Check It Out: Three things can’t be hidden: the sun, the moon and the truth
By Joan Janzen
joanjanzen@yahoo.com
The silly joke for this week is: “What do you call a boat that doesn’t allow criticism? A Censor-ship.”
John Diefenbaker once said, “I am Canadian, a free Canadian, free to speak without fear, free to worship God in my own way, free to stand for what I think right, free to oppose what I believe wrong, free to choose those who govern my country. This heritage of freedom I pledge to uphold for myself and all mankind.” Diefenbaker was the thirteenth prime minister of Canada, serving from 1957 to 1963.
He would be shocked to see the censorship taking place today, but he had witnessed it in his lifetime. According to Canada’s Humanrights History, in 1937 the Alberta Social Credit government passed the Act to Ensure the Publication of Accurate news and Information. The law required newspapers to disclose their sources, name their writers, and print government-supplied “corrections” of any critical coverage. Papers that violated the law could be punished with a large fine and a ban on publishing restricted information.
In 1939, the Supreme Court of Canada found that the law was beyond the powers of the Alberta government, ruling for the first time that provinces could not unilaterally restrict fundamental freedoms. Justice Lawrence Cannon accused the provincial government of imposing a doctrine that “must become, for the people of Alberta, a sort of religious dogma of which a free and uncontrolled discussion is not permissible”.
Dr. Suneel Dhand, a practicing physician, writer and speaker has travelled all over the world and practiced medicine in different countries.
In a recent video post he said, “The other day I had a major social media platform remove and censor one of my posts where I was actually going over word for word information from the UK government website. When I protested this censorship, they actually removed my post where I complained about censorship.”
Dr. Dhand then contacted them directly, yet they refused to reinstate his post, calling it misinformation. He said, “My only thought why they would possibly want to do this is they wanted to hold back information from the US audience of a very valid debate that was happening in another country, the United Kingdom. This is absolutely disgraceful and it’s unbelievable that it’s going on in 2021 in a supposedly free western country.”
Dr. Dhand went on to say, “It’s difficult not to be angry when very valid scientific debate is being blocked and people are directly accusing me of misinformation for openly discussing data and trying to think of things logically. Nevertheless that is where we are right now.”
“I always say, when we’re at the point when we cannot question anything, whether it’s an individual, organization or any particular topic, we are no longer in the realm of medicine or science. We’re in the realm of something akin to religious extremism. All of the medical and scientific medical greats of our history would be aghast if they saw a lot of what is happening right now with attempts to block very legitimate medical and scientific debate,” Dr. Dhand observed.
“All one can do is stand up to their best possible values and do their best.” Dr. Dhand noted that by reading world history you come to realize that the truth always comes out in the end, and he repeated a famous quote, “Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon and the truth”.
He concluded by saying, “These are dark times indeed in so many different ways, but we will get through it together.”
You can contact me at joanjanzen@yahoo.com