FREE SPEECH IS THE DEAL BREAKER

Raise your hands everyone who loves freedom of speech.

Whoa! Not so fast, Langley City Mayor Peter Fassbender! Put that hand
down again.

Fassbender apparently opposes the right of people to sell (or
purchase) items that glorify marijuana. He's come out swinging
against a store about to open up downtown.

This store will not sell illicit drugs - at least, that's not the
owner's stated intention. It is to sell the goofy pot kitsch that
teenagers and twentysomethings like to plaster on their cars and
bedroom walls. Bumper stickers and mugs, T-shirts and bath products.

The City is trying to block Hempyz from opening, on the grounds that
a bylaw only allows "hemp stores" in one zone, and that zone happens
to be the Willowbrook Shopping Centre. The special zoning is a pretty
transparent ploy to try and squeeze out any store that might offend
those with delicate sensibilities. Why, if the good folk of Langley
City got a whiff of processed hemp bath oils, they might melt into
little puddles on the ground!

This is probably as good a place as any within this rant to note the
following: I have never inhaled. I have never bought, borrowed, been
given, or otherwise acquired any marijuana. I have not smoked or
eaten it, I have never been high. Nor have I ever taken any other
illicit drug, and it is pretty unlikely that I ever will. I was put
on a codeine prescription once after major dental work, and I did not
care for it. I've never even been drunk, which is more than I can say
for most of the self-appointed defenders of moral virtue who infest my town.

The issue of Hempyz is not one of a pro-or anti-pot position, it's
one of free speech and free expression. Speech and expression cannot
be narrowly defined. For those rights to remain robust, they cannot
be penned up like rare animals in a zoo.

If someone wants to wear a shirt with a giant marijuana leaf
plastered across it, they have the right to purchase that product.
Blocking the rights of people to peacefully buy and sell such items
with one another is an infringement of their rights.

But won't someone think of the children! This is the weapon of choice
in the arsenal of those who would quash free speech. Of course, they
say, adults can make up their own minds. But it's the little ones, so
innocent and pure, who must be protected from the terrifying world
around them, like china dolls wrapped up in tissue paper.

I am thinking of the children. I'm thinking that when I have
children, I want them to grow up with the absolute right to say what
they think on any and every subject. It's the way I was brought up,
and when I disagreed with my parents, they didn't punish me. They
argued with me, and sometimes they threw up their hands and said,
"This is what we get for teaching him to think for himself!"

I think I turned out better, not worse, because they didn't try to
shackle my opinions.

I want everyone to have the right to believe and say things that are
completely wrong, even offensive. It's only when we protect speech
that is wrong, that is offensive, that bugs the crap out of people,
that we know we're protecting it enough. You can't just protect
speech you agree with. Rights do not come a la carte.

Until this week, I was ambivalent about voting in the mayoral race in
Langley City. I know that Fassbender's politics, on many issues, are
not my own, but he's always seemed like a stand-up guy, and I truly
respect his work in getting the Gateway of Hope homeless shelter a
place to build.

But this is a deal breaker. Speech and expression issues are, for me,
non-negotiable. He's lost my vote.