Resisting re-education
Regulators demand Dr. Jordan Peterson undergo “social-media communications retraining”
In case you missed it …
If you’re looking for an excuse to break your resolutions, TIME magazine published an article headlined, “The White Supremacist Origins of Exercise.”
After 2-year legal battle, Pierce College is allowing a student to pass out US Constitutions anywhere on campus rather than restricting him to the “free speech zone.”
The World Boxing Council plans to add a transgender fighter category. The president of the council said, “In boxing, a man fighting a woman must never be accepted.”
Dear Friends—
I was still busily typing yesterday’s note about the fight to control information in 2023 when this perfect example landed in my lap.
Dr. Jordan Peterson announced that the College of Psychologists of Ontario, which licenses practicing clinical psychologists, is insisting he undergo “re-education” after complaints about his tweets and on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast.
Dr. Peterson is a Canadian psychologist and former professor who gained a following after writing “12 Rules for Life,” which many men found to be a helpful, practical guide. He has objected to using people’s preferred pronouns and has bucked other woke trends in Canada.
Peterson says there were only about a dozen complaints total, over a four-year period, and that many of the complainers “falsely claimed that they were or had been clients of mine.”
He says the demand for his coaching (or re-education, depending on your point of view) was because he retweeted Conservative Party of Canada leader Pierre Poilievre, he criticized Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his cronies, he criticized climate change models, he objected to “surgery on gender dysphoric minors,” and he warned Canadians it was “wrong for social service workers and police to threaten to apprehend the children of the Trucker Convoy protestors.”
The Wall Street Journal, in an op-ed defending Peterson, detailed more specific charges.
What are these comments? Calling Elliot Page, the transgender actor, by her former name, “Ellen,” and the pronoun “her,” on Twitter. Calling an adviser to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau a “prik.” A sarcastic crack at antigrowth environmentalists for not caring that their energy policies lead to more deaths of poor Third World children. Calling a former client “vindictive.” Objecting to a Sports Illustrated swimsuit cover of a plus-size model: “Sorry. Not Beautiful. And no amount of authoritarian tolerance is going to change that.”
The panel says the “impact risk in this case is significant,” because the comments “may cause harm.”
“We are now in a situation in Canada under @JustinTrudeau where practicing professionals can have their livelihoods and public reputations threatened in a very serious manner for agreeing with the Official Opposition and criticizing major government figures,” Peterson added. “If I comply the terms of my re-education and my punishment will be announced publicly. I have already had the second most serious category of punishment levied against me and have been deemed at high risk to ‘re-offend.'”
Peterson says these kinds of demands from regulatory agencies are “more widespread than you might think.”
He also warned that regulatory agencies in Canada use similar tactics in other fields including law and healthcare. He says it intimidates those practicing and makes their advice “dangerously unreliable.”
Peterson’s re-education threat shows the increasing attempts to censor licensed professionals in Canada. Recently, British Columbia passed a law allowing doctors to be jailed for spreading certain “false or misleading information.”
And as I mentioned yesterday, ideas like this are creeping in here, too. A law that went into effect in California on Jan. 1 allows the state to strip medical licenses from doctors who share what the state defines as "misinformation or disinformation related to the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus."
Urge those who order Peterson undergo Re Educartion I urge They Undergo Re education
Sue the bastards for interfering with your free speech.