THERE WAS RESPITE FROM THE HATE-MONGERS, ALBEIT BRIEF

The lull in expression of thoughtless opinion has passed.

The attack on America stopped it up for a time. So many good people died
that even the most virulent activists held their tongues, sensing that
sharing anything but sympathy for the hurting would be poor form.

Now we see the self-involved coming out from cover and sniffing the wind. I
received an e-mail from an unnamed reader, declaring that the government's
war on drugs has all the subtlety of a Taliban conclave. Hundreds of young
people are still dying in the drug war, it was said, but the government
insists on bringing us a "War on Terror."

Ann Livingston, a Downtown East Side activist wrote to The Province, at
first thanking Jon Ferry for a column on police crime statistics, then
flailing the same old anti-police drug rhetoric.

Prescribe heroin and cocaine to the addicted, she insisted, and we'll
decrease crime committed by "fellow criminal citizens."

Never mind that any level of cocaine use renders a person a psychotic
liability to society. Never mind the loss so recently suffered by those in
authority: the period of grace allowed us in mourning was over.

Opposing authority is as addictive as a narcotic, and just as senseless.

Sunera Thobani's recent anti-U.S. rant proves it. For a UBC professor to
claim women will never be free while the West dominates the world is
idiotic, considering the standards women enjoy in West as opposed to East.

Thobani's Ottawa speech went beyond any rational bounds for promotion of
the feminist cause, though it's doubtful it did the cause any real damage.
This is a free country. Canadians are well used to moronic opinion, and
seem to tolerate it, without assuming like sentiment in others resembling
the individual expressing it.

Cabinet Minister Hedy Fry's reluctance to denounce Thobani is no excuse to
have her fired; it's more of a signal to applaud what freedom of speech is
left to us. Where this goes, in light of Thobani's hate-filled discourse is
difficult to predict.

If anti-Americanism is to be added to the list, what else is it acceptable
to hate, this week? Terrorists, for sure. Taliban militiamen, almost certainly.

Police officers, more or less a staple on the anger list, are only just now
making a reappearance.

Freedom of angry expression is unlikely to extend much beyond these. I
refer in particular to this week's passing of columnist Doug Collins, who
was vilified for questioning WWII holocaust numbers.

It seems a bizarre stand for a journalist to take, but it pales in
comparison with the absurdity of blaming police for the world's drug
problems, or blaming America for the plight of women.

I knew little of Collins until a couple of years ago, when his columns
began being forwarded to me by Canadian Immigration Reform Committee
representatives. It's amazing the e-mail messages one fields by publishing
an address in a well circulated newspaper, but I read them all, and the
Collins columns eyed by this writer were anything but maniacal.

May God rest his soul. I didn't agree with everything the man said, but I
do defend the right to say things I don't like.

That's more than I've been offered in similar circumstances.

Letter-to-the-editor writer Ann Livingston whipped up an anti-Tonner march
the last time I managed to offend her in print. I remember it well: a crowd
stormed police headquarters, demanding that this column be shut down -- all
due to my portrayal of addicted lifestyles in Vancouver's skid row.

My mistake, it might be conceded, for being honest. That said, I draw a
form of encouragement from the declarations of these people, Sunera Thobani
included. It reminds me that Canada is no Taliban regime; that freedom
lingers here; that most controversial opinions may still be voiced.

My hope was that the thoughtfulness and compassion of the last three weeks
would extend a little further. I'd hoped that people wouldn't jump on the
police over the war on drugs, for the next little while. I'd hoped they
wouldn't jump all over America, simply because they're strong and willing
to defend themselves.

Is it wrong to hope, in the face of such contrary opinion? In the face of
such animated opposition? It had better not be, considering how much hope
will be required of us over the next while.