ bill introduced by A' is an objective fact. Likelihood of passage is pure speculation at this point and moves the article from traditional reporting into editorial. I do not think we should put barriers in the way of reporters who try to return to more traditional, objective standards.

[Medulla Oblongata]

It factually represents how at least one member of the Party and the Parliament wants to control the citizenry, and enforce what are essentially his religious beliefs by force of law.

That seems notable, at least.

[Uncle Jay]

Another example of how fascism is slowly but surely creeping into Western civilization.
Controlling information and speech is one of the major tenets of every totalitarian society.
Anyone who supports this idea should go home to polish their jackboots and iron their brown shirts.

[Medulla Oblongata]

As an economic system, fascism is socialism with a capitalist veneer. The word derives from fasces, the Roman symbol of collectivism and power: a tied bundle of rods with a protruding ax. In its day (the 1920s and 1930s), fascism was seen as the happy medium between boom-and-bust-prone liberal capitalism, with its alleged class conflict, wasteful competition, and profit-oriented egoism, and revolutionary Marxism, with its violent and socially divisive persecution of the bourgeoisie. Fascism substituted the particularity of nationalism and racialism—“blood and soil”—for the internationalism of both classical liberalism and Marxism.

Where socialism sought totalitarian control of a society’s economic processes through direct state operation of the means of production, fascism sought that control indirectly, through domination of nominally private owners. Where socialism nationalized property explicitly, fascism did so implicitly, by requiring owners to use their property in the “national interest”—that is, as the autocratic authority conceived it. (Nevertheless, a few industries were operated by the state.) Where socialism abolished all market relations outright, fascism left the appearance of market relations while planning all economic activities. Where socialism abolished money and prices, fascism controlled the monetary system and set all prices and wages politically. In doing all this, fascism denatured the marketplace. Entrepreneurship was abolished. State ministries, rather than consumers, determined what was produced and under what conditions.

[Econlib]

[Darth Buckeye]

I guess that outlaws any advertising by a fossil fuel company.

[LIBertrans]

Just like cigarettes. But they can still export those by the tonne and sell them at gas stations next to beer. Try that with competing non-toxic psychedelics or untaxed liquid ethanol and you go straight to prison.

[LIBertrans]

Remember 1873 Comstock censorship of the mail to stop abortion and smut? That was New and Republican for Jesus
Remember 1918? Soviet Bolshevism was New and Democratic for Marx. Chain-gangs were the rule for saying the wrong thing in both versions of altruist collectivism. Social media treason (http://bit.ly/3Jfoken)

[Minadin]

Sounds like Charlie Angus needs to be turned into fossil fuels or fossil-fuel derivatives.

[Nazi-Chipping Warlock]

Feet first through the chipper.

[LIBertrans]

Just like cigarettes. But they can still export those by the tonne and sell them at gas stations next to beer. Try that with competing non-toxic psychedelics or untaxed liquid ethanol and you go straight to prison without assets. So how about: “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of production and trade…”

[AT]

The irony is that EV's are far worse polluters.

If you're driving an EV in 2024, you may as well declare yourself an eco-terrorist.